Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji

Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was born in 1469 in Talwandi, a village in the Sheikhupura district, 65 kms, west of Lahore. His father was a village official in the local revenue administration. As a boy, Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji learnt, besides the regional languages, Persian and Arabic. 

He was married in 1487 and was blessed with two sons, one in 1491 and the second in 1496. Then he came into contact with Mardana, a Muslim minstrel who was senior in age.

By all accounts, 1496 was the year of his enlightenment when he started on his mission. His first statement after his prophetic communion with God was " There is no Hindu, nor any Mussalman. " This is an announcement of supreme significance it declared not only the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, but also his clear and primary interest not in any metaphysical doctrine but only in man and his fate. It means love your neighbour as yourself in addition, it emphasised, simultaneously the inalienable spirituo-moral combination of his message.

Accompanied by Mardana, he began his missionary fours, Apart from conveying his message and rendering help to the weak, he forcefully preached, both by precept and practise, against caste distinctions ritualism, idol worship and the pseudo-religious beliefs that had no spiritual content. He chose to mix with all. He dined and lived with men of the lowest castes and classes. 

When Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji were 12 years old his father gave him twenty rupees and asked him to do a business, apparently to teach him business. Guru Nanak Dev Ji bought food from all the money and distributed among saints, and poor. when his father asked him what happened to business? He replied that he had done a "True business" at the place where Guru Nanak Dev Ji had fed the poor, this gurdwara was made and named Sacha Sauda.

Despite the hazards of travel in those times, he performed five long tours all over the country and even outside it. He visited most of known religious places and centers of worship. At one time he preferred to dine at the place of low caste artisan, Bhai Lallo, instead of accepting the invitation of high caste rich landlord, Malik Bhago, because the latter lived by exploitation of the poor and the former earned his bread by the sweet of his brow. This incident has been depicted by a symbolic representation of the reason for his preference. 

Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji pressed in one hand the coarse loaf of bread from Lallo's hut and in the other the food from Bhago's house. Milk gushed forth from the loaf of Lallo's and blood from the delicacies of Bhago. This prescription for honest work and living and the condemnation of exploitation, coupled with the Guru's dictum that "riches  cannot be gathered without sin and evil means," have, from the very beginning, continued to be the basic moral tenet with the Sikh mystics and Sikh society.

All these facts indicate that Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji had a clear plan and vision that his mission was to be continued as an independent and distinct spiritual system on the lines laid down by him, and that, in the context of the country, there was a clear need of the organisation of such a spiritual mission and society. In his own lifetime, he distinctly determined its direction and laid the foundations of some of the new religious institutions. In addition, he created the basis for the extension and organisation of his community and religion.