A section from the journey
Guru Nanak and the Message
Around five hundred years ago, in the land of five rivers, a man named Nanak began to teach. He said there is one God, who belongs to no one tribe and answers to no one name. He taught that what counts is a true heart, honest work, and kindness to all. From his teaching a new path was born, the Sikh path. It rose in the same world as the devotional saints, yet it became its own tradition.
Let us walk north now, to a green and watered land. It is called the , which means the land of five rivers. Here, in this age of many kingdoms, a new path was born.
Its founder was a teacher named Nanak. He came to be honoured as Nanak, the first Guru of this path. He lived about five hundred years ago, born around the year 1469.
The tradition tells a story of how his teaching began. One morning Nanak went to a river to bathe, and he did not come out. For three days he was gone, and people feared he had drowned. Then he returned, quiet and changed, lit from within.
When at last he spoke, his words were simple and bold. There is no Hindu, he said, and there is no Muslman. He did not mean that these ways of life had vanished. He meant that before the one God, the labels we wear fall away. What God sees is the heart.
This was the core of his message. There is one God, who made all things and lives in all things. This God has no body and no image. You cannot carve such a God in stone. You come close instead by remembering the divine name, with love, again and again, until the heart grows still and clear.
Nanak gave his followers three plain things to live by. Remember God in all you do. Earn your bread by honest work. And share what you have with others. No fasting that starves the poor, no pride of birth, no empty show. Just a true heart, clean hands, and an open door.
He also taught that all people stand equal before God. High birth and low birth, rich and poor, woman and man, all are one in the divine eye. This was a clear and brave thing to say in his time, and his followers built it into the very shape of their community.
Nanak did not sit in one place. He travelled for years, near and far, singing his hymns with a companion who played music beside him. He spoke with holy men of every kind, gently, asking them to look past the form to the truth within. Wherever he went, people gathered, and a community of seekers began to grow.
Here we must be careful and clear, as a good teacher should be. We tell Nanak's story because it rose in the same world as our own, and it touches the Hindu story at many points. But this is not a chapter of Hinduism. It is the start of the Sikh path, a tradition all its own, with its own founder, its own scripture, and its own light. We honour it on its own terms.
Nanak asked people to look past the labels we wear and see the heart beneath. Think of someone you once judged by an outside mark, a name or a group, before you knew them. What changed when you finally saw the person?
We turn now to a new path that was born in this age, in the Punjab, the land of five rivers. Its founder was Guru Nanak, who lived from about 1469 to 1539. As a young man, the tradition tells, he went to bathe in a river and was gone for three days. When he returned, his first words were that there is no Hindu and no Muslim, meaning that before the one God these labels fall away. Nanak taught a single, formless God, known by remembering the divine name. He taught three simple things: remember God, earn an honest living, and share with others. He travelled far and wide, singing his hymns. We tell his story here with respect, because it touches our own. The Sikh path grew in the same soil as the devotional saints we have met, yet it is not a branch of any older faith. It is its own tradition, with its own light, and we honour it as such.
❧1 of 1
Page 1 of 1