Top 10 Guru Nanak Quotes for Inner Awakening

Guru Nanak is the first among the ten sikh gurus & is the founder of Sikhism.

Nanak’s message was of the one god omkar that dwells in everyone & everything that exists. Nanak’s teachings in poetic essence are written in the scripture Guru Granth Sahib.

Quote 1

“Conquer your mind and conquer the world.”

Mind is an utterly powerful tool & it is in our hands every moment. We are living with it & we are not aware of it. We are mostly focused on the outside world. Our eyes are always on something outside & never on what is going on inside.

Ignorance towards Mind has set it free & works in a robotic mode. As the mind is an energy & it is a power, whichever way we direct the power, we get the same reaction thrown back to us.

The confusion & irritation of the mind cause the energies to get scattered & same kind of situations are thrown back to us. The unaware mind becomes the cause of the life of sorrows because the power is misused by the mind, it is draining huge energies in the wrong direction.

If we do not conquer the mind, it will conquer us. And this is happening in everyone’s life except a few.

Our Mind is wandering like a wild horse in a forest. It is roaming in all directions with no destination. It is taking itself in places where it gets troubled. It has no intelligence on where to go & what to do. It is out of control & is doing things that are meaningless.

To conquer the mind, we have to observe the mind first. We have to become the watcher of the mind & keep an alert eye towards it.

The awareness towards the mind is like lightning the torch in a dark room. Awareness increases the focus & clarity of the mind. The things can be seen from a completely different perspective. There is a stability of mind in the state of awareness.

Quote 2

“I am not the born, how can there be either birth or death for me?”

The real “I” is something else that we don’t have any idea about.

We have all the details about ourselves like weight, height, blood group, gender & so on. All these details are related to the physical body & if we remove the physical body then these details will also be removed.

But do will still exist if we remove the physical body? Were we present prior to birth and will we exist after the death of this physical body? Questions like this have a hidden answer within ourselves. We have to knock on the inner door to reveal the truth.

“The awakened one goes beyond the physical body, he reaches the other shore.”

Being here in this world, he doesn’t remain in this world. He has known the real “I” within him. It is ever-persisting, it was there before birth & it will remain after death. It was not born, it just entered the physical birth with the door of the physical body. It will leave the door of the physical body after death. It came & it went, it was never born & it never died.

Finding the real ”I” is the attempt of every religion. One way or another, one should reach the inner realms to experience divinity.

Religion means searching for the real identity of yourself.

It is a process of awakening the sleeping one within us. It has nothing to do with any outer thing, it has everything to do with the inner self.

There cannot be the death of the awakened one, he fears not death. He has reached the deathless within him that is untouched & safe ever, that was present before the birth & will exist after the death of the material body.

Such a person lives a life of ultimate freedom, he lives in the physical body but he is far away untouched by any physical event.

Quote 3

“I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient,
nor am I of any caste.”

Human life undergoes a series of events that happen to everyone. Childhood, young age & old age are the three stages of life. When one is born his physical body is very small, the body grows with age, and as time passes the body takes a different shape.

The body is changing every moment, it was small one day and it is bigger after some period of time. It was strong in the young age & it gets weaker in the old age.

The body changes as per its nature but does that mean we are also changing with the body?

“The inner doesn’t change, there can be changes in the mind but there is something within that never changes.”

That never grows bigger or weaker, that never becomes young or old. It was the same when one was born, it remains the same in old age and it remains the same after death.

The awakened one finds himself separate from all the material things. All the activities & theories provided by the so-called religions have nothing to do with the inner silence.

Theories cannot convey the actual facts, it has to be experienced. The caste system is labeling a human being based on his birth. It has nothing to do with the real “I” & it is only a part of society.

In the inner world, all the colors of the physical world disappear. All the labels & philosophies of the physical world make no sense in the inner realms.

They just appear to be a false identity because the real truth is revealed in the inner world. Then all the stages or events of the physical world appear to be happening to someone else & not to the real “I”.

Quote 4

“Death would not be called bad, O people, if one knew how to truly die.”

Death is the only thing that is ignored by almost everyone. Death is a topic that no one wants to hear. There are no discussions about death anywhere, people discuss parties, movies, or gossip but no one talks about death.

If someday a thought of death appears in our minds then we make ourselves busy with some other thing. We are so completely involved in life that we forget that we are walking towards death & there is going to be death of the physical body that we are living for.

Death causes fear in the mind as it takes away everything that we possess & there is no roadmap after death. No one can tell exactly what happens after death.

One who dies never returns back, and the chapter of his life gets closed. There have been so many centuries elapsed & no one who died returned back. Death is a mystery & it is a fearful mystery that no one wants to face.

