When Nanak was a boy, the priest came to tie the traditional cotton thread on him in a special ceremony, as was the custom for boys his age.
Nanak looked at the thread and asked thoughtfully, “This thread will wear out, get dirty, snap, and one day be burned. What about a thread that never breaks?”
He said the true thread is woven from kindness, honesty, self-control and truth — a thread for the heart, not the body. Such a thread, he said, never wears out and is never lost. The grown-ups were amazed at the young boy's wisdom.