Spirit - 3HO

Guru Nanak
Brings Love
The Guru for the Aquarian Age
inspires us to seek inner Divinity
By Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa
In the centuries preceding the birth
of Guru Nanak* in Northern India,
religious intolerance, torture, war,
and even thievery “in the name of
God” were the social norm. The
horrors committed during this period rival
the worst atrocities in Western history,
including the Spanish Inquisition and the
Jewish Holocaust. But the terrors in the
Guru’s time lasted for generations.
Sometimes the insanity of humans torturing
each other causes us to wonder whether Divinity
exists at all. The third Guru of the Sikhs,
Guru Amar Das, writes, “When the world
is in distress, it heartily prays. The true One
attentively listens, and with His kindness grants
comfort. He gives the order to the clouds and the
rain falls in torrents.”
When the human race faces its darkest
moments, the power of prayer can bring a
powerful Light from the Heavens to serve the
difficulties on the Earth. Guru Nanak was
such a Light.
The beauty of Guru Nanak’s birth rests in
how profoundly human it was. There were no
prophecies to herald his coming. No miracles
took place around his conception or birth. An
astrologer is reported to have seen in him a
powerful destiny—either as a king or as a sage.
And it is also reported that his mid-wife said
that the baby’s first sound was “a laugh like a
wise man joining a social gathering.” But other
than these brief moments, Guru Nanak entered
the world humbly and unannounced.
Yogi Bhajan said Guru Nanak’s soul meditated
in the ethers for 10,000 years before taking birth
as a human—so extraordinary was the task the
Creator needed him to do. During the lighthalf
of the moon in either May or November
(historians conflict on this), in 1469, Guru
Nanak quietly came in.
and Light
JAPJI SAHIB
During the first 30 years of Nanak’s life, he sought out the company of the wise—asking questions,
dialoguing with them, learning from them. He did not discriminate between the different sects of his
time, for he had a profound sense of the One Spirit behind everything. Still, he struggled. Once, he
lay in bed for days, unwilling to rise or do anything at all. His parents, concerned about his health,
sent for a doctor. But Nanak told the doctor, “What can you do for me? I am longing for my Beloved.
Only the medicine of the Naam—of the Spirit—can heal me.”
Guru Nanak had a habit to rise before the sun and take a bath in the river before doing his
meditation. One morning after immersing himself in the waters, he did not resurface. Everyone in
the town—his parents, wife and children; his friends and relations—believed him dead. Only his
sister Nanaki did not believe it.
What happened during those three days? The stories from that time vary. In devotion, one can only
imagine what his experience must have been like. But it seems to my mind that, for those three days,
he dwelled in a deep state of meditation under the water; his breath so slow it nearly stopped; his
concentration so profound that his soul broke through every barrier of time and space, and directly
merged with his Love.
Yogi Bhajan said Guru Nanak’s soul meditated in
the ethers for ten thousand years before taking
birth as a human.
In that moment of merging, the 10,000 years of meditation in the ethers ignited a fire in his
awareness. He listened deeply and heard that in the Universe a Song exists to guide the soul home.
Every true master in every tradition has heard that Song. It is real, and the human has the capacity
to listen to it and understand it. To sing it is to find the path to the Divine within one’s own being.
When Guru Nanak emerged from the water, he brought that experience of union, of listening
to that Song—and he composed Japji Sahib. Japji Sahib is a teaching song that guides a person to
the Divinity within himself or herself. It is a prayer for any person on any path. Because what Guru
Nanak described was the Unity behind the diversity in creation, and that there is One Teaching
behind all teachings. He taught that every person has a birthright to find their inner Divinity, and
live healthy, happy, and holy on the Earth. +
Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa is a teacher, Sikh Dharma minister, and writer. She currently serves as the
Project Manager for the Yogi Bhajan Library of Teachings. During the last years of Yogi Bhajan’s life,
she worked directly under his guidance on a translation of Guru Nanak’s Japji Sahib which can be
found at www.amazon.com. She lives in Espanola, New Mexico.
* See Glossary, p. 35.
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