Guru Nanak: His Life And Philosophy
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\'Baba Nanak Shah Faqir, Saba ka Guru, Sabhi ka Pir\', a transform
of the verse : \'Baba Nanak Shah Faqir, Hindu ka Guru, Musalman kaPir\', immensely popular in Punjab, truly defines some more
significant aspects of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh Panth and Sikhs\' first Guru. Bound by intimate ties Nanak\'s disciples saw
in him the \'Baba\', guardian of generations of man, who, the benevolent protector, built the path, led them to it and guided their course all
chopard replica watches through, and all with love and care, not like a
formal teacher asserting his authority. The torch-bearer lived
montblanc replica watches among them like one of them and practiced along them what he
preached. A faqir beyond possessions, passions or ambitions, and
all desires, Baba Nanak, reigning over the domains not belonging
to man, was the king of kings, the supreme Shah at whose feet
emperors bowed and to whose divine aura expanse of their
territories fell short. Not Hindu or Musalman, he was, and is
still, everyone\'s Guru, the teacher guiding all to the right
path, and everyone\'s Pir, the benefactor and spiritual guardian.
\'Hindu ka Guru, Musalman ka Pir\', part of the original verse,
seems to have grown out of the forecast which astrologers made at
the time of his birth. As the Bala Janam Sakhi has it, the
planetary position at the time of his birth indicated that both
Hindu and Turk, two main constituents of the society those days,
would revere him alike and the path that he would found would
alike be the path of both.
Birth And Early Days
The divinity incarnate, Baba Nanak was born in A. D. 1469 at
Rai-Bhoe-ki-Talwandi, now in Pakistan about 65 km west of Lahore.
The place is now known as Nankana Sahib, re-named long back after
Guru Nanak. The young Nanak was often found engaged in cosmic
questions and fundamentals of life, which upset his father Mehta
Kaluchand, an orthodox Bedi, one of the branches of Kshatriyas.
Seeking to keep his interests centered on formal education he
engaged a Brahmin to teach Nanak read and write Devanagiri, and a
Maulvi to teach Persian and Arabic, besides himself devoting
daily quite a lot of time in instructing him in arithmetic and accountancy.
A precocious child, Nanak\'s interests were, however, widely
different. Even at the age of five he retired to solitude to
cogitate or resorted to the company of holy men seeking from them
answers to eternal questions of life. Keen to drag him into trade
and commerce, and indeed into the family life, and distract his
mind from spiritualism, his father decided to marry him, a step
which in cases like Nanak\'s most parents considered as an
unfailing remedy since times immemorial. When married, he was
eighteen and his consort Sulakhani, about two years younger to
him. He was a caring husband and fathered two sons, Sri Chand and
Lakhmi Das, the bent of his mind was, however, always the same
meditative and
franck muller replica watches isolation-loving as before.
After his father\'s efforts to direct his interests to trading -
rearing cattle or setting up a shop, failed, his sister Nanaki
took him with her to Sultanpur where her husband Jairam arranged
for him store-keeper\'s job at the \'modikhana\' of Daulat Khan Lodhi.
The place changed and so his life-routine but not his mindset.
Here he chanced to meet Mardana, a Muslim minstrel, who, when he
played on rabbab, could spell-bound his listeners. Ten years
older to him Mardana was fascinated by Nanak\'s sweet melodious
voice, charming manners, human concerns, spiritual fervor and
soul-touching quality of his verses. Some accounts claim that
Mardana was a friend of his childhood days. However, it was
hereafter that the two were inseparably united. Nanak\'s job at
\'modikhana\' apart, his most time was spent in composing songs
lauding Almighty and in singing them, and Mardana was always
there accompanying him on his rabbab. Now onwards with his divine
songs and Mardana\'s rabbab resounded every corner and square of
Sultanpur, and with the mysticism that his songs revealed, the
mind of every listener.
Nanak spent seven years at Daulat Khan\'s \'modikhana\' not so much
in weighing goods as in weighing questions facing life. A
restless mind, Nanak lived as if in a transit-house awaiting a
summon, the summon from Him, to proceed to his destination, his
true home. He was now thirty, and as everyday, one morning when
at river Bein, named Vahi in some accounts, to have his routine
bath he heard the call from within the depths of the river
waters. Pursuing the call he descended deep into the waters and
did not come out. His clothes lying on the river bank led his kin
and others to conclude that he had drowned.
