Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Those who take the teacher's words to heart find the path, and lose themselves happily in singing the One's praises.
And really — what more could anyone possibly need to teach a person who already has Guru Nanak himself as their guide? With a teacher like that, you have everything you need.
This short, warm shalok of Guru Angad (the Second Mehl) is a tribute — and coming where it does, near the end of Guru Nanak's great Vaar, it carries special tenderness. Guru Angad was Guru Nanak's own disciple and chosen successor; here he speaks of what it means to have Guru Nanak as one's teacher.
The first line states the simple fruit of accepting the teaching: those who have accepted the Guru's Teachings, and who have found the path, remain absorbed in the Praises of the True Lord. To take the teaching to heart is to find the path, and to find the path is to end up absorbed in praise — lost, happily, in singing the One's glory. The whole journey resolves, again, into song.
And then the second line, which is the heart of the shalok: what teachings can be imparted to those who have the Divine Guru Nanak as their Guru? It is a rhetorical question, glowing with devotion. What could anyone possibly add to the instruction of a soul who already has Guru Nanak as their teacher? Such a person already has everything — the complete teaching, the perfect guide. There is nothing left to supply. For a tradition that places the Guru at the center, this is a profound statement of the completeness of Guru Nanak's guidance: to have him as your teacher is to lack nothing. And there is something moving in who says it — the successor, the next Guru himself, bowing to the completeness of the one who came before, and assuring every soul that follows that in Guru Nanak's teaching they have a guide who leaves nothing out. The reader, too, holding this very Vaar, is being quietly reassured: you have, in these words, a teacher complete enough that you need not go searching elsewhere.
Have you found a source of guidance complete enough that you can stop restlessly searching elsewhere — and are you actually drawing on it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI