As is Sufi tradition, Bhikan Shah and his followers bowed towards Mecca every day. One day this respected Sufi elder bowed towards Patna. He said, "If you could see what has been born in this city, you would bow towards it as well." He decided he must go see this child Gobind Rai who would later be Guru. When with Gobind Rai he gave a funny test.....
Kalu Mehta, Guru Nanak's father, tried to get his son to make some money. He gave him some money to go buy some things in the market to sell to someone else for more money. Nanak bought some good foods for this. When he met some holy men who hadn't eaten, he gave everything to them. His father was really angry when he came back with nothing. Serving the saints is surely more benefit than money!
Once, when Guru Nanak was young, he stopped eating very much. He just stayed in his room and missed being with God. His parents got worried and called a doctor to see if he was sick. While he was being checked out, Nanak started telling the doctor all of the doctors problems. The doctor said "He's not sick, he just misses God."
As a child Nanak was only concerned with meditating on God. Even when he was sleeping, he was with God. Once he fell asleep under a tree. When the sun moved he was going to get burned by the hot rays. A cobra protected him from being woken up by spreading it's hood over him as shade. When Rai Bular saw this scene he considered this child Nanak to be very special.
When Guru Nanak was a boy he once took the cows out to graze. He fell asleep and the cows ate all the neighbors crops. When the man found out he told Rai Bular, the village chief, to punish Nanak's father. Everyone went to see the field the cows destroyed. When they got there not only were the plants OK, they were even greener than before. Because Nanak was meditating on God nothing went wrong.
Young Nanak refuses to take the Hindu traditional thread (janao) in a family ceremony. He said that the thread will wear away but his love for God will not. He told them that the thread represented some virtues so he would rather wear the virtues themselves.
Mata Ganga who was the wife of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, could not have a baby, so she went to ask Bhai Budha for this blessing. After rejecting her once, Bhai Budha accepted her offering. As he ate he crushed an onion with his fist, he said, "Your son will be a master of heaven and earth. He will crush enemies like I crushed this onion."
When Nanak was a little boy he went to school, and he wasn't interested in learning the alphabet. He only wanted to chant Gods name. His teacher asked him to recite the alphabet and Guru Nanak recited it without ever being taught. The teacher was so impressed that he fell to his knees and bowed to the young Nanak.