After three days he re-appeared. A divine composure defined his
face. Despite curious questions volleying from all around the
whole day he did not utter a word, perhaps the light that the
absolute darkness within the depths of waters had kindled into
him had not taken a shape yet. No metaphysics or rhetoric, the
other day he simply uttered : \'nai koi Hindu, nai koi Musalman\' -
neither one is Hindu, neither Musalman, that is, man is neither
Hindu nor Musalman, he is only a man, all alike in relation to
each other and in relation to Him, the Karta Putukha - Creator.
His communion with the Supreme is only as man, not as Hindu or
Musalman. The Enlightened one, Guru Nanak thus rejected narrow
religious boundaries that disabled man from uniting with Him and
divided mankind, and paved the path for universal brotherhood,
harmony, tolerance and unity of mankind into the thread of humanity.
Significance Of Water In Sikh-Panth
His three days in water have been variedly seen and interpreted.
His absence from the world has been viewed by many as his journey
to Sach Khand, the abode of the Eternal One, a commission he was
invested with by the Almighty Himself, or to the wider world to
preach what had descended on him during his intimate communion
with Him. The Puratan Janam-Sakhi defines it as his direct
encounter with the Divine. In their book \'Sri Harmandar Sahib :
the Body Visible of the Invisible Supreme\' the authors of this
essay have seen the episode from yet another perspective. In
their attempt to renounce the world while all seekers of \'truth\'
or \'light\', during the days of Guru Nanak or before, even Buddha
and Mahavira, entered into forest, Guru Nanak entered into water
believing perhaps that the world was not so completely removed
off the sight when in forest as it was when into water\'s depths.
In water, depth was Guru Nanak\'s base, and height, his vision,
and complete darkness around led the eyes to seek the light
within; in forest, sight rolled horizontally along the world
which it sought to renounce, and external light illumined
exterior obstructing the journey within. Absolute renouncement of
the world has always been the key to absolute union with the
Divine; Buddha and Mahavira took six and twelve years to attain
it, Guru Nanak, just three days, and water - complete
dissociation from the world, and the absolute void which it
produced, was his means. This event of Guru Nanak attaining
Enlightenment in the course of ablution with water as his means
underlines sanctity of water and ablution in entire post Guru
Nanak Sikh tradition not merely as a sacred thing but as an
essential part of Sikh faith, rituals and architecture. Not
surprisingly, tank - Sarovar, seems to always have priority over
temple in Sikhs\' architectural tradition right since the days of
Guru Ramdas who sought to construct the Sarovar first so that the
temple emerged.
Two Decades Of Itinerancy
Guru Nanak gave up his job and distributed all his belongings to
poor. Attired in a robe and kalandari cap and a rosary around his
neck, perhaps similar to those he is seen wearing in medieval
paintings,
Baba Nanak, ever a faqir by aptitude, now a faqir also by
appearance, left Sultanpur. Mardana was his constant companion.
Now cynosure of all eyes, Guru Nanak almost mesmerized everyone
with his divine aura, mystic verses and melodious voice. He first
went to Sayyadpur in Gujranwala, a western Punjab now in
Pakistan. Hundreds drew to his discourses, though Lalu, known in
Sikh tradition as Bhai Lalu, a carpenter, was the first to be his
regular disciple.
He then proceeded to Sialkot where he met the known saint of
those days Shah Hamzah. At Shivaratri he reached Achal Batala and
had discourse with yogis - holy men assembled there on the
occasion. He then visited his birth-place Talwandi, paid respect
to his parents and then retired for a few days into Chhanga Manga
forest. He then proceeded to Multan. On way to Multan he met
Sayyad Hamid Ganj Baksh, and at Chuniana, Sheikh Daud Karamati.
Multan was the seat of many Sufis and saints. As the popular
tradition has it, when yet in the course of meeting them a group
of holy men sent Guru Nanak a bowl filled in to the brim with
milk suggesting that Multan did not have for him any space left.
