Leg­end has it that in the am­brosial hours of the morn­ing, to­day, three cen­turies ago, Five cho­sen Beloved Sikhs as­sumed the au­thor­ity of Khalsa and di­rected Guru Gob­ind Singh to leave the Garhi -Fort. The Tenth Mas­ter was duty-bound to ad­here to the di­rec­tive as now he was­n’t the mas­ter, but a Sikh and had to fol­low. In the an­nals of po­lit­i­cal, spir­i­tual and re­li­gious his­tory, this is rare. Writer-trainer Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia calls it an im­pec­ca­ble ex­am­ple of Col­lec­tive Lead­er­ship -an HR con­cept, which is now be­ing par­roted the world over.  The cel­e­brated men­tor yearns to un­der­stand and im­bibe the dy­nam­ics of the Gu­ru’s life and spirit and urges every Sikh, nay, every hu­man be­ing to do so. WSN read­ers are in­vited to en­joy this po­etry in prose, recre­at­ing the times of the Guru in its glo­ri­ous splen­dour.

GURU GOB­IND SINGH’S RE­SIS­TANCE OF NOT LEAV­ING THE BAT­TLE­FIELD AND HIS RE­MAIN­ING SIKHS UN­MOVED THE FIVE WHO WERE CLEAR THAT HE NEEDED TO LIVE TO­DAY TO FIGHT TO­MOR­ROW.  He alone had the in­nate qual­ity to cre­ate mil­lions like them and was the source of in­spi­ra­tion and a lead­ing light for many oth­ers.

Step­ping back, let’s recre­ate the scene of the bat­tle­field –bod­ies ripped open, arms am­pu­tated, flesh blood flow­ing like streams, his Sikh war­riors ly­ing in the open, butchered by the en­emy, his two sons not to be seen in that com­mo­tion and now he has only 5 war­riors left with him.

Yet, they are all still will­ing to fight on -no re­treat, no go­ing back, no giv­ing up. The gory sight on the front could­n’t move, or shake them; no de­spair, no re­morse.

Sit­u­a­tion ac­cepted as it is. The ones gone per­formed to their best, they were sent on a mis­sion -a mis­sion im­pos­si­ble. It was cer­tain that they were not com­ing back -it was a one-way street.

Walk­ing in jun­gles of Mach­hi­wara, he lays down to rest a while -rest­ing his head on a small rock, no bed­ding, no warm clothes and at that mo­ment too -he is en­gulfed in thank­ful­ness, grat­i­tude to the Lord -no com­plains, no ques­tions, noth­ing -sim­ple dis­tilled ac­cep­tance, cel­e­bra­tion, joy and thank­ful­ness.

The ob­jec­tive was clear -crys­tal clear -hit the en­emy hard. They went in -they did­n’t wait to be at­tacked or con­fronted. They changed the goal post for the op­po­nents.

Death is the bride of a brave and so was they. Ea­ger, ex­cited, pumped up, in a state of readi­ness each time and every time. It was a team ef­fort -to die as in­di­vid­u­als first and then to rise up as a team -a team that re­de­fined, re­shaped, re­hashed and re-wrote the new war­fare tech­niques. Per­form­ers don’t wait for re­sources to ar­rive, they op­ti­mize what they have and cre­ate his­tory.

And when the ob­jec­tive is ours, then noth­ing ever stops one. No pain was their ex­pe­ri­ence. For them, there was no to­mor­row. It was now or never. If it had to be done -it shall be done in the now. Re­mem­ber when you have to go, you have to go. Thus let’s go. Also when you have to shoot, just shoot. Don’t talk.

Now let’s move back to the Sikh -Gob­ind Singh -a lion -a tiger- one who be­lieved in his be­lief, one who knew how to ex­pand him­self in ad­ver­saries -one who knew how to leapfrog and ef­fect a quan­tum leap. How on earth can he sim­ply walk away in si­lence?

A Gen­eral was he, one who was con­sumed with the power of pas­sion and per­se­ver­ance, one who was cer­tain that God -na­ture was there al­ways to help him even if the whole sit­u­a­tion is an Ever­est of ad­ver­sity. Is­n’t it rightly said that the world steps aside for the man who knows where he is go­ing?

One, who was liv­ing a life of abun­dance was forced to leave the place, his pos­ses­sions for a cause that was for hu­man­ity, giv­ing the have-nots the power to choose and live with grace and free­dom, thus was in the open with blood-thirsty en­emy troops stead­fast in an­ni­hi­lat­ing him and his Sikhs. He loses most of them yet still is­n’t daunted, not down and out.

