An Interview with Major Sahib

Bhai Kirpal Singh – Major Sahib
Chief Research Scholar
Head Granthi

The following text is a transcription of a video interview with Major Sahib recorded in January 2009.

courtesy of Brahmjit Singh Grewal
View the original videos

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God, soul & mind, these three are of great importance to us. We have to first understand these three. Guru Nanak Sahib has written in Japji Sahib – Ek Onkar Sat Nam Karta Purakh Nir Bhau Nir Vair Akal Moorat Ajooni Saibhang Gur Parasad – God is One, He is the Truth, He is the maker of this World, He is Fearless, He has no Enemies, Time has no effect on Him, He is beyond birth & death, He is Everywhere. How can we connect with God? Guru Nanak Sahib says Gur Prasad – we can connect with him with the blessings of our Guru. Without Guru one cannot come close to God. God gives light to the Guru & through the Guru the disciple can connect with God.

Maulana Room was a great Muslim saint. His full name was Jalaluddin Rumi. He has written a great deal of literature in Persian. He writes that if you want to see God then you should just look at your Guru. You should fall in love with your Guru. Then you will have the light of God inside you. This is for everyone not only for the Muslims. Since God, soul & mind do not have any caste, creed or religion, in the same way these sermons by great saints are not aimed at any particular caste, creed or religion. Now in which way should we look at our Guru? This is important. Guru has to be seen with Div Drishti that is with our inner eyes. Then the Guru will connect us to God. So we cannot connect with God by just literally looking at our Guru. Many people had seen Guru Nanak physically but all of them did not achieve salvation. Hence Guru has to be seen in meditation.

The second thing that Maulana Room said was that when you fall in love with your Guru then your Guru will enlighten you. A light will be produced inside you. Lights are of many kinds. Light is emitted by the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, by Lightening, by Jewels but the light which will be produced inside you will be more than all these. The external lights can be shut off by putting physical barriers, like a room without any windows will not get any light from the rays of the sun. The light which is inside us cannot be shut off by external barriers. We can view this light just by closing our eyes. The light of God is present everywhere & does not increase or decrease. This is the light that we have to see.

Guru ji says that like us God also becomes happy & sad. When does God become sad? God becomes sad when we make any saint sad. Now, who is a saint? A saint is one who does pure deeds. A saint is one who receives the light of God when he sits in meditation. Just by wearing the robes of a saint & having a rosary in the hand, one does not become a saint. Guru ji refers to these people as the “thugs of Benares” (Benares is a holy town in northern India). A true saint is one whose heart is pure.

On page 679 of Guru Granth Sahib, Guru ji says that God can fulfill all your desires & give you all the happiness. Kamdhenu is the sacred cow in Hindu mythology. All the desires of a person who possesses this cow are fulfilled. During ancient times, 14 things were considered precious out of which one was the Kamdhenu cow. These 14 precious things were present in the heaven. When the kingdom of Lord Inder was taken away from him, these 14 precious things took refuge in the vast ocean. Mehar hill was made into a madani (churning tool), it was kept on top of Kuch (tortoise) avatar, rope was made out of Sheshnag (snake) , on one side the rakshashas (demons) & on the other side the devtas churned the ocean & then these 14 precious things came out of the ocean. Sacred cow Kamdhenu was one of them. Whoever owns the Kamdhenu cow, all his wishes are fulfilled. Guru ji says that when you meditate on God, God will fulfill all your wishes since the Kamdhenu cow follows God’s commands.

Guru ji says that a flower’s perfume is in the flower itself. When we look at the mirror we see our own reflection. In the same way, God is inside us. When we meditate he will appear within us. Guru ji says that all the plants & trees on this earth contain heat (they can be burned) but when we touch them they are not hot. The heat is inside them. In the same way every kind of milk contains butter & pure oil in it but we cannot just dip our hand into a bucket of milk & take out the butter or pure oil. The milk has to be churned & then butter obtained which is then cooked & pure oil obtained from the butter. So God is within us but we will connect to him after we have made an effort.

When God has to connect to you or appear to you he will always do so when you are in deep meditation. This was also the case with Maharaj ji, Baba Virsa Singh ji. When partition of India & Pakistan took place in 1947, Maharaj ji was 13 years old. When he & his family came to India, they were allotted land in Sarawan Bodla (Punjab). They lived in a small temporary village house which had a beri tree in the courtyard. Maharaj ji would get up at 12 AM every day. Lord Krishna writes in the Geeta that when everybody sleeps, men of God rise up to pray. Maharaj ji would get up at 12 AM & would sit under the beri tree to meditate. One day Baba Srichand ji appeared to him. Maharaj ji did not know who Baba Srichand ji was. He thought that Baba ji was some hermit because of his appearance & long open hair. A question came up in his mind regarding who this hermit was. Then after a few days Guru Nanak Dev ji appeared to him standing next to Baba ji. Guru Nanak Dev ji told him that Baba ji was his elder son. After that Baba Srichand ji started appearing to him frequently in meditation & later they started talking to each other as well. Baba ji told him to pray to Guru Gobind Singh ji. Then Guru Gobind Singh ji appeared & told him to pray to Baba ji. This happened many times, Baba ji would tell him to pray to Guru Gobind Singh ji & Guru Gobind Singh ji would tell him to pray to Baba ji. This happened because God wanted to tell him that there is no difference between Baba ji & Guru Gobind Singh ji. They both come from the same light. Meeting both of them in deep meditation is equivalent to meeting God. We meet God in the form of our Guru & at a later stage we also start talking to our Guru during meditation.

Maharaj ji would always tell everyone to do meditation. He always used the word “meditation” even when talking to the illiterate village people. Mediation is done with the mind. Meditation is the characteristic of the mind. Whenever we think about something, it’s image is formed in our mind. Mind always thinks of the past or the future. Mind never thinks of the present. We have to hold the mind in the present. We have to fight with our mind in order to control it. If we have won over our mind then we have won the world. The most difficult task is to control our mind.

What is mind? Mind is our thoughts. We are always thinking of something. We do not know the thoughts of other people but saints like Maharaj ji possess an inner eye & know what we are thinking. They are enlightened. The light within them is more powerful than any other light in the world. It is much more powerful than the light of the sun or moon or stars. We get this light when we sit in meditation. Meditation is controlling your mind. Mind is always wandering but we have to control it. There is a way of doing it. What some of the present day gurus are teaching is mostly yogasans. Guru Nanak Dev ji says that even after learning the 84 asanas one cannot achieve God. Yoga is good & it will improve your health, it will make you live longer but it is not the substitute to meditation. To meet God we have to meditate. God has no physical form. As Guru Gobind Singh ji says in the Jaap Sahib, God has no form or shape. No one has ever painted a picture of God. Then how do we meet God? God always meets his disciples by taking the form of your Guru. If you believe in Guru Nanak then God will appear to you as Guru Nanak. Same way if you believe in Guru Gobind Singh or Maharaj ji then God will appear in their form. How will we see them? We will see them in meditation. Maharaj ji has not gone anywhere, he is with us all the time but we do not have the eyes to see him. God can see us all the time but we cannot see God unless we have the eyes to see him. Whenever we see God, we will see him with our eyes closed & in the form of our Guru, whether it is Guru Nanak Dev ji, Guru Gobind Singh ji, Baba Srichand ji or Maharaj ji. At a later stage we will be able to see him with our eyes open also but first he will appear to us when our eyes are closed. After God appears to us in the form of our Guru, all are wishes will start getting fulfilled. Like if we want to see what is going on in London, we can just close our eyes & see every street of London, we can see the boats in the river Thames etc. Also we will be able to talk to our Guru. Our Guru will start guiding us, will start giving us advise, telling us how to pray etc. But first we have to see him in our meditation. This is the difficult part. God is within us, he will not come from outside. Whether we call him God, Ishwar, Waheguru or Allah, they are all the same & inside us. The scent of the flower is inside the flower, it cannot be seen. Merely seeing our Guru physically is not enough, we have to see him with our eyes closed. Sitting with our Guru, serving him & making offerings to him is not enough. Okay these are good actions & we should do them but ultimately we have to see God in meditation.

The great Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti’s guru was Haroon Chishti. Moinuddin Chishti was only 17-18 years old when his guru Haroon Chisti told him to come with him to Mecca. A guru always instructs his disciple to do some kind of service (seva). Harron Chishti would make Moinuddin Chishti carry his belongings although Moinuddin Chishti was already carrying his own. Also he would make food for his guru whenever he was hungry. He would carry the groceries also. They reached Mecca. Mecca is the birthplace of Prophet Mohammed. The Prophet breathed his last at Medina & his grave is located there. Kabba is a room which was made by Ibrahim & his son Ismael. Similarly in Amritsar, the Akal Takht was constructed by Guru Hargobind Singh ji, Baba Buddha ji & Bhai Gurdas ji. They did not let anyone else help them, no labourers or masons were used. Only the 3 of them constructed the entire Akal Takht. Ibrahim & Ismael use to pray in the Kabaa. Intially it was just a room, later on people started keeping idols inside it. Slowly each & every tribe started keeping the idols of their own Gods in it. They also started keeping idols of so called God of Rain, God of Prosperity etc. Later when Prophet Muhammed went there he ordered the destruction of all idols since there was only one Allah & he had no form or shape. Slowly over many years Mecca became an important commercial centre. Ibrahim never had any child. He once heard a voice from heaven telling him that your sons will rule the world. He went & told his wife Saira about this. Saira was already 90 years old at that time. She told Ibrahim that she was too old to bear children so he should get married to her maid Hazira. So Ibrahim married Hazira. When Hazira became the wife of Ibrahim, she stopped caring about Saira. Saira was very unhappy that she had stopped looking after her. She complained to Ibrahim & they decided to chuck Hazira out of the house. At that time Hazira was pregnant. She left home & settled at a place in the desert where there was some water & gave birth to a son & named him Ismael. A trader saw her alone with a baby & asked her who she was. She told him that she was the wife of Ibrahim & he had chucked her out of their house. When Ismael was born & he moved his hands & feet, a spring of water erupted from the ground below. This spring is called Chahe Jumjum (Chahe means Well in Arabic). The trader told Hazira that he would give her a monthly pay & she should offer water to all the traders & other travelers who are passing by as a good deed. The trader’s name was Makih. Since water was in abundance there, people started living there & slowly it become a small town & got the name Mecca from Makih. Later Ibrahim met Ismael & told him that he had been instructed by the Almighty to construct a room which later got the name Kabaa.

