The Sikh Religion, Volume 1
Life Of Guru Nanak: Chapter XIV

Is the True and Pure One obtained by wandering?

There is no salvation without the True Word

The Sidhs asked:--

'Who art thou? What is thy name? What is thy sect and what thine object?

'Speak the truth; this is what we urge; we are a sacrifice to saintly men.

'Where is thy seat; where dwellest thou, O youth?

Whence hast thou come, and whither goest thou?

'Hear, O Nanak,' said the Sidhs, 'What are thy tenets?

[1. Mâjh ki Wâr.]

{p. 171}

Nanak--'I dwell in God who hath His seat in every heart; I act according to the will of the True Guru.

'I came in the course of nature, and according to God's order shall I depart. Nanak is ever subject to His will.

'To be fixed in God is my prayerful attitude; such know ledge have I obtained from the Guru.

'If one understand the Guru's instruction and know him self, then he being true shall be absorbed in the True One.'

A Sidh called Charpat asked .--

'The world is an ocean, and is said to be difficult to cross how shall man traverse it? '

Saith Charpat, 'O Audhut Nanak, give a true reply.'

Nanak--'Thou sayest so; thou thyself understandest What answer can I give thee?

'I speak truly; thou hast reached the distant shore how can I argue with thee?

'As a lotus in the water remaineth dry, as also a water-fowl in the stream,

'So by meditating on the Word and repeating God's name,' 'shalt thou be unaffected by the world.'

Nanak is a slave to those who remain apart from the world, in whose hearts the one God abideth, who live without desires in the midst of desires,

And who see and show to others the inaccessible and incomprehensible God.[1]

The Sidhs then, said 'All hail!' The Guru replied, 'All hail to the Primal Being!' Several Sikhs suppose that Guru Nanak com posed the Sidh Gosht on that occasion when he found leisure and retirement for composition.

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Sikhism

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