GURU NANAK DEV JI

(1469-1539)

The emergence of Guru Nanak Dev Ji —The Founder of Sikh Religion-- at a time of total chaos and confusion in Punjab, was like a powerful current of fresh air that made the people stretch themselves and take deep breaths; like a beam of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from their eyes; like a whirlwind that affects many things, but most of all the working of their minds. The Guru did not descend from the top. He emerged from the teeming millions, speaking their language and incessantly drawing attention to them and their awful and appalling conditions.

When Guru Nanak Dev Ji appeared on the scene, it was a disturbing moment in history. Both, Hindus and Muslims cherished the most vicious and violent rancour and animosity towards each other. Terror, treachery and tyranny prevailed everywhere. The people were devoid of vision. They were bluntly fanatical, hypocritical and hypothetical. They were quite ignorant of high values of religion and groaned under the weight of religious rigidities and temporal tantalization.

Only a sensitive being, a tender presence and a brave and bold soul like Guru Nanak Dev Ji could feel the collective pangs of the whole people. In this quagmire of penury and poverty, Guru Nanak Dev Ji was born on 14^th of April 1469 at Talwandi, which is now reverently known as Nankana Sahib – the holy city of Nanak. His father’s name was Mehta Kalu.

Being of a pious disposition and reflective and contemplative mind Guru Nanak  Dev Ji was happiest in having long discourses with holy saints, seers and sages, both Hindus and Muslims. He disliked false beliefs and all types of superstitious practices. His study of two religions showed him that there was much in common between Islam and Hinduism. He was deeply convinced that the need of the hour was to bring the two faiths and two people together. His objective was to recall both Muslims and Hindus to an exclusive attention to the most sublime and exalted of all principles—devotion to God, and peace towards man. He had to combat the furious bigotry of one and deep-rooted superstition of the other; but he ventured to overcome all obstacles by the sheer force of his warmth and compassion.

Guru Nanak Dev Ji had a melodious voice and was fond of singing devotional songs. When he sang, he went into a rhapsody, trance and rapture. His resplendent melodious voice entranced and enraptured the listeners. The sweet silvery musical phrases fell from his lips as he composed hymns extempore. It was divine music descending from heaven. Guru Nanak was an evolved soul, an emissary of the Heavenly Father.

Guru Nanak Dev Ji lived among the people and sought to change them by percept and example. His life became his voice and message. But his was no ordinary voice. This new voice was unique in many ways. It was quiet and low, and yet it could be heard above the tumult and turmoil of the multitude. It was soft and gentle, and yet it was refreshing and winning; it was cordial and courteous, yet it was delightfully enchanting. Every word used was full of meaning and deadly earnestness.

The Guru preached that only he rules the world who has conquered his ownself. The strongest man is he, who by discipline exercises a constant control over his thoughts, speech and action. By a conscious exercise of these values and virtues, purity of heart is attained. Without moral discipline there will be no order. Man of God leads a life of strict self-discipline and self-restrain.

Guru Nanak  Dev Ji took Mardana, an aged Muslim musician, to spread his message. The message had to be carried by word of mouth from town to town and from village to village. The Guru undertook long journeys to north and south, east and west and poured out the inspired word in some of the finest poetry in the language. Each word fell from his lips like a pearl. With illiteracy rampant around him, it was on purpose that Guru Nanak Dev Ji chose this medium to spread his message.

The pure and pious heart of Guru Nanak Dev Ji sought attainment and salvation and contentment amid the conflicting creeds and practices of men. He had immortal faith that without God, salvation is unattainable. He called upon men to worship the One Invisible God that is formless and timeless, live virtuously and be tolerant to the frailties and failings of others. The earnest piety and persuasive eloquence of the Guru left behind him his innumerable ardent and assiduous disciples.

The Guru loftily invokes the God as one, the sole, the formless and timeless being, the creator and self-existent, the incomprehensible and the everlasting. The circumscribed divinity and the anthropormophous God do not find any place in the Guru’s Teachings. He likens the Deity of Truth, which was before the world began, which is and which shall endure forever, as the ultimate idea or cause we know or behold. Virtues and charities, valiant acts and gathered wisdom are nough of themselves. The only knowledge, which is worth availing, is the knowledge of God. Only they can find the Lord on whom the Lord looks with favor. Yet grace is linked with the exercise of our will and the beneficent use of our faculties. God, said the Guru, places salvation in good works of righteous and uprightness of conduct.

Gradually but solidly the Guru’s teachings kindled the imagination of the people. His message was simple, moral and spiritual that God is the embodiment of all virtues and the love for Him in meditation enriches the man himself with moral goodness and uprightness. Only by conquering and overcoming the pitfalls and allurements, which the flesh is heir to, the quality and the character of man is to be purified. The flutter of the sense, which is irresistible to a weak character, has to be won. The Guru preached and practiced sovereignty of God alone in all spheres of life. In that Truth, morality, justice and compassion should govern our conduct as against our greed and selfishness.

The Guru followed this ideal throughout his life and preached universalism and equality of all humans regardless of caste, creed, colour, sex or any other distinction. It represented his vision of harmony, tolerance and cooperation for the humanity and its ultimate union with the Divine. Guru Nanak Dev Ji redeemed his followers from the accumulated error of ages, and enjoined upon them devotion of thought and impeccability and excellence of conduct as the first of duties.

Unfettered by the rigidity of code and unbiased in mind, his followers, with the flow of time, ceaselessly and unceasingly grew immensely. The Guru’s reform was, in its immediate effect religious and moral. Great multitudes of followers gathered around Guru Ji. With the passage of time these disciples became a homogeneous group whose faith was exclusively the teaching of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. The Shishya—the disciple—became the Sikh.

Guru Nanak  Dev Ji travelled not only all over India, he went westwards beyond the borders of India to Mecca and Medina too, in Arabia. His message was lucid and clear: if you want to love God, you must first learn to love man. He never claimed kinship with God. His crusade was against the fanaticism and intolerance and against meaningless and futile rituals, discriminations of cast and sex. It was a crusade without any rancour and recrimination.

When the Guru left for his heavenly abode in the year 1539, he had a tremendous following both from Hinduism and Islam and he had become a radiant symbol of amity and harmony between the two major and hitherto colliding communities. Guru Nanak Dev Ji is immortal and is universally loved and revered by people all over the world.