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1When it pleases You, we smear our bodies with ashes, and blow the horn and the conch shell.

2When it pleases You, we read the Islamic Scriptures, and are acclaimed as Mullahs and Shaykhs.

3When it pleases You, we become kings, and enjoy all sorts of tastes and pleasures.

4When it pleases You, we wield the sword, and cut off the heads of our enemies.

5When it pleases You, we go out to foreign lands; hearing news of home, we come back again.

6When it pleases You, we are attuned to the Name, and when it pleases You, we become pleasing to You.

7Nanak utters this one prayer; everything else is just the practice of falsehood. ||1||

8First Mehla:

9You are so Great-all Greatness flows from You. You are So Good-Goodness radiates from You.

10You are True-all that flows from You is True. Nothing at all is false.

11Talking, seeing, speaking, walking, living and dying-all these are transitory.

12By the Hukam of His Command, He creates, and in His Command, He keeps us. O Nanak, He Himself is True. ||2||

13Pauree:

14Serve the True Guru fearlessly, and your doubt shall be dispelled.

15Do that work which the True Guru asks you to do.

16When the True Guru becomes merciful, we meditate on the Naam.

17The profit of devotional worship is excellent. It is obtained by the Gurmukh.

18The self-willed manmukhs are trapped in the darkness of falsehood; they practice nothing but falsehood.

19Go to the Gate of Truth, and speak the Truth.

20The True Lord calls the true ones to the Mansion of His Presence.

21O Nanak, the true ones are forever true; they are absorbed in the True Lord. ||15||

22Shalok, First Mehla:

23The Dark Age of Kali Yuga is the knife, and the kings are butchers; righteousness has sprouted wings and flown away.

24In this dark night of falsehood, the moon of Truth is not visible anywhere.

25I have searched in vain, and I am so confused; in this darkness, I cannot find the path.

26In egotism, they cry out in pain.

27Says Nanak, how will they be saved? ||1||

28Third Mehla:

29In this Dark Age of Kali Yuga, the Kirtan of the Lord's Praise has appeared as a Light in the world.

30How rare are those few Gurmukhs who swim across to the other side!

31The Lord bestows His Glance of Grace;

32O Nanak, the Gurmukh receives the jewel. ||2||

33Pauree:

34Between the Lord's devotees and the people of the world, there can never be any true alliance.

35The Creator Himself is infallible. He cannot be fooled; no one can fool Him.

36He blends His devotees with Himself; they practice Truth, and only Truth.

37The Lord Himself leads the people of the world astray; they tell lies, and by telling lies, they eat poison.

38They do not recognize the ultimate reality, that we all must go; they continue to cultivate the poisons of sexual desire and anger.

39The devotees serve the Lord; night and day, they meditate on the Naam.

40Becoming the slaves of the Lord's slaves, they eradicate selfishness and conceit from within.

41In the Court of their Lord and Master, their faces are radiant; they are embellished and exalted with the True Word of the Shabad. ||16||

42Shalok, First Mehla:

43Those who praise the Lord in the early hours of the morning and meditate on Him single-mindedly,

44are the perfect kings; at the right time, they die fighting.

45In the second watch, the focus of the mind is scattered in all sorts of ways.

46So many fall into the bottomless pit; they are dragged under, and they cannot get out again.