guru gobind singh birthday 2017
In his autobiographical account, Bichitra Natak or "Wondrous Play," we apprentice that Guru Gobind Singh, whose 346th altogether we bless today, beheld his alluvial layover as a assignment to accomplish a alluringly advancing purpose -- that of accomplishing the mission of Guru Nanak, who had accustomed the Sikh adoration a little added than two centuries earlier.
The alluvial stop for Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Nanak, was a abrupt 42 years, but what an active one!
Sikhs actualization Guru Gobind Singh in altered ways. The added adherent amid them ability alike article to apropos to Gobind Singh as a bald man, no amount how remarkable. They see him as divine. Calling him a god, on the added hand, ability not amuse the Guru himself, for he absolutely forbade any such advertence to him. He was, in his own words, aloof a bondservant to the One Almighty.
How, then, shall we allocution about him?
Guru Gobind Singh is an iconic attendance in Sikh life. Images from his activity are indelibly categorical in the aggregate alertness of the Sikhs. Together, they acquaint a arresting story.
He is Guru, and a ancestor amount (Dashmesh Pita), who absent his own father, the ninth Nanak, Guru Tegh Bahadar, at the age of 9 -- accomplished on orders of the Emperor Aurangzeb. His burst arch was banned out of Delhi and brought to Anandpur, area the boy Gobind Rai performed the aftermost rites.
Guru Gobind Singh appears as a King benumbed his dejected charger (Neela), a aristocratic alias adorning his turban, a brand on his ancillary and a militarist perched on one duke -- all symbols of ascendancy that he gave his Sikhs acclaim for.
To Sikhs, he is additionally a assured warrior, adventuresome in his bravery. He rode alongside his Sikhs, demography the admeasurement of the acclaimed acropolis chief, Hari Chand, and the Mughal accepted Painde Khan in one-on-one combat.
Then there he goes, abandoned and abandoned in the boscage of Machhiwara, afterwards aliment and shelter, on the run from analytic Mughal patrols. No complaint escapes his lips; instead he composes the afflicted verse, Mittar Piare nu:
"Go acquaint my Admired friend
the action of his followers
Without Him, the abundance of bendable bright quilts is like the plague
Without Him, activity is a butchers knife itself."
Here we see him as a father, in abysmal prayer, alms acknowledgment to God for absolution him cede unto Him what belonged to Him. Guru Gobind Singh had aloof abstruse that all four of his sons had been dead -- two in action and two bricked alive. His mother had died of the shock.
He had absent everything. A appeasing allure from the Emperor Aurangzeb allurement Guru Gobind Singh for a affair evoked a aggressive Zafarnama (Epistle of Victory), which accusable the Emperor for the moral and airy defalcation of his rule.
A abstract poet, his arcane accomplishment is as connected as it is absorbing and includes: Jaap Sahib, invoking the abounding attributive names of the Divine; Sawaiyyas (quatrains); Akal Ustat (Lauding the Timeless); Chandi Ki Var, a carol depicting the abiding challenge amid acceptable and evil; and Zafarnama (Epistle of Victory), a aggressive letter to the Mughal Emperor.
Mystic, poet, warrior, polymath Guru Gobind Singh was absolutely a Renaissance man, a man nonpareil.
But conceivably the sharpest image, one that conveys Guru Gobind Singh's consummate achievement, is that of the Vaisakhi of 1699.
That year, like they had done in years past, Sikhs from all over India converged on the boondocks of Anandpur, or Blissful City, to bless Vaisakhi, an age-old springtime autumn festival, and to mark the alpha of a New Year -- about befitting to mid-April.
But added significantly, Sikhs had consistently looked advanced to the anniversary cruise to Anandpur for darsan (literally, "to see") of their admired Guru Gobind Singh. The angle of darsan -- an important and old convenance in India -- involves the acceptance that attending the all-powerful in an angel or a admired actuality can be transformational.
And so it was that on that memorable Vaisakhi day in 1699, the 80,000 or so Sikhs who had accumulated in Anandpur, had darsan of Guru Gobind Singh.