Nanak sent it back with a jasmine flower afloat indicating that
fragrance, like which his presence was, did not require space in
a bowl. It soared above and only added flavour to the contents of
the bowl without encumbering it with its load. It was at Multan
that he reformed a notorious thag Sajjan, a cheat, who not only
joined his path but also donated his house. It was with Sajjan\'s
house, converted into a Dharmashala, rest house for travelers,
by Guru Nanak himself, that the Sikh Panth\'s architectural
geography began. As has Bhai Gurdas in a verse, deeply influenced
by Guru Nanak\'s concept of transforming a house into a
Dharmashala all his disciples began treating their houses as
Dharmashalas - the abodes for pilgrims and travelers.
Guru Nanak devoted almost two decades in his travels to different
destinations, the apparent objective being mainly meeting and
discoursing with holy men and visiting shrines of different
faiths. Everywhere he was looking for the \'sustainable\' - in the
body of a particular faith, its shrine, saints and its proclaimed
doctrine. When not in agreement he discoursed and won over his
opponents, not so much by magical power or intellectual acumen as
by his moral strength and \'power of loving devotion\'. Not
attached to one community of faith Nanak\'s was not a sectarian
angle. His emphasis was on divine Reality to which
particularities of caste, clan or race were irrelevant. Though
the accounts of his travels vary in different sources, unanimity
prevails in regard to this broad modus operendi during his entire
itinerancy and in regards to their direction-wise grouping, that
is, his travels into East, South, North and West. Each time on
completion of his journey into one direction he returned to
Talwandi and that served as the dividing line.
He was in East for twelve years, more than half of the total
period of his itinerary. Besides the places like Mathura,
Vrindavana, Haridwar, Agra and Kurukshetra in immediate
neighborhood or around, he went up to Prayag Varanasi, Gaya,
Bengal and Kamrup, in north-east region. Some of his
travel-accounts mention him visiting even China and Tibet. At
Kukukshetra, he was on the day of solar eclipse, when hundreds of
ascetics and pundits assembled there for the holy ritual dip.
During his discourses with them his principles of acceptance of
reality, love, harmony, truth, and inward purity influenced all
and converted many to his Path. As is commonly believed, alleging
him teaching profanity, the rigid authority imprisoned him along
with Mardana but they were released within days when those in
authority found them transforming the very atmosphere of the jail
by their divine music. At Kamrup, the known conjuror Nur Shahi
tried to infatuate Baba Nanak by her tempting charms but the
moment compassionate Nanak sang to her a hymn, now known as
Kuchchaji, her ignorance was shed off. Falling on his feet she
dedicated herself to his Path. At Puri he attended the evening
service of Jagannatha performed as Arti. He realized its futility
for when all-pervading God was omni-present and the sun, moon,
stars and all forms of light were already in His service, the
service rendered to a perishable object - an image, with just an
extinguishable lamp, had no consequence. This moment is believed
to reflect in one of Guru Nanak\'s more significant verses -
\'Gagan mein thal.\', the sky is the tray. He was at Varanasi where
followers of Kabir claim that he met Kabir, and Vaishnavites,
that he met and danced with Chaitanya.
A few sources allude to his journey to Mount Sumeru, a mythical
entity, and to his discoursing with teachers died centuries ago.
Scholars apply factual parameters to these claims and reject them
as untrue ignoring the fact that Enlightened ones, as was Guru
Nanak, transcended time and space and reached lands which to
common masses were mere myths, and conversed with people who were
by then part of legends or history. Histories or factual accounts
do not record journeys of self such as Guru Nanak or Buddha undertook.
In South, he went down to Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka. He had his
route via Rajasthan, Central India, Andhra and Tamil Nadu, and on
way back - a different route, fell Kerala, Mysore, Maharashtra,
Gujarat and Sind. As the popular tradition has it, in Rajasthan
he had opportunity to meet Mirabai, and in Gujarat, the known
Vaishnava saint Vallabhacharya, though chronologically their
periods were widely different. When 46, he proceeded on his
northward journey into Himalayan region and was there for two
years. His interactions with known and unknown ascetics and
teachers apart, he came in contact also with the followers of
Guru Gorakhnath and Machhendranath. They were highly impressed
with Nanak\'s mission of journeying across the land to unveil the
truth that enshrouded by the darkness of ignorance.
