भज गोविन्दम्

Worship Govinda, worship Govinda, O deluded mind.

When the hour of death is upon you, the rules of grammar will not save you.

O fool, give up the thirst to pile up wealth; set the mind on wisdom and on freedom from craving.

Whatever comes through your own past work — with that, content the heart.

Seeing a woman’s breasts and navel, do not fall into the spell of delusion.

Think again and again: this is only a change of flesh and fat.

Water on a lotus leaf trembles and will not stay; life in this world is just as restless.

Know the whole world as seized by sickness and pride, and struck by sorrow.

While a man can still earn, the household gathers round him with affection.

When the body is worn out, no one at home even asks how he is.

While breath still lives in the body, the household asks after one’s welfare.

When the breath has gone, even the wife shrinks from the corpse.

Childhood is lost in play; youth is lost in the beloved.

Old age is lost in worry. Almost no one is lost in the Supreme Brahman.

Who is your wife? Who is your son? This round of birth and death is a strange play.

Whose are you? Who are you? From where have you come? Brother, think on that here.

Good company gives rise to non-attachment; non-attachment, to freedom from delusion.

That freedom becomes a still truth — and from that stillness, liberation in this very life.

When youth is gone, what is lust? When the water is gone, what is a lake?

When wealth is gone, what is family? When Truth is known, what is saṃsāra?

Do not take pride in wealth, in people, or in youth: Time steals them in a blink.

Leave this world of māyā; know the state of Brahman, and enter it.

Day and night, evening and morning, winter and spring return again.

Time plays, life runs out — and still one does not drop the storm of wanting.

Why this worry over beloved and wealth, O madman? Have you no one to steer you?

In all three worlds, only the company of the good is the boat across the ocean of birth and death.

In these twelve flower-clusters the whole counsel has been spoken to the grammarian.

The teaching came from the blessed Śaṅkara, master of knowledge, whose refuge is the Lord.

Matted hair, shaven head, plucked hair, ochre cloth — so many costumes.

The fool looks and still does not see: these disguises are for the belly’s sake.

The body is wasted, the head grey, the mouth without teeth.

The old man walks with a staff — and still he will not drop the lump of hope.

Fire in front, sun at the back; at night the chin is tucked on the knees.

Alms in the palm, a tree for a house — and still the noose of desire is not cut.

One may go to Gaṅgā-sāgara, keep vows, or give gifts.

Without knowledge, say all the schools, liberation does not come in a hundred births.

A dwelling at a temple tree, the earth for a bed, a deerskin for cloth.

Giving up every possession and pleasure — whom does dispassion not make glad?

Whether given to yoga or to pleasure, to company or to solitude —

the one whose mind delights in Brahman rejoices, rejoices, rejoices indeed.