Ik Onkar – Sikh Mool Mantra with Translation

The mool mantra is the first composition of the Sikh Holy Book (Granth) and was composed by Guru Nanak. (Mool means root or origin)

Punjabi Verses with English Translation

Ik Onkaar
There is one God

Sat Naam
Whose name is Truth

Kartaa Purakh
Is the creator

Nirbh-a-o Nirvair
Has no fear, Has no hate

Akaal Moorat
Is omnipresent

Ajoonee Saibhn
Never born and Self-perpetuating

Gur Parsaad
With Guru’s grace

Jap
Recite (pray)

Aad Sach
True since beginning (of time)

Jugaad Sach
True through ages

Hai Bhee Sach
Is true now

Naanak Hosee Bhee Sach
Says Nanak, will forever be true

Sochai Soch Naa Hov-a-ee
By thinking, (god) cannot be known

Jay Sochee Lakh Vaar
Even if you think a hundred thousand times (lakh)

Chupai Chup Naa Hov-a-ee
Even by remaining quiet (silent), inner stillness won’t happen

Jay Laa-i Rahaa Liv Taar
Even if poised deep in meditation forever

Bhukhi-aa Bhukh Naa Utree
The hungry will not be satiated

Jay Bannaa Puree-aa Bhaar
Even if  loaded with worldly goods

Sehas Si-aanpaa Lakh Hoh Taa
One may possess a million wits

Ik Naa Chalai Naal
But not one will accompany you (to the end)

Kiv Sachi-aaraa Ho-ee-ai
So how can we realize truth?

Kiv Koorhai Tutai Paal
How can one shatter the falsehood?

Hukam Rajaa-ee Chalnaa Naanak Likhi-aa Naal
Says Nanak, it is by abiding the command and walking the path as willed by God.

Disclaimer: I am not a Punjabi and tried my best to get the essence and real meaning of the verses. Please let me know if you have a better translation of any of the words. Thank you.

Thaara Rang Mahal Mein – In The Colorful Palace

Poem by: Kabir (1398-1450^*)
Vocal and Tambura: Prahlad Singh Tipaniya

ह्रदय मांही आरसी, और मुख देखा नाहीं जाए
मुख तोह तब ही देखियो, जब दिल की दुविधा जाए
Within the heart, there is a mirror, but can’t see the face
You will only see the face when, doubt goes away from heart

ऊंचे महल चुनावते, ने करते होड़म होड़
ते मंदिर खाली पड़े, सब गये पलक में छोड़
You built high palaces,
scrambled and ran about
The temples empty out –
Everything, gone in a second

आया है सब जाएगा, राजा रंक फ़कीर
कोई सिंहासन चढ़ चले, कोई बंधे ज़ंजीर
All who have come will go
King, beggar or fakir
Some go seated on a throne
Some have to be dragged in chains

सब आया एक ही घाट से, और उतरा एक ही बाट
बीच में दुविधा पड़ गयी, तो हो गये बारह बाट
Everyone came from one place
and took the same road
Half way along, you fell into doubt
Suddenly: twelve roads

घाटे पानी सब भरे, अवघट भरे न कोय
अवघट घाट कबीर का, भरे सो निर्मल होय
They all draw water at the river banks
No one draws where there is no bank
No-bank is the bank of Kabir
The one who draws there, becomes pure

जो तू साचा बानिया, तो साची हाट लगाए
अंतर झाड़ू देई के, यह कचरा देत बहाए
If you’re a true trader
Then set up a true shop
Clean up the inside
And throw out all the trash

रंग महेल में अजब शहर में
आजा रे हंसा भाई
निर्गुण राजा पे सिरगुन सेज बिछाई
In your colorful palace, your wondrous city
Come, my swan brother,
A lovely cover spreads over the formless king

अरे हाँ रे भाई, उना देवलिया में देव नाहीं
झालर कूटे गरज कैसी ?
Oh, yes, my brother
there is no God in that temple
So whats the point
in beating the gong?

अरे हाँ रे भाई, बेहद की तो गम नाहीं
नुगुरा से सेन कैसी ?
Ah yes, my brother,
there is no road to the limitless
What sign will you show
to one without a guru?

अरे हाँ रे भाई, अमृत प्याला भर पाओ
भाईला से भ्रांत कैसी?
Ah yes, my brother
share freely your cup of nectar
Why keep it from your friends?

