The time came to leave Patna.
Guru Gobind Singh Ji set out with his family and his companions, and they went slowly, stopping at town after town. Sikhs were spread all over that country, and at every place people came out to meet him.
At Kanshi they stopped where Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji had stayed. Guru Nanak Dev Ji had walked through Kanshi long before that, and Bhai Gurdas Ji had lived there a long while, so the sangat in that town was old and large. When word went round that Guru Ji had come, people poured in from every direction.
And a strange thing happened with the money.
People brought offerings, as people do. Guru Ji took what they brought and gave it away, the same day, to whoever was poor and whoever was in need. Then Bhai Gurbaksh Ji arrived with his whole sangat and more gifts, and those were given away too. And when the people saw that everything they brought went straight out again to the needy, they went and fetched more.
Some learned pandits heard about all this and came in the afternoon to have a look.
They were impressed the moment they saw him, and that made them uneasy, because he was young, and they had been taught that wisdom takes a long time.
One of them put the question. Your family are Khatris, he said. It is a Brahmin's right to receive offerings. It is not the Khatri way. So why do you take them?
Guru Ji's uncle started to answer, and Guru Ji answered instead.
Offerings put in front of an idol, he said, the Brahmins take. Have I set up any idol here, that I should be taking what belongs to it?
Then they asked him about the blessings people said he gave. You promise them plenty, and religion, and freedom, they said. Well, the first two you can see. But freedom only comes after a person dies. How can you promise a thing nobody can check?
And Guru Ji said: what use is a freedom you only get after dying?
When a person gets out from under his wanting and his temper and his pride while he is still walking about, he said, and takes the Lord's name inside himself, then his mind lifts, and he feels the Lord near him all the time. That is being free. And it happens here, in this life, not somewhere afterwards.
The pandits bowed their heads.
Forgive us, one of them said. We had heard how great you were, and being scholars, doubt got into us. A scholar's trouble is that he cannot believe anything until he has tested it.
They stayed ten days at Kanshi, and there was kirtan every day.
Then on and on: Prayag, Ayudhya, the place they call Guru Nanak Dev Ji Matta, Pilibhit, Lucknow, Mathura, Hardwar, one town after another, and at last a place called Lakhnaur, where a big house had been made ready so that everybody could stay comfortably.
There was one well near that house and its water was salty. The villagers came and asked Guru Ji's mother whether a new well could be dug for sweet water. She told them there was already an old well close by, hidden, that nobody remembered any more, and they went and found it exactly where she said.
Now, near Lakhnaur lived a Muslim holy man called Shah Bheek. He had already travelled all the way to Patna once to see Guru Ji. Now that Guru Ji had come to Lakhnaur, he came again with his own followers.
He arrived in the middle of a game. Guru Ji was out playing bat and ball with the other children.
And Shah Bheek walked over and went straight down at his feet, in front of everybody, while the game was going on.
You look like a child, he said, but I know who you are.
Afterwards his own people were annoyed with him. Why did you bow like that, they asked, to a Hindu saint?
He is sent by the Lord, said Shah Bheek. He will work to take away the bad feeling between Hindus and Muslims, and between one caste and another. He is a beloved of the Lord.
When he came into this world, said Shah Bheek, I saw the brightness of it from where I was sitting. That is why I went to look at him.