"Guru Nanak showed the way " ~ Sadhguru

" Wherever he went, Guru Nanak attracted a large group of people around him. When he came, he did not ascribe to any particular religious tenet and his teaching was universal. He initiated people into certain types of meditation and devotional practices. People could not fix Guru Nanak as belonging to any particular religion. He dressed unconventionally for a spiritual person because he didn’t want to fit into any mould that was already there. So he appeared neither like a Muslim fakir nor a Hindu saint. He designed his own clothes and wore it in such a way that they could not identify him with any particular faith.

Guru Nanak was a compassionate and courageous man. Once he was traveling by foot, walking from village to village, offering his teachings to people. He was not one of those all-the-time smiling, gentle saints. He knew when to be hard and when to be soft.  

One day, he happened to be a guest in a home of a very rich man in the area. After a few days, as he was leaving, he gave this man a sewing needle and said, ‘Keep this with you. Sometime in the future when you see me, you can give it back to me.’ After the Guru had left, the man told his wife about the incident. The wife immediately scolded the man, ‘You fool, why did you take a needle from a guru? He is an old man. Suppose he dies and you don’t get to give back this needle, what will you do? Offering him something is fine but you should not receive anything from a man like him. Else, you will be in debt forever. You will be unable to wash out that one karma, and this may mean another thousand lifetimes for you. This is not a good thing. Somehow try to find him and return it to him immediately.’  

So the man started trekking the path that Nanakdev had taken. After a couple of months the man caught up with him and said, ‘Guruji, I don’t want to carry this needle with me. You are an old man. In case you die, I would not be able to carry this needle to heaven and return it to you there. I will be in debt forever.’ Guru Nanak replied, ‘So you know that you cannot carry this needle to heaven, right?’ The man said, ‘Yes.’ ‘When you know you cannot carry a needle, what about all those other things you are accumulating? You will not be able to carry any of that either.’ The man fell at Nanakdev’s feet. He went back home, just kept what was needed for his family, and went about building whatever was needed for the wellbeing of people all around.

The world is a limited space with limited resources So whether it is individuals, societies or nations, when they go about accumulating endlessly, all that can happen is strife and pain for self and others. Unless every individual decides for himself, ‘This is what I need. The rest of my capabilities, I will use for everybody’s wellbeing,’, he is a disaster to himself and to the world. All human suffering and the suffering of every other creature has been created by our ignorance, and nothing else. And this ignorance is getting empowered by technology, and it's going all out. The true disaster on this planet is not an earthquake, volcano or tsunami. It is human ignorance. Enlightenment that comes with awareness is the only solution." ~ Sadhguru

courtesy: Sadhguru in Speaking Tree