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Chapter Thirty-Five
Guru Tegh Bahadur
The Ninth Guru of the Sikhs
Prof. Puran Singh
“Baba Bakala” - he is at the village Bakala! Many impostors, distant blood-relations of the Master, proclaimed themselves the new Nanak. But the trained disciples well know the fragrance of the soul that comes from the true Beloved. They soon found their Master. So great was the joy that a disciple, Makahn Shah got on top of a house and cried in ecstasy to the heavens and the earth, “Guru Ladho! Guru Ladho!” The Master is found! The Master is found!
Tegh Bahadur had lived till now in extreme abstraction and in awful solitude. None could go near him, such was his reserve, inaccessible as the high peak of a mountain. His Dhyanam-abstracted look disconcerted people: and as they passed him by, called him “mad Tegh”.
Till now, we have seen that every reincarnation of Nanak that has shown before us was different and yet alike. Tegh Bahadur could not bear the sight of creation without a deep agitation of soul. He could not but suffer from a profound sadness on seeing the helpless destiny of man’s life imprisoned under the “Inverted Bowl” of this blue sky. He could live in the Dhyanam of the Beloved, and nowhere else. So sympathetic, so saddened by the world’s distress was he, that he would have died of sympathy, had he not been put in the centre where shines the light of the Beloved. If God had not caught his mind in the magic net of His own Effulgence, if Tegh Bahadur had not found peace in the spirit of Nanak, his temperament would have led him to be one of those who sacrifice themselves. He would lay down his life to save a poor cow from being led to the slaughterhouse, in order to escape the pain of the great illusion.
Tegh Bahadur always sings the sorrows of created life, and converts them into a vision of Heaven - a joy of self-realization. He finds joy nowhere but in His Nam and praise, and he exhorts everyone to be of that spirit. “Do they not make ropes of wet sand on the river bank who rely on the riches of this earth? Like a picture painted on water, like a bubble on the wave is not all this magic of evanescence unsatisfying? O Man! thy supreme vocation is to live in the Beloved!” Tegh Bahadur’s note is Renunciation: he dwells only upon the nearness of his Beloved, and the enlargement of the divine Idea in human life. The pleasures of life were so many pains; but, as Tegh Bahadur says, all realization of truth and its joy springs from these hard pains. Shed your tears for the sorrows of the world, but make them into a rosary for telling the beads of Hari Nam.
Sorrow is your wealth, suffering your gladness of soul, if you are really great as He Himself.
Your optimism is austere and ascetic, and never can be reconciled to life but in Him.
Tegh Bahadur’s mind is ever awake. It alone is made forever free of the drowsiness that the Maya of life induces in every one. “To forget One and to feel enamoured of another reality, is Maya,” says the Master. “You shall sleep not, O Bride! if you have chosen to wait for the king tonight,” Tegh Bahadur’s emphasis on this aspect of the Dhyanam of the disciple is as great as that of the older Nanak, judging by their songs. “O Brother! Nothing in this world can be thine forever; therefore think of Him alone, and live retired from the sorrows of life. Plunge yourself again and again into thought, and see what the world contains that can promise aught but the illusions of magic colours, snaring you again and again without purpose. Therefore turn within and see the truth within yourself.”
Guru Tegh Bahadur was so tender in his being, that he ought not to have been allowed to come in contact with the suffering of the people. His poems are tears shed for them in the silence of his heart. Soft as a rain cloud, his songs awakened the dry hearts of men.
“Forget yourselves, O people, but forget not the Beloved. Forget not, in your gifts, the great Giver.” Such is the message of Tegh Bahadur; which, sinking deep in the heart, makes life painful, but delicious. It makes men sleepless, but full of the peace of the Infinite. Tegh Bahadur’s word bestows on us a repose which no death can shake. It is the greatest solace ever uttered of the Sikh martyrs! “What reck we of this earthly life? We lay it down for a higher life that puts forth its sign blossom in the Window of the Soul? Nothing matters. What are fetters to our feet, when we see wings already spread for our soul to fly to the Beloved? What is torture, or death, or wrath of kings, when to our inner ear the angels are already singing victory? What injury can fire do us, or waters, or swords, when we see beings made of light take us in their embrace and support us in a faith that we are His and He is ours and all is made of light and song and joy?”
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