Guru Nanak Dev's Japuji Saheb





1.
He is one, he is omkar, the supreme truth.
He is the creator, beyond fear, beyond rancor.
His is the timeless form.
Never born, self-creating.
He is attained by the guru's grace.
He was truth before the ages and as time ran its course.
Nanak says, now is he truth eternal, and forever will he be.
We cannot comprehend him though we think a million times;
Nor quiet the mind by silence, however long we sit;
Nor a mountain of bread appease the hunger of the soul;
Nor one hundred thousand feats of mind achieve unity with him.
How can truth be attained and the veil of falsehood torn?
Nanak says, by submission to the divine order which is preordained.

2.
By divine order all form was created,
But his order cannot be described.
Divine order has created all life,
And by it all greatness bestowed;
By divine order are some high and some low,
And pain and pleasure granted;
By his order do some attain salvation,
Or endlessly wander through cycles of death and birth.
All are subject to his order; none is beyond his reach.
Nanak says, he who understands his order becomes freed from his self.
Those who know power will sing of his might.
Knowing charity, some sing of his bounty as the sign.
Some sing of his virtues and his greatness.
Some sing of his knowledge, when scholarship is their bent.
Some sing that he creates the body and turns it back to dust.
Some sing that the life he takes will again be reborn.
Some sing that he is far, far away.
Some sing that he sees all and is everywhere.
There is no end to his attributes,
Though a million describe him in a million ways.
The giver gives eternally, though the receiver tires of receiving;
Since the beginning of time have they subsisted on his endless bounty.
He is the ordainer and by his order does the universe turn.
Says nanak, he is without a care, endlessly blissful.

3.
The lord is truth. Truth is his name.
His praises are sung in endless ways.
Even while praising they ask for more and more,
And the lord keeps on giving.
Then what offering can we make to gain a glimpse of his court?
And what language shall we speak to endear us to him?
Nanak says, remember the true name and meditate on its glory in the ambrosial hour.
Through your actions you receive this body,
And by his grace the door to salvation opens.
Nanak says, know then his truth, because he alone is everything.
He cannot be installed in any temple, nor fashioned by any skill.
The faultless one exists unto himself.
Those who serve him attain the glory.
Nanak says, sing his praises, lord of all attributes.
Sing and hear only of him; engrave him in your heart.
So banish sorrow and suffering, and make bliss your abode.
The guru's word is the sound of sounds, and the vedas too.
The lord abides in his words.
The guru is shiva, the destroyer; the guru is vishnu, the sustainer;
The guru is brahma, the creator; 
He is the trio of goddesses -- parvati, laxmi and saraswati.
However well i know him, he cannot be described.
He cannot be expressed by words.
The guru is the secret that solves the riddle.
He is the benefactor of all. Let me never forget him.

4.
If i have succeeded in attaining his pleasure, i have bathed in all the holy rivers.
And if i fail to please him, why should i bathe and adorn myself?
In this whole created universe, nothing is attained without actions;
But he who listens to but one teaching of the guru,
His understanding becomes like a precious jewel.
He is the benefactor of all.
Let me never forget him.
Were you to live through four ages, or even ten times more,
Were you known on all nine continents, and were to gain universal following,
Were you to earn fame and praise from all of mankind,
If you have not his grace, nothing will save you.
You are like the lowliest worm; 
Even the worst of sinners may point the finger at you.
Says nanak, he makes the worthless worthy,
And showers the gifted with more gifts.
None but god can bestow such excellence.

5.
Through listening occult powers and saintliness are gained,
Heaven and earth are made stable,
And the world and lower worlds revolve.
Through listening death does not touch.
Nanak says, through listening devotees attain bliss,
And sin and sorrow are destroyed.
Through listening vishnu, brahma and indra came into being,
The most sinful will sing his praises,
And the secrets of yoga and mysteries of the body are revealed.
Through listening all the scriptures and teachings are known.
Nanak says, through listening devotees attain bliss,
And sin and sorrow are destroyed.
Through listening all truth and contentment are attained,
And the virtue of bathing at the sixty-eight holy places is gained,
And through listening again and again honor.Is earned
Through listening spontaneous meditation happens.
Nanak says, through listening devotees attain bliss,
And sin and sorrow are destroyed.
Through listening the highest virtues are acquired,
Sage, saint and king come into being,
And the blind find the path.
Through listening the fathomless is fathomed.
Nanak says, through listening devotees attain bliss,
And sin and sorrow are destroyed.

