On the his­toric oc­ca­sion of 400 years of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur, WSN pre­sents the views of ace men­tor and unique ex­po­nent of Guru Sahibs’ lives -Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwali­a’s soul-search­ing thoughts based on Guru Sahib’s life. The au­thor urges that all cel­e­bra­tion should re­volve around the pearls of wis­dom of the Guru and not be com­pro­mised at the al­tar of to­kenism, show­man­ship, up­man­ship and tra­di­tional gai­ety.

SIKH ETHOS is­n’t a com­pi­la­tion of ser­mons, sto­ries, idol­iz­ing and mantra-type rep­e­ti­tion of what was be­ing done for ages. It is a path, a new thought, which re­de­fines the pre­sent to cre­ate a fu­ture of in­de­pen­dence, self-worth and self-evo­lu­tion.

With chang­ing times and dif­fer­en­tial needs, we need to re­draw the way we think and act. We need to grow out of get­ting lim­ited to po­lit­i­cally cor­rect speeches, ser­mo­niz­ing, or­ga­niz­ing lan­gars at street cor­ners, pompous show­biz to do­ing some­thing more pen­e­tra­tive, more con­struc­tive, more mean­ing­ful and more en­gag­ing.

In­stead, if we con­tinue to sell ice to the Es­ki­mos, we all will again be toil­ing ex­tremely hard and yet will be do­ing the same old things again and again, thus get­ting the same re­sult sans cre­ativ­ity, in­no­va­tion and any dis­cov­ery for self and so­ci­ety.

For true seek­ers, there is a bet­ter way to cel­e­brate the 400 years of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur. Apart from the trans­ac­tional, tra­di­tional ac­tiv­i­ties of re­leas­ing stamps, cre­at­ing in­fra­struc­ture ded­i­cated to the his­toric day, more crit­i­cal, pro­duc­tive, con­struc­tive and apt would be to en­sur­ing that the life of the fa­ther of Guru Gob­ind Singh is show­cased as case stud­ies im­bib­ing var­i­ous pa­ra­me­ters of per­sonal and pub­lic life.

The fourth cen­ten­nial of the Ninth Mas­ter is likely to wit­ness megapro­jects with show­man­ship, pomp and glory but ex­pect­edly with lit­tle ef­forts to im­bibe the rev­o­lu­tion­ary teach­ings of this great hu­man rights cham­pion of the sev­en­teenth cen­tury.

For true seek­ers, there is a bet­ter way to cel­e­brate the 400 years of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur. Apart from the trans­ac­tional, tra­di­tional ac­tiv­i­ties of re­leas­ing stamps, cre­at­ing in­fra­struc­ture ded­i­cated to the his­toric day, more crit­i­cal, pro­duc­tive, con­struc­tive and apt would be to en­sur­ing that the life of the fa­ther of Guru Gob­ind Singh is show­cased as case stud­ies im­bib­ing var­i­ous pa­ra­me­ters of per­sonal and pub­lic life.

Soul-search­ing ques­tions and their self-evolved an­swers alone will lead to the il­lu­mined path of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib. Yet this too is ever-chang­ing. With time, we need our in­quis­i­tive­ness to evolve, chang­ing our ques­tions to trans­form our lives by hon­est au­then­tic­ity and can­dour.

Ask your­self, ‘What can we en­deav­our to do bet­ter and how can we cre­ate a bet­ter vi­brant, and cel­e­bra­tive ecosys­tem based on the life and teach­ings of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib?’

On this his­toric oc­ca­sion, let there be a year-long search by every Sikh and those fas­ci­nated by the life of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur  ask­ing, ‘What can we en­deav­our to do bet­ter and how can we cre­ate a bet­ter vi­brant, and cel­e­bra­tive ecosys­tem based on the life and teach­ings of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib?’

The Gu­ru’s life of solem­nity and soli­tude, at­tached yet de­tached, his trav­els on the lines of Uda­sis of Guru Nanak leave you in a state of spir­i­tual ec­stasy, forc­ing you to pon­der, ‘What can we do to cre­ate an im­mer­sive ecosys­tem, tak­ing a leaf out of the en­rich­ing life of the Ninth Mas­ter, rather than just af­fect­ing cos­metic changes in our lives, per­sua­sions and even cel­e­bra­tions.?

