I ask for only one gift, and it holds all the rest: Your Naam.
The Arc
Read and study, and think about what you learn. Grace lights the way. Then something wakes up inside you, and you taste the Naam like nectar. The Creator is your host at every table. Ask for one gift: the Naam. Five thieves run around inside you: wanting, anger, greed, clinging and pride. Wisdom catches them and holds them still, and your pride settles. Now picture a meal. Truth and self-control are the rice. Kindness is the wheat. Good deeds are the milk, and contentment is the ghee. Forgiveness and patience are gentle cows, and your mind is the calf. Wear modesty and praise like clothes, and keep singing. At the centre, the Rahao: the Creator is your host, and the one gift to ask for is the Naam.
Key Vocabulary
Aapaa madhay aap pargaasi-aa — within the self, the self is revealed; self-realization. Jajmaan — the patron who feeds and gifts a priest; here the Creator. Dakhinaa — the offering a priest receives; Nanak asks only for the Naam. Panch taskar — the five thieves, the inner pulls. Jat sat, da-i-aa, santokh — self-restraint and truth, compassion, contentment, the meal's ingredients. Khimaa dheeraj — forgiveness and patience, the milk-cows.
Themes and Cross-Connections
The one-pointed request for the Naam distills the sense that a single gift contains all others. The virtue-meal reworks the imagery of a ritual offering into an inner offering, honoring the tradition of shared food while relocating it in the heart. Praise and modesty as clothing continue the raag's warm framing of naam simran.
For Raag Prabhaatee
A morning shabad of asking suits the dawn raag; the meal imagery has the freshness of a day's first nourishment.
Hukumnama
Subject: Ask the Creator for the Naam Preview: a lamp lit inside, a host at the table, five thieves caught, rice of truth, a calf drinking milk.
Today: Read and study, and think about what you learn. Grace lights the way. Then something wakes up inside you, and you taste the Naam like nectar. The Creator is your host at every table. Ask for one gift: the Naam. Five thieves run around inside you: wanting, anger, greed, clinging and pride. Wisdom catches them and holds them still, and your pride settles. Now picture a meal. Truth and self-control are the rice. Kindness is the wheat. Good deeds are the milk, and contentment is the ghee. Forgiveness and patience are gentle cows, and your mind is the calf. Wear modesty and praise like clothes, and keep singing.
The Creator is your host, and the one gift to ask for is the Naam.
For today: Pick one good quality, like patience or kindness, and feed on it once today.
I ask for only one gift, and it holds all the rest: Your Naam.
The Arc
Read and study, and think about what you learn. Grace lights the way. Then something wakes up inside you, and you taste the Naam like nectar. The Creator is your host at every table. Ask for one gift: the Naam. Five thieves run around inside you: wanting, anger, greed, clinging and pride. Wisdom catches them and holds them still, and your pride settles. Now picture a meal. Truth and self-control are the rice. Kindness is the wheat. Good deeds are the milk, and contentment is the ghee. Forgiveness and patience are gentle cows, and your mind is the calf. Wear modesty and praise like clothes, and keep singing. At the centre, the Rahao: the Creator is your host, and the one gift to ask for is the Naam.
Key Vocabulary
Aapaa madhay aap pargaasi-aa — within the self, the self is revealed; self-realization. Jajmaan — the patron who feeds and gifts a priest; here the Creator. Dakhinaa — the offering a priest receives; Nanak asks only for the Naam. Panch taskar — the five thieves, the inner pulls. Jat sat, da-i-aa, santokh — self-restraint and truth, compassion, contentment, the meal's ingredients. Khimaa dheeraj — forgiveness and patience, the milk-cows.
Themes and Cross-Connections
The one-pointed request for the Naam distills the sense that a single gift contains all others. The virtue-meal reworks the imagery of a ritual offering into an inner offering, honoring the tradition of shared food while relocating it in the heart. Praise and modesty as clothing continue the raag's warm framing of naam simran.
For Raag Prabhaatee
A morning shabad of asking suits the dawn raag; the meal imagery has the freshness of a day's first nourishment.
Hukumnama
Subject: Ask the Creator for the Naam Preview: a lamp lit inside, a host at the table, five thieves caught, rice of truth, a calf drinking milk.
Today: Read and study, and think about what you learn. Grace lights the way. Then something wakes up inside you, and you taste the Naam like nectar. The Creator is your host at every table. Ask for one gift: the Naam. Five thieves run around inside you: wanting, anger, greed, clinging and pride. Wisdom catches them and holds them still, and your pride settles. Now picture a meal. Truth and self-control are the rice. Kindness is the wheat. Good deeds are the milk, and contentment is the ghee. Forgiveness and patience are gentle cows, and your mind is the calf. Wear modesty and praise like clothes, and keep singing.
The Creator is your host, and the one gift to ask for is the Naam.
For today: Pick one good quality, like patience or kindness, and feed on it once today.