Selections and Free Translations The Dasam Grantham of Gobind Singh
Prof. Puran Singh
From Vachitar Natak
I came down from the Remount mountain of Seven Horns of Snow", where I lay in sleep of power and love in the Pure Being.
The Beloved has sent me down; and I come, my being still pierced with the mystic light of His holy feet!
There is a pang of ecstasy in me, the pang of an ever-awakened Vision of the Divine. I have seen Him, for me the life is self-realized!
Do not call me God, I am His man come on earth to see the Fire-works of His creation!
I think of Him who devours both Time and Space. He is looking at me,and I do as His looks beckon me to do.
I come singing His Nam, and I go sowing the seeds of the Eternal.
Readings from Akal Ustat
I seek safety in Him!
I seek safety in Him Who is the Steel of the Blood of centuries!
I seek safety in Him, Who is the Heart of all ages!
I seek everlasting safety in Him Who is the Iron of life.
I bow down to Him Whose form is the Eternal Unity.
The one that meets us everywhere on land and in water!
The one dwelling above Time and Space, whose Aura is all the teeming life that is filling the fourteen Regions of the created worlds;
I bow down to the Divine Life that is manifest in the moving little ant and the elephant alike, and blesses the poor and the rich alike;
The Inscrutable One who is the Knower in the lifethrob of every heart,
The one that is Himself transcends all expressions, and is undescribed by all descriptions.
I bow down to Him from whom the floods of the life rolling come, and into whom all go and rest again;
Where the past, the present, and the future are mere fiction.
And one little moment of devotion spent with Him is a whole Eternity.
I bow to him who is awakened consciousness, and who is the whole unconscious Self that sleeps without waking;
Here He giveth without limit, and there He taketh away!
Here He putteth His hands out asking as a beggar for alms and there He standeth at every door as the indefatigable Giver with His hands full to give away His all;
Here He follows the rulings of the Vedas, and there He disobeys them entirely; here He is the Infinite Appearance, and there He is All-silence
– indistinguishable from Nothing; and the Ever-Unknown, the Unknowable! I bow to Him
Whom I see here as a warrior fully armed, and there a scholar seeking pure knowledge;
Who eats wind and fire here, Who fettered in the love of woman there!
Who is the gods and goddesses,
Who is both the Black and the White;
The Dweller in the fortress of Dharma Who goes forth and is everywhere!
He is the Vow of celibacy, and He is the amorous Passion.
Nath (Lord)!
Thou art the Hindu, the Moslem, the Turk, and the Feringhi!
Thou art the Persian, the Sanskritan, the Arabian;
Thou art the poet, the skilled dancer. The Songster Supreme.
Thou art the Speech; and Thou art the Avdhuta the Adept.
Thou art the Warrior clad in shining armour, and thou art the peace Supreme!
Thou art man, woman, child and God!
Thou art the Flute-player, the Herdsman that goes grazing His dumb cows!
Thou bestowest love, and Thou givest
Thyself to all!
Thou art the protector of life and the giver of all prosperity.
Thou art the cure of sorrows and suffering;
Thou art the net of charms of youth, and high summit of all fulfilment!
Thou art the form of a beautiful Princess and thou art the emaciated form of the Brahmachari with the wooden beads hanging from his neck!
Thou art the Muezzin that cries from the roof of the Mosque, the Yogi that lies wrapt in silence of deep thought, unthinking in the soul-lit caves.
The Verdes art Thou, and the Quran! In all shapes and everywhere, Thou art dear to me; in every form Thou art Thyself!
Thou art my vow; my Dharma; my beginning, and my end!
Reading from the Hymn of Salutations. Japji
I salute Him Whom none can name,
Whom none can enshrine in clay,
She Pure Being, the Spirit of Eternity,
The Beauty of Life past all measures!
The Iridescent Soul: beyond all colour, and raiment, and caste, and race;
Whom even the gods name by non-naming, and so do the tiny blades of grass praise Him!
My salutations to Him, the Naked, through the colour and clothes of His Creation!
I salute Him whom no waters can ever wet,
Whom no sky doth cover;
The Ever-unstained by deeds and doings;
Who holds the orbs of heaven in His hands, and who Himself stands on nothing!
In whom life touches no-life, science no-science, light and darkness are one, knowledge and ignorance both meet, pain and pleasure are not distinct, Dharma is A-Dharma, scriptures, non-scriptures and worlds, no-worlds!
I salute Him,
The child in children,
The Orb in rolling orbs,
The Indra in Kings,
The beauty in kings, slaves and saints!
The great Fire, the great Seed, the great
Unknown!
I bow to Him from Whom all things
come,
lnwhom all things are,
To Whom all things return.
The ancient Yogi, the Adept, the gem of
charm!
I salute the Song,
The Skill of Perfection,
The Rhythm of Harmony of the Immeasurable –
Where the depths of rapturous Silence lie on the heights of holy chanting!
I salute that Stranger, whose eyes fascinate everyone!
The Figure of Renunciation, the Figure of Illumination!
The Man of Beauty, Joy, and Mystery,
The Ever-undescribed, the All-described,
With whose Names the pages of Creation are full.
I salute the Mother of Worlds,
I bow to the Knowledge Absolute;
The Kind One Who always thinks of us;
Who gives Love, light and life; and Who counts not!
The Speech of our speech, the Mind of our mind,
The soft, soft Light, the Ambrosia of Immortality!
Salutations to the Pure Being!
The Beginningless9 Beginning, the Infinite at all points;
The Self-absorbed, Unconscious-conscious Avdhuta
Supreme, that is seated everywhere as the Soul of all, deluging everything with His love!
Who overwhelms all living things with goodness, The One, the Many, and the One again!
My Gobind, my Makand, the Million-hearted, the Infinite Mind, my Han, my Beloved!
The Sea of million-waves, the One Mai unportioned by all-Difference. The Beautiful Transience, and Transcendent Permanence!
The Sweet Sad One who hath no cares! Salutations to the Dharma, the light of goodness!
Salutations to the B’eloved beyond all namings!
Salutations to the Splendor of Soul!
Salutations to the Kind One Who is always with us
Who is Glory Infinite, Glory! Glory!
Everywhere
To His Disciples
(Gathered from all over the Master’s Writings.)
Has the Truth I gave you yesterday lost its charm for you? Each one of you must find it for himself again. There is nothing worth knowing but the Truth I have been telling you ever since time began.
You have not understood the sweetest song I have been singing to you in my last nine Incarnations. I did not mean that you should turn the only Truth of life again into a dead creed. I give you now these songs and leave you alone. These songs are my body and the living Temple of the Disciples. These hymns will be the Voice of the Guru to His Disciples. I name my successor when I name to you these Songs, as Guru Granth".
I am the hearth-fire that gathers the night-bitten round its glow, and clothes the pilgrims of eternity with the mantle of flame. As they sit by me, I teach them the secrets of the hidden life.
I am the light that cures blindness. I heal the wounds of darkness. I am the Inspiration of Power. I make the sparrows of love destroy the eagles of hatred.
I lift my quiver off the shoulders of the sun, and I strike with my gold tipped arrows the gloom of centuries.
I wrench my sword from the blue sky, and I utter my prayers as I smite the cords of ignorance that bind you.
When I see them leading helpless brings bound hand and foot to the place of execution to be slaughtered there to appease the ghosts of night, I rise and scatter the ghosts.
I carry the Hawk of White Plumage perched on my wrist, and in its claws is the bird of time.
I am the ever-lit T6rch that goes on lighting the lamps of life.
I open new kingdoms for you; I start new dynasties for you, where there is no pain.
I am He whom you cannot forget.
come with a cleaving sword in my hand, and bring the day for you in its flash.
I am Truth, but I bear no resemblance to descriptions they give of me to you in books.
I come. Truth is God, and we are of God; and the triumph is of Truth, and we are of Truth. If the mountains do not move aside, they will sink with grief; if the rivers do not · part and give a passage, they will dry up, when I chant my song of the Sword that God first flung into space out of Himself.
Do not come to me with offerings of bowers and sweets, bring me the blood of my ancestors. I will rise and offer myself to the people with a drawn sword in my hand.
saffron-dyed garment of joy, and I will dissolve that Fire of Heaven in your blood before which the sun and moon melt in submission. You are the Chosen, the Divine Khalsa (the King’s own).
Cobblers! Tanners! Weavers! Washer men! Brewers! Heavy laden Laborers! Farmers! Come, take this Divine Light from my hands. It is for you, and you alone. It is the ancient Light of the Knowledge of God. Hold, it is your soul. Meditate on this supreme flame, and live in this day; gleam, for this is Love. All else is illusion and death. The Master song is life, His Nam is immortality. As long as it burns unflickering in you, you are the kings of righteousness – the Khalsa.
Man is one, God is one. Love is one. One with the inner Light, one with Truth, one with Love; live in the Silence and the Sound of Nam. You are the sons of the Khalsa.
All else is false and unsteady but that Light lit in your soul. He lives who loves; none else. Turn back within yourself, love the good, and hoard the
abundance of Simran – thus shall you cut as under the Noose of Yama, and win the freedom of the Immortals.
Has the Truth I gave you yesterday lost its charm for you?
Each one of you must find it for himself again. There is nothing worth knowing but the Truth I have been telling you ever since time began