When Moinuddin Chishti reached Mecca with his guru he heard a voice from God telling him that he would make Moinuddin Chishti one of the well respected figures in the Islamic world. When they went to Madina, Moinuddin Chishti heard the voice of God telling him that he had given him the job of taking Islam to India & he should go & stay in Ajmer, India. Moinuddin Chishti was just a boy of 17-18 years. He did not know where Ajmer was. The voice told him the way to Ajmer guiding him through Baghdad, Chaman, Quetta, Multan & Delhi. So Moinuddin Chishti set out for India with some of his disciples. At that time India was ruled by Prithviraj Chauhan. The emperor use to stay either in Delhi or in Ajmer. One day Prithviraj Chauhan’s mother had a dream that somebody from the Arab land was going to come & his rule would end. At that time the western limit of his kingdom extended till Hansi (in present day Haryana). At Hansi, the king ordered his guards to keep a check on all travelers coming to India & to refuse entry to anyone from the Arab land. When Moinuddin Chishti arrived with his disciples he heard about this & decided to enter India through another route & finally reached Ajmer. The same day again Prithviraj Chauhan’s mother had another dream in which she saw that the person who would finish his rule has arrived in Ajmer. So the emperor ordered his soldiers to get the area where Moinuddin Chisti & his followers were staying vacated & to tell them to return back. The soldiers told Moinuddin Chishti & his disciples to get up since they wanted that area to tie their camels. Moinuddin Chisti’s disciples requested them to tie the camels elsewhere but the soldiers insisted on the same place. So Moinuddin Chishti shifted out from there. In the morning none of the camels tied there were able to get up. The soldiers reported this to the emperor. The emperor told them to request Moinuddin Chishti for a solution. Moinuddin Chisti gave them a stick & told them that whichever camel was touched with the stick that camel would get up. Finally all the camels got up.

Hence Moinuddin Chishti’s coming to India was destined by Allah & had to happen. No power could have stopped it. After Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, Khawja Qutabdin Bhakhtiyar Kaki was appointed the spiritual head & was later succeeded by Sheikh Farid & then Nizamuddin Auliya. All of them were great saints with immense powers due to their many hours of deep meditation. Great saints like Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti know the future & work as per the command of God.

Meditation is very powerful. We have to control our minds. Once the mind is controlled then miracles start happening. Whatever the mind thinks actually starts happening. Once mind goes into meditation we can see whatever is happening in heaven, earth & hell. We have to train our mind to think of the present. Our mind is always thinking of the past or of the future. Many people have written books on the mind like Freud. Freud’s book is just like a primer. It contains nothing new. The only authentic book on the mind is by Patanjali. Ved Vyas has written a commentary on this book. Our ancient literature has 4 parts – Surti, Simiriti, Puran & Itihaas. Surti consists of Rig Veda, Sham Veda, Yajur Veda & Atharv Veda. All these 4 Vedas have been written by Ved Vyas. Ayurveda concerning medicines is an Upveda (smaller Veda). There are 28 Simiritis whose creators are the ancient rishis & munis. Simiritis are the ethical code. All the laws are mentioned in it. Manu (Manu is one of the 24 avatars) Simiriti is the most popular of all simiritis. It has ethical codes like if your son-in-law comes to visit you, you should take good care of him & offer him good non-vegetarian food. It says that on the other hand if your brother-in-law comes to visit then offer him plain food with non vegetarian food served only once in a year. There is another simiriti called Yagvalk Simiriti which talks about procedures for conducting havan. Once Raja Janak asked Yagvalk Rishi about how to conduct havan & which ingredients should be put into the havan. The Rishi told him that both husband & wife should conduct the havan together. He listed out the ingredients that should be put in the havan. Incase that is not available then one should put flowers. If flowers are not available then pure oil should be put. Then Raja Janak asked that if oil is not available, the Rishi said then other things should be put. If nothing is available then light up just the fire. Raja Janak presented the Rishi with 100 cows in appreciation for his telling him about the procedure of conducting havan. Yagvalk Rishi has written the Yagvalk Simiriti. There are 18 Puranas & these have been written by Ved Vyas. Some people say that there were more than one Ved Vyas. This is wrong. There was only one Ved Vyas & he wrote the 4 Vedas, the 18 Puranas, one Shastra – Vedant & Mahabharata. Itihaas consists of Ramayan & Mahabharata. Ramayana was written by Rishi Valmiki in the Treta Yug whereas Mahabharata was written by Ved Vyas in the Dwapar Yug. The Vedas were actually uttered by Brahma but they were documented by Ved Vyas in Dwapur Yug. During Lord Ram’s time the Vedas had not been documented but the knowledge existed since Brahma has always been present. In all the Surtis, Simiritis, Purans & Itihaas there is nothing wrong, there may be something wrong in our understanding. These are the authoritative scriptures of ancient India. Apart from these there are 6 philosophies called Shastras. These are Puranmasa written by Gemini, Visheshag was written by Anaad, Nyay Shastra was written by Gautum, Yog Shastra by Patanjali, Vedanta Shastra by Ved Vyas & last is Sankh. Out of theses Vedant Shastra is most difficult to understand. Many people have tried to explain the Vedant Shastra but except Shankracharya all others are wrong. All the Shastras are neither contradictory nor contributory. Most people do not understand these scriptures. In one commentary written by Nischal Das called Vichaar Sagar, he writes that I never ask anyone to read the Nyay Shastra during the morning since it is a Anadama Granth. He could not understand these great scriptures. Some think that these 6 philosophies are against each other or contradictory. These 6 philosophies are like 6 steps of one ladder. Gemini was the disciple of Ved Vyas. Now how can a disciple write against his guru.

Ved Vyas has written that Kaam or Temptation is the most difficult thing to control. Most of the people cannot escape from this. A thought came into the mind of Gemini that what Ved Vyas has written is wrong. Gemini felt that his guru should have written that temptation is hard to resist but disciples like Gemini have been able to control it. So the guru Ved Vyas thought of testing his disciple. One evening while Gemini Rishi was sitting in the forest, some young girls walked past giggling. Gemini Rishi saw them. When the night set, there was a knock on the door of his hut. When he opened the door, it was one of those girls & she said that she had got separated from her friends & had got lost so she wanted shelter for the night. Gemini understood that this was his test. He told the girl to shut the door properly & lock it from inside. He told her not to open it for anyone & even he himself knocks do not open the door. He told her that there was a ghost in the forest & he might take my form & ask you to open the door but do not open. The girl said okay. Gemini tried to sleep but could not get sleep because he kept thinking of the girl inside & was tempted to sleep with her. He knocked at the door but the girl did not open. He tried to convince her to open but the girl thought it was the ghost & did not open. Gemini was so overcome with temptation that he climbed up on the roof of the hut & jumped inside. When he landed inside the hut he saw Ved Vyas sitting instead of the girl. Gemini felt very ashamed. Ved Vyas explained to him that what he had written was right, sexual temptation is so strong that it can even overcomes great men like him.

Gemini has written Puranmasa which deals with how to pray, how to offer flowers etc. Gautam’s Nyay Shastra deals with logic. Saankh deals with theory while Patanjali’s Yogshastra deals with practical like how to meditate, what is mind, what is soul, how many planes does the mind have etc. Patanjali Yogasutra consists of 194 sutras in 4 chapters. Ved Vyas has written a commentary on it. The 1^st chapter is Athayoga Anushasna. It is just written “Now find the teaching of Yog”. It is just one line & one cannot understand it’s meaning. So Ved Vyas explains that Yog is a characteristic of the mind & meditation is the religion of the mind. He says that there are 5 planes of the mind. Plane is place of movement. 1^st plane of the mind is Raving Mind. Mind has 3 qualities – Rajogun (active), Tamogun (inertia) & Satogun (illumination). Guru Gobind Singh ji writes in Jaap Sahib – Namo Raajsan Taamsan Shaant Roope. Ved Vyas writes that mind is like a white cloth. One can give it any colour he desires. We cannot understand the 3 qualities of the mind. Rajogun is activity, Tamogun is inertia & Satogun is illumination.

In the 1^st state of mind, the mind is co-mingled with active & inert energies, the mind becomes raving. When a mind is influenced by Rajogun & Tamogun, the mind becomes raving. A mind is raving when it runs after sex, food, drinks, name, fame, wealth etc. A raving mind can never become one pointed. A person with a raving mind will never be able to become one pointed. For example food, such a person will prefer a slice of bread with honey on it instead of a plain slice of bread. Drink does not mean alcohol. A person whose mind is not raving will find no difference between a glass of plain water & a glass of coke.

The 2^nd plane of mind is forgetful mind. Whereas in the 1^st state, the mind is influenced by both Rajogun & Tamogun but in this state only Tamogun influences the mind. In this state the mind is like a sleeping mind, a mind which is oblivious to any wisdom. Here too the mind will never become one pointed & the person will not be able to meditate.

The 3^rd is the mind of research scholars, scientists etc. Such minds are oscillating minds. They are always worried if they will be successful or not. Here the mind is heavily influenced by Rajogun.

The 4^th state is the one pointed mind. In this state even the physical appearance of the man is calm & composed. Even when he is sits, he will sit calmly without moving his limbs. Sometimes we see people sitting & without any reason shaking their legs or moving their fingers, this is the sign of a raving mind. In this 4^th state only Satogun has influence. Such a mind is called one pointed mind. One pointed mind or Ekagar Mann has 4 stages – Sthool (Gross), Sookhsham (Subtle), Kaaran grahiyo (instrumental manifestation) & Ahang grahiyo (subjective manifestation) or the 4 stages are – Supposition, Clear Vision (seeing your Guru with eyes closed), Happiness (experiencing bliss) & Egoism (finishing of ego & becoming one with God).

There is a way in which one should do meditation. We cannot just start meditating without knowing the basics. First of all you have to give God an image. We have to suppose that Baba Virsa Singh ji or whoever is your guru is God. Like in algebra we do not know the value of something so we write suppose the value is ‘x’. Same way we do not know what is God so we have to suppose something. So first of all we have to imagine that our guru is God. Then we have to meditate on our guru’s picture. Without meditating on any image we cannot control our mind. This is not idol worship. This is just the way to control your mind. Now even the photo or the image in your mind should be of a certain type. The photo should be with the guru’s eyes open & looking towards you. This is very important otherwise we will not progress to the next stage of Sooksham from Sthool. We should not meditate on other photos. The photo of Maharaj ji which is presently kept in side Darbar Sahib is a good example. In this photo Maharaj ji’s eyes are wide open & looking towards you. Similarly another photo was taken of Maharaj ji a few years back & 25,000 copies of same were made & distributed. We have to first bring the image of our guru’s turban or fore head into our mind. Then slowly slowly we move down & think of his eyes, nose, lips, chin etc. Like this we should go down till the feet & after that start moving up in the same fashion. This is how to control our mind. When we meditate on our guru’s feet or his body, we will still be able to control our mind but will not be able to go inside or progress to the next stage of Sooksham. Our guru’s eyes are the gate for us which we have to enter. Unless the eyes are open which means the gate is open only then we will be able to enter. When we enter the gate, we will start experiencing miracles. We will start seeing the future & also the past. We will know what is going on in the other person’s mind.

Maharaj ji knew what was going on in the other person’s mind. Once he went to Assam & was addressing the regiment of Brig Gurnam Singh Randhawa. He was speaking about Meera Bai. Some of the soldiers started getting up & going. Actually these people were Muslims & hence were not interested in listening about Meera Bai. Maharaj ji in his vision was told to speak about Hazrat Ali since these people were Muslims. Then Maharaj ji started speaking about Hazrat Ali, Hassan & Hussien. Maharaj ji use to say many times that he knows with what feelings a person is coming to him. He was able to read the other person’s mind at the time the person left his house to meet him.

