A few months back I just turned 73 and now that Guru Amar Das Ji’ Parkash Purab (DOB 5 May 1479) is ap­proach­ing, it re­minded me that he be­came Guru in 1552 when he was 73. I was surely in awe with Guru Ji’s spir­i­tual ac­com­plish­ments af­ter he em­barked on this path at age of 62. This was the time he vis­ited Sec­ond Guru An­gad Ji and de­cided to ded­i­cate him­self to ser­vice. By the dint of his sheer self­less ser­vice, he had en­deared him­self to the Guru, who be­fore his de­par­ture from this world had anointed him as his suc­ces­sor -the third Guru. Spir­i­tu­ally-in­clined Bhupin­der Singh shares this amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence as we cel­e­brate Guru Amar­dass Birth an­niver­sary. A WSN ex­clu­sive.

While ad­mir­ing the spir­i­tual ac­com­plish­ments of Guru Amar Das Ji, I was think­ing about his ex­cel­lent phys­i­cal con­di­tion that en­abled him to un­der­take such a rig­or­ous and phys­i­cally de­mand­ing daily rou­tine. Every morn­ing, He used to carry wa­ter from the river for Guru An­gad’s bath. He could­n’t bear giv­ing his back to the Guru, so he would walk back­wards on his way to the river. He was al­ready in his 70s!

He got up very early every morn­ing in Goind­wal and walked to river Beas and brought a pitcher of wa­ter to Khadur Sahib about 5 kilo­me­tres away for Guru An­gad’s bath. Af­ter giv­ing Guru Ji a bath, he would join the con­gre­ga­tion to lis­ten to the singing of hymns and spir­i­tual dis­courses. This rou­tine con­tin­ued un­in­ter­rupted for 12 years with­out a break ir­re­spec­tive of any in­clement weather, be­ing tired out of sta­mina, or per­sonal health is­sues. Then he would work in the lan­gar or free kitchen bring­ing well wa­ter for drink­ing and fire­wood. Then he would clean and wash the uten­sils. It can be un­hesi­tat­ingly said that his com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion was leg­endary. His un­tir­ing daily reg­i­men truly re­flected his words that the Guru-ori­ented never get phys­i­cally old:

“ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਬੁਢੇ ਕਦੇ ਨਾਹੀ ਜਿਨ੍ਹ੍ਹਾ ਅੰਤਰਿ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਗਿਆਨੁ ॥”          Guru Granth Sahib, page 1418)

Trans­la­tion: The Gur­mukhs never grow old; within, they are at­tuned to the re­mem­brance of Almighty, along with spir­i­tual un­der­stand­ing and wis­dom.

His com­po­si­tion “Anand” con­sist­ing of 40 stan­zas is the epit­ome of the hu­man spir­i­tual flight of bliss. No Sikh re­li­gious ser­vice is com­plete with­out recita­tion of this com­po­si­tion. The open­ing lines re­veal how this eter­nal bliss is ob­tained through the Guru via Gu­ru’s shabad. Else­where, Guru Amar Das Ji has again re­vealed that he ex­pe­ri­enced this bliss through Gu­ru’s Shabad as:

“ਇਸੁ ਗੁਫਾ ਮਹਿ ਅਖੁਟ ਭੰਡਾਰਾ ॥

ਤਿਸੁ ਵਿਚਿ ਵਸੈ ਹਰਿ ਅਲਖ ਅਪਾਰਾ ॥

ਆਪੇ ਗੁਪਤੁ ਪਰਗਟੁ ਹੈ ਆਪੇ ਗੁਰ ਸਬਦੀ ਆਪੁ ਵੰਞਾਵਣਿਆ ॥੧॥”

Guru Granth Sahib, page 124)

Trans­la­tion: Within this (body) cave, there is an in­ex­haustible trea­sure.

Within this (body) cave, the In­vis­i­ble and In­fi­nite Lord abides.

He Him­self is hid­den, and He Him­self is re­vealed; through the Word of the Gu­ru’s Shabad, those who give up their self­ish­ness (ego) see Him every­where. ||1||

In this way Guru Ji has shared with us that the ul­ti­mate goal of hu­man life is to ex­pe­ri­ence bliss of Anand. Anand is the only ex­pe­ri­ence for which there is no op­po­site coun­ter­part ex­ists like all other worldly ex­pe­ri­ences as hap­pi­ness has sad­ness, good has bad etc. He has also shared with us what is pre­vent­ing us from ex­pe­ri­enc­ing it. Guru Ji says:

“ਜਨਮ ਜਨਮ ਕੀ ਇਸੁ ਮਨ ਕਉ ਮਲੁ ਲਾਗੀ ਕਾਲਾ ਹੋਆ ਸਿਆਹੁ ॥

ਖੰਨਲੀ ਧੋਤੀ ਉਜਲੀ ਨ ਹੋਵਈ ਜੇ ਸਉ ਧੋਵਣਿ ਪਾਹੁ ॥”

Guru Granth Sahib, page 651

Trans­la­tion: The filth of count­less in­car­na­tions sticks to this mind; mak­ing it pitch black. The oily rag (used by oil­man to ex­tract oil from seeds) like mind can­not be cleaned by merely wash­ing it, even if it is washed a hun­dred times.

