Aarti

Aarti (Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji, Ang 663), a shabad by Guru Nanak,  is a universal anthem in the praise of one and only one creator/force whose light is everywhere! Guru Nanak Dev ji wrote and composed aarti in Raag Dhansari at the Jagannath Temple in Puri (in the state of Odisha, East India), a famous Hindu temple. In 1506, during his first udassi (travel to the east), Guru Nanak visited the revered Jagannath Temple, where devotees were celebrating Lord Jagannath's day by singing, praying, and revolving big plates full of lamps, pearls, flowers, incense sticks in front of their idol. It was a wonderful ambiance, all the devotees were fully immersed in the prayer. 

When they saw Guru Nanak not joining them, they invited him to join and sing with them, but Guru Ji refused to join them. Surprised, they asked for the reason. Guru Ji told them that the idol they are worshiping is made by humans is not God. There is only one creator/force/God who is shapeless, timeless, omnipresent, and eternal. "He is present in every element of the universe, every living being, in you and me." Guru Ji explained, "The creator's grandeur is beyond our conceptions which we cannot sing by mere revolving plates full of garishly attractive articles (lamps, pearls, flowers, incense, etc.). Nature itself is performing the grand prayer where the sky is a plate containing the sun and the moon as lamps, and galaxies as the pearls, revolving around the center of the universe making natural mellifluous sounds of music and singing praises of one creator!"