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Salok, First Mehl:

You may read and read loads of books; you may read and study vast multitudes of books.

You may read and read boat-loads of books; you may read and read and fill pits with them.

You may read them year after year; you may read them as many months are there are.

You may read them all your life; you may read them with every breath.

O Nanak, only one thing is of any account: everything else is useless babbling and idle talk in ego. ||1||

First Mehl:

The more one write and reads, the more one burns.

The more one wanders at sacred shrines of pilgrimage, the more one talks uselessly.

The more one wears religious robes, the more pain he causes his body.

O my soul, you must endure the consequences of your own actions.

One who does not eat the corn, misses out on the taste.

One obtains great pain, in the love of duality.

One who does not wear any clothes, suffers night and day.

Through silence, he is ruined. How can the sleeping one be awakened without the Guru?

One who goes barefoot suffers by his own actions.

One who eats filth and throws ashes on his head

the blind fool loses his honor.

Without the Name, nothing is of any use.

One who lives in the wilderness, in cemetaries and cremation grounds

- that blind man does not know the Lord; he regrets and repents in the end.

One who meets the True Guru finds peace.

He enshrines the Name of the Lord in his mind.

O Nanak, when the Lord grants His Grace, He is obtained.

He becomes free of hope and fear, and burns away his ego with the Word of the Shabad. ||2||

Pauree:

Your devotees are pleasing to Your Mind, Lord. They look beautiful at Your door, singing Your Praises.

O Nanak, those who are denied Your Grace, find no shelter at Your Door; they continue wandering.

Some do not understand their origins, and without cause, they display their self-conceit.

I am the Lord's minstrel, of low social status; others call themselves high caste.

I seek those who meditate on You. ||9||