With the tram­pling of rights of in­di­vid­u­als, be­lea­guered groups, mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties and na­tions hap­pen­ing all around us, we need to learn and prac­tise re­spect­ing in­di­vid­ual free­dom to live, pur­sue faith and cel­e­brate the pure im­men­sity of life with­out com­pro­mis­ing our ideals.

To­day, all around us, ma­te­ri­al­ism and self­ish­ness are prime mod­ern val­ues about which we should be con­cerned ask­ing, ‘How to lead a life of im­men­sity, com­mit­ment, for­ti­tude and think­ing be­yond one­self?’ Also, ‘How to be a be­ing of sub­stance, tran­sit­ing from Good to Great and to Be Great by Choice.’

With the tram­pling of rights of in­di­vid­u­als, be­lea­guered groups, mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties and na­tions hap­pen­ing all around us, we need to learn and prac­tise re­spect­ing in­di­vid­ual free­dom to live, pur­sue faith and cel­e­brate the pure im­men­sity of life with­out com­pro­mis­ing our ideals.

Sikh his­tory will teach us how by so do­ing, the Guru went to the ex­tent of lay­ing down his life for a be­lief he did not be­lieve in.  This would be our be­fit­ting trib­ute to our Guru and a huge ser­vice to one­self and so­ci­ety.

Sikhs or friends of Sikhs seek­ing a pur­pose­ful life have no choice but to fol­low the path of the hus­band of Mata Gur­jri and be a light­house -al­ways lit in­ter­nally while guid­ing oth­ers.

The leader and the led have to im­bibe be­ing a fo­cussed and cen­tred-be­ing, not one who swings like a pen­du­lum. Those vac­il­lat­ing end up as the im­poster Gu­rus did in Baba Bakala. Those fo­cussed, like trader-mer­chant and de­vout dis­ci­ple Lakhi Shah Van­jara, found the True Guru.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur through lead­er­ship and ex­am­ple taught us  to un­der­stand deeply, ‘That the higher you are, the more re­spon­si­ble one needs to be, thus to be pre­pared to lead by ex­am­ple and not by empty ser­mo­niz­ing alone.’

The leader and the led have to im­bibe be­ing a fo­cussed and cen­tred-be­ing, not one who swings like a pen­du­lum. Those vac­il­lat­ing end up as the im­poster Gu­rus did in Baba Bakala. Those fo­cussed, like trader-mer­chant and de­vout dis­ci­ple Lakhi Shah Van­jara, found the True Guru.

His­tory and leg­end have it that, in a San­gat, Guru Tegh Ba­hadur told child Gob­ind Rai that a holy per­son will have to lay down life to save the right to re­li­gion of one’s choice, which then hap­pened to be the Brah­min’s Hin­duism un­der threat of the Moghuls. Gob­ind Rai promptly re­sponded, “Who, but you? How did the fa­ther have the pa­tience and courage to lis­ten to this? Think. This is how one has to re­de­fine the con­cept of courage -of liv­ing life dan­ger­ously by fol­low­ing the right path. Call­ing a spade a spade does not come through op­por­tunis­tic naivety, op­por­tunism and bravado, but through a life of com­mit­ment led through an eth­i­cal so­cial, re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal value sys­tem.

The leader and the led have to im­bibe be­ing a fo­cussed and cen­tred-be­ing, not one who swings like a pen­du­lum. Those vac­il­lat­ing end up as the im­poster Gu­rus did in Baba Bakala. Those fo­cussed, like trader-mer­chant and de­vout dis­ci­ple Lakhi Shah Van­jara, found the True Guru.

What is the pur­pose of life? By know­ing bet­ter the ef­fects of lead­ing a life of in­cre­men­tal goals and by ef­fect­ing as­tute goal set­ting in a con­cise and pre­cise man­ner, one can touch the goal­post of life, un­der­stand its pur­pose and achieve it too.

One of the many in­cred­i­ble rev­e­la­tions of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib is the Sa­lok Mo­halla Nau­van -Verses of the Ninth Mas­ter -as the end verses of Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Sahib ex­tols us to be pre­pared to die empty af­ter lead­ing a ful­filled and com­plete life. A life of be­ing to­tal and in to­tal­ity.