This is a trib­ute to the life, times and con­tri­bu­tion of the Ninth Sov­er­eign Guru Tegh Ba­hadur by none other than ace men­tor and scholar Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, who left us all four days ago fight­ing the COVID19 virus.  This thought-pro­vok­ing blog, con­tain­ing vi­gnettes of the Gu­ru’s for­ma­tive years, his years of soli­tude, the lessons taught, was sent to WSN to be pub­lished to co­in­cide with the 400 Year cel­e­bra­tions of the Guru.  Read­ing through the ar­ti­cle, you can ad­mire the au­thor’s racy style and com­pre­hend how he was a vi­sion­ary gem who read, nar­rated and in­ter­preted Sikh his­tory from a man­age­ment per­spec­tive, in a re­mark­ably in­vig­o­rat­ing and in­no­v­a­tive man­ner.  In this ar­ti­cle, the cel­e­brated au­thor re­lates the life of Guru Sahib with the qual­i­ties, com­pe­ten­cies, char­ac­ter­is­tics, that an em­pow­er­ing leader needs to have. World Sikh News will con­tinue to pub­lish his ex­em­plary work -pub­lished and un­pub­lished, to make him part of the Sikh col­lec­tive mem­ory and ho­n­our his mem­ory by do­ing so.

HOW DID TYAG MAL BE­COME TEGH BA­HADUR?  How and why did the Ninth Mas­ter spend 26 years in soli­tude? What kind of iso­la­tion it was and given the needs for self-quar­an­tine in the pre­sent dan­ger­ous times, what can we learn from the Gu­ru’s years in iso­la­tion in Baba Bakala, near Am­rit­sar?

He who dis­cards greed and de­sires
And gives up lust for wealth:
He who is free from joy and sor­row
And serves not evil pas­sions
Know him ver­ily to be god in flesh
Know such a man, says Nanak
To be liv­ing im­age of God
Who re­mains undis­turbed by sor­row and hap­pi­ness?
And is free from at­tach­ment, pride and avarice.
            -Guru Granth Sahib, Page 220. Slok 13.

The Bat­tle of Lo­hgarh
The Bat­tle of Lo­hgarh hap­pened at the time of the Ninth Mas­ter’s sis­ter’s Veero’s wed­ding.  The bat­tle with troops, sym­bol­ised for him the bat­tle of right­eous­ness, truth, in­tegrity –and what im­pressed him was of the sixth Mas­ter -main­tain­ing tran­quil­lity, poise, seren­ity, fear­less­ness, for­ti­tude, self-con­trol, calm­ness, the spirit of courage, in the most chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion. Not an iota of de­jec­tion, stress, con­fu­sion, dilemma ex­isted in the sixth Mas­ter’s ap­proach. He was crys­tal clear in his thought and im­pec­ca­ble in his ac­tions.  He had the tenac­ity, ca­pac­ity to touch, move and in­spire oth­ers.

Lead­er­ship norm -be re­spon­sive not re­act­ing- work on the prob­lem and not in the prob­lem. Be like a light­house, lit in­ter­nally while guid­ing oth­ers.  Also need to look into the re­al­ity and don’t flinch.

Lead­er­ship les­son from The Bat­tle of Lo­hgarh -be re­spon­sive not re­act­ing- work on the prob­lem and not in the prob­lem. Be like a light­house, lit in­ter­nally while guid­ing oth­ers.  Also need to look into the re­al­ity and don’t flinch.

Death of Bhai Gur­das
The death of Bhai Gur­das made the Ninth Mas­ter Guru Tegh Ba­hadur aware that hap­pi­ness and sor­row come like a light in one’s life and he felt all the strings of his life were turned in for a higher pur­pose and call­ing. Each storm, that comes like a whirl­wind, bring­ing death to many, ended in peace, the sun­shine of a golden dawn.

The world out­side him, the world in­side him, were mov­ing as a vis­i­ble panorama. Death lin­gered around him, chased his dear­est kith, kin, his most revered teach­ers, guides, like night crush­ing the day.  Yet the stream of truth flow­ered undis­turbed, through the for­est of er­rors, con­flicts, strife, ranged around him. His mind was con­cen­trated on the stream of truth, con­se­quently, he was equipped to con­tem­plate, re­flect, pon­der, ex­am­ine over his fu­ture course with un­par­al­leled vi­sion. And he was merely 10 years old then.

