Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
And here is how the whole great song ends — with a picture of pure joy and humility. I was just an out-of-work singer, says Guru Nanak, with no place and no purpose — and the One took me into its service.
From the very start, it gave me my one task: sing my praises, day and night. It called me, its humble minstrel, right into its own true home, and dressed me in robes made of praise and glory. The sweet nectar of the Name became my food — and anyone who follows the teaching and eats this same food finds peace.
So the minstrel goes on spreading the One's glory, singing and setting the Word ringing. Praising the True One, I have found its perfection — and been made whole.
The great Maajh ki Vaar ends not with a doctrine or a command but with a song about a singer — Guru Nanak's most beloved image of himself, and one of the most joyful and humble closings in all of scripture. I was a minstrel, out of work, when the Lord took me into His service. Picture it: a dhadi, a wandering bard, unemployed — without patron, without purpose, without place. And the One, the great King, took this out-of-work minstrel into its own service. There is enormous humility in this self-image. Guru Nanak, founder of a tradition, casts himself not as a master or a sage but as a jobless singer who was given work by grace.
And the work was the sweetest imaginable: to sing His Praises day and night, He gave me His Order, right from the start. The minstrel's whole commission is simply to sing. And the One does not keep its bard at a distance — it draws him close: My Lord and Master has summoned me, His minstrel, to the True Mansion of His Presence. The jobless singer is called into the King's own home. There he is honored: dressed in the robes of His True Praise and Glory — clothed not in cloth but in praise itself — and fed: the Ambrosial Nectar of the True Name has become my food. Robes of praise, nectar of the Name: the minstrel lives now entirely on and in the glory of the One. And the gift is not hoarded: those who follow the Guru's Teachings, who eat this food and are satisfied, find peace. The same nectar that feeds the minstrel is offered to everyone who will follow the teaching — including, now, the reader who has come all this way through the Vaar.
And so the whole long composition — which has walked us through the stages of life and the mansion of smoke, the divine Play and the rivers of fire, the interfaith shaloks and the assayer's scale, the four watches and the insatiable desert, the kings who vanish and the jewel within — comes to rest in a single, radiant image: a once-jobless singer, dressed in robes of praise, fed on the nectar of the Name, standing in the Mansion of the One, doing the only work that finally matters — singing. Nanak, praising the True Lord, I have obtained His Perfection. The soul is made whole — poora, perfect — not by mastering anything, but by praising; not by becoming great, but by becoming the One's glad minstrel. The scribal mark Sudh ("verified, correct") seals the text. It is the perfect ending for a Vaar — a heroic ballad that turns out to be, at its heart, the love-song of a humble singer who was given the only job worth having.
If your deepest 'job' were simply to praise and give thanks, the way the minstrel does, how would that reframe what you're really here to do?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI