Chaitanya says that it is the duty of every man to adore Krishna and to perform good deeds without any expectation of rewards. Bhakti (devotion) is the channel that carries man to Krishna. When a devotee says, “O Lord, I am yours,” it is then only that he can attain Krishna.
Lastly, it must be the aim of every man to gain Krishna’s love, and Bhakti is the way that leads to it. Chaitanya defined Bhakti as an uninterrupted tendency of the heart towards God, just like the flow of a river towards the sea.
It is difficult to understand how the followers of Mohammed could ever have been induced to use the name of Krishna for that of Allah, but we know that it was so, and the same religious amalgamation between Hinduism and Islam was attempted by Nânak, the contemporary of Chaitanya. The Sîkhs, though much changed in time, are the followers of that reformer.
Nânak and the Sîkhs.
It is a pity that we possess so little trustworthy information about the original Sîkh reformers. Their sacred book, the Granth, exists, nay, it has even been translated into English by the late Dr. Trumpp. But it turns out now that Dr. Trumpp was by no means a trustworthy translator. The language of the Granth is generally called old Penjâbi, and it was supposed that a scholar who knew modern Penjâbi might easily learn to understand the language as it was four hundred years ago. But that is not the case. The language of the Granth is said to be full of local dialectic varieties and forgotten idioms, so much so that it has been said to be without any grammar at all. That is, of course, impossible, for there is method even in what we might call grammatical madness, and we may hope that such a method may in time be discovered. Mr. Macauliffe, who has spent many years among the Sîkhs, and has with the help of their priests paid much attention to their Granth, has given us some most interesting and beautiful specimens of their poetry which form part of their sacred book. Though Nânak was the chief founder of the new religion of the Sîkhs, that is of the Sishyas or disciples, other well-known poets, such as Amgada, Râmdâs, Râmânand, Kabîr, Farîd (a Mussulman), and Mira Bir, a queen, are mentioned as his helpers and as contributors to the Granth. Râmânand, a Brâhman, or rather a Sannyâsin who had renounced many of the old ceremonial restrictions, on being asked one day to attend a Hindu religious worship, wrote the following lines:—
“Whither shall I go? I am happy at home,
My heart will not go with me; it has become a cripple.
One day my heart desired to go;
I ground sandal, took attar of roses and many perfumes,
And was proceeding to worship in the temple of Brahm;