It was the second Guru Angad Dev who actually brought Sikhism as a belief or religion to his followers after the death of Guru Nanak, said Qaiser, who has also authored a book on Sikh shrines in Pakistan. Guru Granth Sahib is the holy book of Sikhism, which is a compilation of teachings passed down from the first guru to the last. Later, the third, fourth, fifth, ninth, and the 10th Guru would also write their diaries," Qaiser said.
His first journey spanned over seven years in which he covered most parts of present-day India and Pakistan, according to some historians. Qaiser disagrees. The third journey took him to the Middle East. After culmination of his third journey, he entered modern day Pakistan via Afghanistan to embark on his fourth and the last journey that covered India and Pakistan," he said.
He spent the last 18 years of his life in Kartarpur working as a farmer and running a soup kitchen. He died in at the age of Disciples gathered around him in a community of work and worship. He devoted the last 20 years of his life to the shaping of the first Sikh community. Before he died, Guru Nanak appointed one of his faithful followers as successor in the care and leadership of the community. Guru Nanak died when he was seventy.
According to Sikh tradition, on the day of his death, the community gathered around Nanak while he reassured them. Those of Hindu background insisted they should cremate his body, while Muslims wanted to bury him as a great saint.
If tomorrow the flowers of the Hindus are still fresh let my body be burned, and if the flowers of the Muslims are still fresh, let it be buried. The next day, both the Muslim and Hindu flowers were fresh, but there was no body beneath the sheet.
Guru Nanak was, indeed neither Muslim nor Hindu, though people of both traditions were drawn to him.
He criticized both traditions. In this he was in the company of the mystics—the Sufi saints and the bhakti singers whose experiences of God found challenge within their established traditions. His simple path of hard work and ebullient praise eventually became a new religious tradition.
One famous story about Guru Nanak tells of his rebellion at the age of eleven. At this age Hindu boys of his caste would start to wear the sacred thread to distinguish them.
Nanak refused, saying that people should be distinguished by the things that they did, and their individual qualities, rather than by a thread. Nanak continued to demonstrate a radical spiritual streak - arguing with local holy men and sages, both Hindu and Muslim, that external things like pilgrimages, penances, and poverty were of far less spiritual importance than internal changes to the individual's soul.
He worked for a while as an accountant but while still quite young decided to devote himself to spiritual matters. He was inspired by a powerful spiritual experience that gave him a vision of the true nature of God , and confirmed his idea that the way to spiritual growth was through meditation and through living in a way that reflected the presence of the divine within each human being. In , although married and having a family, Nanak set out on a set of spiritual journeys through India, Tibet and Arabia that lasted nearly 30 years.
He studied and debated with the learned men he met along the way and as his ideas took shape he began to teach a new route to spiritual fulfilment and the good life. The last part of his life was spent at Kartarpur in the Punjab, where he was joined by many disciples attracted by his teachings. The most famous teachings attributed to Guru Nanak are that there is only one God, and that all human beings can have direct access to God with no need of rituals or priests.
His most radical social teachings denounced the caste system and taught that everyone is equal, regardless of caste or gender. Peter Owen-Jones explores the Sikh faith in India, travelling to a festival in Nanded and explaining the origins of Sikhism in the conflict between Hinduism and Islam years ago.
He visits the temple where Guru Gobind Singh was assassinated and joins worshippers honouring the institution of the Guru Granth Sahib as the living guru.
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