Lead­er­ship norm:  Be cen­tred. Be clear. Be in the now. Be an as­tute ob­server; be ea­ger to rewrite your agenda.

At 23 years Tyag Mal -sac­ri­fice per­son­i­fied, as known be­fore he be­came the Ninth Mas­ter was com­mis­sioned to lead a con­tin­gent of the army to fight the on­slaught of a mam­moth army of es­tab­lish­ment troops, wherein he chan­nelled all his en­er­gies, to a sin­gu­lar ob­jec­tive of win­ning with dig­nity, val­our, thereby was chris­tened as Tegh Ba­hadur  -a coura­geous war­rior. 

Tyag Mal
At 23 years Tyag Mal -sac­ri­fice per­son­i­fied, as known be­fore he be­came the Ninth Mas­ter was com­mis­sioned to lead a con­tin­gent of the army to fight the on­slaught of a mam­moth army of es­tab­lish­ment troops, wherein he chan­nelled all his en­er­gies, to a sin­gu­lar ob­jec­tive of win­ning with dig­nity, val­our, thereby was chris­tened as Tegh Ba­hadur  -a coura­geous war­rior. He en­sured that all he had learnt over the time span was put to ef­fec­tive use.

Lead­er­ship les­son: it’s not the size of the dog that mat­ters in a fight; it’s the size of the fight that mat­ters in a dog.  Join the dots for achiev­ing in­te­grated di­ver­sity.

The Ninth Sov­er­eign
The Ninth Sov­er­eign was di­rected to be in Bakala, such that he could live in elected soli­tude away from the storm, stress of po­lit­i­cal up­heavals un­der the care of his ma­ter­nal grand­par­ents. He needed to be nur­tured for a larger pur­pose, given the train­ing to be in one with self  -to be a man of clear wis­dom who knows what, how, where and when he has to act.  And his train­ing of self-con­tem­pla­tion was to be ar­dours, time-con­sum­ing. To be a man of steel, ne­ces­si­tates a huge in­vest­ment of time, en­ergy, fo­cus and ded­i­ca­tion and in an en­vi­ron­ment that is con­ducive. You need to pre­pare the sol­dier first, by train­ing him back­stage, such that when he goes in the trenches, he is ready, equipped to fire, an­ni­hi­late the en­emy in the now.

He also needed to be aware that the then preva­lent tech­niques of self-mor­ti­fi­ca­tion, tor­tur­ing one’s body, mind, cruel aus­ter­i­ties to pur­chase birth and heaven, tast­ing di­vine tran­quil­i­ties were ba­si­cally all smoke and no fire, and were to­tally di­vorced from re­al­ity. He thus was clear that he need not chas­tise his body, em­brace a life of mis­ery, as the price of eter­nal hap­pi­ness.

He did not de­spise life, show dis­dain for the de­cen­cies of civil so­ci­ety.  He did not ex­e­cute any monas­tic penance of the aes­thetic who goes to the for­est, desert say­ing ‘full of hin­drances is the house­hold­ers’ life’.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur did not de­spise life, show dis­dain for the de­cen­cies of civil so­ci­ety.  He did not ex­e­cute any monas­tic penance of the aes­thetic who goes to the for­est, desert say­ing ‘full of hin­drances is the house­hold­ers’ life’.

He lived in the heart of the city with his fam­ily and was joined by his wife Mata Gu­jri who prac­tised the same in­ward jour­ney, like he prayed for the sal­va­tion of hu­man­ity and par­tic­i­pated in all his silent life of de­vo­tion to God, while abid­ing in His will, to­tally and in to­tal­ity.

An apt ex­am­ple of team in­ter­play, com­rade­ship, where both pur­sued a com­mon ob­jec­tive. She ex­hib­ited with con­vic­tion that in the Sikh way of life, home ties are never snapped in pur­suit of spir­i­tual free­dom. The ties of true love be­tween the man and wife help them to tran­scend all bonds and de­velop a spir­i­tu­al­ity of mind, soul which in­spires them to iden­tify them­selves with the well be­ing of the en­tire uni­verse. The con­cept of mar­riage was re-de­fined, from merely be­ing bi­o­log­i­cal com­pan­ions to be­ing that of in­tensely evolv­ing, con­trib­u­tory, en­gag­ing hu­mans.

Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s soli­tude was not a state of iso­la­tion that leaves man at the mercy of self-love and all its mis­eries. His life was not that of a walled an­chorite of a ro­man­tic leg­end. His soli­tude and quiet med­i­ta­tive life de­pended not so much on phys­i­cal iso­la­tion, as on the in­ner apart­ness, that bears wit­ness, even in the busiest set­ting of so­cial life to man‘s true com­mu­nion with the di­vine spirit.

Through com­mu­nion with the Per­fect Be­ing, Baba Tegh Ba­hadur,  ac­quired a bond with hu­man­ity, which far more from be­ing bro­ken, tended al­ways to­wards what is the model of true so­ci­ety; the broth­er­hood of man in the spirit of God. Thus his med­i­ta­tion was not only a per­pet­ual com­mu­nion with the Supreme Be­ing, but through the re­al­i­sa­tion of His all-per­vad­ing spirit: it was a com­mu­nion with all mankind.

Through com­mu­nion with the Per­fect Be­ing, Baba Tegh Ba­hadur,  ac­quired a bond with hu­man­ity, which far more from be­ing bro­ken, tended al­ways to­wards what is the model of true so­ci­ety; the broth­er­hood of man in the spirit of God.

Mata Gu­jri Ji
He and his de­voted wife Mata Gu­jri Ji prayed and med­i­tated not only for them­selves but for the whole of hu­man­ity. They also sought from God, the knowl­edge and in­spi­ra­tion for the task they were wait­ing to be as­signed to them. They both prayed for strength and the power to ful­fil it and both re­sponded humbly, sin­cerely to each in­ner call.

Baba Tegh Ba­hadur was in­ti­mately in touch with the world out­side him, con­se­quently was deeply con­cerned with the fate and free­dom of his coun­try, hence watched with keen in­ter­est the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal changes that were tak­ing place, as an artist watches a drama, in which he is to play a hero’s part, later.

Elec­tive Soli­tude of the Ninth Mas­ter
Dur­ing these 26 plus years, the Ninth Mas­ter, lived in elec­tive soli­tude amid busy sur­round­ings, hold­ing his head high, self-pos­sessed, serene, self-con­trol, he be­came a child – in­no­cent, hum­ble, in poise, liv­ing his life at the tran­scen­dent level of Re­al­ity, which mor­tals like you and me, who ex­ists in a life of il­lu­sion, sim­ply can­not con­ceive.

From hu­man to Be­ing:
Due to the sheer tenac­ity of his hard work, sin­gu­lar vi­sion, he was aware -be­came a be­ing now -from hu­man -had pow­ers with him. Yet he kept it un­der self-con­trol and lived in the si­lence of in­no­cence.  His mes­sage be­ing –de­sist pos­tur­ing, play­ing to the gallery, be­ing loud, striv­ing to be the cen­tre of at­trac­tion at every mo­ment, seek­ing at­ten­tion al­ways.

He knew that he had it in him, yet he car­ried it with hu­mil­ity and poise of a sage. The more he dis­cov­ered the se­cret re­sources of his own in-com­mu­ni­ca­ble per­son­al­ity, the more de­ter­mined was his prepa­ra­tion to con­tribute to the re­demp­tion of hu­man­ity.  When­ever he turned his glance in­ward, he opened the win­dow of his in­ner si­lence to the world.

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of her hus­band, Mata Gu­jri, rose from con­tem­pla­tion to con­tem­pla­tion, till she stood fully en­light­ened on the Mount of Vi­sion, in her supreme re­al­i­sa­tion and burnt away all dross and al­loy.  Thus she en­tered the realm of Truth, per­ceiv­ing the Love, in which all is one. She held within her heart the trea­sure of di­vine wis­dom and the won­drous knowl­edge that is Light and peace.

The abun­dant life of Baba Tegh Ba­hadur
Baba Tegh Ba­hadur now lived at the tran­scen­dent level of Re­al­ity, which we, im­mersed in the poor life of il­lu­sion can­not con­ceive. He breathed in an at­mos­phere of abun­dant life, in­di­cat­ing hu­man­i­ty’s claim to the pos­si­ble and per­ma­nent at­tain­ment of Re­al­ity. His life and achieve­ment tes­ti­fied to the ad­vent of tri­umph­ing spir­i­tual power. The deep­est, rich­est lev­els of his per­son­al­ity had now at­tained per­fect light and free­dom. He was im­bued with di­vine Light and con­sumed with eter­nal Love.

