This is the leg­end of the Great Lib­er­a­tor from the Earthly Prison and the Prison of the Rib Cage. As In­dia cel­e­brates Di­wali, Sikhs re­call the day as “Bandi Chorr Di­was” -the day of lib­er­a­tion co­in­cid­ing with the re­lease of the Sixth Mas­ter -Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib from the Gwalior prison along with 52 other kings and chief­tains who were im­pris­oned there. In this es­say, Bhupin­der Singh Hous­ton refers to prison life and its im­pact on in­mates who are not spir­i­tu­ally in­clined and makes a com­par­i­son with the time spent by Guru Har­gob­ind Singh in Gwalior prison in an at­mos­phere of Bliss in­vig­o­rated by the re­mem­brance of God and ac­cept­ing des­tiny.

Twenty-two-year-old Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib was in­car­cer­ated in the Gwalior fort by Em­peror Ja­hangir be­tween the years 1617 and 1619. This is the same prison where an­other 52 kings were also held. These ex-royal in­mates were there, ei­ther be­cause they had sided with Prince Khur­ram in his re­volt to suc­ceed Ja­hangir, or failed to pay agreed-upon rev­enue or af­ter their king­doms had been an­nexed upon their de­feat in a bat­tle.  The su­per­in­ten­dent of the Gwalior jail for the roy­alty was Hari Das and had the no­to­ri­ety that no in­mate came out alive.

When Guru Ji ar­rived there, Hari Das came for­ward to meet and wel­come the new in­mate. He pros­trated be­fore Guru Ji in a sign of re­spect and rev­er­ence, and in that in­stant, a trans­for­ma­tion took place in him as he be­came a devo­tee of Guru Ji. Guru Ji re­fused to eat the food pro­vided for him at the fort. When Guru Ji did not eat food for three days, Hari Das came to Guru Ji and begged him to eat.

Hari Das pleaded that food pro­vided sus­te­nance, which Guru Ji was not get­ting, so he begged Guru Ji to eat. He also ex­pressed his grave con­cerns that as the Su­per­in­ten­dent of the jail, the health and wel­fare of the in­mates was his pri­mary con­cern and if any un­to­ward in­ci­dent hap­pened, he would be held re­spon­si­ble by the Em­peror.

As Guru Ji’s devo­tee, he was acutely con­cerned about the detri­men­tal ef­fect of fast­ing on Guru Ji’s health. Five Sikhs jailed there also pleaded with Guru Sahib to eat.   Guru Ji replied that it is true that food pro­vides nour­ish­ment and sus­te­nance, but there is an­other source of sus­te­nance- that is the re­mem­brance of God- which is his sup­port and sus­te­nance.

Not only this, adding a spir­i­tual tone to the ar­gu­ment, Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib said that food from the state ex­che­quer was not earned with hon­est labour, but were the pro­ceeds from tax money col­lected by the state. He told the Sikhs to make food from hard-earned money and this re­quest was ac­ceded to by Hari Das.

This in­ci­dent serves as an epic re­minder of the times from Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s life, where Guru Ji re­fused to par­take food at the lav­ish feast hosted by Ma­lik Bhago, a high gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial of Said­pur, Am­inabad. Guru Ji pre­ferred the sim­ple coarse bread of Bhai Lalo as it was pre­pared from earn­ings by hon­est labour.

Hari Das by his ready ac­cep­tance of Guru Ji’s sug­ges­tion not only showed that he was a con­sci­en­tious per­son, gen­uinely con­cerned about Guru Ji’s wel­fare but also si­mul­ta­ne­ously re­flected the in­ner trans­for­ma­tion in him through Guru Ji. Oth­er­wise, the per­sonas and au­to­cratic be­hav­iours of jail su­per­in­ten­dents are pretty well-known.

In or­der to get a bet­ter pic­ture of how jail au­thor­i­ties de­velop their per­sona, let us pon­der over “The Lu­cifer Ef­fect” by Philip Zim­bardo. In the sum­mer of 1971, so­cial psy­chol­o­gist Prof. Zim­bardo ran­domly as­signed some male col­lege stu­dents to play the role of pris­on­ers and guards in a mock prison he built in a base­ment at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity. The stu­dents had been pre­screened for their men­tal health bal­ance and lack of crim­i­nal records.  In ex­change for the par­tic­i­pa­tion, they were paid $15 a day.

It is in­ter­est­ing to know how this low key ex­per­i­ment turned into hell. The guards took to their du­ties with an unan­tic­i­pated ap­petite of the psy­chol­o­gists run­ning the study. The guards as­serted their au­thor­ity by bang­ing doors; be­lit­tling in­mates ver­bally, abus­ing them, hu­mil­i­at­ing them, and keep­ing them awake at night. In fact, within thirty-six hours of the ex­per­i­ment, one of the “pris­on­ers” broke down and had to be re­leased.