Last Twenty Years: Panth Of Nam-Simaran
By around 1521 Guru Nanak concluded his travels. When wandering
from a shrine to a saint, mosque to a Maulvi, or Sufi to a
Sanyasi, he wondered why there was suffering when land had
thousands of temples, Tirthas, holy men, ages-old religions,
teachings and traditions. Realizing that shrines or saints, they
all led man to stale and formal ritualism, which on one hand
isolated one man from the other and on the other hand obstructed
him from uniting with the Creator, he sought the simplest
possible path of \'Nam-simaran\' - commemoration of His name, which
beyond form and rites enabled man to enter into intimate
communion with God. He discovered in commemoration of \'Nam\' the
gist of all rites and the instrument of realizing and
communicating with the Formless One, without losing his way into
the cobwebs of formal rituals. The simplest possible path of
reaching Him, \'Nam-simaran\' turned the eye from beyond to
within - from river-bank to its waters\' depths, and opened the
all-perceiving window inside, and it is here - inside oneself,
that one finds Him enshrining. Nanak said that the Beloved one
was not far from him who sought Him within him. As the Formless
One is also without a Nam, the Nam that one gives to Him
represents his own vision of Him. Thus a thing within oneself,
the communion with Him - through \'Nam\', his only manifest form of
Him, is more intimate and also incessant.
Guru Nanak laid as much emphasis on equality among all and
fraternity as the highest principles of living. Instead of
seeking to isolate as did meditation or other austerities Nanak\'s
path attributed as much sanctity to Nam-simaran in commune as
individually. Farther than this, in his concepts of Dharmashala,
a form of \'Sangat\' - commune, and Pangat or Langar, a form of
community kitchen for all to dine together without
discrimination, he not only underlined the need of a strong
community life but also of personal goodness, sociability,
harmony and equality among all.
With his new path, named variedly as \'Nam-marg\' or \'Simaran-marg\',
Baba Nanak decided to permanently settle and share his vision -
knowledge and light, with others. One of his disciples, Diwan
Karorimal Khatri, donated a piece of land close to the holy river
Ravi and here Baba Nanak founded, in the name of Kartar, the
Creator, the ever first seat of \'Nam-marg\', naming it Kartarpur.
Almost from 1521 to 1539 he was at Kartarpur. In these 18 years,
around the isolated seat of the Panth had emerged a huge township
and the place was thronged by the followers of the Panth day and
night and round the year. Nanak\'s simple mysticism and his plain,
simple, clear and precise path attracted all and many of them
stayed there permanently. Among others there were two young men
Budda and Lahina, the curious minds come to just see what in
Kartarpur dragged people to it, but once there they never went
back. On 2nd September, 1539, just a few days before his Nirvana,
Guru Nanak summoned a large congregation. To everyone\'s surprise,
he asked Lahina, now Bhai Lahina, to come to him. Lahina obeyed
but was taken aback when Guru Nanak placed before him five Paisa
and a coconut, and his head at his feet. He gave him \'Bani-pothi - collection of
his own hymns, and a rosary, and announced that since onwards Lahina as Angad -
a part of his own being, as also the one who shared his spirit and soul, would
be his successor and Panth\'s new Guru.
Guru Nanak established thus the unity of Guruship which was based
on the principles of impersonality, indivisibility and continuity.
On 7th September, 1539, in some accounts it is 22nd September,
Guru Nanak breathed his last and thus the light merged with the
eternal light.
Vision Of God, Self\'s Transcendence And Nirvana
\'Ek-Omkar Sati Nam Karta Purukh Nirbhau Niravairu.\' the preamble
to Japjee, unanimously revered as the Mool Mantra, represents
Guru Nanak\'s concept of God.