So slowly with meditation we start getting a clear vision which is the 2^nd stage Sooksham i.e. we can see him with our eyes closed. Hence the first stage Sthool is to “suppose” i.e. suppose Guru is God. For supposing also one needs faith. If we have doubt about our guru then we cannot suppose. There are 9 barriers or impediments which we have to overcome like disease, debility (weakness), doubt, inadvertence, sensuality, instability, wrong understanding, non attainment of the plane & sloth (as per Patanjali Yogasutra). Practice & Non Attachment are very important. Practice is the effort to make the mind steady. Non attachment from worldly things, desires, money etc are also important.

In the 2^nd stage i.e. clear vision, we will see the light inside us. Later we will also be able to see things even when our eyes are open. The light within us increases steadily. First it will be like the different colours of lights emitted by jewels & other precious stones. The 2^nd stage of light is when the light will be like the light of the stars. The 3^rd is light of the moon. The 4^th stage is when the light inside us is like the light of the lightening. When there is lightening in the sky there is tremendous light. The next stage is when the light is like the light of the sun. After that it will became like the light of a thousand suns & thereafter millions of suns. Initially we will only be able to see what is going on in other places on this earth but when the light inside us becomes like the light of the sun we will be able to see what is going on beyond the earth in the universe. Sun is 13,86,000 times bigger than the earth. It takes 9 minutes for the light from the sun to reach earth. The speed of this light is 1,86,000 miles/second. The Agast Tara is 1 crore times bigger than the sun. Jyeshta Tara is bigger than the Agast Tara & Param Jyeshta is even bigger than Jyeshta. Science has been able to discover thus far only. These names of stars are from Vedic astrology.

Say our mind is in the 2^nd stage then even if our mind slips we will not go below the 2^nd stage or if we were in the 4^th stage we will not slip beyond the 3^rd stage. In the 4^th stage Ahang grahiyo, there is no difference between you & God. After this stage comes Mukti or Emancipation. After Final Emancipation a person does not take birth again.

There are many souls which were with Maharaj ji in previous births but have now taken birth in far off places as per their karmas. In 1970 Ralph Singh came to Gobind Sadan from U.S.A. Ralph was born in America & after passing out from college landed up in India. His past karmas brought him to Gobind Sadan. He was a great disciple of Maharaj ji in his previous birth. On the very first day he received immense blessings from Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji gave him the same naam of Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru like he gives others. As soon as he received naam he started reciting it & he just would not stop. He kept on reciting even in his sleep. We all got worried. Then one day he was sitting at the Havan reciting Jap ji Sahib. He went to Maharaj ji & said that it is written in the Jap ji Sahib that there are millions of suns & earths but we can see only one. Maharaj ji told him that this has been written by Guru Nanak Dev ji & it cannot be wrong. Maharaj ji use to stay in the house behind the havan in those days. He told Ralph to sit down on the floor, to close his eyes & to keep telling what he sees. Maharaj ji then started taking him towards the sky, even though physically Ralph was sitting in front of everybody. He started describing what he was seeing & said that he is flying towards the sky. He said he was now getting close to the moon & it is very cold then he said now he was getting close to the sun & that he was feeling very hot. He started sweating profusely even though it was winter time. Then he said that he could see a red coloured planet – Mars. Then he started describing the other planets as well. After that he said that there were millions of constellations further on. After half an hour when Maharaj ji got him back, he asked him to tell him how many suns did he see, Ralph said that there were so many that they could not be counted. Maharaj ji was a complete guru & he had many powers. It is written in the Chandi di Vaar that when Goddess Durga use to wage war, people on 14 planets use to sing her praises.

Who is a Sikh? A Sikh is one who believes in the Almighty, who believes in the 10 gurus from Guru Nanak Dev ji to Guru Gobind Singh ji, who believes in the Guru Granth Sahib & the Gurbani & has been baptized as per Sikh custom. Sikh is one who follows the path shown by our Gurus. In Gurbani, it is written that a Sikh must earns his living by honest means. A Sikh must get up early in the morning & start reciting Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru immediately. Even during winters when it is cold & one doesn’t want to leave his cosy bed, a Sikh should immediately jump out of bed. Then he should bathe. Our 4^th guru, Guru Ram Dass ji says that we should bathe everyday in Amritsar. Here Amritsar means the well full of nectar which is inside us. By reciting the naam we are bathing in this well of nectar. Over the past births our hearts & minds have acquired a lot of impurities which we have to cleanse with naam. We have acquired this dirt because of our past karmas not only in this birth but also in our past births. The age of our soul is not just our present age but thousands of years as per our past births. Our soul was born the day this universe was made.

We take birth as per the record of our past karmas (deeds). In Gurbani it is written that Israel will talk to us after our death & tell us about the wrong things we did thereby judging all our actions during our life. In Hindus religion Dharam Rai is considered to be the God of Judgment while in the Muslim faith it is Israel. We have to suffer the consequences of our bad actions or bad karmas. Our good or bad karmas during our previous births get accumulated since we might not have been able to bear the consequences of all our past karmas. Like a farmer has grown wheat & has harvested 1000 bags of wheat but he uses only one bag a month for his daily needs & the rest he stores or sells. Sometimes we do a particular kind of very powerful good karma like helping or making huge donations to the poor & the needy, reciting naam etc. Temporarily this powerful good action will not let our bad karmas effect us but eventually we will have to bear the consequences of our bad deeds. The opposite happens if our bad karmas are more powerful. The large pile of good karma or bad karma becomes the leading karma & the other karmas remain subdued but eventually we have to bear the actions of them too. The bad karmas can only be burnt by the fire of wisdom of God or our inner light. It is necessary that we bear the consequences of our bad karmas in this birth during this birth itself. It is very difficult to bear the consequences of all our karmas. Out of all the accumulated karmas, some of karmas decide 3 things – Life State, Life Experience & Life Period. First Life State, it is decided which life form we have to take in our next birth, e.g. human, elephant, lion, tree etc. Then the Life Period is decided as per how much time is required to bear the actions of those karmas that have accumulated. Finally the Life Experience that we have to go through in life depends again on our karmas, good karmas will give us happiness & bad karmas will give us grief. All these are decided automatically. But God has also given us a concession. The concession is that in this life we can change the gravity of the grief we have to go through by doing good deeds like donations, helping the needy, reciting the name of God etc. For example, according to a person’s bad karmas he was destined to be hanged unto death, but the good karmas in this birth will change this to just a prick of a needle.

Like changing the Life Experience, we also have the power to change our Life Period. This depends on how many breaths we take in a minute. We are born with a predetermined number of breaths. On an average a person takes about 24,000 breaths in a day. A person can slow down his breathing rate hence increasing his life by being calm & composed while another person by breathing faster can shorten his life. Normally a person doing bad deeds breaths faster while a person doing good deeds will breath at a lower rate.

So we will have to bear the consequences of our Karmas & this happens automatically. But we must remember that God does not control what karmas we do. A person can do good or bad karmas & he himself has control over his actions.

Guru Ram Dass ji has written in the Gurbani that a Sikh must get up early in the morning & then after bathing must meditate & recite God’s name. Bhai Mani Singh has written on the life of Guru Nanak Dev ji in his book Gyan Ratnavali Granth & he writes that Guru ji would get up when 1 ¼ pehars of the night were still remaining. One pehar is 3 hrs hence 1 ¼ pehars is equal to about 4 hrs. So Guru ji use to get up around 2 a.m. & then go to bathe in the river Ravi. Then he would sit on the banks of the river & recite God’s name or meditate. After that say around 5 am he would recite the Jap ji & then Asa di Vaar. The recitation of Asa di Vaar would be completed before sunrise. Afterwards Guru Angad Dev ji added a few shalokas in Asa di Vaar. After that he would go to the fields to do manual work & then on completion of the work would come to the Dharamsala & sit down there. This was Guru ji’s routine at Kartarpur. Guru ji had established Kartarpur himself. Now this place is in Pakistan. Bhai Mani Singh has described Guru ji’s routine in the Gyan Ratnavali Granth. Guru ji had returned to settle down after the 3 Udasis (long voyages to far off lands to spread the word of God & to reform people) he had undertaken. At that time this area in West Punjab, that came to be known as Kartarpur later, was a jungle. I have seen during my childhood that Punjab was full of jungles. So Guru ji chose a spot in the jungle & sitting there started singing praises of God. This continued for many days. This part of the forest belonged to one Kiroria Mal. Somebody went & told Karoria Mal in Lahore that some saint is sitting on your land & he eventually will make that place his own. Karoria Mal got very angry & immediately left for this place on his horse determined to evict Guru ji. On reaching when he approached Guru ji angrily he went blind. He was shocked & turned back. As soon as he turned back he regained his sight. He once again approached Guru ji but again became blind. He then realized that Guru ji was a true saint & possessed many powers. He immediately bowed in front of Guru ji & sat down. He requested Guru ji to permanently establish himself on that land & to consider it as his own from now on. Guru ji then established Kartarpur village there. He made a room for himself, a shed for the cattle, a store & another room which he called Dharamsala. In the Dharamsala he would meet people, give sermons & answer their questions. Guru ji left for his 4^th Udasi from this place.

At Gobind Sadan we are following the same routine that Guru Nanak Dev ji established at Kartarpur.

During Guru Nanak Dev ji’s time only Jap ji was recited in the morning. Guru Arjun Dev ji added the recitation of Rehras in the evening. Guru Gobind Singh ji increased the morning recitations to 5 namely Jap ji, Jaap Sahib, Sawaiye, Chaupayee & Anand Sahib & evening recitations to 2 namely Rehras & Kirtan Sohella. At Gobind Sadan, the first Ardas (Sikh prayer) is at 2 AM. After that is Naam Simran (recitation of God’s name) followed by Aarta (Poem in praise of Guru Nanak). Then from 3 AM to 4 AM, all the 5 morning recitations of Gurbani are conducted. Then from 4 AM to 5 AM Asa di Vaar is recited. At 5 AM everybody has a cup of tea & then go for their work. In the evening Rehras is recited followed by Kirtan.

In Gurbani it is written that a Sikh should earn his living through honest means & in no circumstance except gifts in the name of religion. These gifts tend to corrupt the mind of the person who is accepting it. Guru Gobind Singh ji writes in the Gurbani that he loves a Sikh who follows the routine set by him & not a Sikh who has only the outward symbols of a Sikhism. Hence a Sikh is one who believes in the Almighty, who believes in the 10 gurus from Guru Nanak Dev ji to Guru Gobind Singh ji, who believes in the Guru Granth Sahib & the Gurbani & has been baptized as per Sikh custom. Only then he becomes a Khalsa. A Sikh should earn his living by honest means whatever his profession is like farmer, factory worker, office worker, shopkeeper etc. He should never steal or rob anyone. A Sikh should also never ask money from anyone.

Anyone having faith in Guru Nanak or the other Gurus is a Sikh. A Sikh who adopts the 5 Ks (Kara, Kanga, Kesh, Kirpan & Kuchcha) is a Khalsa.

