Week 11 Extra Credit Reading, Guru Nanak

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Guru Nanak: The Founding Guru of Sikhism

Nanak grew up as an exceptionally talented and intelligent child. He was known to many as a fair, wise, and just man who reaped blessings from his god.

There seem to be many parallels between his acts and the story of Christ in terms of how he treated people. His conduct at the market when his father sent him to strike a profit but he fed the poor instead or his stay at the house of Lalo instead of the local rich administrator parallel the good deeds that Christ is told to have done.

Eventually, after Nanuk had been taught everything that could be taught to him by any of his masters and he had successfully worked in the fields, he decided that he must leave home and teach men how to do and be good. This is where the story loses me. 

He goes off and leaves his family behind to be protected by the god that he serves. But, when he eventually returns to settle down, he seeks to find a protégé to pass his mantle to. He presents a challenge to which his disciples and his sons are expected to react to. He throws a bowl into the sewer and he rewards one of his disciples for pulling the bowl from the sewer without hesitation. It seems to me that if he had invested more time into his sons instead of his disciples, he would have had sons who acted as his best disciples. I am calling out the old proverb that you reap what you sow.

Is this just a contemporary western way of seeing this? While I appreciate his aptitude for seeing through nonsense, am I missing the moral of the story for a modern value system?

Bibliography:

G. S. Mansukhani & Naniki Mansukhan, 

Guru Nanak, Amar Chira Katha Comic Book