The Source Book On Sikhism

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 Grantha”.

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 Torch 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. I 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.

Do they despise you? Are you low caste? I will enrobe you in a 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! Washermen! Brewers! Heavy laden Labourers! 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 Simrin - 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.