There are 36 Rehatnamas (Ethical codes to be followed by Sikhs). Some of these Rehatnamas have been written by some of the Sikhs who had the privelege of being personally associated with Guru Gobind Singh ji. Even though these Rehatnamas have been written by different Sikhs they contain no contradiction. Bhai Desa Singh (son of Bhai Mani Singh), Bhai Daya Singh (one of the Panj Pyaras or the 5 Beloveds), Bhai Ram Kaur & Bhai Prahalad Singh have written one Rehatnama each while Bhai Nand Lal has written 3 Rehatnamas. Guru Gobind Singh had a lot of respect for Bhai Nand Lal due to his immense knowledge & would address him as Nand Lal ji. Bhai Ram Kaur has also written the Sau Sakhi (100 stories). At the end of the 50^th saakhi, Bhai Ram Kaur writes that a person should recite Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru & read the Jaap Sahib. In Bhai Desa Singh’s Rehatnama he writes that anyone who eats anything before reciting the Jap ji & the Jaap Sahib is wasting his life. In Bhai Nand Lal’s Rehatnama it is written that any Sikh who eats anything before reciting God’s name, donating & having bath is breaking his promise to Guru Gobind Singh ji. Donation means giving Dasvand or one tenth of the entire income of a family. Family includes the women too because they are also doing the household chores & even though they are not getting paid for it they are contributing to the family in their own way. Guru ji says that any person not giving one tenth of his income is not a Sikh. Who should we give this to? We should give it to the needy & the poor. Bhai Nand Lal writes further that a Sikh should comb his hair twice a day & then tie his turban neatly. He should brush his teeth. Guru ji says that any person who says that he is poor & unable to give Dasvand is a liar. Like Dasvand for the Sikhs, the Muslims have to give 5% of their earnings. It is called Chalisa. During Guru Gobind Singh ji’s time he would send letters to his disciples & ask them to bring money, gold etc.

The practice of donations started with Ibrahim. Ibrahim is considered a prophet by all 3 semitic religions namely Christianity, Islam & Judaism. One day when he was in meditation, God ordered him to give one tenth of all that he had. Ibrahim said that he had 1000 horses, 1000 camels, 1000 donkeys & 1000 goats. God told him to give 100 of each. Ibrahim was a very rich man & owned a lot of land. God told him to donate 10% of the fruits from the trees & 10% of all the harvest from the land. The stories from the life of Ibrahim are also found in the Holy Quran, Holy Bible & the Old Testaments of the Jews. There are a lot of people in the western countries who donate 10% to the churches & from there this money is sent to the churches in India with which the churches carry out charitable programmes for the poor & the needy. In Muslims it was 5% because at that time the Arab countries were poor so Prophet Mohammed asked them for only 5%.

In the Mahakosh Granth it is written that Ishnaan (Bath) has 5 parts. 1^st is having bath with water, 2^nd is wearing clean washed clothes, 3^rd is cleaning the house, 4^th is cleansing the mind & the 5^th is having a clean character. In Gurbani it is written that Truth is supreme but Character is more supreme than even Truth.

Hence Naam, Daan & Ishnaan are very important. What is Naam? During the days when Guru Nanak Dev ji use to continuously do kirtan in the forest on the land that belonged to Kiroria Mal, which later became Kartarpur, Baba Budda ji was only 10 years old. While grazing his cattle he would see Guru ji continuously doing kirtan there. One day Baba Budda ji bought a tumbler of fresh milk for Guru Nanak Dev ji. Guru ji told him that he never accepts anything from anyone till he has not given that person something. Guru ji said that in this world we have to learn to be content. Without contentment, we will always be running after more wealth. He further said that the quality of Forgiveness was like a lifelong meditation. We want everybody to forgive us but we do not want to forgive others. Speaking words of wisdom is the greatest form of donation. Like a rich person donating money, a saint donates through his sermons. Guru ji further said that the greatest religion is Mercy. Outward symbols of religion are not enough, the biggest symbol of religion is a heart full of mercy. So with these words Guru ji ended his first sermon to Baba Budda ji & then drank the milk he had offered. After that Baba Budda ji came up with a question. He asked Guru ji that how can he achieve salvation. Guru ji asked him that you are just a young boy, why do you ask about salvation. Baba Budda ji said that one day an army of Turk invaders came to my village. They did not see which crops were harvested & which were still growing, they cut all of them & fed them to their horses. A thought came into my mind that when death comes it does not see who is young or old, it kills everyone. Guru ji said that you are so young but your questions are like that of an old (Budda) person hence he came to be known as Baba Budda ji from then on. Baba Budda ji was 10 years old at that time. Then Guru ji told him to recite God’s name. He asked Guru ji what naam he should recite. Guru Nanak Dev ji then told him to recite Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru.

A person by the name of Kaladhari, who was from the 8^th generation of Guru Nanak Dev ji, came to Guru Gobind Singh ji & prayed to him to bless him with a son. Guru Gobind Singh ji said you surely will have a son who will grow up to be a warrior as well as a saint. Then Sahib Singh Bedi (Una wale) was born. Sahib Singh Bedi’s disciple was Baba Bhagh Singh & further his disciple was Baba Beer Singh (Aurangabad wale, Amritsar). This was during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule. Baba Bhag Singh told Baba Beer Singh to deliver a horse to Sahib Singh Bedi at Una. So Baba Beer Singh left from Amritsar. When he reached Una he told Sahib Singh Bedi that during reading Gurbani he commits a lot of mistakes. Sahib Singh Bedi told him that he should recite Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru 5 times before & 5 times after reading Gurbani & all his mistakes will be forgiven. He then told him to recite the same every morning also. Thereafter Baba Beer Singh also started giving the same naam to all his disciples including Bhai Mahara Singh. Hence we can see that all of these recited Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru.

Hence the above is Naam, Daan, Isnaan.

After Guru Gobind Singh ji, 2 taksals (schools) were set up in Amritsar by Bhai Mani Singh ji & at Damdama Sahib by Baba Deep Singh ji.The Damdama Sahib taksal is known for teaching a very pure recitation of Guru Granth Sahib. Japji Sahib paath is the most difficult to recite because of it’s matras & commas. A person who does not understand these will recite Japji sahib wrongly.

Bhagat Ravidas says that God is closer to us than even our hands & feet but a normal person cannot see God. To see him or to speak to him we need to connect to him first. Kabir ji also says that unless we control our mind we cannot connect to God. Bhagat Namdev says that I see God everywhere, he is all around us. This is because he was already connected with God. We need to make an effort & start practicing only then will we be able to connect to God. Guru Gobind Singh ji got the 36 Rehatnamas written because he wanted us to form a habit. When we form a habit & a schedule we will be able to do things like reciting God’s name continuously. We use a rosary & while turning each bead with our finger we recite God’s name in order to form a habit. A rosary otherwise has no connection with God, it is just an instrument to form a habit. Our attention goes towards the rosary & away from other thoughts. If we try to recite God’s name without a rosary our attention might get diverted & we will start thinking of other things. The rosary of the Hindus has 108 beads, the one of Jains has 111 beads, & the rosary of the Muslims (called Tasvi) has 100 beads. A rosary of 27 beads is used in order to achieve salvation & wealth while a 28 beads rosary is for reciting God’s name as per Hinduism.

All our Gurus use to use the rosary. Once Guru Hargobind ji met Emperor Jahangir & the Emperor requested one bead from Guru ji’s rosary in order to put it in his own rosary. Guru ji told him that his father’s (Guru Arjun Dev ji) rosary was even more beautiful than his rosary. The Emperor asked where this rosary was. Guru ji told him it was with one of his ministers Chandu. Emperor told his men to call Chandu. When Chandu came the Emperor asked him about the rosary. Chandu told him that he didn’t have that rosary. Guru ji told the Emperor to send his men to Chandu’s house & they will find the rosary in the pocket of the shirt which is hanging on the wall. When they brought the rosary, Emperor got furious with Chandu. Emperor realized what a big liar he was. The Emperor told Guru ji that what orders he had given for Guru Arjun Dev ji’s execution were not followed by Chandu & he had commited many excesses. The Emperor told Guru ji that now he was convinced that Chandu was responsible for the execution of Guru Arjan Dev ji. The Emperor handed over Chandu to Guru ji & asked him to punish him in whichever way he thought appropriate. Guru ji told Bidhi Chand to make Chandu sit outside the palace & everybody should beat him on his head 5 times with their shoes. The Emperor then told Guru ji that under his system of law he was handing over Chandu’s family also to Guru ji & should give them whatever punishment he so desired. But Guru ji instructed Bidhi Chand not to punish Chandu’s wife & sons and to release them without any harm.

Emperor Jahangir then told Guru ji that he was leaving for Kashmir & requested Guru ji to accompany him. Guru ji went with him from Delhi only till Lahore. In the procession, which accompanied the Emperor whenever he travelled, Chandu was tied up & made to walk last with all the Emperor’s servants. After Lahore the Emperor requested Guru ji to accompany him till Kashmir but Guru ji told him that it was important for him to return to Amritsar. Then Emperor left for Kashmir & Guru ji returned to Amritsar. The day Guru ji returned to Amritsar it was the occasion of Diwali & everybody celebrated Guru ji’s return by lighting oil lamps. At Amritsar Bidhi Chand paraded Chandu through the main market. When they reached the shop of the person who was ordered by Chandu to put hot sand on Guru Arjan Dev ji’s head, that person got angry & with the same scoop which he had used to pour sand, hit Chandu on his head. Chandu died on the spot.

All the Gurus use to use the rosary to recite God’s name. Every religion gives importance to the rosary. In Christians religion the rosary consists of 155 beads. The Muslim rosary of 100 beads is also called Isman Husna which means the 100 names of God like Rahim, Karim, Malik e Madin etc. The last name is Allah.

We usually recite the Jap ji in the morning & the Rehras in the evening. Bhangu Rattan Singh writes in Pracheen Panth Prakash that Guru Gobind Singh ji had instructed his followers that Jap ji & Jaap Sahib should be recited both morning & evening & to recite the Chandi di Vaar while standing.

Maharaj ji always stressed on Meditation & used the word meditation even when addressing illiterate village folks. Meditation means to control the mind. Guru Nanak Dev ji writes in the Jap ji that whoever has truly meditated on God’s name, only he has achieved something in life. Enlightenment will show on the face of such a person & he will enlighten many more before he leaves this world. Guru Gobind Singh ji writes in Dasam Granth that anyone who enters deep meditation for even a second becomes free from the cycle of birth & death. This happens because when we go into deep meditation our bad karmas start getting erased. So our Gurus have described the qualities of meditation in different ways. Bhagat Namdev ji gives the example of children flying the kite. He says that the child who is flying the kite keeps talking to his friends but his mind is fixated on the kite. He also gives the example of a goldsmith & his concentration when he is making expensive ornaments of gold. The goldsmith is careful that his hammer does not hit in the wrong place otherwise the ornament will get spoiled. We should also concentrate during meditation the way the goldsmith concentrates. Guru ji gives the example of village women going in a group to fetch water in earthen pots. Guru ji says that the women are talking & joking with each other but their mind is on the pot full of water on their head. Bhagat Namdev again gives the example of a cow grazing far away from her calf but her mind is always centered towards the safety of her calf. He also gives the example of a mother whose baby is in the cradle. The mother does her work but her mind is focused on the baby’s safety.