The awakened ones are interested in death, they are less interested in life. They explore the topic of death because that is the place from where all the fears of life begin.

Death is the ultimate core fear of everyone including animals. They go deeper in themselves to search for the mystery of death. They investigate within themselves whether death really happens or if is there no death of anyone, it is just a shift from one phase to another.

And the awakened one experiences death before the actual death. They transcend death & go beyond it. Then death cannot scare them, it becomes a doorway to the freedom & life of eternal peace.

There is a rebirth of such a person, someone dies & a new one is born. This new one is the awakened one who has no fear of death & he has left behind all the bondages of life.

Quote 5

“As fragrance abides in the flower. As reflection is within the mirror, So does your Lord abide within you,
Why search for him without?”

We are searching in the wrong direction to find the fragrance of happiness.

We are knocking on someone else’s door for happiness & expecting them to make us happy. This kind of happiness is full of struggles & someone might reach this & after a short period of time the happiness is lost.

There is a dependency on others, we are expecting that others should act as per our wish that we will be happy. And this rarely happens, the more we expect from others, the more sad we will be.

We are unconsciously doing things as other people are doing. We have been programmed to search for happiness in outside things.

No school has taught the lessons to enter the inner world. They have been teaching competition & comparison. They have structured their system in such a way that students forget completely about themselves & their inner world. He becomes busy in defeating others & once he does it then he will be happy. This is the message that is programmed in the minds to search for happiness by coming to the top.

There is an inner way where happiness is awaiting your arrival. It is waiting for your footsteps to enter its realm.

The lord within is sending signals to bring back oneself to inner solitude. That is the place from where we have come & that is the place from where the real fragrance abides.

One who has a deep understanding of life & can see with his own eyes the futility of the outside world, starts entering the inner door in search of happiness.

Happiness flows from within & the small happy moments that we encounter also come from within. The other might look as the reason for the happiness but the happiness was within & it comes to the surface because of some event like watching a humorous or funny movie.

One has to change the direction from the outside to the inner world to reach the eternal source of happiness.

Quote 6

“With your hands carve out your own destiny.”

We are responsible for creating our own lives. The destiny isn’t predetermined, it is the outcome of the efforts in the present.

Destiny is like a blank paper, we are writing with the pen in our hands. What we write depends on us rather than anything else.

We are molding & bending our own reality with the amazing tool of mind. Mind is connecting us to the ultimate source of creation. It is a creation tool & it is like a pen in our hands & what we think about the most, occurs in life.

We have been assuming that the future is determined & as we believe this it becomes our reality because we have accepted the belief. And due to this core belief, we let things happen on their own in the default mode.

If everything was predetermined then why to do anything, our doing will not change anything because destiny is already written. This illusionary belief will only make us lose a golden opportunity in our hands in this present moment.

When we shift our belief to a new vision then we can change our destiny & we can be more than what we are then we become responsible for our lives. We can do something about our lives so that transformation can begin which everyone wants indeed.

People want things to change & they want their lives to be filled with happiness & peace. They want inner peace so that they can erase all the anger & worries within them that have made their lives hell.

When we have new beliefs about ourselves then our perspective changes. Indeed our thoughts & actions take a different direction that was never seen before.

Beliefs are like the central processing system & from there everything else is related. Our thoughts, attitudes, actions, feelings & talking are based on the beliefs planted in the mind. A new set of beliefs about carving our destiny with our own hands will change all the things in our lives.

Quote 7

“The world is a drama, staged in a dream.”

From a spiritual vision, everything we see is a dream & it will fade away, it won’t last long. The things happening to us moment by moment are disappearing.

The present moment is dissolving into the past & is lost somewhere then a new moment comes & it also fades away. It is a cosmic dream that we are living in, some invisible forces have created this dream stage of drama.

Dream means that which is not but it appears that it is. It is just like how we dream at night when sleeping, so many dreams pass by & they have no sense, they have no direction, they don’t have any logic.

When we get up in the morning, all the dreams fade away & we can see the reality as it is. We can see that it was just a horrible dream at night, it is a feeling of relief because that was not true.

“When a spiritual person meditates & reaches higher levels of consciousness, he can see the whole world as a dream.”

Everything becomes non-serious & a play for him because it is just a dream that will be not after some time. He relaxes & watches everything with a knowing consciousness that he is the watcher of the dream. He detaches himself from the dream & knows himself as a witness to the whole drama. He is not the participant but only the watcher.

When one experiences himself as separate from himself then a different life begins for him. It is a feeling of wisdom & liberation when one experiences that everything that is happening is not happening to him, it is just like a night dream that is passing by.