अरे हाँ रे भाई, कहें कबीर विचार
सेन माहीं, सेन मिली
Ah yes, my friends
Kabir says, think about it
find the sign
in the sign!
(meaning – only you can see the sign – stop asking others to reveal it to you!)

*The years of Kabir’s birth and death are unclear. Some historians favour 8 June 1398 – 3 June 1518 as the period Kabir lived.

Sakal Hans Mein Raam Viraaje – In every soul resides Raam

Song lyrics: Nanak Saheb^† (1794 – 1901)
Vocal and Tambura^*: Prahlad Singh Tipaniya

प्रेम ना बाड़ी उपजे, प्रेम ना हाट बोकाए
बिना प्रेम का मानवा, बंधिया जम पुर जाए
Love doesn’t grow in gardens
Love doesn’t sell in markets
Without love you go
In shackles to the city of death

जा घट प्रेम ना संचरे, सो घट जां मसान
जैसे खाल लोहार की, वो स्वांस लेत बिन प्राण
A body lacking love
Is a cremation ground
Like a blacksmith’s bellows
It breathes without life

प्रेम प्रेम सब कोई कहे, प्रेम ना चीन्हे कोई
घट प्रेम पिंजर बसे, प्रेम कहावे सोई
Love, love, they all say
Yet no one knows what love is!
Love knows no swell or ebb
True love dwells deep within

सकल हंस में राम विराजे
राम बिना कोई धाम नहीं
सब भरमंड में ज्योत का वासा
राम को सुमिरो दूजा नहीं
In every swan-soul – Raam
There’s no abode without Raam
In the whole universe, this light resides
Remember Raam, there is no other

तीन गुण पर तेज हमारा
पांच तत्व पर ज्योत जले
जिनका उजाला चौदह लोक में
सूरत डोर आकाश चढ़े
सकल हंस में राम विराजे..
My light glows in the 3 qualities
It shines on the 5 elements
A radiance pervades 14 worlds
On the string of awareness,
I climb to the sky
In every swan-soul – Raam

नाभी कमल से परख लेना
ह्रदय कमल बीच फिरे मणि
अनहद बाजा बाजे शहर में
ब्रह्मंड पर आवाज़ हुई
सकल हंस में राम विराजे..
From the navel lotus, feel the presence
In the heart lotus, a jewel turns
An unstruck drum resounds in the city
And echoes in the universe
In every swan-soul – Raam

हीरा जो मोती लाल जवाहरत
प्रेम पदारथ परखो यहीं
सांचा मोती सुमर लेना
राम घणी से म्हारी डोर लगी
सकल हंस में राम विराजे..
Diamonds, pearls, rubies, jewels
Discover here the substance of love
Discerning the pure gem – a string
Connects me to my master Raam
In every swan-soul – Raam

गुरु जन (हरि जन) होय तो हेरी लो घट में
बाहर शहर में भटको मती
गुरु परताप नानक साह के वरणे
भीतर बोले कोई दूजो नहीं
सकल हंस में राम विराजे..
If you seek the guru, search in your body
Don’t wander about the city
Nanak describes the guru’s power
It speaks within, there is no other
In every swan-soul – Raam

*The tambura (तानपूरा or tanpura) is a stringed instrument that is played as a drone accompaniment for both folk and classical music of South Asia.

†Very little is known to us about Nanak Saheb, except that he was a Bhakti poet who belonged to the Ravi-Bhan Sampradaya – a stream of the Kabir Panth with a large following in the Gujarat-Saurashtra region. He wrote over 300 such devotional songs during his lifetime.

Raam of Kabir is ‘Nirgun’ which is a Sanskrit word meaning formless, without attributes. 

Why Animals Should Be Off The Menu

Please watch this brief subtitled video where he eloquently states why meat and the meat industry are now bad for the long term survival of our species.

Some of his quotes (not from the video) –

“We obey people we don’t trust, to buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t like, using money we don’t have, for gratifications that don’t last, killing animals we don’t hate, for pleasures that don’t satisfy, dreaming of a life we don’t deserve, and praying for an afterlife that doesn’t exist, we are a stupid species”

“When animals do something noble we say they are behaving “like humans.” When humans do something disgusting we say they are behaving “like animals.” Clumsy use of the English language perpetuates the myth that animals are inferior and disposable beings. This makes the task of humanitarians even more difficult.”

