Eight stanzas in praise of the Guru.
Though your body be comely and ever remain in perfect health,
Though your name be unsullied and mountain high your hoarded gold,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the Guru's lotus feet,
What will it all avail you?
What indeed will it all avail?
Even if fortune bless you with riches and a virtuous partner,
With children and their children,
With friendship and the joys of home,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the Guru's lotus feet,
What will it all avail you?
What indeed will it all avail?
Though the lore of the Vedas take up its dwelling on your tongue,
Though you be learned in scripture,
Gifted in writing and prose and verse,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the Guru's lotus feet,
What will it all avail you?
What indeed will it all avail?
Even if you be honored at home and famed in foreign lands,
Given to pious deeds and ever averse to wickedness,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the Guru's lotus feet,
What will it all avail you?
What indeed will it all avail?
Though you become at last the emperor of the universe,
Though you possess for servants the mightiest of the kings on earth,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the Guru's lotus feet,
What will it all avail you?
What indeed will it all avail?
Even if every nation resound with your beneficence,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the lotus feet of them by grace of whom alone Everything in the world is one,
What will all of it avail to you?
What really will it all avail?
Though you pursue no pleasures,
Derive no joy from wealth or romance,
Reject the powers of yoga and scorn the fruits of sacrifice,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the Guru's lotus feet,
What will all of it bring you?
Really what will it all give?
Even if you be ready to dwell on the forest as at home,
No more attached to work,
Untrammeled by an ugly form,
Yet if the mind be not absorbed in the Guru's lotus feet,
What will it all avail you?
What indeed will it all avail?
Of novices and monks,
Of rulers and of worldly people,
That noble soul who ponders these verses in the Guru's praise,
And to the Guru's teaching applies his mind with constant zeal,
They will attain to Brahman,
The treasure coveted by all.
