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It is a pity that the multifaceted personality of
Guru Arjun, even if eulogised, is not under-stood by his followers. In my humble view,
Guru Arjan laid the foundation stone only of a sound humanitarian base for continuation of
the earlier Guru's work but also, in self annihilation, strengthened the roots of the word
in perpetuity. Which is that the Guru does not divide Truth into into Hindu, Muslim, Sikh
or Christian Truth. He collects the saying of the saints of various sects of Hindu
religion and also Islam and puts them in one Granth.
The respect and devotion that he pays to the sacred word is evident when he decides to
leave his own bed to sleep on the floor while the pothi is installed on his bed. T his is
just one of the boons that Guru Arjan left us, and this boon, in time of Guru Gobind
Singh, becomes our perpetual Guru in the from of Guru Granth Sahib. But let me turn to
other facets of the Guru's multi-dimensional life.
It is said that Guru Gobind Singh in paying tributes to earlier Gurus had stated that
there was no Guru like Guru Nanak, no disciple like Guru Angad. no sewadar like Guru
Amardas, no relation like Guru Ram Das and no son like Guru Arjan. Indeed the strict
obedience to Guru Ram Das in perfect devotion as his disciple and also as his is
remarkable. When both the other sons refuse to obey the Guru to go to Lahore, Arjan
readily agrees not only to obey but also accept the condition that he should not come back
until summoned.Apart from the Guru's own verses exhibiting the torture of separation
through letters to his father, Guru Arjan's action is in accordance with the strict
discipline of a Guru-Sikh relationship. For example in Anand Sahib, Guru Amar Das lays
down:
Awo sant piario akath ki karo Kahani
Karen Kahani akath Keri dware payie
Tan man dhan sub saup rurko hukam maniye payie.
Arjan is not at all enamoured of the rewards of his devotion; he is rejoicing just in one
thing, i.e. obedience. In the words of Kabir, he would be saying "Charan Kamal Ki
mouj mein rahun aant our aad".Indeed this devotion entitled him to the gaddi of Guru
Ram Das, but this did not make him different from his Sikhs. Even as Guru, he served the
sangat from peshawar in Pipli Sahib as a humble sewandar pressing the tired legs of old
people, carrying the luggage of those who could not carry themselves and even offering to
look after the shoes of the sangat when it called on the Guru.
A moment of pride even for me, as a Sikh today, that my Guru in disguise as a Sikh, served
his own followers. Alas today, even a Sikh would not serve his own brother if his
status-in-life is low. Guru Arjan, it seems, laid down, in a systematic way what a sikh
should be like and showed himself up as an example of what he had stated in theory.
Sukhmani Sahib fascinates so many non-Sikhs but transports Sandu Vaswani to an ecstatic
state of a high order. Says he: "Such love is sung in hymn after hymn of the Sukhmani
.Years have passed away since my heart was knit to this great book. As a lisping child I
listened to its simple verse. As a boy, without understanding much, I was strangely moved
by its melody. In the growing years of my manhood, I have left again and again that the
Bhagvadgita and the Sukhmani are two of the books which Indian young men should study.
They may well be read as textbooks in higher nationalism. Indeed, some years ago when
I was asked to recommend a text book in religion for college students in Sind. I referred
to the Sukhmani as one of the great books for India's young men" (From: In the Sikh
Sanctuary, 1922).
As if the Guru was writhing a charter for his own life example, particularly Tera bhana
meetha laage. He remained in this state through imprisonment, torture and death. It has
often been said that Truth is always tortured, while falsehood is put on the throne, but
Truth rejoices in torture, falsehood screams on the throne.
The irony of Jehangir's foolishness is magnified when one knows that the universality of
Guru Arjan was not confined only to including the sayings of Hindu and Muslim Saints in
the Granth but also included the foundation stone of the Hari Mandir (the Golden Temple)
being laid by a Muslim fakir, Hazrat Main Mir. To a ruler - that too, a bigot dependent
upon the dubious help of fanatics -for whom power is the only understanding truth would
not have any appeal, but in this case even the truth of Islam in Main Mir could not
succeed in letting this ruler understand that Guru Arjan was doing what prophet Mohammed
would have
been proud of.