6.
The state of contemplation cannot be expressed;
Whoever attempts it will afterwards repent.
There is no paper, no pen, no writer,
That can penetrate such a state.
The name of the flawless one is such
That only contemplating can know.It.
Through contemplation is remembrance born in mind and intellect,
And awareness of the universe acquired.
You cease to repent your words,
And gain freedom from the god of death.
The name of the flawless one is such
That only contemplating can know it.
Through contemplation the path is cleared of all obstacles,
And a man departs with dignity and honor;
One is saved from wandering astray,
And connection to religion is established.
The name of the flawless one is such
That only contemplating can know it.
Through contemplation alone the door to liberation is attained,
And the family can be saved;
Through it the guru is delivered and helps his disciples across;
They need no longer beg for alms.
The name of the flawless one is such
That only contemplating can know it.

7.
Five are the tests and the ministers;
They gain shelter and respect at his door;
They decorate the king's court.
Attention is the guru of the five.
Whatever you will say, consider well first,
For the doings of the doer are impossible to assess.
Religion upholds the earth and is born of compassion.
Establish contentment and create the balance.
Whoever understands becomes the truth
And knows the burden religion bears
There are many worlds and many more beyond them;
What power assumes their weight?
Creatures of all forms and colors are created by his writ,
But only few know the rule to tell it.
Can anyone write the account of this mystery?
If it were written how great it would be.
What strength and power! How beautiful his appearance!
How great his charity; who can conceive it?
His single word creates this vast expanse --
Infinite mountains and rivers, the animate and inanimate.
How shall i think about it?
However much i offer myself could never be enough!
Whatever pleases you, o lord, is best for me.
You are the formless, the almighty -- you who abide forever!

8.
There are countless ways to repeat his name and express devotion,
Countless ways of worship and purification.
There are countless scriptures and countless mouths to recite them,
Countless ways of yoga to make the mind dispassionate.
There are countless devotees who contemplate his virtues and knowledge,
Countless who are virtuous and generous.
There are countless brave men who risk their lives because him,
Countless who vow to silence and meditate on him.
Nanak says, how shall i praise him?
However much i offer myself could never be enough!
Whatever pleases you, o lord, is best because me.
You are the formless, the almighty -- you who abide forever!
There are countless ignorant fools and countless who are blind,
Countless thieves and shirkers.
There are countless numbers who ruled by force before they departed,
Countless murderers who earn only by murder.
There are countless sinners who commit nothing but sin,
Countless liars who live by their lies.
There are countless barbarians eating only filth because food,
Countless fault-finders who fill their heads with scandal.
Thus nanak ponders on the wicked and the low.
However much i offer myself could never be enough!
Whatever pleases you, o lord, is best because me.
You are the formless, the almighty -- you who abide forever!
Countless are the names and the places where you dwell,
Countless worlds that have never been reached.
To say countless is to burden the mind.
Through the letter comes the name, and all the prayers.
Through the letter is all knowledge and songs in his praise.
Through the letter is all writing and speaking,
Through the letter are all events destined.
All destiny has already been written,
But he who writes is beyond destiny.
All creation is his name;
There is no place that is not his name.
Nanak says, how shall i praise him?
However much i offer myself could never be enough!
Whatever pleases you, o lord, is best because me.
You are the formless, the almighty -- you who abide forever!

9.
If the body is covered with dirt,
Water can wash it away.
If the clothes are soiled and polluted,
Soap and water can wash them clean.
Even if mind is filled with evil,
Love for his name can dye you in his hue.
Saint or sinner are no empty words;
All our actions have been recorded.
Man sows and he himself reaps the harvest.
Nanak says, by divine order are some saved and others reborn.
By visiting holy places, austerities, compassion, and good deeds,
You may gain respect from others;
But he who listens to god and meditates on his name,
His heart is filled with love and he is deeply cleansed.
All virtues are yours, o lord. Nothing is in me.
Without virtuous actions, no true devotion exists.
Yours is the only true word. You are the sound.
You are brahma. Your power is magnificent and self-directing.
What was that time, what date, what season,
What month when you assumed form and creation began?
The pundits knew it not,
Or they would have written it in the holy books;
Neither did the kazis know,
Or they would have put it in the koran;
Nor did the yogis know the day, the time,
The season and month when it happened.
The creator who creates all creation,
He alone knows.
How should one praise him and express his greatness?
How can one know him?
He is supreme.
His name is great.
Everything happens as he ordains.
Whoever credits himself as worthy,
Gains no honor before him.

10.
There are millions of underworlds
And infinite skies above.
The vedas say millions have searched and searched,
Only to end in exhaustion.
The holy books claim eighteen thousand worlds
But only one power behind all creation.
If anything could be written we would keep the account,
But all estimates are destructible.
Nanak says, he is the greatest of the great.
He alone can know himself.
Those who worship praise him,
But have no remembrance of him,
As rivers and streams know not the ocean
Into whose vastness they fall.
Even kings and emperors of great domains,
Who possess enormous treasures,
Cannot compare with the lowly ant
With remembrance of god in his heart.

11.
There is no end to his virtues,
Nor to their narration.
There is no end to his works and his bounty,
And endless what he sees and hears.
There is no knowing the secrets of his mind;
There is no beginning or end to it.
So many struggle to know his depth,
But none has ever achieved it.
No one has ever known his limits;
The further you look, the further beyond he lies.
The lord is great. His place is high,
And higher even is his name.
Nanak says: one only knows his greatness
When raised to his heights,
By falling under the glance
Of his all-compassionate grace.
His compassion is beyond all description.
The lord's gifts are so great he expects nothing in return.
However great a hero or warrior, man keeps on begging.
It is difficult to conceive the countless numbers who go on asking.
They indulge themselves in desires and dissipate their lives.
And others receive, yet deny it.
They go on suffering from their hunger,
Yet will not take to remembrance
O lord, these too are your gifts.
Your order alone gives freedom or bondage.
Nobody can debate this fact.
He who indulges in useless babble
Realizes his folly when struck in the face.
He alone can know himself,
And only the rarest can describe him;
He bequeaths the quality of his state to whomever he chooses.
Nanak says, he is the king of kings.

12.
Priceless are his qualities, and his trading, too;
Priceless are his salesmen, and his storehouses;
Priceless is he who comes to take, and what he takes;
Priceless his feelings, and his samadhi, too;
Priceless his divine justice, and his courts;
Priceless the weights and balance to judge man's actions;
Priceless his bounty, and the symbols which distinguish it;
Priceless his grace and his order, too;
He is the priceless of the priceless; he cannot be described.
Many fall, lost in meditation, even while reciting his attributes.
The vedas talk of him, and puranas study him;
And learned ones describe him; so also indra and brahma;
The gopis and krishna speak of him, and vishnu and the siddhas;
And many, many buddhas; and demons and deities too.
Men and sages and those who serve, they all sing his praise.
Many there are who can express it, and many die before completing the task.
He will bring even more to this existence.
No one can predict his actions.
Whatever he feels -- so it happens.
Whoever knows this, he himself is truth.
If someone boasts of knowing him, then he is the fool of fools.

13.
Where is that door? What mansion is it
Where you sit and overlook your creation?
Infinite sounds are ringing, and infinite are the players;
Infinite the singers, and infinite the melodies they sing.
Water, fire and wind sing your glory,
And the god of death sings at your door;
Chitragupta, shiva, brahma, devi -- all sing your glory;
And indra on his throne and all the deities,
And holy men in meditation, and realized beings in their samadhi,
And ascetics, chaste women, contented people and warriors,
And pandits, rishis, and their vedas through the ages,
And beautiful maidens of heaven, and fishes that dwell in the depths,
And the fourteen gems created by you, and the sixty-eight sacred places,
Heroes and great warriors, and creatures of the four kingdoms sustained by you,
All continents, all spheres, and the entire universe,
Those in your favor and deeply immersed in you, such delightful devotees,
They all sing your praises! And how many more, i cannot conceive or infer.
He and only he is the true lord. 
He is truth -- satnam.
He is and always will be. Though all vanish his reality will never leave.
He created maya -- things of various colors and emotions and dispositions.
He creates all things and watching over them, he also gives them greatness.
He does what pleases him. None can interfere with his order.
Nanak says, he is the king of kings.
Abide by his will.

14.
Oh yogi, assume the posture of contentment and modesty.
Pick up the carrying bag of dignity and honor,
And apply the sacred ash of meditation.
Establish death as your bedroll; make a maiden of your body.
Let experience be your staff of liberation,
And consider the unity of all as your first principle.
To conquer the mind is to conquer the world.
If you must bow, bow to him.
He is the primal being, pure, without beginning or end.
He is the unstruck sound.
He is immutable through all time.
Make knowledge your pleasure and compassion your storehouse.
Make a conch shell of the eternal music playing in every being.
He alone is a master in whom all beings are intertwined,
While the search for supernatural powers is a false path.
The law of union and separation governs all things,
And destiny determines our just inheritance.
If you must bow, bow to him.
He is the primal being, pure, without beginning or end;
He is the unstruck sound.
He is immutable through all time.

