The Moghul told his story:

When I first encountered the “captured” Khalsa, I realized immediately that though incarcerated, he had a kind of freedom that those of us walking around loose did not. Cramped in a sweltering cage, the summer sun beating fiercely upon him, he sang joyfully. Astonished, I heard the familiar words of asa-dee-vaar’s chakas that my wife would recite to me:

iehu jgu scY kI hY koTVI scy kw ivic vwsu] iekn@w hukim smwie ley iekn@w hukmy kry ivxwsu] iekn@w BwxY kiF ley iekn@w mwieAw ivic invwsu] eyv iB AwiK n jwpeI ij iksY Awxy rwis] nwnk gurmuiK jwxIAY jw kau Awip kry prgwsu]

eihu jag sachai kee hai kotharree sachae kaa vich vaas|| eikanhaa hukam samaae leae eikanhaa hukamae karae vinaas|| eikanhaa bhaanai kadt leae eikanhaa maaeiaa vich nivaas|| eaev bh aakh n jaapee j kisai aanae raas|| naanak guramukh jaaneeai jaa ko aap karae paragaas||

This world is the dwelling place of WaheGuru. By WaheGuru’s Command, some are lifted out of illusion and merge into WaheGuru; while others dwell in illusion and are destroyed – no one can say who will be graced with enlightenment (and rescued from illusion). O Nanak, the rescued one, who WaheGuru blesses with enlightenment, is known as a Gurmukh.

Completely taken by his attitude, I  found it difficult to conceive how a person enduring torture and abiding in such miserable inhumane conditions could be so joy-filled; indeed positively instilled with gratitude (even towards his jailers!). His body appeared emaciated for he had refused the prison’s cooked food and sustained himself only on fruits infrequently thrown into his cage. Even so, his face radiated youthful vigor. 

I pestered him asking how he could live in such a small cage all alone for hours and days on end. He straightened up and in a high piercing voice sang this shabad:

guru myrY sMig sdw hY nwly] ismir ismir iqsu sdw sm@wly]

gur maerai sang sadhaa hai naalae|| simar simar this sadhaa samhaalae||

My Guru is always with me, near at hand. Meditating, meditating in remembrance on Him, I cherish Him forever.

He mesmerized the entire prison populace, guards, prisoner and visitors as well as me with his recitation. A Kazi, who had been visiting prisoners, came and deeply bowed to Khalsa Jee. With respect and envy in his voice, he acknowledged, “Sir, even though I have a Guru, he does not live so close to me as yours seems to live with  you!”

 Khalsa Jee, ever so carefree, laughed, “Kaziaa, if your Guru is not  a True Guru, then that’s your fault!”

Gradually I opened up to him confessing the deep turmoil within me. I told him that I wished to be like him too – so carefree and joyful. He chuckled, “Only Naam can make one joyful. Get Naam from your Guru and be free too!”

Alas, I told him, the Peer I followed made me feel more fearful and angry at the world. He winked at me and said, “Moghula, change your Peer then!” Obviously he didn’t take me too seriously and usually laughed away my concerns. I didn’t, of course, blame him; I am sure he thought me yet another one of the many “friends” with a hidden agenda.

My persistent inquiries about the deeper meaning of the gurbani he sang began to change his mind about me. Perhaps he realized that my inner conflict caused me so much turmoil so that I felt divided into two totally opposing arenas. Or maybe he saw something inside me that even I hadn’t seen. But before long, he talked to me sincerely, like a friend, casually referring to his impending death as “flight”.

The prison’s chief Jailer became quite suspicious of my real motives. He was an extremely cruel man who seemed to enjoy torturing people. He grew very distrustful of me and spread “rumors” that I was falling under the Khalsa’s influence. But to this day, my untarnished reputation remains absolutely impeccable and my authority above suspicion. Anyone he gossiped to merely shrugged off his apprehensions.  Despite the Jailer’s protests, Khalsa jee and I began taking walks outside the prison gates. Though due to the Jailer’s insistence, Khalsa Jee had to be handcuffed and chained whenever outside his cage.

I reported to my superiors that I was making progress but needed more time. Thus Khalsa jee’s conversion-deadline was extended by a few more days. Still very confused about what to do., it was totally clear to me that I could not let Khalsa Jee die under “my watch”.  So one day I decided to risk my career and took Khalsa Jee outside the prison walls for a walk in the surrounding forest. There I released his shackles and told him, “Khalsa Jee, you are free to go. My one request is that you ask your Guru to make me His!”