This is how we have to control the mind. The mind is full of thoughts. It is thinking of the past & of the future. We have to control our mind. Our Gurus & various bhagats have given examples such as above.

During Guru Har Rai ji’s time there was a disciple called Bhai Gonda was lived in Kabul. Guru ji lived in Kiratpur Sahib. Bhai Gonda got up at 2 AM & after bath sat down to meditate. He pictured Guru Har Rai ji sitting on his seat. He thought of guru ji’s turban, his face & then started coming down. When he came to Guru ji’s feet he focused his mind on them & went into deep meditation. Guru ji knew that his disciple has focused his mind on the feet so he did not move even after the morning prayers were over. When other asked Guru ji he explained that if he moves his disciple will get disturbed during meditation. Finally when Bhai Gonda got up only then Guru ji got up. After many days when Bhai Gonda came to visit Guru ji many of Guru ji’s followers narrated the whole incident to him.

In 1699 after Baisakhi, one day Guru Gobind Singh ji’s wife Mata Jeeto ji told Guru ji that she had come to him as his Sikh & not his wife & requested Guru ji to speak a few words of wisdom to her in the way he speaks to his other disciples. Then Guru ji said that one should have Alap Ahar meaning have food as per the energy requirement according to the person’s work. As per Ayurveda if a person has a office job or is a shopkeeper or other jobs which do not require much energy then this person should have only 2 meals in a day. A person who is a labourer, a farmer etc which require a lot of manual work, such a person should have 3 meals. A person who only meditates should have food only once a day. After that Guru ji said that a person should sit cross legged & after closing the eyes, try to focus towards the nose. We cannot see the nose but we should try to focus in that direction. This was just a method of focusing your mind suggested by Guru ji to Mata Jeeto ji. There are other ways of meditation also. Mata Jeeto ji practiced like this for 6 months & then connected with God. After 12 months she could see the past & the future. She knew beforehand that on the night of 5^th Dec 1705 they would have to leave Anandpur Sahib. She knew that her 2 sons will be martyred in battle at Chamkor Sahib & another 2 will be martyred alive in a wall at Sirhind. She knew 5 years before all these things happened. Then Mata Jeeto ji told Guru ji all this & requested that she not be around to see all this because it would be too much for her to bear. Guru ji agreed & Mata Jeeto ji passed away in the year 1700. Her Deora (Memorial or Angitha Sahib) is in Anandpur Sahib.

To make our mind one pointed, first we have to control our mind & the 9 openings in our body – 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nose, 1 mouth & 2 private parts, only then will we gain entry into the 10^th opening which is the inner eye. The 1^st stage towards achieving of a one pointed mind is when we try to focus on our Guru’s photo in our mind by repeatedly trying to see the photo with our eyes open & then with our eyes closed. This stage is called Sthool. Then once we are able to see the image of our Guru even with our eyes closed, it is called Clear Vision. In this stage we can even control our dreams i.e. whatever we want to see in our dreams we will be able to dream about it. We can get Clear Vision or Div Drishti only by the blessings of our Guru. Out of Maharaj ji’s disciples the 1^st person to receive Clear Vision from Maharaj ji was Gyani Gurdev Singh of Sarawan. The next was Brig Gurnam Singh Randhawa. After that it was Mr.S S Kapoor, he was an engineer with National Building Construction Company. Only the Guru can give Clear Vision. A person can get Clear Vision from his Guru even on the basis of his karmas (deeds) from previous births. The Guru knows the past karmas of his disciples.

When Maharaj ji starting exhibiting his powers bestowed on him by God, he was still young & lived in Sarawan Bodla. Whatever Maharaj ji would say would come true. Like if a person would tell Maharaj ji that he did not have a son, Maharaj ji would say that a son would be born in one year & actually a son would be born. So people started saying that Maharaj ji has appeared to the world. Gyani Gurdev Singh asked Maharaj ji if it was possible for him also to do all this. Maharaj ji said that first he would have to sleep with him for 3 nights. At once Gyani ji went & brought his bedding. Maharaj ji was very impressed by his obedience. We have to make our Guru happy whichever way it may be. Gyani ji use to recite a lot of Gurbani. Gyani ji remembered by heart Sukhmani Saheb, Japji Saheb, Jaap Saheb etc. That is why he was called Gyani ji because he knew most of the Gurbani. One day Maharaj ji told him to stop reciting Gurbani, Gyani ji immediately stopped. Maharaj ji was again impressed at his obedience.

There is a reason behind why Maharaj ji told Gyani ji not to recite Gurbani. When we recite Gurbani & also try to meditate we will not be able to meditate. Our concentration will go towards the recitation. This command is only for a chosen few, normally Maharaj ji would tell everyone to recite Gurbani. Maharaj ji wanted to take Gyani ji to the next level. After just three days, Maharaj ji told Gyani ji that from now on he would be able to tell people what they wanted to know. So Gyani ji would just close his eyes & see the signs like red flag or green flag. This is how Maharaj ji gave Gyani ji the Div Drishti or Clear Vision.

The second person who received this gift from Maharaj ji was Brigadier General Gurnam Singh Randhawa. He was a Colonel in the Army when he met Maharaj ji at Chandigarh. Before 1968, when Gobind Sadan was established, Maharaj ji would stay at the homes of his various disciples, sometimes for 2-3 months at a stretch. He would move to different places like Amritsar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Shimla etc. In 1965 Maharaj ji was staying in Chandigarh & as per his everyday routine he would give sermons to people who would come to meet him. Most of the people coming to meet Maharaj ji were women folk since men would be busy with their work. Out of them there was one lady Kundan Kaur who could come with her son & daughter. One day she told Maharaj ji that her husband, who was a Colonel in the army stationed in Assam, was coming on leave tomorrow. She said that her husband was very strict & will get annoyed if he comes to know that I visit a saint or a hermit. Maharaj ji told her not to worry since her husband would have even more faith in him than her. On the day Colonel Randhawa was to return, Kundan Kaur was sitting with Maharaj ji. When Maharaj ji realized that it was time for his train to arrive, he told her to immediately leave for home. He further told her that as soon as she reaches home & when she is about to take out the keys of the house from her purse, her husband’s taxi would arrive. Exactly the same thing happened & the children started laughing. When Colonel Randhawa asked why everyone was laughing his wife told him that they were sitting with a saint & he had told them exactly the same sequence of events. Then in the evening Colonel Randhawa also went to meet Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji explained that their association went back to their previous birth. The distance that a person had covered while trying to connect with God in the previous birth does not go wasted. In the next birth he continues from the same point. Maharaj ji then started describing Colonel Randhawa’s office in the forest areas of Assam. Maharaj ji told him that his office was a tent, it had a table & chair for him, there were 12 other chairs, the table had 2 phones – one green & one black, there were 2 golden coloured pens etc. He was surprised that this saint knew everything even though he was sitting far off. His faith in Maharaj ji immediately developed. Then Colonel Randhawa started visiting Maharaj ji daily. One day Maharaj ji told him that he was very happy with him & he should ask for something. Colonel Randhawa said that God had given him everything, he had a bunglow, car, two children, a good job with plenty of respect & a decent pay. Maharaj ji again asked second & third time but his answer was the same. When Maharaj ji asked for the 4^th time then Colonel Randhawa said that he was going back to join his duty since all indications were that war was going to erupt between India & Pakistan and asked for the gift that he should know beforehand the strength (number of soldiers, amount of ammunition etc) of the enemy. Maharaj ji said that he would come to know about all this beforehand. Then Colonel Randhawa said that he did not have a railway reservation & would have to go without reservation. Maharaj ji told him that he had got his reservation done till the destination. Colonel Randhawa requested for the same for his Major friend & Maharaj ji agreed. When they reached the railway station, they found the first class compartment of the train coming from Kalka & going to Delhi was empty. They comfortably went to Delhi. When they reached Delhi & requested the RTO for reservation for the onwards journey to Assam, the RTO replied that he has already received instructions that officers & soldiers of the army are returning back for emergency duty hence the railways had already arranged for extra train compartments to be attached. So Colonel Randhawa had a comfortable journey right till Assam. When Colonel Randhawa sat down in the train & closed his eyes he saw Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, Baba Srichand ji, Maharaj ji, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Hanuman, Durga & all the other Gods & Godessess in his vision. One always has visions when the eyes are closed, at a later stage a few can also have visions with their eyes open. So Colonel Randhawa got what he wanted & started having visions. When the war broke out he could clearly see how the enemy was planning the attack & their resources. He was responsible for liberating the maximum amount of area in Bangladesh from Pakistan. The government of India also noted this fact.

Later on one day Maharaj ji told Colonel Randhawa that he would retire as a General. When the orders for his retirement came he was still a Brigadier. He was surprised. But Maharaj ji’s words can never go wrong. Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India & she knew about the good record of Brig Randhawa. On the day of his retirement he got a call from Indira Gandhi telling him that she proposed to post him as the Inspector General of Police of the state of Mizoram in north east India & asked him to come to Delhi & meet her. During those days the problem of militancy was going on in Mizoram & there were 1500 young men & women who had turned militants & were hiding in the forest. They would harass the common people & demand money from them. One day when a top level meeting of the state police was being held there was an attack by the Mizo militants & they killed the entire top brass of the state police including the DGP, SSP, SP etc. The entire police force got demoralized & the news spread all over India. Many police officers were reluctant to be posted to Mizoram. Then Indira Gandhi personally chose Brig Randhawa for the job. He first asked Maharaj ji’s permission & then accepted the job directly from Indira Gandhi. This is how Maharaj ji’s words of Brig Randhawa becoming a General came true.

Before leaving for Mizoram when he came to meet Maharaj ji, Maharaj ji told him that on the 13^th day of his taking over in Mizoram he will kill the no.2 man of the militants, on the 20^th day you will kill another of their frontline leaders, on 30^th day you will capture 200 rifles. He wrote down everything Maharaj ji said. When he reached Mizoram & reported to Governor Chibber, he started telling the Governer everything Maharaj ji had told him. Governer Chibber’s first reaction was that the man was mad. But sure enough on the 13^th day a battle took place between the no.2 man of the militants & Sant Lal, who was the SP. First they fought with their revolvers & once the bullets finished that had a hand to hand fight. Finally the no.2 man was killed & the Governer rewarded Sant Lal with Rs. 20,000. Then on the 20^th day when IG Randhawa was going to the office he told his driver to stop the car & told his men to arrest the person who was going on a cycle. On interrogation he confessed to be one of the leaders of the militants. The militants then came to know that IG Randhawa has some power by which he can see things & they started staying away from him.