He or­ga­nized and pro­vided a struc­ture to the grow­ing Sikh com­mu­nity by set­ting up manji sys­tems. He founded the city of Goind­wal and the vi­sion­ary of the holy city which we now know as Am­rit­sar the holi­est Sikh shrine. He con­tin­ued to lead an ac­tive life dis­charg­ing all of his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties till the ripe age of 95 years, de­part­ing from this world on Sep­tem­ber 01, 1574. The scene of his de­par­ture was cap­tured by his grand­son Baba Sun­dar Ji, which is pre­served in Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The last com­mand of Guru Ji has been cap­tured as:

“ਅੰਤੇ ਸਤਿਗੁਰੁ ਬੋਲਿਆ ਮੈ ਪਿਛੈ ਕੀਰਤਨੁ ਕਰਿਅਹੁ ਨਿਰਬਾਣੁ ਜੀਉ ॥
ਕੇਸੋ ਗੋਪਾਲ ਪੰਡਿਤ ਸਦਿਅਹੁ ਹਰਿ ਹਰਿ ਕਥਾ ਪੜਹਿ ਪੁਰਾਣੁ ਜੀਉ ॥
ਹਰਿ ਕਥਾ ਪੜੀਐ ਹਰਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਸੁਣੀਐ ਬੇਬਾਣੁ ਹਰਿ ਰੰਗੁ ਗੁਰ ਭਾਵਏ ॥”

Guru Granth Sahib, page 924)

Trans­la­tion: Fi­nally, the True Guru said, “When I am gone, sing only Kir­tan in Praise of the Lord.” Call in the long-haired schol­arly Saints of the Lord, to read the ser­mon of the Lord, Har, Har. Read the ser­mon of the Lord and lis­ten to the Lord’s Naam; the Guru is pleased with love for the Lord.

I was pon­der­ing that this is the age bracket when peo­ple re­tire from work and start tak­ing life easy. Be­sides on en­ter­ing this age bracket, one is also be­set with health-re­lated is­sues termed as geri­atric de­cline. While just count­ing my own health bless­ings, I started won­der­ing about my own spir­i­tual jour­ney re­main­ing to be com­pleted. I have been blessed with mul­ti­ple cul­tural, so­cial, and re­li­gious ex­po­sures. I have had ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing in the poor­est coun­tries and the rich­est coun­tries. I had been priv­i­leged with the op­por­tu­nity to study Guru Granth Sahib, the uni­ver­sal Holy Scrip­ture. Some of my own un­der­stand­ing of it, I have tried to share with oth­ers. I am thank­ful that I am rel­a­tively healthy, fully ca­pa­ble of fend­ing for my­self. I have seen many re­duced to a frac­tion of their pre­vi­ous self, be­cause of de­men­tia, Alzheimer, arthri­tis, stroke, heart dis­ease, di­a­betes, or other health is­sues. I have had my own share of health is­sues, but it is all part of the life pack­age and grow­ing old. While think­ing about them my heart started rem­i­nisc­ing about them:

Shoul­der Prob­lem

How can I for­get that Fri­day? It was the day when the of­fi­cial de­c­la­ra­tion of Covid-19 pan­demic had been made and every­thing was shut down. We took our 4-year-old triplet grand­kids to the neigh­bor­hood park. On reach­ing the park the triplets started play­ing on the par­al­lel bars. The old­est of the triplets by less than 5 min­utes asked me to lift her up so that she could grab the bars. I picked her up, while try­ing to raise her above my shoul­ders; sud­denly I heard a loud pop­ping sound from the right shoul­der. I was in a se­vere pain which forced me to land her back on the ground. The kids con­tin­ued play­ing and hav­ing a good time in the park, while I started ag­o­niz­ing in pain.

“What Guru Amar Das did was ex­tremely ad­mirable, as he was able to com­mit to serv­ing the Guru along with the san­gat at the age when we see that peo­ple in this age-bracket are be­ing served or taken care of. His ded­i­ca­tion and his en­thu­si­asm was leg­endary while his phys­i­cal sta­mina was un­tir­ing, his men­tal strength at a peak. He was ever-will­ing and ready to ren­der ser­vice to every­one.”

Af­ter sun­set we all came back home. Still in pain, re­luc­tant to sched­ule a visit to the Doc­tor be­cause of Covid-19, I was hop­ing for pain to slowly go away on its own. But the pain did not show any sign of abat­ing. It started feel­ing like it had be­come my con­stant com­pan­ion and a re­minder of the fragility of life. Af­ter liv­ing with the pain for over 2 months, I de­cided that a visit to the Doc­tor’s of­fice will be in or­der. I had now re­al­ized that it was some­thing more than a mus­cle cramp, started won­der­ing if it could be some­thing more se­ri­ous like shoul­der dis­lo­ca­tion. Every move­ment of the hand over shoul­der was greeted with the ratch­et­ing sound of the socket joint and a shoot­ing pain. It was in a way trig­ger­ing a re­minder of the bonus life span that I was en­joy­ing af­ter turn­ing 70. The pain, though not ag­o­niz­ing yet, was more of an an­noy­ance, even mak­ing the comb­ing of hair very chal­leng­ing. Fi­nally, I se­cured an ap­point­ment. The doc­tor’s of­fice visit turned out to be an al­to­gether new ex­pe­ri­ence with the Covid-19 dri­ven reg­i­men right from the lobby, till walk­ing out of the build­ing at the com­ple­tion of the visit.