He nodded his head in appreciation and turned to go. Just then an arrow struck him just a few inches above his heart. I turned to see that the Jailer had followed us.  Immobile, I just stood there in shock - I had wasted my whole career and risked my family’s future for nothing. Khalsa Jee would surely die from the impact of such a close-range shot and I would undoubtedly be declared a traitor. Paralyzed by dismay, I did nothing.  But Khalsa Jee, despite his injury, bent over and grabbed his chains. He flung them at the Jailer. The chains hit the tree that the jailer hid behind, winding around the truck. The end of the chain (where the handcuffs had been) wrapped around smashing into the Jailer’s left temple. He screamed with pain dropping to the ground. He shuddered and lay still, his eyes wide open.  Still frozen by the stunning turn of events, I saw several hideous-looking creatures approach the Jailer making horrible gnashing and slurping noises. I watched them drag his soul from his body! He shrieked in terror. Chortling and cheering in gruesome glee, they toyed with him like a cat plays with a wounded rat, slavering greedily all the while!

Just as quickly as they had appeared, the merciless creatures along with the Jailer’s soul disappeared swooping downwards into dark realms. I turned to Khalsa Jee - he lay on the ground moaning softly. I quickly attended to him. I pulled the arrow from his body. Throughout the excruciating ordeal, he gave me a lopsided grin, repeating Dhan Guru Gobind Singh again and again.  We both realized that he could not survive the severity of this wound without urgent medical attention. I urged him to go back with me to the prison surgeons. Smiling weakly he stood up shakily. He whispered raggedly, “Thank you, but I prefer to die surrounded by nature,” then stumbled off deeper into the woods.

More confused than ever, I had to make a choice. Either go back and cook up some story or help the Khalsa in his remaining few hours. Although the rational thing to do would have been to go back; somewhere from within me, a voice that I had never heard before, commanded me to follow the Khalsa. I took one step towards, shall we say, the right direction and suddenly all my inner turmoil completely dissolved. I became a changed man. Indecision and doubt completely left me.  I knew the right thing for me to do would be to help the Guru’s Khalsa in any way I could. It felt like a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders and I, feeling lighter than ever before, hurried after Khalsa Jee.

Khalsa Jee had decided that he would try to make a two-day trip to a village where he had friends and family. He knew his chances of getting there were slim, but it didn’t seem to slow his determined steps. I followed closely behind him. At first we talked, but then he confided, “Moghula, we have to stop talking now. Anytime I might be called away. I don’t want to be thinking of worldly things whenever that should that occur.”

He started his nitnem. I found his method very interesting: He repeated “Ik Ong Kaar” five times, then repeated “WaheGuru” thirteen times then recited Mool Manter. Again he recited “Ik Ong Kaar” and “WaheGuru” a set number of times and then he recited one gurbani shabad. He repeated the “Ik Ong Kaar” and “WaheGuru” sequence before each of the bani he knew by heart. Just as I caught on to the rhythm, my mind began to wander. Then I noticed he changed the pattern, and I focused fully again on the bani while trying to figure it out. Continuously, he would change the sequence slightly every so often, thereby sharpening my attention. He had memorized an impressive collection of bani.  I had heard him doing the same thing in prison too, but hadn’t previously picked up on the pattern of it. He had done nitnem this way during all his waking moments, and sometimes in what seemed to be his sleeping moments too!

It became increasingly difficult for Khalsa Jee to walk. Stubbornly, he staggered ahead but by the following day, he began to stumble badly and had to stop periodically. Thankfully, we had plenty to eat -abundant fruit hung from a variety of trees ripe and lush during summer months. We picked these and ate them as we walked but still Khalsa showed signs of weakening and began slowing down; sometimes stopping completely.

That evening we reached a small cave on the side of a hill. We sat together just inside the entrance, under a bit of an overhang. The cool damp interior refreshed us.  To our pleasant surprise, we discovered a little pool of clear water just inside - we gladly drank from it. We could hear a slight echo of any sounds we made.. This delighted Khalsa Jee - he loved hearing the echo of “Ik Ong Kaar” over and over again. He played happily, singing bani and then listening to it echo back, with the enjoyment of a child who’d found a new toy.

