Guru Nanak did not claim to be an incarnation of God or even a special messenger of his. He claimed only that he was a teacher, trying to teach people how they could live good, simple lives, which would bring them closer to God.
The appeal of Nanak’s teachings was instantaneous, and almost from his first sermon he was able to win disciples. Thus, by the time he died, he had built up a strong community of Sikhs, not only in Kartarpur, but also at other centres all over India.
The reasons for the great and instant appeal of Nanak’s teachings are easy to see. The two major religions being followed in the Punjab were Hinduism and Islam. Hindu scriptures were taught in Sanskrit – a language which had been popular in ancient India, but which by then had become archaic. In fact all the sacred books of the Hindus are in Sanskrit and most people could not understand them unless they were interpreted by a scholar or a priest. Islam was taught through old Arabic, the language in which the Quran is written. No one in the Punjab used either of the languages, and as a result it was beyond the comprehension of the average man. When Nanak composed his famous hymns – which contained all his teachings – he did so in the language spoken by the people of Punjab at that time. Nanak used the colloquial dialect of North Punjab and interspersed dialects from other regions while writing his hymns. However, the language used by the people of Punjab has evolved greatly in the intervening centuries between then and now.
They could be understood even by an illiterate person. As a result, people naturally veered away from the older religions – which they found difficult to understand – and towards the Guru’s teachings, which they were able to understand on their own.
Another factor that brought an immediate appeal to Nanak’s teachings was his use of music. Music formed the medium of his teachings. All his hymns are set to various ragas of Hindustani Classical music and, to this day, they are sung in the raga in which they were composed. Music has always been an integral part of Indian culture and of the Indian way of life. It is also a well established fact that people will respond more readily to a song than to a speech. So when Nanak began his discourses with the singing of beautiful hymns, he found many willing listeners; who, overwhelmed by the beauty of the songs, stayed on as a captive audience to listen to his sermons.
The starting point of all of Nanak’s teaching is his concept of God. He says that there is one God who is without form, who is not born and so cannot die. As such, when we worship God it is not necessary to deify pictures or statues. By doing this we are not worshipping God, because God is formless. Ik Onkar Satnam, Nanak’s first composition and the opening phrase of Guru Granth Sahib (mool mantra), explains these points beautifully. It goes, Ik Onkaar Sat Naam Kartaa Purakh Nirbhay-o-Nirvair Akaal Moorat Ajoonee Saibham Gur Parsaad Jap… (He is the One Universal Creator God. His name is truth. He is creativity personified. He has no fear, no hatred. He is the image of the undying. He is beyond birth and self-existent).*
Nanak went on to say that God was Truth. By saying this, he made God a standard by which men could judge their own actions and behaviour. If God was Truth, then to behave in an untruthful manner would be to go against God. Behaving in an untruthful manner included telling lies, stealing, being dishonest in conduct, and doing things that hurt other people.
Since it is difficult for an average man or woman to understand the concept of God as formless or a force that is omnipresent and omnipotent, it becomes essential for all of us to have a ‘Guru’. It is the Guru who will help the disciple to understand God and love Him. It is the Guru who will give his followers strength so that they are able to bear all the sorrow and pain that life brings to them. It is the Guru who shows us the path of Truth. He is like the captain of a ship who will guide us carefully through shoals and the troubled waters of life and bring us safely to God.
Because the Guru plays such an important part in our pursuit of God, we must obey him in everything and follow his teachings and his instruction with complete and unquestioning faith.
Again and again, Nanak stressed the importance of the role of the Guru in the disciple’s life and the need for the disciple to have total trust and faith in the Guru. At the same time Nanak also stressed that we must never forget that the Guru is only a teacher who shows us the path to God. He is not God. As a result we must follow his teachings, listen to his advice, but must never make the mistake of worshipping him.
Nanak says that all men must choose a Guru. This would imply that after one Guru’s death his disciples would have to choose another Guru. In conformity with this concept, Nanak appointed Angad as his successor during his lifetime.
Nanak preached a complete adherence to the Guru’s instructions. So after his death, his followers became Angad’s followers. Angad could now carry on Nanak’s work. So by appointing a successor, Nanak introduced a very special feature to the new religion. Each Guru, in imitation of Nanak’s example, would choose his successor during his lifetime. This ensured that the leadership of the Sikhs remained unbroken. Because of this, Sikhism became a strong and unified religion. This saved Sikhism from breaking up the way other sects, like the Kabirpanthis and Vaishnavas, broke up into splinter groups, after their respective Gurus’ death.