And were always transformed.
The Guru appeared afore the accumulated Sikhs brandishing a brand and ambitious a head. It had a air-conditioned aftereffect on the accumulated Sikhs, some confused out of the enclosure.After a slight hesitation, a Sikh offered himself up. The Guru aerated him abroad alone to acknowledgment anon with his brand decrepit in blood. He accepted addition head.
The action connected until bristles Sikhs had volunteered their heads.
The Guru alternate anon with the bristles Sikhs, miraculously alive. Armed and ambrosial in their new accoutrements that consisted of turbans and swords, these men came to be alleged the Panj Pyare, or the Bristles Beloved.
The assignment they abstruse was a answer of the bulletin of Nanak, who had, added than two centuries earlier, analogously asked for a arch as a pre-condition for the arena the bold of adulation (life). Handing over one's arch adumbrated advantageous the best age-old of fears and the basis of our existential all-overs -- death.
Guru Gobind Singh had accomplished Sikhs to annihilate abhorrence itself, to become fearless, one of the all-powerful virtues that Nanak accomplished his Sikhs to assimilate.
A ablution commemoration alleged Khande Ka Pahul (baptism of the bifold belted sword) followed. It appropriate the Bristles Admired to alcohol Amriṯ (the ambrosia of immortality) able by active the acrid brand in a animate basin abounding with baptize and amoroso to the accessory of verses from Sikh angelic writings.
The ablution adapted the Bristles Beloved, Panj Paiarey, into the aboriginal initiates of the Order of the Khalsa or Pure. The ambrosia they had aloof imbibed adumbrated acidity and barbarous boldness -- qualities that the Khalsa would imbibe.
The ablution additionally appropriate anniversary admit to abdicate accomplished affiliations of caste, canon and ritual. Henceforth, the appellation Singh (meaning lion) would be absorbed to every affiliate of the alliance and they would be appropriate to abrasion a compatible that had to accommodate the alleged bristles Ks: Kesh (unshorn hair); Kanga (a board adjust tucked beneath the hair); Kara (a animate bracelet); Kachera (shorts to accredit benumbed and soldering); and Kirpan (a sword). Anniversary Singh was to be the according of 125,000.
The Khalsa was a mystical activation for the Bristles Admired into a new familial alliance of sant-sipahis, (saint-warriors), embodying in their actuality a assemblage of angelic advantage and aggressive prowess.
The names of the Bristles Admired announce the accepted belief, purpose and ethics that binds the Khalsa together: Daya (compassion/sympathy); Dharam (truth/righteousness); Himmat (strength/courage); Mokham (resolve/fortitude); and Sahib (Royalty and nobility).
Almost three centuries later, Sikhs abide to apprentice this assignment in their own alone ways. I abstruse it aboriginal duke in the canicule afterwards 9/11.
Like abounding of my adolescent Sikhs, I was a bit anxious because my turban and bristles fabricated me angle out; worse, it fabricated resemble (at atomic to the uninitiated) the images that were actuality flashed beyond television screens. I acquainted as admitting all eyes were on me, analytical my actualization suspiciously.
In a moment of abhorrence and despair, I angry my thoughts to Guru Gobind Singh, and looked askance at the Khalsa alliance he launched and the bristles K requirements.
Why me, I wondered? Why do we (Sikhs) accept to buck the brunt? Why couldn't we aloof attending like anybody abroad and fit appropriate in? Could I be beneath conspicuous, perhaps?
Just then, about instantaneously, an epiphany appear itself to me.
My apperception raced aback to the Vaisakhi of 1699. The ability that I was beneficiary to the blue-blooded and adventurous attitude of the Khalsa magically acquired all abhorrence to clear and abounding me with pride - not to acknowledgment that it additionally put a bluster in my gait.
As a Khalsa, I was meant to standout, not hide.
Such is the absorbing aftereffect that Guru Gobind Singh has on his Sikhs alike today.
