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| - In the 239 years of leadership provided by the Sikh Gurus in human form, many powerful lessons have been left for the Sikhs and for other people of the world to learn from. Beginning in 1469, with the birth of their founder, Guru Nanak until the demise of the tenth master Guru Gobind Singh in 1708, the history of the Sikh Gurus is packed full of numerous events, incidents, occurrences, celebrations, confrontations, unions, etc some of which give a clear and unique message and direction to the interested reader. These events in history are an example for the followers of the Gurus to learn from; to gain spiritual guidance and insight from; and to mould ones life to the path of dharma or righteousness.
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| abstract
| - In the 239 years of leadership provided by the Sikh Gurus in human form, many powerful lessons have been left for the Sikhs and for other people of the world to learn from. Beginning in 1469, with the birth of their founder, Guru Nanak until the demise of the tenth master Guru Gobind Singh in 1708, the history of the Sikh Gurus is packed full of numerous events, incidents, occurrences, celebrations, confrontations, unions, etc some of which give a clear and unique message and direction to the interested reader. These events in history are an example for the followers of the Gurus to learn from; to gain spiritual guidance and insight from; and to mould ones life to the path of dharma or righteousness. The Sikh religion appears to be somewhat unusual in the way that it was created. Most other world religions have had a short span of birth of perhaps 40 to 70 years. But Sikhi took a much longer period in its creation phase. Ten human leaders were needed to nurture it into a fully fledged world religion. Guru Nanak laid down the foundations of this faith and each subsequent Guru added to and reinforced the work done by his predecessors. In this way the light of Nanak was carried by 9 other souls until the Guruship was handed over to the Guru Granth Sahib in 1708 by the last human Guru of the Sikhs - Guru Gobind Singh. The central message of Guru Nanak is that of one God – Ek Onkar. The one God is the creator, sustainer and destroyer of all; all are equal before Him. The second message is one of equality of all human beings; to see God in all and hence to respect every person in the same way irrespective of their gender, race, caste, social status, nationality, ethnicity, class, ability, level of talent, etc. The third message is to live the life of a householder (gristi) – to accept the responsibility of family and community life; to meditate on God while carrying out ones duty to ones family and to society; to serve and support the community; and to offer security to all within society. In this regard, the ninth Nanak, Guru Tegh Bahadur provides a very valuable lesson for the Sikhs and for the other concerned peoples of the world relating to the security and protection of all human beings within our society. It is very common for communities to protect their own members ("their own"). The evidence for this, is well documented in the history of mankind. In protecting or seeking to spread their own religious beliefs or their own traditions or culture, they sometime decimate or destroy the beliefs and ways of others; when one becomes self-centred on ones “own people” or ones “own religion”, or ones “own community”; this can become the beginning of serious problems and many major conflicts have started in this way. Guru Arjan, the fifth Nanak tells us: There is only one God; he is the father of all; we are all His children. So it is important that we treat every other human being as an equal and as a brother or sister; a father or mother; a daughter or son depending on their age relative to ours. If we fail to do so, we have turned our face away from God – we cannot be called Gurmukh – one who is with the Guru; one who listens to the wise saints. Instead we will live our lives, this precious, brief existence on Earth as Manmukh or self-centred or ego-centricmen and women.
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