And he comes out not with fear but with courage, con­vic­tion -it’s un­be­liev­able that he sim­ply put aside the gory deaths of his sons, his war­riors and he em­barked again, near the en­emy camp the lion in him roared again -by clap­ping and say­ing that he is leav­ing now and if they had the guts they can take him on. So pow­er­ful was his ac­tion that no one came out prov­ing that even while leav­ing he gave his op­po­nents a fair chance to set­tle scores if they de­sired, as­pired.

And now he moves on in the bit­terly cold night, his shoes are torn and so are the clothes, fam­ished, thirsty, one who has seen grue­some deaths of his loved ones, the ones he ad­mired, the ones he stood for, the ones he made and the ones that made him.

And walk­ing in jun­gles of Mach­hi­wara, he lays down to rest a while -rest­ing his head on a small rock, no bed­ding, no warm clothes and at that mo­ment too -he is en­gulfed in thank­ful­ness, grat­i­tude to the Lord -no com­plains, no ques­tions, noth­ing -sim­ple dis­tilled ac­cep­tance, cel­e­bra­tion, joy and thank­ful­ness.

Un­be­liev­able, un­fath­omable, in­con­ceiv­able is this at­ti­tude.

Presently mil­lions of ar­ti­cles, talks are on pos­i­tive at­ti­tude -here is the case where even pos­i­tiv­ity bows, where even per­fec­tion be­comes im­per­fect, where time and space stand­still- where the mo­ment ex­pands till eter­nity.

I still won­der many times, “Can such a be­ing be there on this planet? Was he real or was he an enigma? It’s too good to be true, how on earth can one cel­e­brate and dance in the pain and turn the pain into strength -a strength which evolves and ex­pands by each sec­ond.

No Sires, I still am dumb­struck -Was he real, yet the truth is that he was.

And now the dif­fi­cult ques­tion for us all -he set the bench­marks so high -so vast that even to en­deav­our for them re­quires an Ever­est of de­ter­mi­na­tion, con­vic­tion, per­se­ver­ance, courage and de­tach­ment while hav­ing a clear and un­par­al­leled vi­sion. Do we have it in us?

One, who was liv­ing a life of abun­dance was forced to leave the place, his pos­ses­sions for a cause that was for hu­man­ity, giv­ing the have-nots the power to choose and live with grace and free­dom, thus was in the open with blood-thirsty en­emy troops stead­fast in an­ni­hi­lat­ing him and his Sikhs. He loses most of them yet still is­n’t daunted, not down and out.

How on earth can this hap­pen? Yet it did.

As a scholar of man­age­ment, my take homes with my lim­ited un­der­stand­ing are:

• Liv­ing be­yond and or­di­nary by ef­fect­ing a quan­tum leap across all do­mains.
• Im­bib­ing a con­scious liv­ing by di­rect­ing my own life based on evo­lu­tion­ary val­ues and ethics.
• Un­der­stand­ing and im­bib­ing my value com­pass by re­defin­ing and re­hash­ing my pur­pose ef­fect.
• Per­form­ing ex­em­plary un­der ex­treme pres­sure -rais­ing up my pro­duc­tiv­ity in­dex on a con­tin­uum ba­sis.
• Be a re­al­ist and die empty.
• Say­ing yes to my po­ten­tial by dis­cov­er­ing my own po­ten­tial.
• Be­ing a light­house -lit in­ter­nally while guid­ing oth­ers.
• Hit re­fresh every time, each time. There is no past. It’s the pre­sent that needs to be worked in.
• Swim­ming with sharks with­out be­ing eaten alive -by do­ing more great work.
• Tran­sit­ing from good to great and be­ing great by choice.

Still, I har­bour this doubt -How on earth could you do it, Sire? A mil­lion salu­ta­tions to you till eter­nity is all that I can humbly do.

Grant me the boon to im­bibe a drop from the mam­moth ocean like you such that I can be lib­er­ated from my own self and I live eter­nally in grat­i­tude.

Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, pop­u­larly known as K S Ahluwalia de­scribes him­self as a stu­dent of Sikhism, en­deav­our­ing to un­cover, un­der­stand bet­ter the Sikh ethos. For the past two decades and more, he has been shar­ing in­sight­ful thoughts in print, per­sonal in­ter­ac­tions, work­shops and talk shows on Sikh Inc. -man­age­ment prin­ci­ples from the House of Nanak and life-trans­form­ing lead­er­ship skills.  He is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to em­i­nent jour­nals and he has 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.