Then there was the old lady who owned a rooster that crowed every morning as the sun came out. The old woman became haughty and arrogant. She told the villagers to be careful of their manners towards her because if she went away to another place with her rooster, the sun would rise no more for them.

Now it was a fact that every day when the cock crowed the sun came out, but the villagers laughed and made fun of her. They told her she was out of her senses. Finally in anger the old woman left and went to another village. There also the cock crowed and the sun came out. She thought, “Now they will beat their breasts and cry. The rooster is no longer there to make the sun rise!”

Your arguments and the old woman’s logic are very similar. It has never happened that the cock has crowed and the sun did not come out, yet you have it all backwards. But who can explain this to the old woman and make you understand too? When the old woman saw the sun come out in the new village she was certain that if it had risen there, it could be nowhere else.

Your intelligence and capacity to think is also so limited. God is not because of you; you are because of him. Your breath flows from him; not because of you. It is not you who prays; it is he who prays through you.

If this feeling penetrates your understanding, Nanak’s priceless words will become clear. Each word is a jewel.

By divine order all form was created,
But His order cannot be described.
Divine order has created all life,
And by it all greatness bestowed.

Nanak uses the word hukum, which means the divine order or the cosmic law which governs all of existence. All life is born out of the divine order, and it is hukum that gives you greatness.

When you are successful, do not consider yourself the victor. Then you will not consider defeat as your defeat. It is he who is victorious, it is he who is defeated. All is his play. In fact the Hindus look upon the whole world as play. This signifies that it is he who wins and he who loses. He wins with one hand and loses with the other; however, the apparent winners and the losers, who are no more than a means, an implement, mistakenly consider themselves doers.

Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita, “Don’t bring yourself into things. It is he who does, and he who gets things done. It is he who has brought this battle about. He will kill those he wants to kill, he will save those he wants to save. Do not imagine that you are the killer or the savior.” What Krishna has expressed in the whole Gita, Nanak has said in this sutra: It is he who has created the great and the small.