By Iqbal Kaur

Guru Gobind Singh’s life presents a dazzling, amazing, perplexing panorama of manifold activities which only a comprehensive mind could conceive and spiritual colossus execute, He is a mirror of the consummation of the mission of Guru Nanak. He has a shining place in the galaxy of the great Heroes of Humanity. Three centuries and more have passed, since he wrought the wonder of his life. He came in a period of darkness and despair in our history when the foundations of justice were contaminated. One prayer, one cry and one curse against the tyranny of the State filled India from end to end. A brother of the poor and persecuted, he became a Saviour of Hindustan, a Liberator of India. He was in his meditations when there came to him a Call from the Akal Purakh : Invoke the Holy Name and resist the evil doers.” The Call converted his life into tremendous action and he became a practical man. He became a leader of men, the builder of a nation. Defining the purpose of his life he said:

For this purpose I was born ye all pious people,

To inaugurate righteousness, to lift up the good,

To destroy all evil doers, root and branch,

I say, I don’t fear any mortal.

A life of suffering was the Gurv’s but his heart knew no fear. How singularly free was his life all egoism which often lurks hidden in men of action. He had humility in him and regarded himself as servant of the people.

Architect of Khalsa

What magic was there in his words, his mere presence, his face Divine? He transformed meek men into fearless men hearted. Warriors of Light. The very Himalayas ‘were a part of his soul. There was a divine defiance in his eyes. He created Khalsa which means “Pure” and not “Puntan” Khalsa whom he designed as the quintessence

 

“The Sword which carved the Khalsa’s way to glory was forged by Guru Gobind Singh but the steel had been provided by Guru Nanak.”

 

of human virtues, with an amalgam of saintliness and heroism, self-renunciation and self-surrender. The Guru fashioned the Khalsa as an embodiment and incarnation of Guru Nanak’s ideology and the Khalsa lumped with Promethean fire shattered the fabric of Mughal Empire. Dr. Narang says that “the Sword which carved the Khalsa’s way to glory was forged by Guru Gobind Singh but the steel had been provided by Guru Nanak.”

He never just promised heaven or something utopian. He laid permanent and lasting foundation of Parliament of Man by founding the Khalsa, the spirit born people. He transformed scums and dregs of humanity, the neglected and downtrodden common people into invincible clan of God fearing republicans. Khalsa who represent honeyed humility of Nanak, virtues of Jesus Christ, wisdom of Buddha, bubbling energy of Mohammed and Sun kissed glory of Lord. The Guru himself so completely with his creative expression Khalsa that he himself also offered to become first to be baptized by them after he had administered amrit to them in 1699. This is a unique feature of its kind in the World History. Singing praises of his Khalsa he said: My victories in the battle have been through their Savor, Through their favor I have already made gifts; Through their favors my house has been replenished; Through their favors I have acquired knowledge; Through their favors I have won victories in battles; Through their favors I have exalted, otherwise there are millions of ordinary men like me.

Although the Guru’s life was predominantly a life of action, yet in short span of his turbulent 42 years he found time to study Persian, Sanskrit and Punjabi and write in all these with equal facility. He patronized men of learning. His itinerant court was attended by fifty two poets and was the scene of much bardic rivalry. In the words of Dr. Trilochan Singh, “the mighty genius of Guru Gobind Singh wove into the warp of wisdom and philosophy the shining threads spun from the fibres of his awakened heart and experience, and wondrous wool of pictured tapestries he clothed all his thoughts in the bridal robes of immortality.” He has bequeathed to mankind literary and philosophic estate which time can never destroy. Draped in classic style of his times, his poetry is rich in metaphor, abounding in beauties of sound, and over brimming with poetic niceties of diction and thought.

His poetry is wondrous, attuned as it is, to martial music with sweet ambrosial symphony, thrilling with the roar of sounding cataracts, peals of thunder, blare of trumpet, booming of guns, with all its enthralling imagery and its fascinating music which singing we soar and soaring we sing presenting grandeur and glory that never was on land or sea.

His Teachings

Guru Gobind Singh taught that God was no longer to be contemplated as a being unknown and unknowable to be worshiped from distance, enconsed away in heaven or sleeping away at leisure on the bosom of a sea of milk under the hooded shade of a mighty serpent.

He gave new orientation which revolutionized the old conception that one’s own doxy was orthodoxy and everybody else was heterodoxy. He taught that the world was burning in the fire of passion and it was the duty of religion to save it in whatever why it could be saved. A man of religion has to build a sound bridge to span the flood of passion in his nature. In one of his superb swayyas the Guru says:

The power of God and felicity,

This my sole prayer before thee

Give me the strength to pursue ethical conduct,

Come what may.

The Guru was downright in his condemnation of deitis worship like his predecessors. Condemning those who worship stones, emblem of phallus and pray to the dead, he says:

The world is thus bound in false ritual,

And God’s secret is still unread.

The Guru also denounced the ascetic way of life. He believed that religion had no meaning except in the context of society. A hermit was a social liability and the good of society was the supreme test of all activity. He condemned penance and punishment of flesh as a means of purification. “Practice asceticism in this way” he said:

Let thine own house be the forest

Thy heart the anchorite

Eat little, sleep little.

Learn to love, be merciful and forbear.

Have no lust, nor wrath,

Greed nor obstinacy.

Man’s ideal of life must be twofold which Guru Gobind Singh stated thus:

Blessed is the person, Who repeath God’s Name with his mouth and mediateth war in his heart.

Many Splendored Personality

Little minds fail to grasp the versatile genius and all comprehensive mind of the Lord of Anandpur. Whereas for about four years he was driven to the arbitrament of armed clash against evil, he could utter TuiTuiO, thous, for sixteen hours at a stretch in a sweet trance of devotion.

Guru Gobind Singh’s multifaceted personality sets and ideal perfection in each one of its aspects, As a shepard of soul, he fed and fondled his flock the sheep that looked up to him. In the battleground as a general, he displayed an unsurpassed military and stragic ability that he, not only surprised his adversaries, but also won their applause. As an organizer, he requickened the dead spirit of the people and so wisely threaded their lives together that he evolved a classless, coherent brotherhood of warrior saints, whom he termed “the very life of my life and the very spirit of my spirit.”

(This article is reprinted because of readers’ demand.)

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 14, 1989