Guru Nanak: The Founder of Sikhism - Life and Legacy

[sitar playing] [sitar playing] [sitar and strings playing] NARRATOR: Under a full moon, a child was born in 1469.

He would become the founder of the Sikh faith, the world's fifth largest religion.

This 15th century teacher, poet and revolutionary activist whose universal message, justice and equality for all.

Woman's empowerment, service to others, an honest living and devotion to nature and the environment were well ahead of his time and yet his story is virtually unknown to the Western world.

[sitar and tabla playing] Every year Sikh pilgrims travel to his birthplace, Nankana Sahib, Pakistan.

And to the sacred golden temple in Amritsar, India to celebrate him, sing his hymns at the Sikhs' most revered and sacred festivals.

[chanting] [chanting] [festive music playing] [singing along with tabla] The central tenant of his philosophy, one universal creator God, truth and eternal is the name.

God is one and is everywhere.

[sitar and strings playing] Guru Nanak the founder of Sikhism, life and legacy.

NARRATOR: Today Sikh men and women from all walks of life worldwide continue to embody Guru Nanak's spiritual legacy.

PRINCIPAL: Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to introduce Mayor of Hoboken the honorable Ravi Bhalla.

NARRATOR: The first Sikh mayor in Hoboken, New Jersey celebrates the diversity of his city.

[singing] A Grammy nominee with an uplifting song of love and peace.

[singing] A renowned surgeon treating his patients with compassion.

How have you been feeling today?

Really about the same.

Overall it was great.

NARRATOR: California farmers continue their proud historical heritage.

I think it's going to be a decent year.

Together I think if we can get... NARRATOR: An executive with a mission to empower women and undeserved communities worldwide.

A high school national oratory champion spreading the word about his people through laughter.

And a trucker's journey to help his fellow citizens after a natural disaster.

[crowd cheering] [lively percussive music] Welcome again to the eighth annual turban day here in Times Square, New York.

Make some noise.

[cheering] I love my turban.

I've never worn one.

I love the opportunity I never wore one.

- I love the colors.

- Same.

Do you know what a turban represents?

Sikhs believe in not cutting their hair.

- Keeping long hair, right?

- Okay.

And in order to keep our long hair we have to cover our hair.

Just lift your head a little.

So we cover our hair and basically the turban not only covers our hair but it also symbolizes sovereignty for us.

It's like our crown.

The crown on your head signifies unity and it also signifies where you can go for help.

So it's looking nice on you.

You can trust this person wearing a turban on your head.

There we go.

A couple of hundred years ago, only the kings and queens used to wear turbans to represent like, you know a king and queen.

So then in our culture Sikhism, we said, "Hey, why doesn't everyone wear a turban?

Shouldn't we all treat each other equally?

The same?"

You get what I'm saying?

Yes, it's great idea that everybody is equal.

Turban Day actually started seven years ago in Baruch College to start something to do education about who I am and what this five and a half meter cloth represents.

To many it's just a cloth.

To me it's my pride.

To me, it's my turban.

[laughs] You learn something every day.

We've educated more than 10 million people and we're very fortunate to be able to be in Times Square doing this every year.

And as of today, we've tied more than 38,000 turbans to Americans, Germans, French, Italians.

You name it and we've done it.

If we give a piece of us to them, then they will be able to understand what this represents.

Do you know who Guru Nanak is?

I sure don't.

Who's Guru Nanak?

You know who is a Guru Nanak is?

No, I don't know.

Okay, he is our first Guru and he is from India.

Oh, from India.

Wow!

What is a Guru, a God?

Guru is a teacher who teaches the way of life, how we should live our life and what is the best way to live life.

All of my life is based on the three principles of Guru Nanak.

Work hard, donate.

Think about everyone else before yourself.

So that has been my principles throughout my life.

As Sikhs Guru Nanak Dev Ji is the one who brought us to life, so his teachings are what have made me as a Sikh today.

[festive music] The world knows so much about the great Abrahamic figures, the great prophets of Judaism, of Christianity, of Islam.

It even knows something of Oriental figures, Eastern figures like Confucius.

But somehow it knows very little about one of the greatest spiritual leaders of human history and that is Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

[] NAVTEJ SARNA: 550 years ago, a child was born to a middle class family that were village accountant in a small village called Talvandi, which is very close to present day Lahore.

Now this was a very special moment in many ways because historically the situation was not very good.

It was a time, which was pretty much, you could call it the Dark Ages.

DR. SHARAN: Around 1469 when he was born, there had already been numerous invasions into India.

There was an upheaval in the political realm.

There was also upheaval in the religious realm also because there was a sense that the priests, whether Muslim or Hindu, they didn't really have the true essence.

They were all vying for money, for support from the kings and the local rulers.

There was oppression of the rulers over the ruled.

There was discrimination, there was moral corruption and there was a lack of enlightenment.

Nanak was born in a Hindu family.

India at that time was ruled by Muslims who had invaded India centuries ago and their ideology was in conflict with the Hindus.

According to Sikh scriptures... [speaking in foreign language] which means that the Hindu and Muslim priests are fighting with each other and truth has gone away.

So according Sikh narratives with the advent of Nanak, the mist disappeared and light was seen everywhere.

[] KAUR SINGH: There are lots of narratives about his birth and we see a lot of similarity.

Just like Jesus Christ.

The flooding of light, Lord Buddha's birth.

So you find that people are writing narratives about his birth and that they see something extraordinary about him.

So the little hut or whatever little places he is born in is flooded with light.

And the signs according to the oral histories that we have received through the tales that have come down from five centuries ago show that everything indicated the birth of a redeemer.

Perhaps even, if you say so, of a prophet who was known as Nanak as a child, later on known as Guru Nanak, which means a -- Guru means a spiritual guide or a teacher.

And it's very interestingly, it's a Muslim midwife who helps his mother Mata Tripta to bring the baby out and she sees the baby and she is just charmed by it.

