INTRODUCTION
THE GURU’S HOUSE
One who knows the Oneness of God, wishes only well.
For one who lives in that Oneness, there is no death.
In their profound humility, lies the greatness of one who knows God.
One who realizes God, delights in doing good.
One who sees God, recognizes no limitations.
One who understands the Lord, keeps their awareness in check.
The actions of the knower of the One, are saintly and good.
Nanak proclaims, the whole world is in awe of the one who realizes their Lord.
from the sacred Sukhmani, written by Guru Arjun
The word "Sikh" was first coined by various people in the fifteenth century of our era to describe those individuals who had been infected by the buoyant spirit of a divinely inspired soul named Nanak. The life of a Sikh was minted by Nanak himself.
This Nanak travelled far and wide through the further reaches of the world of his day. Some speculate he ventured to the East as far as China. There are also those who insist Nanak was sighted in Budapest. What we know for certain is that the great saint's inspired Verses, of which there are many, are endowed with the dialects and vocabularies of a host of countries and regions other than his native Punjab.
So, while Columbus was setting out westward in search of the fabled land of the Indus and Martin Luther was defying the authority of the Pope, while the Turks were besieging Vienna and Ivan the Great's Muscovites were repelling the armies of the Khan of the Golden Horde, while the shogun of Japan was kowtowing to the Chinese emperor in the East, and Babur's Moghuls were invading India from the North, even as Vasco da Gama's seamen were pillaging its western ports, Nanak was encouraging people everywhere to live in peace and dignity, and to aspire to the highest human possibility.
Through much of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, temples still stand as reminders of Nanak's sojourns there. There are also historical accounts that say that he stopped over in Sri Lanka, and journeyed to Mecca, returning by way of the Asian hinterland, passing through the ancient cities of Samarkhand and Bukhara, visiting also the mountain kingdom of Tibet. By any account, Nanak was a well-travelled man for his time, considering especially that he journeyed with just one companion, on foot.
Nanak was so loved and admired by people that they gave him titles of respect in accord with their various traditions. In the western, predominantly Muslim, lands he visited, he was called "Pir". In the East, he was named "Guru". For the sake of simplicity and respect, we will call him Guru Nanak.
Guru Nanak saw that everywhere he went, people were suffering in one way or another. He told the people there was no need for them to live in pain. Most of them, he found lacked an appreciation of the impact of their own ways of thinking, communicating, and behaving on their ultimate happiness. They also did not realize the profound goodness alive right in their hearts.
Rather than waiting for someone to give them some secret initiation, instead of going on pilgrimages to distant lands, or just hoping for a miracle; rather than becoming lost in pointless rituals, or waiting for the parting of the heavens, or for some superhuman avatar to come and save them, Guru Nanak taught if people wanted to be truly happy and fulfilled, they needed to initiate themselves into the truth of who and what they really are.
How? Guru Nanak taught his Sikhs to rise and bathe in the dark hours before the dawn, when hope normally escapes a man, and to meditate on the profound meaning of life and on the goodness and greatness inherent in every living being.
Then, with the arrival of dawn, he instructed them to sing and celebrate each new day and practise living in a spirit of courage and compassion, recognizing each moment as a priceless gift from an ever-present Creator. Ultimately, Guru Nanak taught there was no qualitative difference between a self-realized person and Almighty God.
Some people thought the Guru's teachings were pretty far-fetched. Some considered his ideas heretical. A few thought he had lost his mind. But there were also people who recognized the beauty in what Guru Nanak was saying. And everyone could see that, day by day, the Guru and the people who believed in what he said were just getting happier and happier, and wiser and wiser, and more and more distinctive and inspired in their ways.
Out of all the Guru's followers, one man stood out from the rest. He practised Guru Nanak's teachings without fail. Year by year, this singular disciple just grew happier and happier, and more and more fulfilled, helpful, and carefree.
One day, when Guru Nanak had become quite old, he announced to his gathered Sikhs that he would not be remaining with them much longer in his familiar form. Rather, he said, they should recognize that he also lived in this one most excellent Sikh. This student had so readily and perfectly adopted Guru Nanak's teachings that, aside from physical details, there was no distinguishing between them. They were of one mind, one heart, and one being.