Maharaj ji had told IG Randhawa that on the 30^th day, on the 15^th milestone of GT Road he would find 5 Mizos sitting. They will have some boxes which will contain 200 rifles. So IG Randhawa called the Commandant of the Armoured Police Mr Sandhu & told him to go to the 15^th milestone where he would find 5 Mizos sitting. He told Mr Sandhu that they will run away after seeing you. So you can get the boxes which have the rifles. Exactly the same sequence of events happened. When the Governer came to know, he called IG Randhawa & asked him how he knew to the exact date when each of these events would happen. IG Randhawa told him that it was not he but his Guru Maharaj Baba Virsa Singh ji who had told him all these things. Governor Chibber asked him if Maharaj ji would come to Mizoram. IG Randhawa replied in the positive & the Governor told him to arrange for flight tickets for Maharaj ji & request him to visit Mizoram. Maharaj ji agreed.

In those days Maharaj ji would travel with some of his disciples. I (Major Sahib) also went with Maharaj ji to Mizoram. At that time in Mizoram, all the top officers were Punjabis. Governor Chibber, Chief Secretary Surender Nath, Mr Sharma (head of CID), Mr Katoch (Governor’s secretary), Mr Sandhu etc all were Punjabis. They all came to meet Maharaj ji when he reached Mizoram. Maharaj ji told them to recite naam (God’s name) but Mr Sharma (head of CID) told Maharaj ji bluntly that he was not interested in reciting naam & would only continue to do his duties. Then Maharaj ji told them that in that case they should ask him questions & he would reply. Then they started asking questions. Most of the questions were asked by Surender Nath, his daughter Jyotsna & Mr Sharma. They would all come in the morning & ask questions & Maharaj ji would answer. They continued doing this for 2 weeks & after that they said they had no more questions. Maharaj ji then said now I will talk & you all listen. He told Governor Chibber that very soon the militant Mizos are going to delegated one person to kill you with a revolver. Same way they will delegate one person to kill Surender Nath & another person to kill IG Randhawa. He told this to them at 9 AM. Same day at 12 Noon the militant Mizos had a meeting & decided to kill the 3 & chose people for the job. The head of the CID Sharma got the information from his sources at 2:30 PM on the same day. He immediately left to inform the Governor. Governor told him that he already knew at 9 AM about this. Sharma was shocked. He asked the Governor how he got the news. Governor told him that Maharaj ji had told him. Then Sharma went to Surender Nath. There too he got the same response. Then Sharma finally went to Maharaj ji. He asked Maharaj ji that how was it possible that the meeting was held at 12 noon & Maharaj ji came to know at 9 AM. Maharaj ji told him that the power which put this idea into their heads first came & told me about it. Sharma then asked Maharaj ji if it was possible for him also to know beforehand. Maharaj ji said yes it was possible but first he will have recite Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru. Sharma immediately agreed. The same person who 2 weeks earlier had blindly refused to recite naam started getting up early in the morning & reciting naam.

One day Sharma came to Maharaj ji & told him that he had information that at 6 PM the militants are going to gather at a certain house & they would surround the house & capture all the militants. Maharaj ji told him that the militants will not be at that house but will be at the house which is 4 houses further down. Maharaj ji also told him that the house will have one door opening towards the hill & the other towards the door. Maharaj ji told him that though you all will surround the house they will still escape & you will not be able to capture any of them. When Sharma & his team went to capture these militants he first searched the first house but did not find anyone. Then he decided to search the house Maharaj ji had told him about but by that time the militants had already got the news & escaped dressed as women. Then Sharma came to Maharaj ji & told him the whole story. Maharaj ji told him not to worry & that the militants will be caught at 6 PM on Sunday. On Sunday, Sharma again came to Maharaj ji & told him that it was past 6 PM & still the militants had not been arrested. Maharaj ji told him to be patient. When Sharma was leaving his men came to tell him the news that the militants had been caught & revolvers recovered from him. Sharma immediately gave Maharaj ji the good news. Maharaj ji told him that one of the militants had 2 revolvers & he had handed over only one to the police & one he had hid with his relative. When the militants were interrogated, one of them agreed & the 2^nd revolver was also recovered. Then Maharaj ji told Sharma that one of the militants had hidden a bomb near a tree. They interrogated & recovered the bomb too. Actually the militants had also come to know that it was Maharaj ji who was guiding the administration & the police. So in this way with the grace of Maharaj ji the militancy in Mizoram was crushed in just two & a half months & peace restored to the state.

Sharma, the CID chief, would get up every day at 4 AM & practice meditation. One day he saw the figure of OM in meditation. Sharma was a strict Arya Samaji (a sect of Hindus). They believe in OM. He saw Lord Krishna swinging on the middle line of the letter OM. All Hindus have the blood of Lord Ram & Lord Krishna in them though the Arya Samaji do not believe in this (Arya Samajis only believe in the 4 Vedas & do not believe in Lord Ram, Lord Krishna or any other Hindu god). He kept meditating till 6 AM. At 6 AM Surender Nath called up for some work but Sharma was still meditating. Then Sharma’s wife informed Sharma about the telephone call. Sharma got up to hear the phone. He saw OM everywhere. He heard the phone & then returned to meditation & continued until 8 AM.

Maharaj ji stayed in Mizoram for 3 months. Maharaj ji would be invited to stay at different people’s houses. Governor Chibber also invited Maharaj ji to stay in the Raj Nivas (official residence of the Governor). Maharaj ji agreed. I was also with Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji told Governor that he too should get up early & recite naam. Governor said that he is unable to get up early & he usually gets up at 9 AM & after breakfast leaves for office. Maharaj ji told him to pray to God before going to sleep that he should be able to get up early. Governor said he did not know the Sikh way of prayer. Maharaj ji then told him to pray in his own way. Next day early in the morning he heard a voice calling out to him to get up. When he got up he saw Guru Gobind Singh ji on his horse calling out. Then Guru Gobind Singh ji told him to get up & go for bath. Then after bath Guru Gobind Singh ji told him to sit down & do meditation & that he was leaving. Suddenly Guru ji disappeared on his horse. Governor then told Maharaj ji in the evening about the whole incident.

When Maharaj ji returned to Delhi after 3 months, The Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Mathur came to meet Maharaj ji at Gobind Sadan. He told Maharaj ji that he was getting the news from Mizoram every day about what was going on. Mathur said that they in the government were surprised that religion & spirituality could play such a major role in ending militancy.

The 3^rdperson to receive Div Drishti from Maharaj ji was Mr S S Kapoor. Once he organized 51 Akhand Paaths (48 hours nonstop recitation of the entire Guru Granth Sahib). At the end of every Akhand Paath the next would start. In those days Maharaj ji was staying in the house behind the Havan. He would everyday at 8 AM do Ardas (Sikh prayer) at the Havan, then at Baba Srichand ji’s havan & then finally at Darbar Sahib. One day Kapoor saab & his younger brother Manohar Singh Kapoor brought roses & laid them on Maharaj ji’s route from the Havan to Darbar Sahib.

Maharaj ji walked on the roses to do Ardas. After the Ardas Maharaj ji blessed the roses & said that anyone suffering from any stomach ailment will be cured by eating just one of the petals. For many days these roses were kept by the Gobind Sadan store keeper Kalha Singh & he would give it to whoever needed it.

A saint by the name Paltu writes that naam (God’s name) cannot be described, written or said. He says that great saints can see or hear naam by closing their eyes. We can read the entire Gurbani but nowhere will we find which naam to recite. In some places we find Satnam, in other places it is Sohang, Allah, Ram etc. Kabir ji says that I offer shoes made of my skin to anyone who utters the name of Ram in his sleep. To be able to recite God’s name in sleep is a sign of a highly spiritual person. We normally dream of all bad things but to dream of good things like reciting naam etc shows that a person is highly spiritual. Now which naam do we recite?

It is important to note that the naam which is to be recited is never written down in any book. Like the followers of Lord Krishna recite Om Kring Krishnay Namo but it is not mentioned anywhere in the Geeta or Mahabharata or any other book. Same way in Guru Granth Sahib none of our Gurus have mentioned the word Waheguru in any of their compositions. 6 Gurus namely 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th , 5^th & 9^th Gurus have compositions in Guru Granth Sahib but none of them used the word Waheguru. Waheguru word comes only on page 1402 of Guru Granth Sahib in the compositions of the Bhatts called Bhattan de Swaiye. Guru Arjun Dev ji just writes on page 521 that gurmantar (Guru’s naam) should be recited. In his Vaars, Bhai Gurdas ji writes that Waheguru is the Gurmantar. Bhai Gurdas ji’s Vaars are considered to be the keys to Gurbani because they explain everything in detail. It is the Guru who gives naam to his disciple by speaking. Naam is never written, it is passed down by the word of mouth. A disciple can only connect with God by reciting the naam given to him by his Guru. Guru Nanak Dev ji writes that praise is to the people who recite Ram, praise is to the people who recite Allah. He further writes that we should bow our heads on the feet of the people who recite Ram & who recite Allah.

Kabir ji’s guru was Ramanand. Kabir use to live in Benares & belonged to a low caste while Ramanand belonged to a high caste. Kabir knew that being of low caste he would not get naam from a high caste Guru. So Kabir thought of a plan. He first found out the time Ramanand would get up & which route he would take to go to bathe at the river Ganga. He then lay down on that route. Since it was dark Ramanand did not see Kabir lying down on the road & his feet accidently hit Kabir. At that moment the words “Ram’s son recite Ram” came out from Ramanand’s mouth & he walked past without seeing who he was. Kabir had now heard the naam Ram directly from Ramanand even though it was by tricking him. Kabir immediately started reciting the naam Ram. When people started asking him who his guru was, Kabir told them Ramanand. People were surprised that how come Ramanand had made a low caste person his disciple. They went to Ramanand & asked him. Ramanand said that he had never made Kabir his disciple & asked them to bring Kabir to him. Kabir came & recited the entire incident on the banks of the Ganga. Then Ramanand remembered & accepted Kabir as his disciple. Ramanand told everyone that Kabir was a unique & most deserving disciple since his faith was so strong that with my few simple words he started reciting the naam Ram so sincerely & diligently.

Hence only that Naam should be recited by a disciple which has been given to him by his Guru. Then by reciting this naam he can connect with God. Kabir eventually became one with Ram by reciting the naam Ram. One day Kabir’s mother told him that wheat flour had finished & he should go & sell the cloth he had woven & out of that money buy some wheat flour. Now that day God decided to test Kabir. God sometimes comes in the guise of another person but one cannot recognize him. Sometimes God sits with other disciples in a congregation but we cannot recognize him, we think he is another disciple. When Kabir went to the market with the cloth, a hermit came to him & asked him for some cloth. First the hermit asked him for some cloth since his shirt was torn, then he asked for more since his loincloth was also torn & finally he asked some more since his turban was also torn. So eventually Kabir ended up giving all the cloth he had to the hermit. After taking the cloth the hermit disappeared. Kabir knew he could not go back home empty handed since his children were hungry so he decided to go & sit down on the banks of the river Ganga. For God, Kabir had passed the test so it was time to reward him. God then again disguised himself & took with himself a bullock cart full of wheat, rice, pulses, vegetables etc & went to deliver it at Kabir’s home. Kabir’s mother was delighted & thought that Kabir must have sold the cloth to a really needy person at a good profit. The children were also delighted & they feasted. When Kabir did not return even at sunset his mother went to look for him. She found him sitting alone on the banks of river Ganga. She told him everything & thanked him for filling the house with wheat, rice, pulses, vegetables etc. Kabir understood it was God’s miracle. He uttered one of his verses which meant that he was incapable of such great miracles & it was God who was doing everything but the world thinks it is Kabir who has performed these miracles.

