Following a decade as a principal engineer, Manjit Guleria founded a leading gasoline wholesale business operating in New Jersey. Manjit Guleria is also involved in local civic and religious organizations. He is a former member of the Affordable Housing Committee of the New Jersey township of Hopewell, and also served as president of the Sikh Sabha of New Jersey, a role in which he helped raise funds that financed capital projects and education programs to teach the tenets and history of Sikhism.
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that originated in Northern India. It was founded by the spiritual leader Guru Nanak, who was born in 1469 in what is now Pakistan. He was born to a wealthy family and worked as a shopkeeper until he had a religious experience at the age of 30. After this awakening, Guru Nanak traveled across India and many parts of the world to share his spiritual insights.
He verbalized his spiritual teachings through numerous poems, which are compiled in the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Nanak preached against social divides, such as the caste system and women inequality. He also, emphasized the importance of earning a living through honest work, sharing your resources with others and daily meditating on the divine. Before his death in 1538, Guru Nanak appointed a successor. This tradition continued until the early 1700s, when the then Guru Gobind Singh passed on the duties of educating future Sikhs to the text of the Guru Granth Sahib. Today, there are more than 24 million Sikhs worldwide and more than 250 temples in the United States.