She said, "Oh, I brought lots of babies into this world, but nobody as wonderful or as magical as this little baby boy."

I have a special Guru And Nanak is his name I have a special Guru And Nanak is his name N-A-N-A-K N-A-N-A-K N-A-N-A-K and Nanak... Nanak was a very precocious child and he amazed all the teachers that he was taken to.

Let's write "Ek On-kar".

NAVTEJ SARNA: And he was told to write the alphabet on a wooden slate as they used to have in those days.

And instead of writing the alphabet with each of the letters of the alphabet, Nanak wrote an entire verse of high quality poetry about eternal spiritual truths.

So the teacher was absolutely amazed.

He says, "You know, this is no ordinary child."

He went to the father and said "You know, what do I do with this child?

He knows everything and much more."

TEACHER: Very nice.

Guru Nanak Dev Ji said God is...?

CHILDREN: One.

We all are...?

- Equal.

– TEACHER: Equal... And then there was also the ritual when young boys became men, they were invested with a cotton cloth and the cotton cloth symbolized their coming of age.

And it was like the bar mitzvah of the Jews.

So it was a ritual that not many people understood.

So while -- and it was a huge affair of course.

All the relatives invited and there's a huge feast and Guru Nanak sitting there and the priest comes and puts this thread around him and Guru Nanak takes the thread and he takes it in his hand and he pulls it and the thread breaks.

Guru Nanak said, "I don't want this thread."

He says, "If that thread is made of true wisdom, of true understanding of God, then I will take the thread.

But until then, if you're just telling me it is to remind me of my debt to my ancestors and to the living beings of this world, then I don't need that thread.

I want the thread that connects me to God and I want that thread that represents compassion that comes from it."

This was another way that he revolted against a ritual.

[] DR. SINGH: When Nanak was in his upper teens, his father being a practical man wanted Nanak to start his own business, a general store in the village.

So he gives him 20 rupees peas, which in those days would count to six months' pay.

So Nanak takes the money and he's going towards the town and he meets this group of spiritual wanderers who haven't eaten for many days.

So Nanak gets into a discussion about spirituality, about finding self and then he goes to the town, he ends up buying supplies and clothes and food and comes back and serves these spiritual wanderers.

And when he comes back home, his father asks him, where's the money?

Where are the supplies?

The father was so furious, he was really, really mad.

So that's when Nanak's sister Nanaki intervenes.

So she takes him to Sultanpur, she offers her house to Nanak.

PROFESSOR KAUR SINGH: Bebe Nanaki, she is Guru Nanak's older sister.

They were very close and I think Guru Nanak's philosophical worldview, his social understanding, his empathy for women, at some unconscious level has a lot to do with his close relationship with the sister Nanaki.

[] KIRANJOT KAUR: Guru Nanak's older sister had her house in Sultanpur Lodhi.

It still exists.

It's a double story building and it has a well inside.

People go and they take some water from the well, put it to their face.

In the Indian tradition, that is a mark of respect.

That is how people show their respect and also their devotions.

[crowd chanting] NAVTEJ SARNA: It was around that time that he started holding gatherings with like-minded people, talking about God, talking about religion, [chanting] singing the praises of the creator.

[birds chirping] And in the morning he used to go to the Bain River, which was a small river outside the town where he would bathe and pray.

One morning he didn't come out of the water.

[wind howling] And everybody of course naturally began to worry that he had drowned.

His clothes were found on the riverbank and he had gone in for his bath and not come out.

They launched a search, they tried to fish him out of the river, but there was no sign.

For three days, there was no sign of Nanak.

And then it is said that he appeared, he came back and he was absolutely silent.

And when he said something, it was a very simple statement to our minds today.

He said, "There is no Hindu, there is no Mussulman."

Mussulman, in other words, Muslim.

So there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.

In other words, what he was saying is all men are equal.

And realizing in the depths of the waters, in the depths of the rivers, he realizes we are all one.

That is his revelation and that he promotes thereafter.

According to the Sikh narratives Nanak goes through this experience at River Bain and he declares that I had been face to face with God, that God has given me a special task to spread the word and to spread the message of love.

So his followers, the people who admired him visibly saw that there was a stark difference.

The way he spoke, the way he carried himself, he was no longer just Nanak, he was Guru Nanak.

Their teacher, their guide.

And Nanak recognized his own calling and his mission.

Guru Nanak was an explorer and he explored the external world as well as the internal world.

He was born in the age of discovery.

He was born just slightly after Columbus for example.

And Vasco da Gama was traveling to India and connecting the East to the West.

Everybody was exploring, the world was opening out.

And Guru Nanak decided he was going to explore the continents.

When he wandered from place to place -- and he wondered a lot -- it was to debate with holy men.

It was to meet ordinary folks and talk to them.

It was to try and remove ignorance, superstition, ritualism, wherever he saw it.

KAMLA KAPUR: He went to Nepal, Tibet, China, the Mid East, Mecca, Medina.

NAVTEJ SARNA: This was an amazing amount of travel and it was all done on foot.

It was done over 23 years.

And in many ways it was his fulfillment of his mission to the world at large.

[] PROFESSOR KAUR SINGH: And he was always accompanied by his very dear friend.

This was a childhood friend, Mardana.

So Mardana played the rubab, the ancient lute.

And he would burst into hymns, into divine song, into sublime poetry.

[] Now, why would he bring his companion into the picture?

Mardana was somebody who he knew since childhood, a good musician, but more important than that a visible symbol of Guru Nanak's commitment to breaking barriers.

With Mardana he broke two of them: inter-religious barrier -- Mardana was a Muslim -- and inter-caste barrier; Mardana came from the lower caste.

And yet he was the one chosen to be a companion by the Guru.

[rubab playing] And the combination, this is very significant that most of the Sikh scripture is in musical ragas.

And Guru Nanak had a great musical ear.

And music plays a very important role with this poetry.

So the words which he spoke in the Punjabi language that when he travels to distant places, people might not be able to understand that.

But music, as we know, is universal.