So only the naam that is given by your Guru should be recited. It is only when I came to Gobind Sadan that I came to know that Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru is the naam that is to be recited. I had read many books & use to recite Waheguru only. Like the hardliners I use to think Waheguru is the Gurmantra as per the Gurbani. So one day I decided to ask Maharaj ji. The book Sau Saakhi (100 stories) is the conversation between Guru Gobind Singh ji & Bhai Ram Kaur. So I told him that in the 50^th Saakhi (story) of the book it is written that we should continue to recite the naam Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru & recite Jaap Sahib till the last breath in our body. Maharaj ji told me that he was not aware where it was written & that I must be knowing all that but what he had received in his vision he was telling everyone. Gurmatra is Waheguru while Malamantra is Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru.

A person by the name of Kaladhari, who was from the 8^th generation of Guru Nanak Dev ji, came to Guru Gobind Singh ji & prayed to him to bless him with a son. Guru Gobind Singh ji told him that he would surely be blessed with a son who will grow up to be a warrior as well as a saint. Then Sahib Singh Bedi (Una wale) was born. Sahib Singh Bedi’s disciple was Baba Bhagh Singh & further his disciple was Baba Beer Singh (Aurangabad wale, near Amritsar). This was during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule. Baba Bhag Singh told Baba Beer Singh to deliver a horse to Sahib Singh Bedi at Una. So Baba Beer Singh left from Amritsar. When he reached Una he told Sahib Singh Bedi that during reading Gurbani he commits a lot of mistakes. Sahib Singh Bedi told him that he should recite Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru 5 times before & 5 times after reading Gurbani & all his mistakes will be forgiven. He then told him to recite the same every morning also. Thereafter Baba Beer Singh also started giving the same naam to all his disciples including Bhai Maharaj Singh. Hence we can see that all these great men recited Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru.

Bhai Maharaj Singh was a man with immense powers. One day dal was being made in a big pot. Suddenly it starting boiling over. He put his hand inside & stirred it. Nothing happened to his hand & the dal stopped boiling. After Maharaj Ranjit Singh, he was the one who fought two battles against the British.

Also Sant Baba Attar Singh ji (Ludhiane wale, not Mustuane wale) use to recite the same naam Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru. Also Sant Ishar Singh Rarewale use to recite the same name. First I had doubt in my mind that for so many years I have been reciting Waheguru & now I have to change the naam. Then slowly I formed a habit & started reciting the correct naam. There is a particular way in which we should recite naam. When we recite our mind should listen to the naam. So we have to recite as well as hear the naam also. We will not get the fruits of reciting naam if we do not recite it in this way.

Now how can we recite & hear naam? When Baba Budda ji met Guru Nanak Dev ji for the first time he asked Guru ji how he should recite naam. Then Guru ji told him that there are 4 stages in reciting naam – Bekri, Madhma, Basanti, Parah. Bekri means by reciting naam loudly. Madhma means reciting with the lips & tongue moving without the other person hearing. In Basanti neither lips nor tongue move, the recitation is done in the mind. In Parah each & every pore of the body is also reciting naam.

Once a disciple asked Guru Arjun Dev ji if there was anyone who recited naam in the above manner. Guru ji told him that there was a Bhai Bano who lived in Maangat village of Gujurat & runs a shop there. Guru ji told him to go & meet this person. When this disciple reached there he found Bhai Bano working in his shop. Bhai Bano had reached a stage where he knew what was on the mind of the other person. He told the disciple to wash up. He then gave him something to eat & told him to rest while he finished his work. Bhai Bano kept working till sunset & then closed his shop. Bhai Bano told the disciple that as per the preachings of Guru ji he has first earned his living & now he could talk to him. The disciple then asked Bhai Bano the meaning of reciting with every pore of the body. Bhai Bano told him to bring his ear close to any of the pores of his body & hear. The disciple was shocked when he heard each & every pore of Bhai Bano’s body reciting naam.

In the 4^th stage of reciting naam, not only each & every pore of the body recites naam but the person also hears & sees the entire nature around him reciting naam, He can see & hear the sun, birds, trees etc reciting naam. So these are the 4 stages of reciting naam. We cannot concentrate while reciting naam because we do not recite it the correct way. We have to make our mind hear what we are reciting. When we recite naam the correct way we will be blessed with many unique qualities & strengths.

During the times of our Gurus, the Sikhs would follow the orders of the Gurus & recite naam in the correct manner that is why they were blessed with so many powers. Baba Budda ji was one of them. When Guru Nanak Dev ji passed away, nobody knew the whereabouts of Guru Angad Dev ji for 6 months. Guru Angad Dev ji had been appointed successor by Guru ji. Guru ji had hugged Guru Angad Dev ji (whose name was Bhai Lehna that time) & told him that you are now a part of me. Disciples would come to Kartarpur but were unable to meet their Guru so everybody then asked Baba Budda ji to help find the whereabouts of Guru Angad Dev ji. Then Baba Budda ji went into deep meditation. In meditation he saw Mai Nihali’s house in Khadoor Sahib & in the house he saw Guru Angad Dev ji sitting in deep meditation. So then 6 months after Guru Nanak Dev ji passed away, Baba Buddha ji took the disciples to Khadoor Sahib from Kartarpur. Guru Nanak Dev ji had asked Guru Angad Dev ji not to stay in Kartarpur & told him to stay at his native village Khadoor Sahib. When they came to Khadoor Sahib, Baba Budda ji did not have to find Mai Nihali’s house. Baba ji already knew the location because he had seen it in meditation. When they came to Mai Nihali’s house & called out for Guru ji, Mai Nihali told them that there was no Guru living here. Actually Guru ji had himself told her not to tell anyone about his whereabouts but when he heard the voice of his disciples he asker Mai Nihali to let them come in. Then Baba Budda ji requested Guru ji to heed to the wishes of his disciples & to meet them. After that Guru Angad Dev ji started meeting his disciples. In Guru Granth Sahib there are 62 shalokas of Guru Angad Dev ji, he did not recite any shabads.

In the same way Guru Angad Dev ji had told Guru Amar Dass ji to no longer stay in Khadoor Sahib but to go & stay at Goindwal Sahib. Bhai Gonda wanted to establish a village there but due to some reason or the other he would be unsuccessful. Then he came to Guru Angad Dev & told him about this. Guru ji told him to take Guru Amar Dass ji with him & then he would be successful in establishing a village there. Then village came to be known as Goindwal Sahib after Bhai Gonda’s name. Bhai Gonda had built a house for Guru Amar Dass ji in Goindwal Sahib. When Guru Angad Dev ji passed away, Guru Amar Dass ji started staying in Goindwal Sahib permanently as per Guru Angad Dev ji’s instructions to him.

After Guru Angad Dev ji passed away all the disciples started coming to Goindwal Sahib. Guru Angad Dev ji had 2 sons, Datu & Dasu. One day Datu came to Goindwal Sahib & he saw all the disciples bowing in front of Guru Amar Dass ji & offering money, grain, cloth etc. He felt very jealous. He rudely told Guru ji that since he was the son of Guru Angad Dev ji he was the Guru & in a fit of anger kicked Guru Amar Dass ji. Datu told Guru ji that you where a servant in our house & use to fetch water from the river. Guru ji was so humble that he held Datu’s feet & asked for forgiveness since his foot must have got hurt. Guru ji further told Datu that he was most welcome to become Guru & immediately got up & went out. When Guru ji left, all the disciples also left. When Datu saw that no one was there, he picked up all the money, grains, cloth etc & put them on his camel. While he was on his way from Goindwal Sahib to Khadoor Sahib, thieves attacked him & hit him on the same foot with which Datu had kicked Guru ji. He then fled with the entire loot. Datu’s foot was badly hurt in the incident & he eventually succumbed to his injuries.

After the incident with Datu when Guru Amar Dass ji left Mai Nihali’s house, the same night without telling anyone he left Goindwal & went to his native place Basar Ke. He locked himself inside his house & left instructions on the door that whoever opens the door will not be his disciple. Baba Budda ji came inside by making a hole in the rear wall. Guru ji asked him that did he not see the notice on the door. Baba Budda ji said that he had not come through the door. Guru ji was very happy with his answer & blessed him. Guru ji also gave a boon that anyone who passed through this hole in the wall will get free from all his karmas & will not have to take birth again. Then he came back to Goindwal & started meeting his disciples again. So this was the 2^nd time Baba Budda ji was able to find one of the Gurus & convince them to meet the disciples, the first was with Guru Angad Dev ji. This was all due to the Div Drishti (power to see with the inner eye or vision) blessed to him by Guru Nanak Dev ji.

So our aim also should be to be able to receive God’s light within us. We can get this by meditation only. First the light will be like that emitted by jewels after that like the stars then the moon, then lightening & thereafter the sun. Finally it will be like the light of millions of suns. When we get such a powerful light within us we will be able to see what was happening in a particular place 20,000 years ago & what will happen 20,000 years thereafter.

Ekagar Man or One Pointed Mind cannot be explained in lectures. It is very difficult to explain this state. We cannot just read books & start explaining. The inner light will come within us by having a one pointed mind. For this we have to first make our mind steady by practice like focusing on the photo of our Guru. Actually there are 2 ways of making our mind steady – one is Practice & the 2^nd is Vairaag. Vairaag means to renounce the temptations of food, lust, expensive things etc. These are just the temptations of this world, there are also many temptations of the world which is beyond us. The reality of Ekagar Man still is left to be explained (to be completed by Major Sahib).

In 1970 Mahesh Yogi had come to Delhi to deliver a lecture on Meditation. It was at Connaught Place & there were advertisements in many newspapers. I also attended the lecture. After the lecture was complete, I told them that what you have spoken is nowhere near meditation. Then they told me to come to their centre in Delhi & they will answer all my questions. I told them that you have not been able to convince me here, how can you all convince me at your centre.

