Hymns of Guru Nanak

(from “Songs of the Gurus” by Khushwant Singh)

1.

By Him are all forms created,

By Him infused with life and blessed,

By him are some to excellence elated,

Others born lowly and depressed.

By His writ some have pleasure, others pain;

By His grace some are saved,

Others doomed to die, relive, and die again.

His will encompasseth all, there be none beside.

O Nanak, he who knows, hath no ego and no pride.

2.

Who has the power to praise His might?

Who has the measure of His bounty?

Of his portents who has the sight?

Who can value His virtue, His deeds, His charity?

Who has the knowledge of his wisdom,

Of his deep impenetrable thought?

How worship Him who creates life,

Then destroys,

And having destroyed doth recreate?

How worship him who appeareth far

Yet is ever present and proximate.

There is no end to his description,

Though the speakers and their speeches be legion.

He the Giver ever giveth,

We who receive grow weary,

On his bounty humanity liveth

From primal age to posterity.

3.

God is the Master, God is Truth,

His name spelleth love divine,

His Creatures ever cry: ‘O give, O give,’

He the bounteous doth never decline.

What then in offering shall we bring

That we may see his court above?

What then shall we say in speech

That hearing may evoke his love?

In the ambrosial hours of fragrant dawn

On truth and greatness ponder in meditation,

Though action determine how thou be born,

Through grace alone cometh salvation.

O Nanak, this need we know alone,

That God and Truth are two in one.