And the most beautiful thing about the whole process is that they would use music, which in the Indian belief system we very formally and informally say music is probably the shortest route to understanding whatever that higher power is.

[] And utilizing this powerful medium to say out to the world that we are one was probably the most beautiful strategy that Guru Nanak utilized.

[] [vocalizing] Please sing it out now.

Keep it going.

[vocalizing] SNATAM KAUR: My music, career.

Everything that I do is because of Guru Nanak, because of his teachings.

And the core teachings that I really carry through this tour is that we can transform ourselves through sacred sound.

[] [clapping hands in rhythm] [vocalizing] It's pretty incredible to watch when people come to these concerts and how the energy shifts just by chanting sacred words.

And it's a technology that was started by Guru Nanak and it's called shabad guru, which is the technology of transformation through sound.

[chanting in foreign language] [music continues] The intention with the beautiful music is to give people an opportunity to chant.

And I don't take no for an answer.

And get ready to sing this one out from the heart?

Here we go.

We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today We are the people If we can come from this awareness of oneness instead of polarization.

I feel that this is where our success lies and these are the teachings of Guru Nanak that I just feel so blessed to be able to share.

[singing continues] Love today We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today Love [crowd chanting] He believes that the earth is a shared place and he saw this in his travels.

He saw that despite external differences, that there was an inner core that made us all children and creatures of the one God.

Even though this one God had different names from different traditions, he saw through the difference to the oneness of humankind.

[] JJ KAPUR: When Guru Nanak Dev Ji one day found himself in the bank of the Ganges River, and at the time in the morning, many religious people would come to the Ganges River and he would splash water towards the East as a way to quench the thirst of their ancestors who had long since been deceased.

So Guru Nanak Dev Ji saw this and he joined this group of people, but instead of splashing water to the East, he turned his back towards the sun and began splashing water towards the West.

And the crowded people were bewildered and bemused and looked at Guru Nanak Dev Ji and someone asked him, "What are you doing?"

Guru Nanak Dev Ji simply looked probably with a smile and said, "I'm splashing water towards the West, which is where my farms are because you see my crops they need watering."

And all of a sudden everyone understood that just as Guru Nanak Dev Ji could not water his crops miles and miles away.

How could these individuals reach their ancestors by splashing water to them?

And Guru Nanak Dev Ji used that sense of humor to poke holes at the established order and to ensure that people understood when certain rituals were empty.

I believe that Guru Nanak Dev Ji in his philosophy, he understood the importance of light-heartedness to connect with others.

It is through joy and through laughter and through smiles that we can connect with our fellow Americans.

[singing in foreign language] And that was why I joined my high school speech and debate team.

[singing in foreign language] Junior year I think is when things started to click.

I won the Harvard tournament, the Emory tournament, tournament of champions and then the national tournament.

The speech I gave, I really enjoyed.

I love Bollywood.

[laughter] It was a speech about the danger of single stories.

But last summer I traveled to India.

Have you ever visited a place where the reality didn't live up to the brochure?

[laughter] [applause] On the surface I appear very different from my peers, but I'm an Iowan born and bred.

I was very lucky not to have experienced bullying.

I think one of the reasons why is that I always just incredibly open.

[laughs] Any question they would ask me, I would answer.

So like if you're in a plane...

I was shocked to get homecoming king because it validated so many of the relationships that I've had with my peers at Valley.

Hey!

Congratulations, Jack.

I strongly believe in this idea that you can't hate someone... Good for you.

All right, see you later.

...if you know them.

On August 5th, 2012 I was with my family at our gurdwara in Des Moines, Iowa.

And it was on that same day that there was a shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where a gunman walked into the local gurdwara there and killed six innocent people.

And for me as a young person, I thought we've got to do a better job of telling our story.

We have got to do a better job of connecting on a personal level with our neighbors and our friends and our Iowa community.

Now, my father likes to say that our family lives life according to IST, Indian Standard Time.

[laughter] We needed to humanize our faith.

We needed to connect with people on a personal level and how we can do that is through chardi kala, by remaining in eternal optimism and joy, even in the face of our most daunting challenges.

[] I am impressed that Guru Nanak did go to Tibet because to go there from India is no easy.

It's not an easy hike up over the Himalaya passes and so on and I'm delighted that he did.

I would say 100% the Buddhist would say he's a Buddha; Guru Nanak himself is a Buddha.

That doesn't mean a Buddhist.

He's a Sikh, but he's a Buddha.

In other words, he's an enlightened being for sure.

At times during his travels, Guru Nanak visited certain places where his message of equality, justice and religious freedom was not well received by the powers to be and their people.

People threw stones at him, they called him names, they made fun of him and he was put in jail.

But Guru Nanak was not to be deterred.

He was determined to spread his message.

He visited cities that had Muslim rulers, that had Hindu rulers and he would always get into some sort of misunderstanding and it would always be his revelation, his way of conveying the truth that would calm people down.

For example, he went to Mecca and one night he was sleeping and he slept with his feet towards the Kaaba.

And as many people know that is completely not allowed.

And so he was accosted, he was a hold to bear and the person who was leading the charge asked him, why are you sleeping with your foot towards the house of God?

And Guru Nanak simply replied, "I tell you what, why don't you put my foot wherever God is not."

In short, the story is telling us that God is everywhere.

God is universal, God is omnipresent and you cannot then restrict him to one particular spot and that sort of reflects the story of Guru Nanak's emergence and his message.

It's accepted, it becomes part of the scene.

It's a new religion, a new way of thinking and yet it's familiar enough for people to absorb it.

Given what we do know about his travels, he would have had to have intersected with Christians and Jews.

He would've had to have known about what their teaching was, the kerygmatic core teaching of what made them uniquely monotheistic.

He would've had to have sat down with not only holy men, but holy women and also with people who just were followers of the faith.

KAUR SINGH: He's leaving footprints in distant places and he's imprinting his message, his love in the hearts and minds of people all over.