When I was nearly twenty years old, I wrote for the Spokesman, an article on the basis of
one verse of Sukhmani Sahib, which still reminds me of the need to have internal and
external purity to be able to claim discipleship of Guru Arjan. The verse was in my mind
ever since I was a child but came into bold relief in my mind when an Under Secretary
Sardarji told me that no one could find a single lapse in his life in the last twenty
years. As a young man of 20, I was flabbergasted. The whole of Guru Granth Sahib -much of
which I did not know then -Showed our Gurus and Saints Talking of themselves in utter
humility and I later learnt about specific hymns like "Mere Raam eh neech karam har
mere".Khation jame khate kar, nit khatian vich payen". "sab augan mein gun
nahin koi", but at that time I knew from Sukhmani Sahib:
Aapas kau jo jaane neecha sau ganie sab te ucha.
"When I told Sardar Sahib that as a young man I could not understand his
insistence, he did not pay attention. What I had written then on the subject culminated in
the following: "Let us not only praise Guru Gobind Singh. Let us bring him into our
lives. Guru Gobind was of course great but we do not become great merely by talking of
him. Unless we show the qualities of Guru in our own life, we have no right to be called
great."
That is why Guru Nanak reminds us:
Bhau bhagat kar neech
sadae, Tau Nanak mokhantar paye.
In paying this tribute to Guru Arjun, I would like to recall, in a moment of childlike
innocence, a letter that I wrote in a personal manner around 35 years ago to Guru Arjan
which began as "My dear Guru Arjan."
I had said and I say now too - I was fascinated by the life of Guru Arjan, I was deeply
touched by his simplicity, by his humility, by his universality, by his various acts of
general welfare, his love of the sikhs and his innumerable qualities, But when he said in
his hymns that without God's Name. without Gos's grace, without the presence of the lord,
he could not do anything, I could not understand. But this I do not say now. For I have ,
through Guru Arjan's grace, since understood what he meant by God's Name, God's grace, and
God's presence. More than that, I have since learnt to have faith in absolute terms in the
experiences and saying of our Masters. In any case, there is no divergence.
Firstly, our Gurus have emphasised that there is no difference between
the Guru and the Almighty but, at the same time, our Gurus never wanted to project
themselves as God.
Secondly, all our Gurus practised what they preached. They showed us the
way to know and believe and behave as if we were not the doers and no credit to this
effect should be usurped. We are mere puppets in the hands of god and are instruments
dependent upon His dictates.
Thirdly, we were to obey and act in accordance with the instruction of
our Guru but never claim that we had become something.
Fourthly, the only way to avoid vanity was to surrender everything to the
Lord.
Fifthly, only the presence of the Lord in the form of 24 hour recitation
of the Lord's Name could keep us protected from the five mighty thieves already in
readiness to pounce upon our smallest weakness.
Sixthly, the Gurus wanted us to live as dead persons in life (mar-jeeva)
and to involve us in the love of Guru and God to such an extent that we knew that even
death cannot kill us.
Seventhly, what was intended was not the external gathering of knowledge
or external show of strength but internal change of attitudes, since the Lord's kingdom is
within.
Eighthly, Guru Arjan emphasised: Na ko mera dushman reha na ham kiseke
bairai....Sabko meet ham aapan keena ham sabna ke sajan... This universal brotherhood had
to have one Lord of all to guide us and the Gurus took no credit for what they did.
Ninthly, the Guru distinctly felt that even for his sacrifice in
martyrdom fe must not be complimented for he was just obeying the commands of the Lord.
And tenthly, as Guru said in the following hymn, all of us remained
beholden to the Almighty for whatever we could achieve with his Grace:
Teera keeto jaato nahin mainu jog keetohee
Mein nirgunhare ko gun nahin aape taras pioyee
Taras pyan mehramat hoi satgur sajan milia
Nanak naam mile tan jevan tan man theeve haria.
We have forgotten Guru Arjan's commands as symbolised in this hymn. We do not recognise
the blessings of the Lord who has made us what we are. We don't that in his mercy, even
sinners like us are saved. And only His mercy makes us bloom if our Satguru friend
receives us. Our condition would then be like the Guru's- we shall live and bloom only if
we had His Name in our hearts.
Can we now re-learn what we have forgotten ?
Simar murdia dhadia Satguru bakshinda
(Sing Lord's praises, Satguru is always forgiving).
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