Though he had sternly refused any attempts to start a conversation before, he seemed quite approachable at that moment. So I inquired about his peculiar way of doing nitnem. He informed me, “I picked this up from some naami gursikhs, veterans of the Naam path, who knew of its difficulties.

The ultimate hukam for a guru ke sikh is to jap Gurmanter “WaheGuru”. But it is extremely hard to keep focused on it all the time. So we use Ik Ong Kaar, which itself is a very, very potent way of banishing darkness from within. Try it for a few days and you will feel the powerful vibration that it generates inside. But keeping focus on this is difficult too. So we use bani to regain our focus periodically.

We have to treat our mind like a child. Say if you tell your child to play within a few feet of you. He will do that for a little while; then he will forget and we have to remind him; at first gently and then with a little bit of sternness and scolding. He will then listen again, but after a few minutes, he will forget again.

Similarly, we tell our mind to to jap WaheGuru; and he gladly agrees at first. But after a few minutes, he forgets and wants something new. Then we have to remind him via gurbani (which sometimes reminds us lovingly, sometimes sternly and sometimes by out-rightly threatening us!).

That’s the reason I do bani in-between my jaap of mool manter and gurmanter. And besides, with Guru’s grace, reading Gurubani is one of my greatest pleasures!  I never let a bani tukk go without my mind fully relishing in its message; thus you hear me repeating the same tukk dozens of times – each time a deeper meaning presents itself to me! It is truly amazing; Gurbani is something that is always fresh! Every moment when I am not in Naam or bani seems shallow and …. OK, I think I have spoken enough. I beg you not to ask any more questions!”

I had to ask him just one more question though, which I felt especially curious about and promised that I would ask no more. The question was, “Khalsa Jee, when you are reciting the Mool Manter, you say some parts several times; especially “Moorit”. Why?”

He laughed, “Moghula, you are not a bad Moghul after all! That’s very interesting that you ask about Moorit and to tell you the truth I had asked the very same question from the Naami gursikhs who I had the good fortune to spend some time with.

Mool Manter is extremely powerful since it captures the essence of WaheGuru’s qualities in a concise way. Indeed it could be argued that Jap Ji Sahib is a katha of Mool Manter (and all of Gurbani is katha of Jap Ji Sahib).

But some qualities of WaheGuru appeal to us more than others at different stages in our spiritual lives. For example, if we are not feeling very high spiritually, then we prefer to refer to WaheGuru as “deen dayal” – the poor one’s merciful Lord. While if we are already high in spirit, then we like sing about WaheGuru’s loving and playful qualities.

Similarly, different qualities of WaheGuru as described in Mool Manter appeal to us at different times. I love “Ik Ong Kaar” because it reminds me that we are all One. Then “Sat” tells me that WaheGuru will always be there (for me); then of course “Naam” is wonderful because my mind realizes (for the millionth time) that WaheGuru is within Naam and thus we should make japing Naam our only goal in life. Then “Karta” is perhaps the most significant in destroying ego because we realize we are nothing and WaheGuru is the real doer; not us (as we all like to think).

WaheGuru’s quality that strikes me the most after “Karta” is “Moorit”. It is easy to think of WaheGuru as an impersonal energy somewhere taking care of all the galaxies and life. WaheGuru is quite frequently compared to the Sun in many spiritual scriptures. Some of the oft-quoted similarities are that the Sun gives us light no matter how rich or poor we are; Sun is the source of all life on Earth; and so on and so forth.

But one significant difference between the Sun and WaheGuru is that we can shout “I Love You” to the Sun a million times a day and the Sun will not respond in any way. On the other hand, saying “I Love You” or other loving Gurbani words gets us an *immediate* response from WaheGuru.

hir ieksY nwil mY gosty muhu mYlw krY n BMgu] jwxY ibrQw jIA kI kdy n moVY rMgu]

har eikasai naal mai gosattae muhu mailaa karai n bhang||jaanai birathhaa jeea kee kadhae n morrai rang|| <958>

My conversation is with WaheGuru alone; who never frowns towards me. WaheGuru alone knows the state of my soul; and my love is never ignored.