Philip Wollen (born 1950) is an Australian philanthropist. He is a former Vice-President and General Manager of Citibank and Citicorp. Wollen became a vegan following his departure from Citibank and is an animal rights activist. He was born in Bangalore, India and lives in Melbourne, Australia.

The Last Day (of your life)

Steve Jobs with his favorite book — written by Paramahansa Yogananda

“You who are reading, and I who am writing, will exist a hundred years hence only as thoughts. Great and small, with highly sensitive bodies, must be buried beneath the grass or thrown into the hungry flames of cremation. We, who are so sure of our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, will be unable to swallow or to speak. Our lips will be sealed forever. We who love to listen to flattery, to the voice of the brook and the breeze, and to the sweet melody of music, and to the familiar words of our loved ones, must one day when absent, wax our ears so that we may never again hear any sound from this sad earth. The roses and blossoms that you love, some day will send the messenger of sweet fragrance to knock at the door of your perfume-loving sense, but the door of that sense will open no more. You will never again be lured by the earthly perfume of Nature. The day will arrive when all beautiful things and faces will stand mutely at the wisdom gate of your lotus gaze and will knock and knock to get into the chamber of your appreciation, but you will not see imperfect matter any more. The chamber of wisdom will be left untenanted. The brain that controlled your 27,000 billion cells and your bodily factory will direct no more. The soft touches of the breeze and the warmth of the sunshine, the blessing of soft, kind hands, the raindrops, the ocean and the waves, and the cool and warm floods of water will soothe you no more, for your body will remain inert like a lifeless stone. The day will come when you cannot see, when you cannot move your hands or feet, when you have no sense of smell, when your skin will not feel the touch of costly dresses, and when you will have neither good nor bad thoughts, neither success nor failure, fear nor bravery, life nor death, wisdom nor ignorance, excitement nor peace. Since this must come to pass, why are you building so many bad habits and a conviction of permanent comfort around this melting butter-doll of a body? The heat of death will melt these frozen bodily atoms. Did you ever think that you have only this one life, this body only, this way to live just once, and that then you will join the shadows of millions of Souls who also have thought, hoped, lived, laughed, cried, and died with unfulfilled hopes? If each and every Soul’s cheap garment of flesh must be discarded so that the Soul may put on the shining robes of immortality, then why should you cry? If great and small, immortality-declaring Saints and trembling-at-death small men must die, then why should you fear death? It is a universal experience through which all must pass. Think what a mystery life is! It has its origin from the unknown, and into the unknown it merges. Think what a mystery death is! It swallows up the hard-working man and the idle man alike, as well as the good and the bad ones, and makes them change back into ether and the elements. Think how everybody fears death, and yet death comes only to give peace and relief when life’s burden seems to be extremely heavy with grief, ill-health, or apparently incurable trouble. Why spend all the treasure of your wisdom trying to make this uncertain, perishable body comfortable? Wake up! Try to reap the harvest of imperishable immortality and lasting, ever-new Bliss on the perishable soil of the body. You will never find lasting comfort from a slowly melting body. You can never squeeze the honey of Divine Happiness from the rock of sense pleasures. Lasting comfort ceaselessly flows into the pail of your life when you squeeze the honeycomb of Meditation and Peace with the eager, powerful hands of will, and with ever deeper Concentration. Why are you intoxicated with material desires during your death-like sleep of ignorance? Your present material activity is like walking and working in a dream of delusion during your sleep of ignorance. Why are you so sure of yourself, and why do you devote your entire time to building a material fortune which you must leave at the instant call of death? Why not prepare now for the last day on earth, when you will have to leave all the things to which you are so attached? I do not mean that you should be a cynic and not enjoy the things of this life. All I say is, do not be so attached to anything which you enjoy here that you will feel mental agony when you are forcibly separated from it. If you do not grieve for earthly things when your bodily garment is cast off, you will then have better things hereafter. Acquire the power of Meditation and the treasures of intuitional perceptions and ever-new peace and joy, which treasures will be of great use to you on your last journey. Forget the delusions of today. Renunciation means the denial of the smaller things which you think are your own, for the attainment of the greater things that are truly your own. . . . If you only knew whose child you are and how much territory you own, you would give up everything else. ~ by Paramhansa Yogananda, East-West Magazine 1934