Even Zim­bardo, who de­signed the ex­per­i­ment, be­came a cap­tive of his own grand de­sign. Op­er­at­ing as prison su­per­in­ten­dent he for­got that he was a psy­chol­o­gist do­ing a study. True like an au­to­cratic ruler, he would not aban­don the pro­ject de­spite the calls. Even­tu­ally, it had to be ended by the sixth day as pris­on­ers be­came in­creas­ingly de­pressed and guards be­came sadis­tic.

The main point that this study es­tab­lished was that even the good peo­ple with doc­tor­ates in psy­chol­ogy can col­lab­o­rate in do­ing evil things to oth­ers. Zim­bardo con­tends in his book that it is not a few bad ap­ples that ruin other ap­ples, but the bar­rel is what does it -pris­ons are toxic.

Imag­ine the prison con­di­tions then, as to­day al­most 350 years later, re­sults of re­forms and im­prove­ments in qual­ity of life have re­sulted in sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments in the prison en­vi­ron­ment. Now if we look at what Guru Sahib did in Gwalior from that time frame per­spec­tive, we can see a mir­a­cle tak­ing place.

Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib not just trans­formed the ruth­less jail su­per­in­ten­dent whose charge in­cluded 52 pris­oned rulers into a com­pas­sion­ate, de­voted and a ser­vice-ori­ented per­son but the qual­ity of life of in­mates as well. Those prison in­mates, lead­ing a hope­less, mis­er­able life had found new hope be­cause of sup­port, en­cour­age­ment and coun­selling pro­vided by the Guru. They started fol­low­ing the Guru in de­vo­tional singing and med­i­ta­tion. This trans­for­ma­tional feat is well be­yond the nor­mal hu­man en­deav­our and only an en­light­ened soul can per­form this.

In one in­ter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion with Hari Das, Guru Sahib said; “I am not a ruler who is lament­ing at the loss of my king­dom here in my in­car­cer­a­tion. I am a men­di­cant of God. I spend my time in His re­mem­brance and in His pres­ence.  The ruler can im­prison my body, but my mind can­not be im­pris­oned.”

Now can we imag­ine if the wheels of life put us in such a pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion like im­pris­on­ment or even a lonely life be­cause of fam­ily cir­cum­stances as the death of the spouse and with chil­dren have moved away be­cause of work? That life will be­come a night­mare for us. It will be dev­as­tat­ing, and we will be blam­ing oth­ers, in­clud­ing God for our fate. We will be try­ing to im­press that we have been wronged by be­ing put in this un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion.

Imag­ine the prison con­di­tions then, as to­day al­most 350 years later, re­sults of re­forms and im­prove­ments in qual­ity of life have re­sulted in sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments in the prison en­vi­ron­ment. Now if we look at what Guru Sahib did in Gwalior from that time frame per­spec­tive, we can see a mir­a­cle tak­ing place.

It is per­ti­nent to see how Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib dealt with the sit­u­a­tion, by pro­vid­ing hope and en­cour­age­ment. We will no­tice that he was thank­ful as it af­forded him an op­por­tu­nity to spend quiet and qual­ity time in med­i­ta­tion be­sides help­ing other royal in­mates.

It is an in­spi­ra­tion for us on how to em­brace the un­pleas­ant sit­u­a­tion that may not be to our lik­ing or even when it has been wrong­fully thrust upon us. Ac­cep­tance of life’s sit­u­a­tion in such cir­cum­stances is not easy as we will be con­stantly re­minded of the good old days and then the mind will start won­der­ing, “Why did this hap­pen to me? Why do I al­ways get picked for such ad­verse life sce­nar­ios?”

We can learn from the ex­am­ple of the Sixth Mas­ter to get used to an ad­verse sit­u­a­tion in bet­ter­ing a lot of oth­ers. It is only when soli­tary life be­comes lone­li­ness or more pre­cisely haunt­ing lone­li­ness that it can have a de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fect on the mind and body. Guru Sahib has set an ex­am­ple by show­ing us that there is an al­ter­na­tive, a health­ier one, which has a pos­i­tive ef­fect.

In fact, Guru Sahib turned the lives of the other 52 ruler in­mates from de­spon­dency, help­less­ness, de­pres­sion at the loss of king­dom, power, and po­si­tion, into an oa­sis of hope and thank­ful­ness. He set an ex­am­ple on how to turn the pe­riod of con­fine­ment into an up­lift­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

Vic­tor Frankl, the Aus­trian Psy­chi­a­trist of Jew­ish de­scent, learnt this les­son from his im­pris­on­ment by Ger­mans dur­ing World War II. He said; “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to re­spond to what you do to me. The last of one’s free­doms is to choose one’s at­ti­tude in any given cir­cum­stance.”   This is the model of men­tal for­ti­tude that Guru Sahib has set for us.

