There is a small river near Sultanpur, and it is called the Bein.
Every morning before it was light, Guru Nanak Dev Ji walked out to that river, bathed in it, and sat down on the bank with his eyes closed until the sun came up. He had done it for years. It was as ordinary as bread.
One morning he went down as usual and handed his clothes to the friend who had come with him, and stepped into the water.
For a few minutes the friend watched him swimming.
And then he could not see him.
He sat and waited. He was not worried at first. Then the sky went grey, then gold, then blue, and the sun came all the way up, and the water ran on the way water does, and nobody came out of it.
The friend ran back to the town.
Everybody came. The governor of Sultanpur himself came on a horse. They sent for swimmers, and the swimmers searched the Bein, and then searched further down, and further still, for miles, all that day.
They found nothing at all.
By evening people were saying it out loud. He has drowned. The river has taken him. And they went home heavy and quiet, and there was weeping in that town.
Only one person would not have it.
Bebe Nanaki Ji, his sister, stood in her house and said: no. My brother belongs to the Lord. No river is going to drown my brother and no water is going to carry him away. This is something else. This is a wonder bigger than any of the others. Wait, and see what comes of it.
Nobody could talk her out of it.
So they waited. And down at the river, Bhai Mardana Ji walked up and down the bank with his rabab, singing, because he did not know what else to do.
One day went by. Two days went by.
Now, where Guru Nanak Dev Ji had gone in those days is not a place you can walk to, and there are no words in any language for it. It is above all the places we know, and above time itself. He had gone to be with the Lord.
And he was given a cup to drink, and the Lord said: this cup is full of my Name. Drink.
And he drank it.
And the Lord said: I am with you. Now go, and say my Name, and teach the people to say it. Stay free of the world. Be a giver. Give people the Name, and service, and charity. I have given you my Name. Now go and hand it out.
On the third day, the people of Sultanpur saw him standing on the bank of the Bein.
He was alive. Word tore through the town, and everybody came, because not one of them had expected to see his face again in this world.
But he did not explain. The governor asked him straight out what had happened, and he did not answer. He went home and began giving things away, everything in the house, until there was nothing left. Then he walked out to the empty ground beyond the last houses in the plain clothes he stood up in, and sat down. And Bhai Mardana Ji sat down beside him.
For one whole day and one whole night he did not say a word to anyone.
People came and looked at him and went away. Something has happened to him in the river, they told each other. Look at his face, though. Look how it shines.
His neighbours were sure it was an illness, and they fetched a man who claimed he could drive out whatever had got into him. The man came, and stood there, and Guru Ji opened his eyes and spoke at last.
Some say I am mad, he said. Some say a spirit has hold of me. Some say I am to be pitied.
And the man who had come to cure him looked at him and said: this is a true saint. Nothing has hold of him. And he went away.
The next day, Guru Nanak Dev Ji spoke properly, and what he said was this.
There is no Hindu and there is no Musalman.
Goodnight. His sister was right, and she was right for three whole days while everyone else was wrong.