Shabads

The Sikh Ardas is the congregational prayer that opens with Guru Gobind Singh's Var Sri Bhagauti Ji Ki and ends with a prayer for the good of all.

Guru Arjan Dev's Gujri slok (Ang 517), also recited in Rehras Sahib: the Lord the Protector saves His devotees and destroys the slanderers.

A Sikh shabad on meditating on the Guru's lotus feet; its author and Ang could not be verified in the Guru Granth Sahib (see the reading note).

A shabad by Bhagat Ravidas describing Begampura, a perfect city free from pain, taxes, and fear — a vision of social equality and spiritual liberation.

Bhagat Ravidas's Raag Maaroo shabad at Ang 1106: the Lord who shelters the poor, raises the lowly and saves Namdev, Kabir, Trilochan, Sadhna and Sain.

Bhagat Ravidas's Raag Dhanasari hymn (Ang 694) on separation from the Lord and longing for union; see the reading note on the wording.

Bhagat Ravidas uses waves and water, gold and ornaments to teach that the soul and God are one, and that separateness is an illusion.

Ravidas likens the human body to a clay puppet that dances with pride in gain and weeps in loss, and points beyond that illusion.

Ravidas names his caste as a leatherworker and declares that the virtues of Ram fill his heart; devotion, not birth, makes one pure.

A devotional poem by the mystic poet Kabīr, using the image of a finely woven cloth as a metaphor for the human body and the spiritual work of purifying it through yogic and meditative practice.