Baba Tegh Ba­hadur’s life and achieve­ment tes­ti­fied to the ad­vent of tri­umph­ing spir­i­tual power. 

At the mid­night hour of March 30, 1664, sud­denly a re­splen­dent Light blazed within him, his face ra­di­ant with the splen­dorous beams of il­lu­mi­na­tion. The call had come. He sought, from the Hid­den and the Di­vine, strength to face the prob­lems his ag­o­nis­ing peo­ple faced and to bind the ter­rors of the time.  God had crowned him with spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty of the world. He had be­come the un-pro­claimed King of the King­dom of spirit. In ut­ter hu­mil­ity, he main­tained a veil of si­lence over it.

Why does the sun pro­claim the ad­vent of its own light? It blazes, shines, an­nounces his dawn to hu­man­ity, through its burn­ing si­lence.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur lived in the ma­jes­tic si­lence of his in­ner il­lu­mi­na­tion
Guru Tegh Ba­hadur lived in the ma­jes­tic si­lence of his in­ner il­lu­mi­na­tion. He had ex­pe­ri­enced the blend­ing of the Light of Guru Har Rai and Guru Har Kr­is­han with the light of his soul. He had felt the bless­ing of in­ner trans­for­ma­tion into a new man­i­fes­ta­tion of the eter­nal spirit of Guru Nanak. He had in­tu­itively re­ceived a call from in-dwelling God, to carry the torch of Guru Nanak, to the far­thest cor­ners. He was blessed, cho­sen to rewrite the his­tory.

Mata Gu­jri knew, from the spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ences she shared with her hus­band, that he had now re­ceived the Lord’s com­mand to shoul­der mam­moth re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of Gu­ru­ship of Sikh faith. His mother Nanaki knew that the great day, which she was wait­ing ex­cit­edly for, is a stone’s throw away now. A great wish of a pi­ous mother was go­ing to be a re­al­ity soon. Yet Guru Tegh Ba­hadur re­mained undis­turbed and un­moved by the noise and com­mo­tion of the rev­e­la­tion of the Guru at Bakala.

Pon­der:

• He who had been blessed would not re­veal him­self.
• He re­fused to set up a pro­pa­ganda booth in the open mar­ket of im­posters.
• He re­fused to com­pete, chal­lenged at the di­verse claim of 22 ri­val pre­tenders.
• Why should a prophet of truth go to the van­ity fair of preach­ers or false­hood?
• Why should the sun give up its ma­jes­tic po­si­tion of shin­ing in the soli­tude of its sov­er­eign splen­dour and choose to tin­kle among the fad­ing stars? Even the blind will be able to see His light.
• Nei­ther the af­fec­tion­ate eater­ies of his mother, nor the de­vout per­sua­sion of his brother-in-law, rel­a­tives, as­so­ci­ates, moved Baba Tegh Ba­hadur to come out of his God-like si­lence of Nir­vana, and de­clare him­self as the suc­ces­sor of Guru Har Kr­is­han.

The hu­mil­ity of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur
When the scions of Bhalla, Tre­han fam­i­lies, de­scen­dants of Guru Amar Das, Guru An­gad Dev, all other em­i­nent Sikhs of Guru Har Kr­is­han’s dur­bar like Bhai Daya Das, Mati Das, Sati Das, Bhai Mani Ram, and oth­ers bowed rev­er­ently in hum­ble ado­ra­tion to Guru Tegh Ba­hadur and sought his as­sent to in­form the out­side world about the fi­nal and ir­rev­o­ca­ble en­throne­ment of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur on the pro­lific throne of Guru Nanak, they begged the Guru to give an open au­di­ence to the seek­ers of truth thus pre­vent­ing any fur­ther ex­ploita­tion by those 22 im­poster gu­rus.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur then de­liv­ered what may be termed as his first ser­mon to his cho­sen dis­ci­ples and lead­ing apos­tles.  In ut­ter hu­mil­ity, he said, “The moral and spir­i­tual re­spon­si­bil­i­ties at­tached to Guru Nanak’s Gaddi -throne -are ac­tu­ally too heavy to be shoul­dered by a hum­ble ser­vant of God like me.”