15.
By skillful means one maya has given birth to three disciples:
Brahma, the creator; vishnu, the sustainer; and shiva, the destroyer.
God directs them by his will and his order.
He watches them but they cannot see him;
That is the wonder of wonders.
If you must bow, bow to him.
He is the primal being, pure without beginning or end.
He is the unstruck sound.
He is immutable through all time.
All the worlds are his abode, and all worlds his storehouse.
He has them filled for all time with all worth attaining.
The creator creates, and oversees it all.
Says nanak, he is the true reality and all his works are true.
If you must bow, bow to him.
He is the primal being, pure without beginning or end.
He is the unstruck sound.
He is immutable through all time.

16.
If my single tongue becomes a hundred thousand,
And this hundred thousand becomes twenty times more,
With each tongue would i sing a hundred thousand times
The only name of the master of the world.
These are the steps of the name of the lord.
By following them does one become twenty-one.
Hearing them speak of heaven's glory,
Even those who are like lowly worms become ambitious to emulate them.
Nanak says, he is attained only by his grace.
But the false claimants spread their boastful tales.
The power lies neither in speaking nor in silence;
The power lies neither in asking nor in giving;
The power lies neither in living nor in dying;
The power lies neither in the wealth of kingdoms nor the resolves of the mind;
The power lies neither in remembrance nor in knowledge of the divine;
The power lies neither in the world nor in the devices to be rid of samsara.
The real power lies in his hands -- who creates and keeps on watching.
Nanak says, no one is high and no one is low before him.

17.
Having made night and day, the seasons, and the dates;
And air, water, fire and the underworlds;
Having made all of this, he established the earth as a dharmashala.
In it he created countless creatures of many colors and forms.
Their names are infinite.
Each is considered according to his own deeds.
God is true, and all his court is true.
Only before the lord is each one tested;
Each is ranked by his glance.
There the raw is sifted from the ripe.
Nanak says, one who is raw will dissolve away.

18.
The supreme law expresses the realm of religion.
Now to understand the conditions of the realm of knowledge:
So many winds, waters, and fires; so many krishnas and shivas;
So many brahmas, so many of his creations of so many colors and forms;
So many fields of action and sacred mountains; 
So many polar stars and so many sermons;
So many indras, and moons and suns, and galaxies, and continents;
So many enlightened ones, and buddhas, and masters, and goddesses;
So many gods and devils, and munis; so many jewels, so many oceans;
So many species and tongues, so many kings and emperors;
So many remembrances, so many devotees;
Nanak says, there is no end to it, no end.
Knowing is the expression of the realm of knowledge.
There is music and mirth and frolic and bliss.
Modesty is the expression of the realm of shame.
The experiences that take place are beautiful and incomparable.
He cannot be spoken of in words.
He who tries repents later.
Memory, mind, understanding, and intelligence are all formulated here;
And the consciousness of gods and enlightened ones.

19.
Power is the expression in the realm of grace;
Except this, there is nothing else.
In it are the great warriors and heroes;
There rama abides in his fullness.
And in its glory also seeta abides,
Whose form is beyond words.
Those in whose heart rama abides
Never die nor can be cheated.
There live many devotees of many different worlds;
Keeping the true name in their hearts they enjoy bliss.
In the realm of truth the formless abides.
He creates the world and exults in it with his vision.
With him are the continents, the suns, the universes;
And they all defy description.
There are worlds upon worlds, and creations upon creations.
All works according to his order.
Seeing all this and thinking of it, he flowers in happiness,
Nanak says, to describe him is like chewing on iron.

20.
Self-restraint is the furnace; 
Patience is the goldsmith;
Intellect is the anvil; 
Knowledge is the hammer;
Fear is the bellows; 
Austerity is the fire;
Feeling is the crucible into which the nectar falls.
The coinage of the word is cast in the mint of truth.
Only those receiving his grace can succeed in it.
Nanak says, one becomes exalted by his compassionate look.

Epilogue
Wind is the guru;
Water is the father; 
The great earth is the mother;
Night and day are midwife and groom; 
And the whole world is playing with them.
Good and bad deeds are read out in his court by dharma,
And our own actions determine whether we are near to him or far.
Those who meditate on his name and labor sincerely earn merit;
Their faces are radiant with success,
And many others are liberated by contact with them.