Accordingly, God is one; He is the supreme truth, the truth
beyond time, the truth before time came into being, the truth
when time began scaling the universe, and the truth even now; He
is the Creator - all-creating and all-doing; He is beyond fear
and beyond hate; the omnipresent He pervades the universe; He is
not the subject of birth, nor He dies to be born again. He
created day and night, waters and breezes, earth, sky and oceans
and the entire cosmos, nature and all. The \'Nirankar\', He is
beyond form and beyond human comprehension. No volume of thought,
solemn-most silence, deepest meditation, any amount of fasting or
similar other austerities or virtues, or thousands of devices can
enable one to know the Truth that is Him or tear the veil of
false illusion. If any, the righteous living one alone can invoke
his grace for it is from one\'s deed and thought that he is
judged, and it is He Himself Who assesses - honors or discards,
his actions. Nanak said : \'What we sow that alone we take\'. Guru
Nanak forbade worship of idols or form, or worship performed out
of fear or for gain, objectives that usually inspired
idol-worship. As is the connotation of his hymn \'Gagan mein thal.\',
He, being the Destroyer of Fear, can not be Fear\'s instrument, or
rather of any weakness in man, which is often in the root of
idol-worship. Not so expressly initially, Guru Nanak accepted the
Hindu theory of Karma and life hereafter, that is, there is
rebirth after death, and the \'yoni\', form - man, animal, bird,
fish or whatever, one has in the rebirth is determined by one\'s
action in the present life. By righteous living a being might
escape this vicious circle of death and rebirth and attain Nirvana.
Caste-System, Religion And Rites, Status Of Woman..
Not a single incidence in Guru Nanak\'s life is denotative of his
adherence to caste-system. On the contrary, in complete disregard
of caste-considerations he had Mardana, a Muslim, as his constant
companion. \'Those who condemn God\'s creatures condemn God Himself\'
is the underlying tone of many of his verses. He said that even
amongst \'the noblest\' there could be ignoble, and amongst the
low-born, pure and noble. His idea of a caste-free society
transpired also in his concepts of Sangat and Langar. Nanak
rejected a Yogi\'s wear or staff, ashes smeared on body, shaven
head, blowing of conch-shell . as things defining religion. He
emphasized that the religious was him who amongst impurities of
the world became impurity-free. He prescribed prayer as its means
for prayer rendered the soul, soiled by sin, wholesome and
sin-free, similarly as ringed with soap garments, rendered dirty
with grime, brightened.
Renunciation was not his religion\'s part. He believed that
house-holders could also do whatever required for their spiritual
elevation and communicate with God. Once, one Yogi Bhagandarnath
questioned him sarcastically : \'why he mixed acid with milk\',
that was, mixed family life with asceticism. Bhagandarnath
considered family life as impure. Guru Nanak quietly said that
Bhagandarnath had renounced family life considering it impure but
he was going to householders every day for begging. He asked the
Yogi as to how he would protect the purity of his asceticism when
it sustained on food that he every day received from impure
householders. Guru Nanak did not consider the world around as
false or illusionary. He said : \'Real are your worlds and real
the created forms.\'. What makes the created ones different from
the Creator is reality\'s degree. The Creator is \'True Reality\',
\'Eternal Sovereign\'. Guru Nanak also did not approve the theory
of incarnation of God for the human body was prey to decay and
death, whereas God was beyond them. He sometimes seems to combine
personalness of Hindu God, spiritual equality of Buddhism and
congregation of Islam. His religion was more or less universal
and largely of secular type.
A poet of uncommon sensitivity Guru Nanak not only collected the
subject matter of his verses from every day experiences but also
directed his attention to things common man every day faced. He
sought to strengthen community life and thereby a strong nation.
Not merely spiritual transformation, his verses, as is their
underlying pith, seek to improve quality of social life too. He
did not ridicule hypocrites or censored social evils as did Kabir
but he was as deeply concerned in regard to them. Instead of
ridiculing he only pitied them. Nanak did not approve that women
were treated as inferior of man whether in society or in
religious hierarchy. He wrote : \'Of women we are born, of women
conceived . by women is the civilization continued . Then why
call her evil from whom are great men born .\' He asserted that
it is because of women that there is order and, except God,
existence of all, man or beast. In later Sikhism women were
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