But the call of Almighty God has come as his in­ex­orable will, which can­not be dis­obeyed. I have given my word to serve in this ca­pac­ity to my God and to the eter­nal spirit of Guru Nanak who have as­sured of their grace and love. I can­not refuse your re­quest as you rep­re­sent the San­gat. Now that you have ac­knowl­edged me as your Guru, promise me, that you will obey my first com­mand, which for­bids you, set­ting up any camp, in the van­ity fair out­side, on my be­half, and not to de­clare, an­nounce, me as the Ninth Guru, to the San­gat -that is judg­ing Gu­rus by ma­te­r­ial val­ues, and by the amount of wealth they are able to dis­play.

Re­mem­ber, the Sikh Gu­rus never sought such cheap pop­u­lar­ity, and never adopted ig­no­ble meth­ods to as­sert their wis­dom and light as are adopted by pre­tenders -then and now.  You all will main­tain a dig­ni­fied si­lence and will not drag me into com­pe­ti­tion with them. Do not fear that if we live in si­lence and faith, the torch of Guru Nanak’s ideals may be wrested by some im­posters. That light is eter­nal, is the in­dwelling of di­vin­ity, which can­not be ac­quired the way it’s be­ing sought by Dhir Mal and oth­ers.

Re­mem­ber, the Sikh Gu­rus never sought such cheap pop­u­lar­ity, and never adopted ig­no­ble meth­ods to as­sert their wis­dom and light as are adopted by pre­tenders -then and now.  

Like in the pre­sent times, Im­poster gu­rus in the past too have tried to wrest gu­ru­ship from true Gu­rus and have failed. They will go on try­ing in fu­ture, yet shall fail. How long can false­hood pre­tend to be the bear­ers of the light, which they have not? How long can false mys­ti­cism de­lude the seek­ers of truth?

• When Guru An­gad hid for many months to keep away from the din and noise of the pre­tenders, did he cease to be the Guru?
• When Dasu and Datu kicked, pushed Guru Amar Das into elected si­lence, soli­tude, did the light of Guru Nanak cease to shine in him, or was any­one able to de­prive him of the spir­i­tual au­thor­ity given him by Guru An­gad?
• How long could the pre­tenders mis­guide peo­ple? It’s the law of life that Truth and Light wait pa­tiently to be re­vealed to the world, through the si­lence of the seek­ers’ agony.
• It is the law of life that Truth and Light wait pa­tiently, to be re­vealed to the world, through the si­lence of the seek­er’s agony.

Every­one was silent. A light of un­der­stand­ing was shin­ing on the faces of all the apos­tles. And now there ar­rives in Bakla, a rich trader with a large con­voy of tents, goods, well guarded by a num­ber of armed men. His tents were pitched on the out­skirts of the town, with splen­dours, at­tract­ing flocks of peo­ple.  Com­mon­ers were in­trigued to see this man, whose per­son­al­ity, en­tourage, splen­dour sur­passed that of all the pre­tenders to the throne of Guru Nanak. Peo­ple won­dered whether he was the new guru, who ar­rived a bit late, or was he a Masand– bishop, who had come with of­fer­ings, dis­ci­ples of his dio­cese, or was he a princely trader car­ry­ing pro­vi­sion for the La­hore court.

Soon it was re­vealed that the new­comer was a La­bana trader of the flour­ish­ing Van­jara tribe named Makhan Shah.  He ap­peared to be a tribal chief and looked like an aris­to­crat from his princely robes and dress. Through land, sea coast, but mainly from river routes, his con­voy of ships pro­vided pro­vi­sions to the Mogul army, wher­ever it moved for im­pe­ri­al­is­tic ex­ploits.

Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, pop­u­larly known as KS Ahluwalia de­scribed him­self as a stu­dent of Sikhism, en­deav­our­ing to un­cover, un­der­stand bet­ter the Sikh ethos. For the past two decades and more, he had been shar­ing in­sight­ful thoughts in print, per­sonal in­ter­ac­tions, work­shops and talk shows on Sikhi man­age­ment prin­ci­ples from the House of Nanak and life-trans­form­ing lead­er­ship skills.  He was a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to em­i­nent jour­nals and he im­pacted the lives of thou­sands of youth with over 5.6 mil­lion man-hours across di­ver­si­fied au­di­ences at more than a hun­dred plus global lo­ca­tions. His columns have been reg­u­larly pub­lished in The World Sikh News.