These shabads are hymns or spiritual poems written by saints and mystics from different spiritual traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The shabads convey a deep message of truth and are sung with heartfelt devotion. They express the intense longing of the soul for union with the Lord. These songs of devotion are prayers that inspire the true seeker to turn inwards to contact the ultimate Truth - the inner divine music that reverberates within every being.
English Translation:
You have read the name of God over and over,
you have memorized the holy Qur’an verbatim,
but this has still not unveiled the hidden mystery.
Instead, your learning and scholarship
have sharpened your greed for wealth and riches.
None of the countless books you’ve read in your life
has destroyed your brutal ego.
Indeed, none but the Saints can kill this inner thief,
that ravages the very house in which it lives.
If a master does not end your pain of separation,
he is not worth being called a Master.
If he cannot inculcate spiritual guidance,
who would need such a master?
Why even go to the kind of teacher
who is incapable of giving proper instruction?
If you can reach God by sacrificing your head,
do not be afraid of that death, O Bahu!
They have read thousands of books,
they have come to be known as great scholars,
but the one word, ‘love’, they could not grasp -
so helplessly they wander in delusion.
A lover, with but one glance of love,
can carry millions to their deliverance.
But a million glances cast by a scholar
will not ferry a soul across to salvation.
Vast is the gulf between love and intellect.
Those who have not purchased love
in the marketplace of this life, O Bahu,
will be losers in this world and the next.
My Master taught me a lesson:
Any moment you are negligent
in remembrance of God
is a moment spent in denial of God.
My inner vision opened when I heard the divine melody;
my consciousness was absorbed in the Lord.
I surrendered my soul unto him
as my love for him intensified.
Thus, I died before death-to live in him.
Only then did I attain the goal of life, O Bahu!
People who pine to merge with God
do not get a wink of sleep at night.
As a gardener watches over the fruit-bearing trees,
the Master always tends and protects his disciples;
from his own court, he nourishes them
with his merciful glance.
It is only appropriate to use the name ‘Master’
for someone who shows you the Lord
within your own body, O Bahu!
Everyone recites the Kalma with his lips;
rare is the person who recites it from the heart.
Where the Kalma of the heart is practised,
the spoken word has no access there.
Only mystics know this Kalma of the heart.
What do they know, who only sing and preach?
My Master has revealed the secret of Kalma to me;
I am now forever united with my Lord.
Endless fasts, prayers and worship,
and acts of prostration have worn me out.
Many times have I gone on pilgrimage to Mecca,
but that did not end the wanderings of my mind;
nor did my penances and retreats to the seclusion of the forest
bring me the enlightenment I had sought.
But all the objectives of life are met, O Bahu,
when the Master bestows a merciful glance!
Hear my plea, O Master of Masters -
listen intently to my supplication.
My ship is caught in perilous seas
where even mighty whales dare not venture.
O Shah Jilani, beloved of God,
make haste and come to my rescue!
Those who have Meeran as their Master and saviour, O Bahu,
will safely swim across the ocean of existence.
Listen to my supplication, O Master of Masters!
to whom should I relate my tale of woe?
For me, there is no one like you,
but there are millions like me for you.
Do not read the scroll of my evil deeds;
pray, do not push me away from your door.
Says Bahu: had I not been such a blatant sinner,
whom would you have forgiven, O Master?
Only when my Master initiated me into the Kalma
did I truly understand its meaning.
Alas! The life I had spent before my Master showed me the way
had been wasted as a non-believer.
But now, in the manner of Hazrat Ali, the lion of God,
Kalma has slain the demon of my non-belief.
Only when Kalma has saturated every pore of your being
will your heart be purified, O Bahu.
In the nectar of Kalma I bathed and purified myself;
to the Kalma I was joined in marriage.
Kalma, in the end, performed my last rites.
It was Kalma that made even my death pleasing to me.
With the Kalma I will go to heaven;
through the Kalma I am cleansed of my sins.
Those who are called by the Lord himself
find it hard to turn their backs on him.
This shabad is published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas.
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