[] MINTU PANDHER: Well, journey of Guru Nanak has affected me personally in a big way because he took a lot of chances to go out of his zone and learn new things and teach new things about humanity to other people.

He's the motivation for pretty much every Sikh, including me, to leave their home, take a chance, take a risk to walk out of the first step out of the door to try something not everybody has tried.

Trucking is a, generally is a really good business, no doubt.

We call it a brotherhood, [Hindi word], when we talk about fellow truckers.

They consider each other brothers because we share the road day and night.

About two to three weeks ago, we had a huge, a major storm system came through and it dumped a bunch of snow and a lot of water in the Plains.

Flooded ranches, flooded houses, flooded communities.

Some of the communities have been flooded.

They never seen this kind of flooding ever in their whole life.

We are taking water, sports drinks, canned goods, essential like paper towel, toilet papers.

So we are taking them what they requested.

[wind howling] Well, it's been raining here since yesterday afternoon.

And as you can see, it's still raining and it's making matters worse as we going in.

So we have to watch the 511 and the road opening and road closures to see if it's heavier, which break we can go.

I feel like those people, they've been through a lot, so it's our moral obligation to stand up with our fellow citizens in the time of the need.

- Hey, where are you from?

- Laramie, Wyoming.

- All that way by 10-hour drive.

- Yes.

- And what is your name?

- Mintu.

Where is the donation coming from?

They come from a Sikh temple from Wyoming, Laramie.

Right.

And are you the coordinator of this effort?

- Yes, I am.

- God bless you.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for coming to town.

This is our home and we got people hurting and we're just people taking care of people.

So thank you so much.

We're just trying to do a little bit of what we can.

And you're helping us take care of our people.

So we are going to help you unload some stuff from this trailer.

That will be great.

This looks like Christmas to me.

I need to help you.

You can't do all the work, right?

No problem.

MAN: The 15th is when everything started breaking loose.

An ice jam broke about, I'm going to say about 40 miles from here on the river.

PANDHER: Which river is that?

- That is on the Platte.

- Platte River.

And when that ice jam broke, there was a five- to six-foot rise of water immediately headed downstream headed right for us.

So our first response is get the people in shelter.

That must be frightening moving all the people left and right through there.

Frightening for them.

Now we're moving to the next phase and that is we want to heal all the wounds.

We were watching you guys from last two weeks on social media, on the news, watching the map.

So we wanted to come in so bad.

Then we'd be like, let's wait.

Let's not overwhelm it.

Because from bottom of our heart we felt so bad because we used to come out here all the time and driving through.

- God bless you.

- Thank you.

Friends forever, buddy, friends forever.

- Thank you.

- All right.

God bless you.

- I'll skip the handshake.

- All righty.

[chuckles] To be honest with you, I felt blessed that we did something.

It was needed and it's part of the journey.

It started years ago.

Guru Nanak was a traveler, a great traveler.

He traveled all around.

He had a unique journey.

I don't think anybody can do the same, but I'm trying my best by trucking, serving others when they need it.

So this journey continues and I'm going to keep on trucking.

[] KAMLA KAPUR: Guru Nanak more than anything else, thought about himself as a force of nature.

He aligned himself with the rivers, with the wind.

At one point he says, "The wind is our guru.

Water is our father.

The earth is our mother."

And consistent with Guru Nanak's agenda to break open the world, he saw all of creation as singing hymns to God.

REV.

CHANE: Guru Nanak was an environmentalist.

He was a green person before there was ever a green person.

And that's something that you talk about a gift that Sikhism brings to our culture, our belief as Christians or as Jews or Muslims.

That's it.

[birds chirping] KATE FRITZ: We help coordinate a watershed-wide program called Project Clean Stream to help get groups out to help us clean up our urban waterways, to help remove the trash, to help beautify our communities.

So you're all here today helping as a commitment to part of your communities.

Guru Ji, please guide us, give us the wisdom so we may continue to have this kindness, this sensitivity towards nature, sensitivity towards other living beings.

So this planet remains healthy and living on harmonious for future generations.

My obligation to this community or our community is to be a good citizen of this country.

Good citizen of this land, good citizen of this environment, of this Earth.

So I can do my part to leave it like the way I got it, to leave it for the next generation.

The responsibility falls on everyone, right?

Everyone needs to take some sort of action in making sure that we're doing the best we can to protect this precious environment that we have.

VOLUNTEER: If our creator can be found in the creation, then we have a responsibility, a civil responsibility to ensure that we are living up to those values by taking care of the environment.

Think of the wind, think of the sky, think of the earth, all of them as your family members and take care of them just like you would of your own family.

ROSEN: So the idea of ecological environmental responsibility is that at the heart, both of scripture as well as the rabbinic tradition and which is elaborated so beautifully upon in the writings and the teachings of Guru Nanak.

[ship horn blows] JUERGENSMEYER: It's an interesting comparison.

The journeys of Guru Nanak and the journeys of Sikhs as a people.

And I've often thought that perhaps one of the reasons why Sikhs are so entrepreneurial, why they're so adventuresome is that there is this heritage, there is this part of their tradition that goes back to the iconography, the stories of Guru Nanak as a traveler.

Farming's a very big deal in the Punjab and the opportunities for farming are limited in such a closed space in India.

But in the new world, in the United States, particularly in North America, there are new opportunities and they came down into Washington state and then Oregon, Astoria and then finally into California by the first decades of the 20th century.

But it wasn't always easy because as you may recall from your knowledge of American history, Americans haven't always treated immigrants very well, and the Sikhs unfortunately were targets of some of this racist hate.

In Bellingham, Washington and Astoria, they were very ugly riots early on in the history of the Sikhs trying to simply make their way to try to become good citizens and farmers and develop their livelihood in the new world.

But that's not the way they were always treated.

But eventually they came back down to California and it was in Stockton, California in the Central Valley that the Sikhs first established a gurdwara.

And that was their first opportunity that Sikhs had to have their own house of worship in North America.

And it still stands.

