Nanak

Make compassion the cotton, contentment the thread, modesty the knot and truth the twist.

Guru Nānak Dev also known as Guru Nānak, Baba Nanak and Nanak Shah (1469 –1539) is the central figure in Sikhism, and is the first of the ten Sikh Gurus.

Sourced

• The impurity of the mind is greed, and the impurity of the tongue is falsehood. The impurity of the eyes is to gaze upon the beauty of another man's wife, and his wealth. The impurity of the ears is to listen to the slander of others. O Nanak, the mortal's soul goes, bound and gagged to the city of Death. All impurity comes from doubt and attachment to duality. Birth and death are subject to the Command of the Lord's Will; through His Will we come and go.
  • Asa di Var

• Make compassion the cotton, contentment the thread, modesty the knot and truth the twist.
  This is the sacred thread of the soul; if you have it, then go ahead and put it on me.
  • Raag Aasaa 471:5383-4

• Of a woman are we conceived,
  Of a woman are we born,
  To a woman are we betrothed and married,
  It is a woman who keeps the race going,
  Another companion is sought when the life-partner dies,
  Through a woman are established social ties.
  Why should we consider woman cursed and condemned,
  When from woman are born leaders and rulers.
  From woman alone is born a woman,
  Without woman there can be no human birth.
  Without woman, O Nanak, only the True One exists.
  Be it man or be it woman,
  Only those who sing His glory
  Are blessed and radiant with His Beauty,
  In His Presence and with His grace
  They appear with a radiant face.
  
  • Raag Aasaa Mehal 1, p. 473; in Aad Guru Granth Sahib (1983 edition by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee); also in Guru Nanak and His Times (1971) by Anil Chandra Banerjee, p. 78

• You shall everywhere mind the book of the Granth-Sahib as your Guru; whatever you shall ask it will show you.
  • As quoted in Religious Thought and Life in India : An Account of the Religions of the Indian Peoples, Based on a Life's Study of Their Literature and on Personal Investigations in Their Own Country (1883) by Monier Monier-Williams

• There is no Hindu, nor any Mussalman.
  • As quoted in Journal of Sikh Studies, Vol. 7, 1-2 (February - August 1980), p. 39; also in "Guru Nanak Dev ji (1469 - 1539)"

External links

• Profile at aboutsikhism.org
• Guru Nanak Dev ji (1469 - 1539)
• Eternal Glory of Sri Guru Nanak Dev
• Max Arthur MacAuliff, The Sikh Religion, Vol 1, (The Life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji), Oxford University Press, 1909.
• Sufis, Philosophers, and Nanak
• Nanak and the Sikhs
• "Guru Nanak in Baghdad" (July 2002)
• Satguru Nanak Dev Ji (for Children)