“Moorit” reminds us that WaheGuru is not an impersonal being; on the contrary, WaheGuru is the most personal being there is! If we open our inner eyes we will see that WaheGuru’s love for us is so deep, unconditional and personal that it is hardly bearable. Indeed it is only bearable if the Guru graces us with strength to bear it.

That’s why I repeat Moorit so many times – I can never get enough of it! It deepens the personal relationship I have with WaheGuru.”

I thanked him profusely for his wise words. We both knew that his Earthly end was near so I kept my promise not to disturb him with my childish enquires. I tried to provide as much comfort as I could to him in his last hours. Quite interestingly, when his end did come, he had been reciting this bani:

hm mUrK mugD srxwgqI imlu goivMd rMgw rwm rwjy] guir pUrY hir pwieAw hir Bgiq iek mMgw ] myrw mnu qnu sbid ivgwisAw jip Anq qrMgw] imil sMq jnw hir pwieAw nwnk sqsMgw]

ham moorakh mugadhh saranaagathee mil govindh rangaa raam raajae|| gur poorai har paaeiaa har bhagath eik mangaa|| maeraa man than sabadh vigaasiaa jap anath tharangaa|| mil santh janaa har paaeiaa naanak sathasangaa||

I am foolish and ignorant, but I have taken to WaheGuru Sanctuary; may I merge in the Love of the Lord of the Universe, O Lord King. Through the Perfect Guru, I have obtained the Lord, and I beg for the one blessing of devotion to the Lord. My mind and body blossom forth through the Word of the Shabad; I meditate on the Lord of infinite waves. Meeting with the humble Saints, Nanak finds the Lord, in the Sat Sangat, the True Congregation.

I sat there all night simply awestruck giving thanks to WaheGuru for having witnessed both a gurmukhs ascension into loving light, and the contrast earlier of a manmukhs departure into dark pain and terror. After such clear visions, there could be no doubt which path one should choose to take! I prayed to Guru Sahib to allow me to continue on the gurmukh path.

Awash with clarity, I could hear an inner voice as clearly as you can hear me. All I had to do was to listen for it. . The inner voice instructed me to go back to my wife and her awaiting abiding love. Without regards to the dangerous consequences of such a decision, I trekked back. I tried doing nitnem Khalsa Jee’s way too. No easy task, I constantly battled thoughts which crept in like hidden adversaries; who wanted to do nothing more than to worry about the future. I told the minds guardian to keep these thoughts quiet and listen to the Guru’s Shabad. This worked for a few moments until again the little thought thieves stole in once more, and I had to scold the lookout for slacking off!  I continued in this manner until I got back to the prison yard.

Upon return, quite amazingly I learned a rumor had spread that the great old Moghul General had been kidnapped by a gang of Khalsas after fighting them courageously! The army community celebrated my victorious homecoming and promptly promoted me to the rank of chief intelligence officer!

I still hold that position. I am not sure how long it will take before my superiors discover that I am feeding them nothing but false reports about the Khalsa! I am sure my track record shall come under scrutiny one of these days and I will be relieved of duty and retired from service. On that day (I pray it comes soon,) my wife and I shall join the Guru discreetly and spend the remainder of our days in his service.”

After the Moghul finished his story, Pita Jee nodded, “Moghula, you are not a bad Moghul after all!”

We all laughed. The Moghul turned to me and said, “Bheti, it is true that I mislead you; I guess I’ve gotten in the habit where good intentions are involved. Indeed the bag of coins is from me, rather than the Guru; but it is with utmost humility that I beg you to accept them.” Pita jee nodded to me to comply.

Mata jee thanked the Moghul and said, “Your wife sounds like a wonderful person. Perhaps we can meet her someday.” Her face brightened up and she exclaimed, “Actually, why don’t you both join for the asa-dee-vaar keertan we have having in memory of my son next week?! That would be wonderful! Since your wife loves asa-dee-vaar and we ladies can compare notes. Perhaps she and I…”

Pita Jee interrupted, “Yes, yes, you ladies, I am sure, will find plenty to talk about!” The Moghul smiled and said that he will try his best to attend. After getting the full details of the keertan program from me, he got up and bade us farewell requesting that he should be contacted if the Guru’s whereabouts come to be known. He bowed and walked out the door. We heard him say to the soldiers, “Let us go - they know nothing!!

To be Continued…