The life of Guru Nanak was one continuous yagna, sacrifice to God. Some of the Gurus die martyrs: Guru Nanak was born a martyr to the One Eternal Mystery, God! Nanak travelled to many parts of India and Asia: he went, I am told, as far the Russian borderland. Every travel of Nanak was a yagna, an offering, to the One God of all nations, all races, all religions.
His life, from beginning to end, taught this one truth that every man, no matter what his creed or country, was, in essence, a Nanak. Is not every man illuminated with the one Light Divine, and meant to be an offering to the Akal Purukha (the Eternal One) in the service of love? So let the bhaktas see Nanak not once, but again and again, in all man, in all creation.
Nanak’s life opened an era in the history of India and Asia, in the history of humanity. He was a Prophet, a Seer and a Saint. India’s history is, to me, incomprehensible without Nanak. He was centuries ahead of his age. He realised, that all men are one, that, therefore, Hindu-Muslim conflicts and all conflicts of “creeds” and “classes” and nations are born of “illusion.” So Guru Nanak stood for the weak and the poor, for the men who toiled and strove for truth. He realised that, more than food and fire, men’s need was sympathy and brotherhood.
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