Guru Nanak Jayanti, also known as Gurupurab around the world, is one of the most sacred and celebrated festivals among Sikhs to commemorate the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak. This year it is being celebrated on Monday, November 30. It is observed all across the globe to propagate the teachings of Guru Nanak. He was the first Sikh Guru and a great spiritual teacher and was born in the year 1469 in Pakistan. As a child, Guru Nanak also demonstrated great ability as a poet and philosopher.
Guru Nanak's teachings opine that everyone is equal and God lives in every heart, be it individual from any known religion, according to several ancient texts. Educational institutes like the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore have tweeted wishing everyone on Guru Nanak's 551st birthday.
"Guru Nanak Jayanti is celebrated to commemorate the birth of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. This year marks the 551st Birth Anniversary of Guru Nanak & is being celebrated today, November 30, 2020. #IITMadras wishes that this Gurpurab brings happiness and joy to you & your family!" IIT Madras wrote.
IIM Bangalore wrote "May this auspicious occasion of Guru Nanak Gurpurab bring blessings, peace and happiness in all our lives. Wishing you all a happy Shri Guru Nanak Dev Jayanti, from all of us at IIM Bangalore."
To celebrate the festival, on the eve of Guru Nanak Jayanti, people across the world visit Gurdwaras and offer prayers. Sikhs come out in a group to conduct a procession called Prabhat Pheri. It starts a fortnight before the festival. Before the birth of Guru Nanak Dev, Paath and Akhand are performed by the devotees and his disciples. The Paath is a non-stop reading of Guru Granth Sahib for a span of two days.
Devotees decorate their homes with lights, lamps and candles on this auspicious occasion. Male members of Sikh families perform a form of martial arts with traditional weapons called Gatka to mark this day.
Here are some of Guru Nanak's inspirational quotes to celebrate the great Sikh Guru's birth anniversary:
I am not the born; how can there be either birth or death for me?
Death would not be called bad, O people, if one knew how to truly die.
Whatever kind of seed is sown in a field, prepared in due season, a plant of that same kind, marked with the peculiar qualities of the seed, springs up in it.
I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of any caste.
Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant filled with the love of God.
The production of children, the nurture of those born, and the daily life of men, of these matters woman, is visibly the cause.
