Worldly advantages distract men's minds from devotion:--

Empire, wealth, beauty, nobility, and youth are five robbers;

These robbers have robbed the world without respect for any one.

They who fall at the Guru's feet, however, rob them.[1]

The Guru's humility, the transitory character of human life, and the efficacy of the Name:--

The world is very transient like a flash of lightning;

Yet, foolish heart of mine, thou thinkest not of the grave.

I am low and wretched; Thou, O God, art an ocean of generosity.

Grant me only one thing-Thy name; the poisonous things of the world please me not.

By the skill of God even a fragile vessel holdeth water.[2]

Thou art omnipotent; 1 have come into the world by Thy power.

Nanak, the dog of Thy court, is growing madder every day for Thy love.

The world is fire, God's name is what cooleth it.

The bliss of divine composition:--

Blest the paper, blest the pen, blest the ink-bottle, blest the ink,

Blest the writer, Nanak, who writeth the True Name.

He who batheth in the immortal water of divine knowledge taketh with him the sixty-eight places of pilgrimage.

RAG PRABHATI

A satire on Hindu sects and ritualists:--

Jogis go to ruin in twelve sects, Sanyasis in ten.

The Jogis, the Kaprias, and the plucked-headed Saravagis without the Word have halters round their necks.

[1. That is, deprive them of the power of robbing.

2. A frail mortal may be possessed of divine knowledge.]

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They who are tinctured by the Word are perfect Bairagis,

Who beg to obtain alms in the wallet of their hearts that their love may be fixed on God alone.

The Brahmans read the epic poems before devotional acts, and cause others to perform them

But without knowing God they know nothing; the perverse are separated from God and miserable.

They who obtain the: Guru's instruction are pure, and shall be honoured at the true court.

Night and day they love the jewel of the Name, and are blended with the True One in every age.

All religious acts, purifications, austerities, devotion, penance, and pilgrimages abide in the Word.

Nanak, if the true Guru be found, he will unite man with God, when sorrow and sin and death shall be no more.

PRABHATI ASHTAPADI

The feats of the Jogis and the tenets of the six religious systems of the Hindus are ineffectual to secure salvation:--

The niwali feat,[1] the suspension of breath in the dorsal chamber;[2] the turning the brain into a still, making expiration and inspiration like the Jogis, and suspending the breath are of no avail.

Without the true Guru man knoweth nothing; he is led astray in error, sinketh, and dieth.

The fool is defiled, and the more he washeth, the more is he defiled; the filth of his heart shall never depart.