Guru Nanak taught that it is essential for every man to perform the duties of a householder. Earning a living, getting married, bringing up one’s children, looking after one’s parents, all these were duties that everyone must perform according to the Guru. No real good could be achieved by giving up the world and going to the mountains to live alone and pray. Man must live amongst the impurities of the world and yet try to remain pure; just as the lotus remains pure even though it grows in stagnant water. True prayers, Nanak said, were good actions and good actions can only be performed towards other men. If we take sanyas, we will not get a chance to perform good deeds for others and, no matter how much we close our eyes in prayer, no matter how many mantras we recite, our prayers will not be true prayers. We must live amongst men, perform our duties to the best of our ability, and always strive for the good of our fellowmen. Only by following this path, can we come close to God.
Nanak lived the life of a householder himself in the later part of his life. He lived with his wife and sons, and worked in the fields. When the time came to choose his successor, he chose Angad who was also a householder with a wife and children. From this simple act it followed that all the Sikh Gurus would be householders and that an ascetic would not become the Guru. This meant that all the Gurus lived the same life that their followers lived and shared in their joys and sorrows. The human side of their personalities and their lives made them greatly loved by their followers.
Nanak believed in the equality of all men. In Hindu society, caste and religion have always walked side by side. But two Bhakta saints from the South – Ramanujan and Ramananda – said that it was possible to have a society without the caste system. The Muslims too had no caste system and Punjab had been familiar with the idea of casteless society since the Eleventh century. Nanak’s mind was influenced by both the Bhaktas and the Muslim saints. He taught that by treating the lower castes as untouchables we were hurting them. When we do things which hurt other men, we are moving away from the truth and from God. So all men, irrespective of their caste, must be treated equally. We must give a man of the lowest caste the same respect that we would give to a man of the highest caste. Nanak preached that all his followers must sit side by side; with no consideration of their wealth, social position, or their caste; and become one united sangat by praying together and taking part in kirtan. And with the passage of years the langar became a visible representation of Nanak’s most important teaching. By eating together, his followers put aside all distinctions of caste, creed, and wealth and reiterated their faith in their Gurus’ teachings: All men are equal and belong to one caste and one race – humanity
Nanak was against empty rites and rituals. A Muslim could not be a true Muslim by just praying in the mosque, fasting or going on a Haj to the Kaaba. A Hindu could not be a good Hindu by merely hosting feasts for holy men, performing yagnas and other rites, or going on pilgrimages. A true Muslim and a true Hindu must be kind, honest, truthful, polite, and good at heart. True religion is a way of life. He summed up this way of life by saying that people should work honestly, pray sincerely, and be charitable.
Nanak built a bridge between the Hindus and Muslims, but in so doing he created a new community of people who had their own way of living. Nanak’s followers lived the way their teacher had taught them to, and their way of life was different from that of the Hindus and Muslims of the time. They had a separate place of worship (which came to be known as gurudwara) and did not go to the temple or the mosque anymore. Their way of worship was also different. They did not bow before stone idols or repeat Sanskrit prayers. Nor did they turn west, towards Mecca and pray in Arabic. They sang Nanak’s songs and prayed in their own mother-tongue, Punjabi. Even their greetings to each other were no longer Hindu or Muslim greetings, but the Guru’s greeting of ‘Sat Kartar’ or ‘True Creator’, which later became ‘Sat Sri Akal’.
It is often said that most of Guru Nanak’s teachings, his ideas, have been taken from other religions and other religious leaders. This may be true, but he gave to all these ideas a new form, which was his own. He made his ideas tools through which human personality could be developed. So powerful are his teachings that they have remained strong and clear even five hundred years after his death. They have helped the Sikhs to overcome every difficulty that they have faced. The cruelty of the Mughal government, and the great military strength of Ahmad Shah Abdali in the eighteenth century, could not eliminate the Sikhs because they had Nanak’s teachings to give them strength. Nanak’s teachings brought out the best in his followers and gave them the strength to face and survive all hardships.
The Guru, who was capable of giving such great strength to his followers, has left behind a memory of gentleness and love. He has often been described as meek and gentle. He did not try to impress people with his spiritual strength by performing miracles and used only personal example and gentle persuasion to win followers. He was also a great poet and used his poetry and music to reach the hearts of his people. His poetry ranks among the great works of literature of the world. He was truly one of the greatest teachers the world has ever known.
*Translation source: http://www.desidime.com/