The Central Valley of California there's still a large thriving Sikh community.

I mean, you go out there to places like Stockton or Yuba City or Marysville or Fresno, you feel like you're going back to the Punjab.

Overall it was great.

I mean crops that looks pretty decent.

And you can see that's all the way to the top of the trees.

I think it's going to be a decent year.

JASWANT SINGH BAL: Our farming operation, we grow almonds and grapes.

We've been living in the Central Valley for over 40 years and we are a part of the American fabric.

GURPAL SINGH BAL: There's a lot of risk that comes with farming, a lot of unknown risks such as weather, market stability, expenses, things of those nature because it's not like your everyday office job where you're getting a paycheck every two weeks.

VARINDER SINGH NIJJER: : We're here in Madera, California the heart of California, the closest thing to the geographical center of California actually as well.

We grow about a thousand acres of almonds and about 460 acres of wine grapes.

What kind of led me into farming was our family's history.

My great grandfather started farming in India, Punjab, India, Northern India and he was a successful farmer there.

And when my father and uncle came here into Central California they brought some of those same values here and also became successful farmers.

I think it's important as American citizens for us to show the world that not only can we coexist here together coming from different backgrounds, but we can also thrive in our individual communities.

Our religion has a saying that our founder Guru Nanak Dev Ji had said, which was live and let live.

So what that translates into is not only do we want to see our community thrive, we want to see other communities, other religions, other cultures thrive together.

[engine starts] It makes me feel really good about being a farmer because we grow that crop.

And we know one day that's going to be a meal for someone and that makes me feel very good.

Being attached to nature, working hard and providing for others.

And that's what Sikhism is all about.

When my family migrated here, they had to earn an honest living each day by working as farm laborers.

And they allowed us the opportunity to go to school and get an education and it didn't require us to work from dawn to dusk each day.

And they taught us morals and values of Guru Nanak that helped us throughout our lifetime that my wife and I will pass on to my son on his journey.

Yeah, around the [inaudible], all the way around.

Yeah, all the way around.

Sikhism is a vibrant part of American culture.

It's not some other alien that's kind of grafted on American culture.

It is a part of American culture and I think that has implications for Sikhism as a tradition.

It certainly has implications for us Americans as a culture.

And most of those implications I think are great because we have the opportunity to gain from the world's experience.

[chanting] Nanak's traveling days were over and he came and he settled down in a place called Kartarpur on the banks of the River Ravi in Punjab.

[chanting] KAMLA KAPUR: Guru Nanak is very humble.

He never points to himself.

His finger always points to the Supreme Power.

So he calls this settlement, Kartarpur, the City of God.

[chanting] NAVTEJ SARNA: And he set up a community, a community of like-minded people, a community of people who were in tune with this message, a community of people who came to see what his thoughts were, listen to his discourses.

[] He was insisting that there was a new way to be and that this new way to be was to be kind and not egotistical and not harm people with your livelihood and be too aggressive.

In many ways, began to show in practice what he had been preaching.

[chanting] At Kartarpur, Guru Nanak led a humble life.

He farmed his land for 18 years and making it an important point that you can live a normal family life and still attain salvation and enlightenment.

[chanting] JUERGENSMEYER: One of the remarkable things about the Sikh community is its democracy.

The feeling that everybody has a voice, anybody can say something and they do.

[laughs] The arguments and the fights, the Sikh politics are really very vibrant in part because this sense that the community, everyone is equal.

Everyone has a voice.

And that goes back to Guru Nanak that kind of revolutionary spirit, that kind of radical democracy goes back to the very founding of the tradition and Guru Nanak was the founder.

The values of Sikhism that were grained in the teachings of Guru Nanak are also found in our founding documents as a country here in America.

So there is no inconsistency between being a Sikh and being an American because the values of Guru Nanak are virtually identical, if not identical [to] the principles that are enshrined in our Bill of Rights and US Constitution.

[wind blowing] [horn blows] BHALLA: I think the people of Hoboken elected me as mayor because they took a deeper dive beyond simply my appearance and listened to what I believed in on substantive issues that Hoboken residents cared about.

When I first decided to run for office, the whispering campaign in Hoboken was that Mr. Bhalla is unelectable.

Unelectable was the key word.

And people would ask why?

And the whisper campaign was because he's not one of us.

Sikhs throughout their history in America have always wondered whether or not it's possible to be successful in America without relinquishing their identities as Sikhs.

Whether or not there's a conflict between being a Sikh and being an American and in the public square which has never been tested before at this level, whether or not America is ready for a Sikh mayor.

[chatter] The reason why we are attending the black history month commemoration at the Hoboken Housing Authority is because I feel as mayor, it's important to reinforce and really underscore that Hoboken is a very diverse and welcoming community and really showcase those values.

[indistinct chatter] [applause] Even though we have struggles, even though we have injustices, even though there is inequality that exists in our community every single day, it's incumbent upon every single one of us to do their small part to uplift your neighbors, your friends, anyone who needs help.

And that's really what I think makes Hoboken so special is that in times of need, in times of crisis, we come together as a community.

[crowd chatter] One, two and three.

PRINCIPAL: At Hoboken Catholic Academy, our international night is one of our most popular events of the year.

It brings all of our school community together in an opportunity to learn about the different cultures that are represented here at our school.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to introduce the Mayor of Hoboken, the honorable Ravi Bhalla.

[applause] Good evening, everyone.

I just want to say, I just want to thank you for having me here.

It makes me proud as your Mayor to see the diversity and the community that's represented here.

And I think what we see here is reflective of not just Hoboken, but what America is all about.

It's about shared values, sharing cultures coming together, and learning from others.

[applause] Mayor Bhalla represents the entire community and in so doing, the people in our school, the families that are represented in our school understand and appreciate that.

They know that he has the best interest of the entire community at heart.

I think that the fact that Mayor Bhalla, he won at the election and is accepted as well as he is speaks volumes throughout the community.

