Guru Nanak embodied in himself a revolution - religious, social, and political. The years from A.D. 1469 until 1708 saw in the world of the Punjab the unique succession of the Ten Masters whose lives gave a pattern for the ideal type of man - The Khalsa.
The title Sikh, the Disciple, was first given to us by `Guru' Nanak, with which he linked us with himself for ever. We were mere corpses, he poured life into us. We were thus created anew by his love of us.
Rejoice! for the race of Disciples is created by the Guru.
--- Bhai Gurdas
The Sikhs are the creation of the Guru's universal love. They are, by their birth of His Spirit, citizens of the world. He did knit us with the universe and he wove tile design of the Infinite into the texture of our soul. He gave us then the Universal Song to sing; birds and animals to be our confidants, woods and rivers and hills to sing with us. Guru called the Commune of his Disciples a Panth, a Path or the Way, and it was no more a sect. It is the common road for all humanity to perfection.
All the people are the people of God,
Guru Nanak makes all the castes one caste of man!
The rich and the poor combine in one brotherhood,
From this Founder of Humanity, a new race of Love goes forth!
-- Bhai Gurdas
It is remarkable that all the Nine Followers of Nanak kept his central idea of `Spiritual Humanity' - its formation, its love, and its service, as the chief passion of their daily life, till this idea is seen emerging in perfect clearness in the time of Guru Gobind Singh, as Khalsa.
I come singing of His Nam,
and I go sowing the Seeds of Eternity.
-- The Tenth Master
(Extract from 'The Sikh Nation' by Prof.Puran Singh Ji)
