Cannot be obtained in their perfection without Thee.

If Thy grace be obtained none can be excluded

Of what account is the helpless speaker?

Thy storerooms are filled with Thy praises.

Who can prevail against him to whom Thou givest?

Nanak, the True One arrangeth all.

GURU NANAK, RAG ASA

If I repeat the Name; I live; if I forget it, I die;

It is difficult to repeat the true Name.

If man hunger after the true Name,

His pain shall depart when he satisfieth himself with it.

Then how could I forget it, O my mother?

True is the Lord, true is His name.

Men have grown weary of uttering

Even an iota of His greatness; His worth they have not discovered.

If all men joined and tried to describe Him,

That would not add to or detract from His greatness.

God dieth not, neither is there any mourning for Him

He continueth to give us our daily bread which never faileth.

His praise is--that there neither is,

Nor was, nor shall be any one like unto Him.

As great as Thou art Thyself, O God, so great are Thy gifts.

Thou who madest the day madest also the night

They who forget their Spouse are evil persons

Nanak, without His name they are naught.

GURU RAM DAS, RAG GUJARI

O servants of God and the true Guru, the true Being, offer this supplication unto Him.

We insects and worms seek thy protection, O true Guru; mercifully enlighten us with the Name;

My friend and divine Guru, enlighten me with God's name.

{p. 253}

Under the Guru's instruction, the Name is the helper of my soul; singing God's praises is my occupation.

Exceedingly fortunate are the men of God who have faith in Him and thirst for Him:

On obtaining the name of God, they are satisfied; when men meet the company of the saints, God's attributes are known.

They who obtain not the relish of God's name are unfortunate, and shall go to the god of death.

Curses on the lives, curses on the hopes of living, of those who enter not the true Guru's protection and society![1]

The saints who have obtained the society of the true Guru are those on whose foreheads it was so written from the beginning.

Blest is that true society, Nanak, by meeting which the relish of God is obtained, and the Name manifested.

GURU ARJAN, RAG GUJARI[2]

O my soul, why proposest thou exertion[3] when God Himself is engaged in effort for thee?

He even putteth their food before the insects which He created in rocks and stones.

[1. Also translated--They who enter not the true Guru's protection and society have lived and shall live accursed.