Through the of­fices of Mian Mir and Wazir Khan, Gov­er­nor of Pun­jab; Ja­hangir was con­vinced to re­lease Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib. Ja­hangir sent Wazir Khan to Gwalior to per­son­ally de­liver the mes­sage of re­lease. Guru Sahib re­fused to avail it and told Wazir Khan that his stay in prison has pro­vided suc­cour to other in­mates and has im­proved the qual­ity of their lives, so he is quite happy here with them. Wazir Khan made three trips back and forth, ne­go­ti­at­ing re­lease terms and fi­nally Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib agreed to leave if all the other pris­on­ers in­car­cer­ated were also set free. Ja­hangir stip­u­lated a counter con­di­tion that only those in­car­cer­ated rulers who hold to Guru Ji’s tas­sel can be re­leased in an­tic­i­pa­tion that these rulers, be­ing Ra­jputs will not ac­cept such hu­mil­i­a­tion of ac­cept­ing au­thor­ity over them.

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to re­spond to what you do to me. The last of one’s free­doms is to choose one’s at­ti­tude in any given cir­cum­stance.” 

Vic­tor Frankl, Aus­trian Psy­chi­a­trist of Jew­ish de­scent

Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib got a spe­cial gown made with 52 tas­sels and all the 52 rulers came out with Guru Ji with each hold­ing one tas­sel of Guru Ji’s spe­cial long gown. Thus, Guru Ji was hailed as “Bandhi Chhor” – The Great De­liv­erer or Lib­er­a­tor. Even in his re­lease Guru Ji pro­vided suc­cour to other royal in­mates as he snapped their pris­on­er’s fet­ters.

Imag­ine a pris­oner set­ting con­di­tion for his own re­lease, and those con­di­tions are al­tru­is­tic. When Guru Ji re­turned back to Am­rit­sar, his ar­rival was greeted with show­ers of flower petals and fra­grances fol­lowed by light­ing of the whole town in the evening.  As Guru Ji re­turned there on the Deep­awali day, every year this day is cel­e­brated there with the light­ing of the en­tire Dar­bar Sahib (Golden Tem­ple) com­plex. While it was a cel­e­bra­tion of the re­lease of Guru Ji and his re­turn back to Am­rit­sar, it was also a sym­bolic cel­e­bra­tion that when Gu­ru’s light shines in­side of our house, which is the hu­man body; then all the dark­ness of ig­no­rance out­side is dis­pelled and there is light every­where.

No won­der that Bhai Gur­das Ji, who was a close eye­wit­ness to the un­fold­ing of the life of Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib Ji de­scribed him as:

“ਏਕੰਕਾਰ ਅਕਾਰੁ ਕਰਿ ਗੁਰੁ ਗੋਵਿੰਦੁ ਨਾਉ ਸਦਵਾਇਆ॥”

“Aekankaar akaar kar gur govind naao sad­havaaeiaa.”

(Bhai Gur­das; Vaar 25, Pauri 1)

The form­less Brahm as­sum­ing (hu­man) form has got him­self called Guru (Har) Gob­ind.

It is only an en­light­ened soul, one with God, who can bring about such a trans­for­ma­tion in oth­ers’ lives and in­spire them. We have the priv­i­lege to have such Gu­rus, whose al­tru­is­tic na­ture bright­ens life like the light of Deep­awali. Even to­day, their ex­em­plary acts pro­vide in­spi­ra­tion, pos­i­tive out­look to life, hope and strength. Every year as we cel­e­brate Deep­awali light­ing lamps, let the mem­ory of “Bandhi Chhor” be re­freshed in our minds, and a prayer for such men­tal for­ti­tude and our own de­liv­er­ance may well-up within us.

Ref­er­ences:

Singh, Bhai Vir.  Shree Asht Gur Chamatkar, Vol­ume 3 (In Pun­jabi)
Singh, Ran­bir.  Glimpses of Di­vine Mas­ters.
Singh, Jogin­der.  Gur­mat tae Gur­dar­shan
Berry­hill, Michael,  Of Crime and Pun­ish­ment.  Book Re­views.  The Hous­ton Chron­i­cle, Au­gust 12, 2007.
www.sikhs.org
https://​www.lu­cifer­ef­fect.com/
Frankl, Vic­tor. Man’s search for Mean­ing
https://​www.pris­on­exp.org/.

An en­gi­neer by pro­fes­sion, hail­ing from Myan­mar, ed­u­cated in In­dia, Bhupin­der Singh is a Hous­ton-based busi­ness­man, with a keen in­ter­est in writ­ing books and ar­ti­cles on Sikh his­tory, mo­ti­va­tion and spir­i­tu­al­ity. The books he has writ­ten in­clude, Con­nect­ing with the Mas­ter – A col­lec­tion of es­says on top­ics re­lated to Sikhism, Gur­mat Quo­tient (GQ) – Book on de­vel­op­ment of Spir­i­tu­al­ity, Rehraas – With mean­ing and com­men­tary in Eng­lish, Why are We Here? – Be­come ex­plor­ing the pur­pose of hu­man life, Fish Eat Fish World – An Il­lus­trated Chil­dren’s book, Hu­mil­ity – A Spir­i­tual Jour­ney, In Bul­ly’s Eyes – An Il­lus­trated Chil­dren’s book on Bul­ly­ing.