Guru Nanak and Prayer

     Guru Nanak began to tell everyone "There is no Hindu and there is no Muslim." A Muslim leader, called a Nawab, wanted to know what he meant, so he invited Guru Nanak to do an evening prayer with him. Guru Nanak agreed. Guru Nanak just stood there during the prayer instead of bowing like everyone else.

     After the prayer the Qazi, the priest tried to confront Guru Nanak on his disrespectful behavior. "You have been invited to do a Muslim prayer service with us. You said you would join us but you didn't. Instead you just stood there while we bowed in prayer." Guru Nanak said, "I maintained my focus on God the whole time. I was internally bowing in prayer while my body remained standing. It is you who didn't do the prayer. Your mind was busy thinking about a baby horse that is in the courtyard. You were worrying that it might fall down the well in the courtyard."

     The Qazi and the Nawab looked at him surprised. Guru Nanak said to the Nawab, "And you sir, you were thinking about the horses in your possession. You were thinking of how much money you will make when you sell your horses." Guru Nanak then left on his mission to tell everyone that God is in their hearts. He taught us a great lesson that day. Whatever our religion and the rituals involved in that religion, we have to be sincere. We have to remember that God is not fooled when we don't pray with our hearts. God is with us all the time.

Read the full text:

     Guru Nanak was a grown up Man now, and He had time for Him to go out and walk all around with his friends and tell people about God. So he had friends Mardana, he was a Muslim, and Balla, he was a Hindu. Those were the religions of the day. People wondered, "Well, His friends, one is a Hindu, one is a Muslim, but He looks a little different. Is He a Hindu, is He a Muslim. What is He?" They asked Guru Nanak, and He said, "Well, you know there is no Hindu and there is no Muslim." They said, "What?! What?! What do You mean by that?" The Governor of the town heard that. There weren't any Sikhs then, there was just Guru Nanak. The Governor that He had said, "There's no Muslims." They said, "Well he can say what he wants about the Hindus, but He can't say there's no Muslims because that's our religion. That's what we do." So, he said, "Go and bring Him here!"

      The messenger went, "I'll get Him, and I'll bring Him here." But when he saw Guru Nanak, and Guru Nanak was shiny and beautiful, he thought again. He said, "Sir" very nicely instead of saying "Come on with me!" He said, "Sir, the Governor would like to see You. Would You please come with me?" Guru Nanak said, "All right.". He went and they asked, "What? Why did You say there's no Muslim and there's no Hindu? What are You talking about?" He said, "Well, you've all forgotten. You've all forgotten that if you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all. You all have your rules about this and that and the other." The Governor said, "Well, alright, maybe You're right about that a little bit. But if You don't think that You're a Muslim or a Hindu, we're going to say our Muslim prayers, would You pray with us?" He said, "Yes, I would love to. If you lead the prayers, I will."

So they have their rituals and they all bow down on their knees, but Guru Nanak stayed standing up, looking around. They were going on and on doing their prayers, He's looking around. That made the Governor very mad, and afterwards, he said, "You said You'd pray with us. Why didn't You? You weren't praying at all!"

He said, "Well, I said I would pray with you if you would lead it, and you weren't praying at all." He turned to the Quazi, who was the priest, and said, "You were thinking about the little new baby horse, the foul, that was born. You were worried it was going to fall in the courtyard well."

And he thought, "That's right, that was what was I was thinking."

He turned to the Governor and said, "And you were thinking about all the horses you were going to sell and how much money you were going to make."

And he said, "Oh, He's right, that's true, that's true." They said, "Well how can we pray then?" He said, "You have to calm your mind, and you have to inside your heart, and you have to let the Light of God shine in your heart."