When Guru Nanak was no more, this Guru Angad - "Angad" meaning a limb or extension - continued to serve humanity in the enlightened tradition of his Master. Rather than travelling, he settled in the town of Goindwal, in the northwest of India, not far from the present-day border with Pakistan.
In effect, a holy lineage had been established. So it was that, for some hundred and sixty-nine years, the light of Guru Nanak lived on in a succession of the kindest and most compassionate of Sikhs.
Much happened in that time. Traditions evolved. Places of worship were built. The Guru's Divine Songs were played and sung. People were counselled and inspired. The community grew.
The fourth Guru in this lineage was a special case. While he was still a child, his parents both passed away, leaving him in the care of his grandmother, a woman of very modest means. Despite his humble circumstances, the boy excelled. Under the tutelage of the third Guru, his heart opened. His mind was awakened. Distinguished by his kindness and wisdom, he became the Guru.
Guru Ram Das established a town named Amritsar around a sacred pool of healing water. In that pool, his son would eventually build the Golden Temple, the most famous Gurdwara (literally "Guru's door") of the Sikhs. Significantly, the cornerstone was not laid by the Guru or by any Sikh. It was laid by a Muslim saint named Mian Mir, at the Guru's invitation.
The fifth Guru, Guru Arjun went on to compile the inspired Hymns of his four predecessors, together with his own and the Divine Songs of several Hindu and Muslim saints, all in one large Volume, for the enlightenment of the whole of humanity. Those Holy Verses collected together came to be known as the "Granth Sahib".
As it happened, the fifth Guru, a true creative genius, an inspired poet and a musician of the highest order, also became the first Sikh martyr. His body was burned and tortured for five days and nights at the command of the Mughal emperor before it gave up his spirit in the waters of the River Ravi.
From that day forward, the Guru's Sikhs knew they had to prepare themselves for any eventuality. They loved to live as saints, but if necessary, they needed to be ready to die for the sake of what was good and wholesome and right.
Guru Arjun was not to be the only martyr in the short history of the Sikhs. Clouds of religious intolerance swarmed with increasing persistence around the bigoted Mughal raj. An ultimatum was issued to the Hindu priests of Kashmir: If they did not renounce their faith, after six weeks they would be put to death. Finding nowhere else to turn, these wise and religious men came to the ninth successor to the holy throne of Guru Nanak.
Guru Tegh Bahadur offered to intercede on their behalf, "If the mighty emperor can convince me to give up living as a Sikh of Guru Nanak, then all Hindus should follow my example and adopt the emperor's religion. If, however, using all the means at his disposal, he cannot convert me, then the Hindus should be allowed to retain their customary faith." The ambitious emperor gladly agreed, but despite every torment and torture, a Gurdwara now stands where Guru Tegh Bahadur willingly gave his head to defend the religious freedom of all humanity.
The sky continued to darken over the Mughal raj. In his thirty-fourth year, the tenth Master of the Sikhs called together his devoted Sikhs in an isolated, hilly encampment, safe from the attacks of the emperor's army. At Anandpur, he set a new standard and moulded a new identity for the fledgling Sikh Nation.
The Guru taught that it was far better to die as a hero than to live as a sneak and a coward. He graphically confronted his Sikhs with their fear of death. The five who rose to the Guru's challenge were the first entrants into the new Order of Khalsa.
These Khalsa were to be distinguished by their physical appearance. Like their Guru and so many saints and sages before them, they were to keep their hair long and unshorn. They were also to keep with them a wooden comb, and use it to gather their hair up each morning. During the day, they were to wear a regal-looking turban. Then, at night, they were to comb out their hair before sleeping. They were to wear modest-looking, baggy underpants. They were to keep a sword, and when there was no reasonable alternative, they were to use it to defend the weak and innocent from the transgressions of the unkind. They were also to wear a distinctive steel bangle around their wrist.
The members of the new Order were to live as saint-soldiers. They were to renounce meat and intoxicants, adultery and hair-cutting. They were to rise early to meditate on the Creator and be always ready to lend a helping hand to those in need.
Before he left this mortal world, Guru Gobind Singh instructed his Sikhs that he would ever be with them in the spirit of Khalsa and in the "Word", the Holy Granth Sahib compiled by the fifth Guru.
In those early days, the fledgling Khalsa withstood the genocidal measures of the Mughal power, a vast civilization extending from Mongolia to the shores of Spain. A large bounty was placed on every longhaired Khalsa head. There were hardships and holocausts. Survivors were reduced to living in deserts, swamps, and wastelands where no one else would go. Though the numbers of Khalsa were reduced, they lived undaunted, thankful, and ever alive to the shining prospects of the human possibility.
For some decades, there was turmoil in the land as the Mughal Empire fell to ruin. Nine times, powerful armies came out of Iran to ravage the towns and cities of Northern India. Finally, the Sikh tribes rose out of their strongholds in the wilderness and secured the Sikh homeland. They struck coins in the name of Guru Nanak and established a nation of their own.
For about fifty years, the Sikhs ruled an independent kingdom. It consisted of most of present-day Pakistan and Kashmir, parts of northwest India, Afghanistan and Tibet. Their rule was fair and just. The government gave financial support to every community - Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh - for the establishment and maintenance of their holy shrines and temples.
The Sikh state employed the veterans of Napoleon's Grande Armée to train the Khalsa army in European ways of weaponry and warfare. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Austrians, Italians, Hungarians, Russians, even Irish and Americans all served in the Khalsa army. Though it was feared, the Khalsa army was also respected for its fighting discipline. It did not indulge in the customary excesses of war. The enemy's women and children were safe from them. Soldiers who surrendered on the battlefield were spared.
After a time, the officers of the expanding British Empire cast their covetous eyes on the harmonious kingdom of the Sikhs. Having divided and conquered virtually the whole Indian subcontinent, their agents set about sowing strife and dissension in the Sikh homeland.
British intrigue and provocations led to two Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845-6 and 1847-8). The Khalsa army fought bravely. Once, in the heat of battle, the disheartened English governor-general prepared to surrender his army to the Sikhs. Another time, a contingent of badly mauled British soldiers waited hopelessly for the Khalsa army to arrive and deliver them from their agony.
However, fate was kind to the English. Eventually, the army of the Sikhs surrendered to them, submitting the heartland of Guru Nanak to the predations of the British Empire.
This is the setting where this true tale begins. Punjab, the "land of five rivers," is the traditional homeland of Guru Nanak and the other Sikh Gurus. In 1929, the year in which Harbhajan Singh was born, it was still a land possessed and obsessed by a foreign power, a European power.
By then, many thousands of Sikhs had already applied their activist spirits to the campaign of non-violent resistance that would eventually force the British to give up their most prized colonial possession. Yet, despite their progressive political thinking, the Sikhs were hardly forthcoming in sharing their greatest gift, the spiritual legacy of the House of Guru Nanak.
While they had boldly established a Sikh Missionary College in Amritsar right under the noses of the imperial British, there were in fact never any missionaries trained there. In truth, the teachings of Guru Nanak had not been propagated for two hundred years. The empowering technology of meditation in which the Guru had excelled, had fallen into general disuse.
Those Sikhs who went abroad at that time did so either in the service of the Mother Empire or for the sake of worldly gain. The notion of teaching Sikh dharma in America or Europe, for Americans and Europeans, never occurred to the expatriate Sikhs. In fact, secular Western influence was so dominant that many emigrants found it difficult to maintain their distinct turbaned identity once they left the Sikh homeland.
That such a man as Harbhajan Singh should, with his Guru's timely assistance, expand Guru Nanak's domain to include people of an amazing assortment of cultures, languages and nationalities, is the essence of this true tale. Thanks to the farsightedness and sacrifice of this Harbhajan Singh, this Yogi Bhajan, this Siri Singh Sahib, and his long decades of messengering, marshalling, teaching, inspiring, and smiling through every trial and hardship, it is possible that this great tale of spiritual awakening has only just begun.
Part One - Getting Here
THE GURU’S HOUSE
One who knows the Oneness of God, wishes only well.
For one who lives in that Oneness, there is no death.
In their profound humility, lies the greatness of one who knows God.
One who realizes God, delights in doing good.
One who sees God, recognizes no limitations.
One who understands the Lord, keeps their awareness in check.
The actions of the knower of the One, are saintly and good.
Nanak proclaims, the whole world is in awe of the one who realizes their Lord.
from the sacred Sukhmani, written by Guru Arjun
The word "Sikh" was first coined by various people in the fifteenth century of our era to describe those individuals who had been infected by the buoyant spirit of a divinely inspired soul named Nanak. The life of a Sikh was minted by Nanak himself.
This Nanak travelled far and wide through the further reaches of the world of his day. Some speculate he ventured to the East as far as China. There are also those who insist Nanak was sighted in Budapest. What we know for certain is that the great saint's inspired Verses, of which there are many, are endowed with the dialects and vocabularies of a host of countries and regions other than his native Punjab.
So, while Columbus was setting out westward in search of the fabled land of the Indus and Martin Luther was defying the authority of the Pope, while the Turks were besieging Vienna and Ivan the Great's Muscovites were repelling the armies of the Khan of the Golden Horde, while the shogun of Japan was kowtowing to the Chinese emperor in the East, and Babur's Moghuls were invading India from the North, even as Vasco da Gama's seamen were pillaging its western ports, Nanak was encouraging people everywhere to live in peace and dignity, and to aspire to the highest human possibility.
Through much of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, temples still stand as reminders of Nanak's sojourns there. There are also historical accounts that say that he stopped over in Sri Lanka, and journeyed to Mecca, returning by way of the Asian hinterland, passing through the ancient cities of Samarkhand and Bukhara, visiting also the mountain kingdom of Tibet. By any account, Nanak was a well-travelled man for his time, considering especially that he journeyed with just one companion, on foot.
Nanak was so loved and admired by people that they gave him titles of respect in accord with their various traditions. In the western, predominantly Muslim, lands he visited, he was called "Pir". In the East, he was named "Guru". For the sake of simplicity and respect, we will call him Guru Nanak.
Guru Nanak saw that everywhere he went, people were suffering in one way or another. He told the people there was no need for them to live in pain. Most of them, he found lacked an appreciation of the impact of their own ways of thinking, communicating, and behaving on their ultimate happiness. They also did not realize the profound goodness alive right in their hearts.
Rather than waiting for someone to give them some secret initiation, instead of going on pilgrimages to distant lands, or just hoping for a miracle; rather than becoming lost in pointless rituals, or waiting for the parting of the heavens, or for some superhuman avatar to come and save them, Guru Nanak taught if people wanted to be truly happy and fulfilled, they needed to initiate themselves into the truth of who and what they really are.
How? Guru Nanak taught his Sikhs to rise and bathe in the dark hours before the dawn, when hope normally escapes a man, and to meditate on the profound meaning of life and on the goodness and greatness inherent in every living being.
Then, with the arrival of dawn, he instructed them to sing and celebrate each new day and practise living in a spirit of courage and compassion, recognizing each moment as a priceless gift from an ever-present Creator. Ultimately, Guru Nanak taught there was no qualitative difference between a self-realized person and Almighty God.
Some people thought the Guru's teachings were pretty far-fetched. Some considered his ideas heretical. A few thought he had lost his mind. But there were also people who recognized the beauty in what Guru Nanak was saying. And everyone could see that, day by day, the Guru and the people who believed in what he said were just getting happier and happier, and wiser and wiser, and more and more distinctive and inspired in their ways.
Out of all the Guru's followers, one man stood out from the rest. He practised Guru Nanak's teachings without fail. Year by year, this singular disciple just grew happier and happier, and more and more fulfilled, helpful, and carefree.
One day, when Guru Nanak had become quite old, he announced to his gathered Sikhs that he would not be remaining with them much longer in his familiar form. Rather, he said, they should recognize that he also lived in this one most excellent Sikh. This student had so readily and perfectly adopted Guru Nanak's teachings that, aside from physical details, there was no distinguishing between them. They were of one mind, one heart, and one being.
When Guru Nanak was no more, this Guru Angad - "Angad" meaning a limb or extension - continued to serve humanity in the enlightened tradition of his Master. Rather than travelling, he settled in the town of Goindwal, in the northwest of India, not far from the present-day border with Pakistan.
In effect, a holy lineage had been established. So it was that, for some hundred and sixty-nine years, the light of Guru Nanak lived on in a succession of the kindest and most compassionate of Sikhs.
Much happened in that time. Traditions evolved. Places of worship were built. The Guru's Divine Songs were played and sung. People were counselled and inspired. The community grew.
The fourth Guru in this lineage was a special case. While he was still a child, his parents both passed away, leaving him in the care of his grandmother, a woman of very modest means. Despite his humble circumstances, the boy excelled. Under the tutelage of the third Guru, his heart opened. His mind was awakened. Distinguished by his kindness and wisdom, he became the Guru.
Guru Ram Das established a town named Amritsar around a sacred pool of healing water. In that pool, his son would eventually build the Golden Temple, the most famous Gurdwara (literally "Guru's door") of the Sikhs. Significantly, the cornerstone was not laid by the Guru or by any Sikh. It was laid by a Muslim saint named Mian Mir, at the Guru's invitation.
The fifth Guru, Guru Arjun went on to compile the inspired Hymns of his four predecessors, together with his own and the Divine Songs of several Hindu and Muslim saints, all in one large Volume, for the enlightenment of the whole of humanity. Those Holy Verses collected together came to be known as the "Granth Sahib".
As it happened, the fifth Guru, a true creative genius, an inspired poet and a musician of the highest order, also became the first Sikh martyr. His body was burned and tortured for five days and nights at the command of the Mughal emperor before it gave up his spirit in the waters of the River Ravi.
From that day forward, the Guru's Sikhs knew they had to prepare themselves for any eventuality. They loved to live as saints, but if necessary, they needed to be ready to die for the sake of what was good and wholesome and right.
Guru Arjun was not to be the only martyr in the short history of the Sikhs. Clouds of religious intolerance swarmed with increasing persistence around the bigoted Mughal raj. An ultimatum was issued to the Hindu priests of Kashmir: If they did not renounce their faith, after six weeks they would be put to death. Finding nowhere else to turn, these wise and religious men came to the ninth successor to the holy throne of Guru Nanak.
Guru Tegh Bahadur offered to intercede on their behalf, "If the mighty emperor can convince me to give up living as a Sikh of Guru Nanak, then all Hindus should follow my example and adopt the emperor's religion. If, however, using all the means at his disposal, he cannot convert me, then the Hindus should be allowed to retain their customary faith." The ambitious emperor gladly agreed, but despite every torment and torture, a Gurdwara now stands where Guru Tegh Bahadur willingly gave his head to defend the religious freedom of all humanity.
The sky continued to darken over the Mughal raj. In his thirty-fourth year, the tenth Master of the Sikhs called together his devoted Sikhs in an isolated, hilly encampment, safe from the attacks of the emperor's army. At Anandpur, he set a new standard and moulded a new identity for the fledgling Sikh Nation.
The Guru taught that it was far better to die as a hero than to live as a sneak and a coward. He graphically confronted his Sikhs with their fear of death. The five who rose to the Guru's challenge were the first entrants into the new Order of Khalsa.
These Khalsa were to be distinguished by their physical appearance. Like their Guru and so many saints and sages before them, they were to keep their hair long and unshorn. They were also to keep with them a wooden comb, and use it to gather their hair up each morning. During the day, they were to wear a regal-looking turban. Then, at night, they were to comb out their hair before sleeping. They were to wear modest-looking, baggy underpants. They were to keep a sword, and when there was no reasonable alternative, they were to use it to defend the weak and innocent from the transgressions of the unkind. They were also to wear a distinctive steel bangle around their wrist.
The members of the new Order were to live as saint-soldiers. They were to renounce meat and intoxicants, adultery and hair-cutting. They were to rise early to meditate on the Creator and be always ready to lend a helping hand to those in need.
