Guru's Anniversary...

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SPEAKING TREE

Pragmatic Guru who Showed a New Way

ONKAR SINGH

 

[ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 08, 2003 ]

 

Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, was a rational and

pragmatic philosopher.

 

Nanak Dev had no use for idol worship, caste, asceticism and rituals.

His focus was on ethical practice

and fervent faith in God. His religion was for house- holders, not for

ascetics. He laid stress on a life of

piety. "Truth is higher than everything but higher yet is the living of

truth," he proclaimed. Man should

maintain his purity in the midst of all impurities, he said.

"Asceticism doesn't lie in ascetic robes, or in

walking staffs, nor in ashes. Asceticism doesn't lie in the earring,

nor in the shaven head, nor in blowing a

conch. It lies in remaining pure amidst impurities," he said.

 

Nanak Dev himself led the life of a householder. He was happily married

and had two sons. His love for his

only sister was legen-dary. His close relationship with family didn't

prevent him from going on long travels

to spread his message of the unity of God and the brotherhood of man.

Accompanied by Mardana, a

Muslim mins-trel, who played the rabab for the divine hymns he sang,

Guru Nanak undertook four

marathon journeys and travelled across the length and breadth of India;

he also went to Mount Kailash,

Tibet and Sri Lanka and to Mecca and Baghdad.

 

Guru Nanak visited several pilgrimage centres and met people of

different cultures and religions. Guru

Nanak believed in one God, the supreme truth, the creator, Karta

Purakh, who is free from fear and hate,

birth and death and who is omnipresent, the personification of mercy

and grace. Mortals obtain that which

is ordained by God. One who obeys God and submits to His will realises

bliss. All ills are driven out on

hearing the name of God (Japji). Nanak Dev stressed the importance of

Nam Simran (meditation on God).

Remembering God and singing His praises is to free oneself from the

cycle of birth and death, he said.

 

"We are all children of one God, Ek Onkar, and so we are all brothers",

he said. "Sabna jian ka ek data"

— God is the father of all. All are equal before the creator who

equally abides in everyone. Guru Nanak

also exhorted his followers to respect the beliefs and faiths of

others. He appealed for inter-faith harmony.

"Loving God, His creation and doing good deeds is the true religion,"

he reiterated.

 

Guru Nanak steered clear of superstitions and prejudices. His teachings

are rational, progressive and

practical. Legend has it that when he saw pilgrims in Hardwar throwing

handfuls of Ganga water towards

the sun in the east — belie-ving that it would reach their dead

ancestors to quench their thirst — Guru

Nanak started throwing water in the opposite direction. When

questioned, he replied that he was sending

water to his fields in the Punjab so that they do not dry up. Again,

when a sleeping Nanak Dev was

roused to be told that his feet were pointing towards the holy house of

God, he apologised, and asked

that his feet may be turned to where there is no God.

 

During his travels, Guru Nanak preferred to stay with the less

privileged and the poorer people who worked

hard and honestly to earn their livelihood. "Kirat karni, vand chhakna

te nam japna" — to earn one's living

by honest labour, to share one's earnings and to meditate on God's name

— was the essence of Guru

Nanak's teachings.

 

Guru Nanak's revolutio-nary spiritual movement for social harmony

showed the practical way to huma-nity

to live in peace, amity and tolerance despite denominational

distinctions and divisions.

 

( Today is Gurupurab, 534th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. )