I think that is a fundamental message that Guru Nanak tried to spread is the message of love and the message of service.

And as mayor of Hoboken these are two central thoughts that Guru Nanak has gifted to me as Mayor of Hoboken, that it's very important to be an effective mayor, to love the people you lead and to serve the people you lead with love and compassion.

Jesus and Guru Nanak, I think, shared a love of people, a love of people.

You can see that in the teachings of both Jesus in the gospels, the way he interacts and the way in which he reaches out, the way he teaches, the way he heals, the way he embraces.

You can see it in the way Guru Nanak's teaching deals with people.

[chanting] KAUR SINGH: Women are given a very important voice in Guru Nanak, their spirituality, their epistemology, their knowledge, their vision is greatly honored, greatly respected by Guru Nanak.

Guru Nanak was a feminist, a revolutionary feminist.

His times, women were very under a lot of oppression.

Women were under, there was veiling, purdah, for women, their roles were circumscribed.

They had to die on the funeral pyres of their husband.

This is sati where the woman actually emulated herself.

They were not allowed to be in the kitchen when they were menstruating for example.

They were thought to be unclean.

They were thought to be unclean after they gave birth because there's all this, her flesh involved.

All of these were full of negative codes.

Woman was really polluted and Guru Nanak switches it all around.

He says, why call her polluted?

She's the one who gives birth to great kings and royalty.

And one of the main things that Guru Nanak did to champion the female cause is he said that the supreme deity that you call God is neither male nor female.

So Guru Nanak was very far ahead of his times.

SHAMINA SINGH: So part of our work has really been focused on this idea of lifting women up.

The tremendous amount of purchasing power and the decisions that are made about the financial assets in the home mostly are made by women around the world.

The problem is that they don't have access to the resources in the way that they need to in order to make the most effective decisions.

The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth was started in 2014.

And so we've spent the last couple of years really thinking about how we work inside a place like Mastercard, who's in the business of connecting buyers and sellers who can't see each other to social good and social impact.

I started out raised in a small town in southern Virginia by parents who came from India and who very much believed in the power of civic responsibility and the power of giving back and the power of making sure that everybody felt included.

And so what I thought we'd do today is... SHAMINA SINGH: The special program that we have is built on years and decades and a history of an eye towards service and an eye towards the dignity of all human beings.

How are we helping make sure that they're ready for what's coming?

Especially in Bangladesh but it's true in a lot of different markets.

Women oftentimes don't have control over the financial resources that they earn.

And so what happens is on payday, the husband's line up outside the factory gate, wait there, demand the money, and then off they go.

Natasha, if you could update on the Jaza Duka shop owners in Kenya.

When we went into a shop and started talking to her, you could really see the impact that the product was having on her shop.

So everything from expanding the range of product that she carries in the stores, which is attracting more customers to being able to get more credit to buy more and sell more.

Around the world women occupy artisan co-ops.

One of the artisan co-ops is a group that we're working with called Industry.

And basically what Industry does is they work with women co-ops and the women of Tamil Nadu who are making baskets and we're working with them to build out their business training skills.

Not their craftsmanship because they're very good at that, but helping them build out their businesses in such a way that allow them to be more successful.

Faith in my faith is a cornerstone of everything that I do.

Of course Nanak was somebody who talked about the work of faith.

How do you make your time on this earth matter?

And why is that important?

And for me personally, that's a huge motivator for why I do this work and why I've chosen this path.

Guru Nanak definitely rocked the boat when he was in his life, he rocked the boat in many different ways.

But I think the most profound effect he had was on the caste system.

He was a person telling them that the caste system, the stratification of human beings into four levels and many sub-levels was wrong.

That human beings stood up as human beings, as souls of that divine creator.

Now this was something that the Hindu society could not tolerate because their whole social order was based on this structure and as a result of it, the local Hindu priests, wherever he went would oppose his thought and try to oppose him.

If they keep each section of society separate -- and you can do that by making them think that one is higher and one is lower, one is higher and one is lower.

Discrimination is the key to human success in terms of money.

And I think that Guru Nanak caught onto the fact that people were exploiting this in the name of religion when they actually didn't know what their religion teaches.

So I think that Guru Nanak was not only a visionary, but he was the man at the right time and the right place for a need that was there within his society to be able to focus on the essential truths and move away from some areas which had been used as tools of abuse through the institutions of the religions around him at the time.

[crowd chatter] NAVTEJ SARNA: Food was a big thing at that time.

It was part of the caste system.

Who cooked your food?

What are you eating?

Who are you eating with?

Who touched your food on the way and all that sort of thing.

With one institution that of the communal kitchen, this was all blown to bits.

[] One of the best examples of the cooking and the serving of the langar that you can see is at the golden temple in Amritsar, where thousands of people will be eating at every meal.

[] SINGH GUMAN: The word langar is an Indian word for community kitchen.

You see, the idea is not just to be sitting and eating together.

The idea is to be preparing the food together too.

The idea is to be able to through the food, build relationships.

The idea is through the food to be able to bring equalization to our way of being.

Poor, rich, of different religions are all sitting together on the floor and sharing a good meal, a meal which is nutritious, a meal which is very nice to prepare, a meal which gives you nutrition in such a manner that you also feel the most beautiful idea of oneness.

[] The vats and the cordons are probably so big, in my opinion probably the largest in the world, which could have people as large as me dealing with the stirring of the lentils.

And hence you'd be surprised that the number of people who work over there, 90% of the people are all volunteers.

They're not paid a single pie.

They come out of their daily works or to the daily chores, whatever amount of time they can give to cooking langar to serving langar, to washing utensils.

They all partake in that community service.

[] To somebody meeting the Sikh community for the first time, it's incredibly impressive to see the way the gurdwara functions.

[chanting] First of all, I didn't need to worry about it being kosher because they're completely vegetarian.

It was wonderful to come to a place where everybody has to cover their head when they eat as I do.

You have to wash your hands before you as Judaism teaches.

It was almost like a sense of coming home.

