Guru Nanak in Madina

CHAPTER 41 TOUR TO THE WEST-I: VISITTO MECCA The call of humanity and God which Guru Nanak had heard in his youth at Sultanpur was yet ringing in his ears. He had been to the east as far as Burma, to the South as far as Ceylon, and to the North as far as Tibet and China. In all these places he had visited the strongholds of Hindu and Muhammadan religion, had met the learned men of all sects, and had shown to them how they were not what they professed to be. To every one whom he met on his travels he brought home the lesson that it was not creed, not lip-profession, not even a belief in this or that saviour, that could help man in this journey through this life or the one to come; it was right thought, right feeling, and right act and effort, that could help man in his career. Creeds were things of this world. They helped only to divide man against man. It was character that accompanied man in his journey beyond the grave. So, wherever he went, he reformed men's character. The burden of his teaching was, 'Truth is greater than everything else, but higher still is true living.' 1 It was true life that he taught people to live, a life in which the spirit was in constant accord with and subservient to the spirit, and the human body was at the command and within the control of the ever-poised mind and soul.