When something bad happens then as if it is happening in the dream just as if it is happening to a neighbor person & not to him.

He is away from all the things & like a person watching a television is separate from the pictures appearing on the screen. He also witnesses himself away from the television of the world.

Quote 8

“Do not wish evil for others. Do not speak ill of others.
Do not obstruct anyone’s activities.”

The evil side is looking at the darker aspects of anything. As everything has both sides of the coin, one is the Godly side & other is the Evil side.

We choose either of one side at a moment & the more we hold that particular side the more it expands in our lives. When a situation happens in our life, we react to that situation & our reaction is either seeing the evil aspect or it is seeing the godly aspect.

Evil attracts evil powers to us. When we start thinking negatively about other people then it is just not a thought, it has some effect. Something happens within our body & mind when we think negatively.

Wishing evil for others is primarily affecting our own bodies & minds. Other people also get a signal on a subconscious level about the negativity. They will also react in the same way by picking up the negative flow of vibrations.

Most of our time is invested in thinking about others. We are fighting in our own minds with others in an imaginary world. We drain a huge amount of energy into negative talks in our own minds.

Most of these things that we think in our mind never happen in reality. It is a result of anger & rage that we choose the evil side of things. The evil side is full of destruction & it wants to destroy & harm others but it is primarily harming ourselves. It may or may not harm others, but it already begins harming us as soon as we dive into the evil side.

If we choose to live our own lives rather than interfering in someone else’s life then the world will be a better place than before. The unnecessary & irrelevant thinking about others & then obstructing someone physically is the road to hell.

By doing this, one is not only disturbing others but creating his own future full of destruction because everything returns by the law of the universe.

Quote 9

“Like the juggler, deceiving by his tricks, one is deluded by egotism, falsehood and illusion.”

Juggler does the trick & makes the people believe something that is not in reality. He may make a man disappear or he may cut a man into pieces or he may fly a little in the air, all this isn’t real but it is demonstrated in such a way that it looks real.

Juggler himself knows that it isn’t real, he does a great job of tricking people. People are amazed by the show & they have their emotions flowing through them. They might get excited, feared, or shocked by watching something that is an illusion.

There are also inner jugglers that are playing tricks in our inner world. They are doing a great job of deceiving our perceptions & making us see the things that are not the way we think they are.

They do the trick in such a way silently that no one doubts their fakeness indeed one is not even aware of their existence. But they exist in an invisible form & are working within us every now & then.

More a person is unaware, the more he will fall into the trap of magic. Unaware person already operates as if he is sleeping, he has no conscious awareness of what he is doing & where he is.

He is lost in his own dream world & is far away from the present moment. His unawareness is inviting more illusions to embrace him so that he can be fully occupied with the trick. Such a person will always fail in life because the trick ends sooner or later & the reality comes to the surface. Reality cannot be buried, it will reveal itself one day or another.

Aware person knows all the tricks of the ego & he is consciously aware of the falseness of them. He is a focused person & is completely aware in the present moment.

He doesn’t allow his mind to drift into the dream world & on the contrary he practices the present moment awareness. He is right here in this moment aware & alert away from all the illusions of the egoistic world.

Quote 10

“False is the body, false are the clothes, and false is beauty.”

All the false things fade away after some period of time. They are temporary in nature & will be destroyed some other day.

Body is a physical vehicle & it is clear that it is going to fall down & never return back. The physical body is an amazing tool & it is a living miracle & as a nature of law, it has been given time to survive. It has various stages of growth from childhood to very old age, and the same pattern follows for every human being.

We know the body dies & it is in a sense false then the question arises what is truth? Temporary is false & permanent is the truth. The body is temporary & one living within the body is permanent.

The body is the vehicle & there has to be a driver of the vehicle. This driver is hidden behind the scenes, we can see the vehicle of the body with eyes but the one who is driving cannot be seen with eyes.

“Temporary things are visible to physical eyes, permanent has to be experienced within.”

We have been focusing on the false & the physical & treating it as the only dimension. We are unaware of the non-physical dimension, the permanent phenomenon that exists within.

In the chaos of everyday activities, we have forgotten the true nature that resides within us. And when we choose one direction then everything starts happening as in that direction. When we choose false, then everything false will follow. There are so many aspects of the physical body & one gets completely involved in decorating & designing the physical body.

The non-physical dimension remains unexplored & it is not that it is only available for special people on earth. It is available to anyone who chooses to explore it & the ocean of bliss is hidden somewhere in the inner realms.

When we understand the falseness of the outside world, we begin to walk in another direction towards the truth of the inner world.