But the most wonderful thing was to see all these volunteers seeing they're providing hospitality and care for others as a religious duty with devotion and with love.

It was enormously impressive.

SONNY KAKAR: So my motivation for founding SevaTruck was inspired by my faith.

Sikhism the founding prophet was Guru Nanak and he left us a legacy of langar, which is sharing food within your community.

And Seva means commitment to lifelong service.

And so SevaTruck was an idea where we could take a food truck throughout the community and provide free meals for anybody who need and serve humanity.

We're seeing one, seeing God and all humanity in all creation and living out this legacy that Guru Nanak left for us.

[indistinct chatter] COOK: A warm meal in a belly is often taken for granted.

But we've got a lot of folks in our communities surrounding areas that could use a warm meal.

VOLUNTEER: My work volunteering with the children has taught me that there are so many families who are not able to provide food for their children or really nourishment for any child that they may have in their household.

Volunteering can be that first start of a process that really helps a bigger group of people who are less fortunate than you are.

As a Christian, like serving other people.

It's needed, it's our mission like for everyone.

It's not just one religion that needs to help someone, it's all the religion.

It has to be everyone's mission.

SONNY KAKAR: The need to address food insecurity is tremendous.

There are schools where a predominance of the children that go there are either on reduced or free meals and so they'll get breakfast and lunch provided to them in schools.

The concern is though, in the evening and weekends.

So on a weekly basis, we have about four places that we go to serve kids in our community.

So in about an hour and a half, we can distribute anywhere between 150 to 300 meals.

[indistinct chatter] PRINCIPAL: As a community, school community, we agreed to partner with the SevaTruck program outreach because we have a high poverty community.

We have many families that are working two and three jobs just to make ends meet.

And that food sometimes is not maybe the first thing that they can support their kids, but it's something that they want for their kids and something they need so that our kids can focus on an education and not worry about hunger.

SONNY KAKAR: The legacy of Guru Nanak specifically related to langar is phenomenal.

500 years later, the entire Sikh community worldwide provides langar and free food to the communities that they're in.

And so that's been inspirational to me specifically in America where we've had to come up with the concept of SevaTruck which goes out to where the needs are.

Whereas in India, that may be people come into the temples.

Here in order for us to be really active, we need to go where the need is and I think that it's been inspirational at the legacy of Guru Nanak's concept of langar has found different shapes and forms and in this case, it's through a food truck that goes to the communities where there is the greatest need.

REV.

CHANE: The role of compassion in the teachings of Guru Nanak and part of the core of the theology and the teaching of Sikh monotheism has to do with a powerful gift, if you will.

We'll use the word compassion.

Compassion is a word that's broken down and it really means bearing the burden of others, compassion.

That's what the word really translates out to mean, bearing the burden of others.

One of the biggest things I was learning I was growing up was the teachings of Guru Nanak.

This sharing of pain, the sharing of poverty was one of the big themes.

I was a general neurosurgeon up until 2004 but in the 1990s everything started changing.

In the 1990s I lost my daughter to cancer.

I don't usually share that; for the first decade, I couldn't even talk about it.

I didn't talk about it much to anybody.

I was very distressed.

But now I feel like I can share it.

I share it with my patients because ever since 2004 I'm primarily dealing with cancer.

I can talk about the sufferings, I can talk about the compassion, the contentment that comes now by giving care to my patients is helping me not just my patients alone, it's also helping me to cope with it.

I happened to notice a lump under my arm and went to see the surgeon and was diagnosed with stage three of melanoma, which is skin cancer, and I did scans and stuff for several years and then in 2007, I did a brain scan that showed that the melanoma had metastasized to my brain and that's when I went to see Dr. Sahni and he recommended that I have gamma knife surgery.

Gamma knife is a very highly sophisticated procedure which involves radiation.

It's basically cobalt radiation that is used as a very precision guided method of targeting different parts of the brain.

When you hear the word surgery and you hear the word knife, you assume there's going to be some cutting.

People get scared of the word knife.

There is no knife involved.

That's a misnomer because these are beams with the precision of a knife.

Once the plan is ready, then the patient is brought to the treatment room right here.

I went in and it was eight seconds long and I rolled me right back out and I sat on the side of the bed and they said, "You want to go home?"

And I said, "Sure."

That's remarkable.

And life-giving, I think.

I don't think you get a doctor as good as Dr. Sahni.

He's kind, he's compassionate, he's brilliant.

He takes time with me and patients that see him have often life-threatening illnesses.

They need someone that's not in a hurry.

I can say all that about him.

I get a little anxious in the MRI.

Can I get a little something to take?

Some Ativan.

My patients many a times when they talk to me, how I care for them, I said, I want for you what I would want for my own family member.

All right, look up here.

My faith is specifically from what I've learned growing up from the teachings of Guru Nanak is how to be able to be part of their pain, be part of their sufferings.

He did that entire life when he will go to the poor people's home if they were suffering and they were in pain and he was healing them by his compassion.

I as a Sikh, at this stage of my life in the modern era, look at Pope Francis, and it really reminds me of Guru Nanak.

He goes to the poor.

He touches their heart.

He touches their feet.

He is a very big believer of the teachings of Guru Nanak.

He may not know that.

I would love somebody to meet Pope Francis, shake his hand, kiss his hand, and tell him, I see Guru Nanak in you.

[chanting] SINGH GHUMAN: When you sing gurbani kirtan, it's a beautiful feeling.

A feeling I very strongly believe cannot be put into words.

And when you sing the word of Nanak you feel Nanak, you feel the presence of Nanak.

And that is what I feel when I sing gurbani kirtan.

[chanting] KAMLA KAPUR: Singing is at the very heart of Sikhism.

It is the marriage of sound and sense -- meaning and music brought together.

[chanting] The tradition of the Kirtan, which is singing the poetry that he was writing.

So it's all set to classical music.

[chanting] Because music has that power.

It is a direct connection with the divine and it's a hotline to God.

