"The Divine Thread started everything.
The knower of the Thread is a yogi, his Knowledge is
beyond the scope of the Vedas.
Pearls stringed together form an ornament. The Divine Thread holds together the Universe.
The Yogi wears this Thread when he becomes aware of his Divinity.
Established in highest state of Yoga, the yogi discards the external thread.
The wearer of the Thread of Knowledge is never unclean. The Thread exists within him.
Knowledge is the greatest purifier."
--- Brahma Upanishad ---
It is a well known fact that Guru Nanak Devji studied the Upanishads, Vedas & Puranas with the help of sants, sadhus, mystics & yogis of the time. In the Shri Adi Granthji, is Nanak Dev ji saying exactly what the above sanskrit shloka is describing in the Upanishads, which was known thousands of centuries before His birth? He was born a Brahmin of the Vedi or Bedi clan who are students of any one particular Veda; there are Dvi-Vedis who study two Vedas, there are Tri-Vedis who study three Vedas & finally there are the Chatur-Vedis who study all the four Vedas - my point is that the neo-sikh talibanis, have suppressed & shamelessly distorted the famous shloka of Guru Nanak Devji regarding the Janeu of Spirituality - was Guruji actually saying the same as what was already mentioned in the Upanishads by the ancient Rishis? The bigotted Tat Khalsa Singh Sabhias were quick to include this shloka and make into a canard and into an incident within the Janamsakhis of Guru NanakDevji simply to bash Hindu traditions with. But this is what Guruji actually wrote down in Asa Di Vaar :
''Make compassion the cotton, contentment the thread, modesty the knot and truth the twist; This is the sacred thread of the Soul; if you have it then go ahead and put it on me; It does not break, it cannot be soiled by filth,it cannot be burnt or lost; Blessed are those mortal beings ( Yogis ) O Nanak who wear around their necks''.
Okay lets take a closer look at the above shloka written by Guru Nanakji & lets see how much similar it truly is to the original shloka of the Brahma Upanishad. Is there any rejection at all of the sacred thread or Janeu as far as Guruji is concerned? It certainly doesn't seem so.In fact Guruji seems to be eager to wear the spiritual thread as described in the Upanishad shloka.Nowhere is Guruji stating that he rejects wearing of any Janeu, but insists on the one that is simply described in the Upanishads by Rishis of long ago.
My argument : How does Guruji & Sikhi become non-Hindu when He was repeating exactly the same words mentioned in the Hindu Upanishads texts when describing the Janeu or sacred thread ? So why is it that the anti-Hindu bigots of the Tat Khalsa Singh Sabha seem to make such a big hue & cry about this particular shloka of Asa Di Vaar whenever they want to paint a separate identity of Sikhi ? By the way, this shloka was written by Guruji during his later years & not at the time of His receiving the Janeu from His Guru Pandit Dayal as is wrongly told to all of us by the Neo Sikhs.Remember, He was only 8 years old when his father arranged the Janeu ceremony for Him.