Before he left this mortal world, Guru Gobind Singh instructed his Sikhs that he would ever be with them in the spirit of Khalsa and in the "Word", the Holy Granth Sahib compiled by the fifth Guru.
In those early days, the fledgling Khalsa withstood the genocidal measures of the Mughal power, a vast civilization extending from Mongolia to the shores of Spain. A large bounty was placed on every longhaired Khalsa head. There were hardships and holocausts. Survivors were reduced to living in deserts, swamps, and wastelands where no one else would go. Though the numbers of Khalsa were reduced, they lived undaunted, thankful, and ever alive to the shining prospects of the human possibility.
For some decades, there was turmoil in the land as the Mughal Empire fell to ruin. Nine times, powerful armies came out of Iran to ravage the towns and cities of Northern India. Finally, the Sikh tribes rose out of their strongholds in the wilderness and secured the Sikh homeland. They struck coins in the name of Guru Nanak and established a nation of their own.
For about fifty years, the Sikhs ruled an independent kingdom. It consisted of most of present-day Pakistan and Kashmir, parts of northwest India, Afghanistan and Tibet. Their rule was fair and just. The government gave financial support to every community - Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh - for the establishment and maintenance of their holy shrines and temples.
The Sikh state employed the veterans of Napoleon's Grande Armée to train the Khalsa army in European ways of weaponry and warfare. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Austrians, Italians, Hungarians, Russians, even Irish and Americans all served in the Khalsa army. Though it was feared, the Khalsa army was also respected for its fighting discipline. It did not indulge in the customary excesses of war. The enemy's women and children were safe from them. Soldiers who surrendered on the battlefield were spared.
After a time, the officers of the expanding British Empire cast their covetous eyes on the harmonious kingdom of the Sikhs. Having divided and conquered virtually the whole Indian subcontinent, their agents set about sowing strife and dissension in the Sikh homeland.
British intrigue and provocations led to two Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845-6 and 1847-8). The Khalsa army fought bravely. Once, in the heat of battle, the disheartened English governor-general prepared to surrender his army to the Sikhs. Another time, a contingent of badly mauled British soldiers waited hopelessly for the Khalsa army to arrive and deliver them from their agony.
However, fate was kind to the English. Eventually, the army of the Sikhs surrendered to them, submitting the heartland of Guru Nanak to the predations of the British Empire.
This is the setting where this true tale begins. Punjab, the "land of five rivers," is the traditional homeland of Guru Nanak and the other Sikh Gurus. In 1929, the year in which Harbhajan Singh was born, it was still a land possessed and obsessed by a foreign power, a European power.
By then, many thousands of Sikhs had already applied their activist spirits to the campaign of non-violent resistance that would eventually force the British to give up their most prized colonial possession. Yet, despite their progressive political thinking, the Sikhs were hardly forthcoming in sharing their greatest gift, the spiritual legacy of the House of Guru Nanak.
While they had boldly established a Sikh Missionary College in Amritsar right under the noses of the imperial British, there were in fact never any missionaries trained there. In truth, the teachings of Guru Nanak had not been propagated for two hundred years. The empowering technology of meditation in which the Guru had excelled, had fallen into general disuse.
Those Sikhs who went abroad at that time did so either in the service of the Mother Empire or for the sake of worldly gain. The notion of teaching Sikh dharma in America or Europe, for Americans and Europeans, never occurred to the expatriate Sikhs. In fact, secular Western influence was so dominant that many emigrants found it difficult to maintain their distinct turbaned identity once they left the Sikh homeland.
That such a man as Harbhajan Singh should, with his Guru's timely assistance, expand Guru Nanak's domain to include people of an amazing assortment of cultures, languages and nationalities, is the essence of this true tale. Thanks to the farsightedness and sacrifice of this Harbhajan Singh, this Yogi Bhajan, this Siri Singh Sahib, and his long decades of messengering, marshalling, teaching, inspiring, and smiling through every trial and hardship, it is possible that this great tale of spiritual awakening has only just begun.
Part One - Getting Here
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