[] NAVTEJ SARNA: And this society, this community really from the genesis of the new Sikh community or the new followers of Nanak in Kartarpur.

So in many ways that was the final phase of Guru Nanak's life.

[] KAUR SINGH: And when he was passing, when he was about to pass away, people were predicting what do we do?

As you know, the Hindu and Muslim traditions are quite different.

One is from the Abrahamic tradition.

One is the Indic tradition.

One bury their dead, the other cremate their dead.

So at Guru Nanak's passing away, what are they going to do?

Because he's a universal figure.

He's revered by both and Guru Nanak's words are leave the flowers on my left side and my right side and whichever flowers are in bloom, go and follow that ritual.

[] Guru Nanak passes away and when they come, what do they see?

The body is gone and all there are is flowers and the flowers on both sides, right and left are blooming so the Hindus take theirs and cremate the flowers, follow their own ritual, the Hindu way and the Muslims follow their own ritual.

They bury the flowers and that's how people remember him.

DR. SINGH: Guru Nanak was succeeded by nine different Gurus, many of whom wrote many hymns expanding Guru Nanak's philosophy and their writings became part of the Sikh scriptures Guru Granth Sahib.

Guru Nanak took another revolutionary step out of the ordinary by including the hymns written by people of diverse backgrounds.

The Hindu background, the Muslim background throughout the South Asia and their writings are also included in the Sikh scriptures.

We can see now that almost instinctively he was weaving a tapestry in which different threads from different faiths and different beliefs were being woven together.

And at the end of it, history has been able to see that what he's left behind are not different threads, but a very skillfully woven tapestry, which has no beginning and which has no end, but which is a beautiful image of human tolerance and human universality.

[chanting] DR. SINGH: So when Sikhs bow to Guru Granth Sahib, they not only pay respect to Guru Nanak and other Sikh Gurus, they are paying respect to all these different enlightened souls.

[chanting] KAUR SINGH: Guru Granth Sahib, the holy volume is the center.

All ceremonies, all rituals revolve around it.

[chanting] RABBI ROSEN: The Sikhs are the most dramatic example of a people that venerate scripture to the degree that it is in fact the absolute authority within the community and is central also to its religious liturgy and that's the Guru Granth Sahib which is its primary text.

In that sense, Sikhs are literally the people of the book and the book therefore is central to Sikhism.

Just as the book is central within the Abrahamic traditions.

[chanting] KAUR SINGH: Guru Nanak's Japji hymn, which is the morning prayer for the Sikh, is really the quintessence of his philosophy, of his ethics, of his aesthetics.

So its content is very significant, but it's also stylistically very beautiful.

It has 38 stanzas which develop the mind, consciousness, spirit to higher and more intense levels of being.

[chanting] KAMLA KAPUR: What does the word Sikh mean?

Sikh comes from a Sanskrit word, shishya, which means a disciple, a student, a person who wants to learn.

So all Sikhs are learners.

They are people who are disciples.

They are students of life.

[] KAUR SINGH: Guru Nanak's philosophy, Guru Nanak's vision, Guru Nanak's teaching, style can be summed up in a short verse of his from Sikh scripture.

And it's full of questions.

What was the hour?

What was the time?

What was the season?

What was the month when creation was born?

[] I think there's nothing like celebrating the 550th anniversary of Guru Nanak's birth by doing what he wishes.

In the Buddhist tradition, the way of honoring a Guru is not just by touching his feet and singing his praises and doing reverence and so forth.

The real way to honor a Guru is to execute his teaching and to be a good person to others in the name of that Guru.

That's what it is.

And so that's what Buddhas should do in the name of Buddha and Sikhs should do in the name of Guru Nanak on Guru Nanak's 550th anniversary.

[] The one thing I find meaningful and I prize it above everything else that I know of Sikhism is Guru Nanak's singular call to really understand the essence of one's tradition.

Is it in all of the bells and the whistles?

Is it in all of the rituals and the outward identity issues or is it about the essence?

Is it about the truth?

Is it about really seeking out that which makes us divine, which makes every living being divine?

[] The quintessence of Guru Nanak's vision, message, life, personality is the universality of us all.

He respected all scriptures.

He respected people from all different religions.

In fact, he says so in his own verse, all scriptures are sacred.

All scriptures are beautiful.

The problem lies in us human beings who do not see that oneness, [speaking in Hindi].

We do not recognize the one, that's our problem.

We see it every day.

We see it in anti-Semitism, we see it in Islamophobia, we see it in terms of what's been done in the Sikh community.

We see it even in our own Christian traditions with the burning of black churches.

This is not the world that God created.

God created human beings as Guru Nanak would say, of being whole, possessing the great gifts that God has to give and the responsibility is to give those gifts away to make the world better.

I know it makes some people scared.

It makes some people nervous and of course we see that in our political life where people are just so frightened of multiculturalism and so frightened of others coming in because they realize that it's not just tolerating other people.

It means having to change themselves.

Having to think differently about who you are.

Because to accept Sikhism as a part of your culture, is going to transform you.

And that's the challenge for all of us in the global era.

It is therefore very important for us to know about other traditions, about other heritages, about other practices in order that we can celebrate them and see the diversity of the beauty of divine worship within our world at large.

And for me, the message that Guru Nanak Dev Ji brings, of peace, of harmony, of rationality, of understanding, of education, of charity, of kindness, of reaching out to the poor, to the vulnerable in society is vital.

Is absolutely essential in today's world.

And I would want the world to appreciate and applaud the presence, the activities, and the initiatives taken by the Sikhs.

And I really think as a first step, the world needs to understand the founder of the Sikh faith.

And having found the founder of the Sikh faith to acknowledge that he indeed is the prince of interfaith understanding.

We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today We are the people The people of love Let us people Love today Love [music continues] [children shout] [music continues] [] ANNOUNCER: To purchase a DVD for home use of Guru Naka: The Founder of Sikhism - Life & Legacy, call 1-800-361-1550.

$19.95 plus shipping and handling.

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