This visit acted as a re­fresher of our changed world re­al­ity due to the Covid virus. Af­ter the ex­am­i­na­tion of the shoul­der fol­lowed by a set of X-Rays, Doc­tor pre­sented his re­port to me. The Doc­tor said that I had Acromio­clav­ic­u­lar os­teoarthri­tis (AC). I in­quired how long it will take for the pain to go away. I was told that it will not abate. I asked what my op­tions were? The doc­tor said:

• Live with it if I can han­dle the pain.
• Ap­ply ice pack to the joint as it will de­crease the pain and the in­flam­ma­tion at the joint.
• Steroid (Cor­ti­sone) in­jec­tions for treat­ment of mod­er­ate to se­vere pain.
• The fi­nal and the last op­tion was shoul­der surgery.

While I am thank­ful that this AC joint is­sue is not life threat­en­ing, but a new life re­al­ity. No! No! It was not a Covid-19 in­duced life re­al­ity, but ac­tu­ally an old age re­al­ity pro­vid­ing a con­stant re­minder that ‘ex­piry date’ is ap­proach­ing. The thing about ex­piry date is we check on prod­ucts be­fore we buy them at stores. But what about our own ex­piry date? It is nei­ther ex­ter­nally vis­i­ble to oth­ers; nor it is in­ter­nally vis­i­ble to us alone. Sud­denly a thought came that when the con­di­tions from Covid-19 be­come nor­mal again, and I was go­ing to fly some­where, I will have to ask for help to stow my hand­bag in the over­head com­part­ment.

Knee prob­lem

In 2016 I had pain in my left knee joint. I had been to the doc­tor who told me that this was a nor­mal age-re­lated wear and tear of the car­ti­lage in the knee joint. He rec­om­mended phys­io­ther­apy, ex­er­cises and wear­ing a knee-brace to sup­port the joint. For­tu­nately for me these things worked, and I am able to con­tinue with my nor­mal life. When I go to the gym­na­sium, I see many folks in my age group wear­ing braces on knees and an­kles dur­ing games or work­out. So, this age-re­lated de­te­ri­o­ra­tion is not un­com­mon. Luck­ily for me I still man­age to have my mo­bil­ity with­out a brace or con­tin­ued joint strength­en­ing ex­er­cises.

Noc­turia

Be­sides the is­sues men­tioned I also have en­larged pros­trate that ne­ces­si­tates mak­ing fre­quent terms to re­stroom at night to void my blad­der. The med­ical term for this con­di­tion is noc­turia and its cause is again age-re­lated. Sure enough, af­ter re­turn­ing from the trip to the re­stroom, it is not easy to go back to sleep thus dis­turb­ing the sound sleep and makes get­ting up early morn­ing a chal­lenge as the body is not fully rested.

Con­clu­sion

So, the point that I am try­ing to make is that even with­out any se­ri­ous de­bil­i­tat­ing health is­sues, we all will face, age-re­lated de­te­ri­o­ra­tion to func­tion­ing of this won­der­ful cre­ation called the hu­man body. What Guru Amar Das did was ex­tremely ad­mirable, as he was able to com­mit to serv­ing the Guru along with the san­gat at the age when we see that peo­ple in this age-bracket are be­ing served or taken care of. His ded­i­ca­tion and his en­thu­si­asm was leg­endary while his phys­i­cal sta­mina was un­tir­ing, his men­tal strength at a peak. He was ever-will­ing and ready to ren­der ser­vice to every­one. Bhatt Bhall salutes Guru Ji in these words:

“ਭਲੇ ਅਮਰਦਾਸ ਗੁਣ ਤੇਰੇ ਤੇਰੀ ਉਪਮਾ ਤੋਹਿ ਬਨਿ ਆਵੈ ॥੧॥੨੨॥”  Guru Granth Sahib 1396)

Trans­la­tion: O Guru Amar Das, Your Glo­ri­ous Virtues are so sub­lime that they are be­yond de­scrip­tion; Your Praises are re­ally de­serv­ing only to You and no one else. ||1||22||

What his achieve­ments were in twelve years we can­not even hope to achieve in whole life. May we all pray that he blesses us with phys­i­cal and men­tal strength even in our old age, so that we can ded­i­cate that time to med­i­ta­tion, prayers and un­der­stand­ing Gur­bani and at­tempt to be­come en­light­ened.

Ref­er­ences:

1. Singh, Taran. Guru Amar Das – Jee­wan, Rachna tae Sikhia. Pub­li­ca­tions Bu­reau, Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity, Pa­tiala.
2. Singh, Prof. Sahib. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan. Vol­ume 10. Raj Pub­lish­ers, Ja­land­har.
3. Sikhi­tothe­max.com
4. www.Sri­granth.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.