Guru Angad Dev ji’s father was Pheru Mal & mother was Daya Kaur. He was born in 1504 AD at Mate di Sara (in present day Mukatsar district of Punjab). He was married to Mata Khiwi & they had 2 sons Datu & Dasu & 2 daughters Amro & Anokhee. It is only Mata Khiwi whose name finds mention in the quotes of Guru Granth Sahib out of all the mothers, daughters & wives of various Gurus. She was the incharge of the community kitchen. Guru Angad Dev ji was from Mate di Sara but later shifted his residence to Khadoor Sahib after the invading Turk army destroyed the village. He was a shopkeeper by profession. In those days people would gather at shops & talk about various things. There was a person by the name of Bhai Jodh who would always talk about Nanak Tapa (Guru Nanak) & tell stories about his visit to Mecca etc. So Guru Angad Dev ji also felt the urge to meet Guru Nanak Dev ji. Guru Angad Dev ji use to go to Vaishno Devi shrine every year on pilgrimage. He would collect people & together everybody would go to Vaishno Devi to pay their respects to Goddess Vaishno Devi. Guru Nanak Dev ji had already established village Kartarpur on the banks of river Ravi. When Guru Angad Dev ji with his group reached the outskirts of Kartarpur, he told the others to wait there while he goes to meet Guru Nanak Dev ji. Guru Angad Dev ji was on his horse & on the way met a man & asked him where he could find Nanak Tapa. The man told him to follow him. When they reached, he told Guru Angad Dev ji to tie his horse & come inside. When Guru Angad Dev ji went inside he saw the same man seated. The man was Guru Nanak Dev ji himself. Guru Angad Dev ji felt very guilty that he himself was riding on the horse while Guru Nanak Dev ji had to walk. Guru Nanak Dev ji understood this & asked him his name. Guru Angad Dev ji told him that his name was Lehna. Guru ji told him that Lehna means to take & a person who has come to take always comes on a horse. Guru Nanak Dev ji further said that you have come to take while I am the one who will be giving you. Guru Nanak Dev ji knew that Guru Angad Dev ji would be his successor. Guru Angad Dev ji sent a message to the group that was travelling with him to carry on to Vaishno Devi & that he will be staying with Guru Nanak Dev ji for some time.

During his stay with Guru ji, one day Guru Angad Dev ji saw a young woman sweeping the courtyard of the dharamsala at Kartarpur. He asked her who was she? The woman told her that she was the same person to whom he was going to pay his respects. Guru Angad Dev ji was surprised & asked why she was sweeping the floor here. She replied that everyone comes to me in Vaishno Devi & leave their sins behind for me to take care & I come here to sweep the floor by which I clear away those sins.

After a few days Guru ji told Guru Angad Dev ji to go back to his family. Guru Angad Dev ji returned but he always felt like going back to Guru ji. So one day he decided to go. Out of respect he wanted to take something with him for Guru ji & not go empty handed. It is written in the Gurbani that one should not go empty handed when going to meet his Guru, Doctor, Astrologer or King. So he thought of taking salt since it would be useful in the community kitchen. He filled a bag of salt & put it on his head. Though he had a horse he did not use it. He went walking from Khadoor Sahib to Kartarpur with the bag of salt on his head. If we want to serve our Guru we should always serve him with our own hands & feet. On reaching Kartarpur he went straight to the community kitchen & presented the bag of salt to Guru ji’s wife Mata Sulakhini. Then he asked about Guru ji’s whereabouts. She told him that Guru ji was working in the fields. So he went to the field & found Guru ji & his 2 sons Baba Srichand ji & Baba Lakshmichand ji there. There were 3 bundles of weeds & grass lying in front & each one was to carry one of these. When Guru Angad Dev ji arrived, Guru Nanak Dev ji asked him if he could carry all 3 bundles. Guru Angad Dev ji readily agreed. Even though he was wearing expensive clothes he immediately picked up & put all the 3 bundles of grass & weeds which were soaked in muddy water on his head. At that time paddy was planted in the fields. The muddy water soiled his turban & clothes but Guru Angad Dev ji was not concerned about his clothes. When they arrived back & Mata Sulakhini ji saw Guru Angad Dev ji she complained to Guru Nanak Dev ji that he should have given this job to somebody else since it had soiled the expensive clothes of Guru Angad Dev ji. Then Guru Nanak Dev ji said that these were not 3 bundles of grass & weeds but were the responsibility of the 3 worlds (loks) – heaven, earth & hell & only he was capable of handling this responsibility. Guru Nanak Dev ji had twice hinted that Guru Angad Dev ji would be his successor. The first was when they had their first meeting & second was the above incident.

Then Guru Angad Dev ji started staying at Kartarpur to serve his Guru. He first met Guru Nanak Dev ji in 1532 & served him till 1539. He would get up at 2 AM along with Guru ji & accompany him for his bath in the river Ravi. Even during the harsh winter months he would serve Guru ji in the same manner. On one winter day when it was raining heavily, Guru Nanak Dev ji was going for his bath in the river Ravi. All the others who accompanied him returned because they could not bear the cold but Guru Angad Dev ji stayed with Guru ji. When Guru ji came out of river Ravi after his bath he found Guru Angad Dev ji trembling with cold. He then touched him & with that one touch Guru Angad Dev ji felt immediate relief & he stopped trembling.

There is book generally referred to as Vilayatwali Janam Sakhi which was taken by a Britisher H T Colebrook & took it to London & kept it in India Office, London. The Britishers liked to collect rare books concerning India & keep them in the British Library at London. He had kept 2 books there, one was the hand written copy of the Guru Granth Sahib & the second was this book. This book does not contain any reference to Guru Nanak Dev ji taking any kind of test of his disciples in order to choose his successor. Some false stories have been floated later like Guru Nanak Dev ji threw a tumbler into a pond containing dirty water & asked Baba Srichand ji to take it out but he refused saying that it would soil his clothes. Another one is that Guru Nanak Dev ji told him in the middle of the night to wash his clothes but Baba Srichand ji refused saying that he would get it done by someone in the morning. A third false story is that once for many days it rained heavily & no food could be cooked so Guru Nanak Dev ji told Baba ji to get sweets hanging from the trees & Baba ji refused saying that it was not possible for sweets to hang from the trees. All these stories do not find any mention in this book nor is there any mention of any incident where Baba Srichand ji has refused to obey Guru Nanak Dev ji’s orders. In fact there was no question of any test to find the successor when it was clear from the first meeting between Guru Nanak Dev ji & Guru Angad Dev ji that later would be the successor.

One day Guru Nanak Dev ji wore tattered clothes & told his disciples to follow him. Lot of people started following but some of them returned back after they found some silver coins on the way. Further on some others returned after they found gold coins on the way. Slowly all the disciples returned & only 3 were left – namely Guru Angad Dev ji, Baba Srichand ji & Baba Budda ji. Guru ji then told the other two to return & asked Guru Angad Dev ji to come with him. There was a corpse lying & Guru ji told him to eat it. Guru Angad Dev ji immediately agreed but when he lifted the sheet on the corpse there was no corpse instead there was karha parshad (sweet dish made of flour, oil & sugar generally served at gurudwaras). Then Guru ji hugged Guru Angad Dev ji (his name was Bhai Lehna at that time) & told him that you are now a part of me. This was in 1539. Guru ji then told him to return to Khadoor Sahib. Guru Angad Dev ji did not stay at his home instead he stayed at the house of Mai Nihali who was an old woman & use to work in the cow shed as a cleaner. Guru ji told her not to tell anyone about his whereabouts since he would be engrossed in deep meditation from then on.

Mata Khiwi, Guru Angad Dev ji’s wife, looked after the community kitchen at Khadoor Sahib. She would serve a special kheer (a sweet dish made out of milk & rice). It would be mixed with ghee (pure oil). The reason for this was due to an abundance of milk. Some farmers got together & came to Guru Angad Dev ji and told him that their buffaloes were giving less milk. Guru ji told them that they should donate some of the milk to the community kitchen & their buffaloes will start giving milk in abundance. They followed Guru ji’s orders & hence there was an abundance of milk in the community kitchen. Not only was it used to make kheer but also pure oil was taken out from the milk & that too was mixed with the kheer & served to all. Mata Khiwi was known for her kind nature & that is why her name finds mention in the Guru Granth Sahib in Sate Balwand’s Vaars. She would also distribute money, clothes etc to whoever came asking.

There was a Yogi who lived in Khadoor Sahib. He was jealous of the growing popularity of Guru ji & his growing disciples & riches. Once there was a drought at Khadoor Sahib. The Yogi started telling everyone that since the villagers had started following Guru Angad Dev ji who was of khatri caste & was a married man this calamity had struck the village. He told everyone that if Guru ji leaves the village rain would fall. All the villagers told Guru ji about the Yogi’s words. Guru ji immediately got up & left the village & settled at the outskirts of the village. During this incident Guru Amar Dass ji was not present at the village. When he came back & found Guru ji missing from Khadoor Sahib & came to know about the incident from the villagers. Guru Amar Dass ji was very upset with the Yogi. Guru Amar Dass ji told the villagers that whichever field you take the Yogi to, it will rain there. Everybody started taking the Yogi to their fields & it would rain. In the exuberance the villagers started dragging the Yogi from one field to another due to which the Yogi got badly injured. When Guru Angad Dev ji came to know of the incident he got very upset with Guru Amar Dass ji & told him that there was no need to show miracles & that he should have just said & the rain would have fallen.

Guru Amar Dass ji use to live in Basarke village & would every year go on a pilgrimage to Haridwar. He would carry with him a tumbler which he used to draw water from whichever well came on the way. Once when he was returning from Haridwar there was a hermit in the group. When they stopped at the well he too asked for water & Guru ji gave it to him. After drinking the water the hermit asked Guru ji who his Guru was. Guru ji told him that he did not have one. The hermit got very upset that he drank water from the hands of a person who did not have any guru & immediately turned back to again bathe in the river Ganga. Guru Amar Dass ji felt very sad & kept thinking on the incident.

Guru Angad Dev ji had 2 daughters Amro & Anokhee. Bibi Amro was married into the family of Guru Amar Dass ji’s brother. She would get up early every morning, bathe & then do the daily chores. While doing work she would sing the Asa di Vaar. Guru Amar Dass ji heard her singing & when a particular verse came he was struck by the verse’s meaning. The meaning of the verse was that even if a person has the illumination inside of him of hundreds of moons & thousands of suns he will still be in darkness in he does not have a guru. After she had finished Guru ji asked her who had written those verses. Bibi Amro told her that it was written by Guru Nanak Dev ji & my father Guru Angad Dev ji. He asked her to take him to her father. The next day Guru Amar Dass ji met Guru Angad Dev ji. This was in the year 1540. Guru Angad Dev ji was having his meal at that time & a thought occurred to Guru Amar Dass ji that he would consider himself blessed if he gets the plate in which Guru Angad Dev ji was having his food. Guru Angad Dev ji knew his feelings & gave the plate to Guru Amar Dass ji. After that Guru Amar Dass ji served Guru ji for 12 years i.e. from 1540 to 1552. Guru Amar Dass ji did not go back to Basarke but instead stayed on at Khadoor Sahib. Guru Angad Dev ji had become Guru in 1539.

Guru always gives a particular seva (service) to his disciple. Guru Angad Dev ji had given the duty of getting water from river Beas every night before 2 AM (the time of his bath). Out of his respect for his Guru, Guru Amar Dass ji would never let his back face Guru ji. He would walk backwards to the river & he did this for 12 years. One day it was raining heavily & the entire way was flooded with water. There was a weaver who had his cottage on the way & outside he had dug a hole in the ground & it was used to weave cloth. Guru ji could not make out due to the rain & the darkness & he fell into the hole. The weaver heard the noise & asked his wife to see who it was. The weaver’s wife without seeing said that who else can it be but Amroo who has no where to stay & leads his life serving the family of his nephew’s in-laws by taking water for them daily from the river. Guru ji heard this but did not take these extremely harsh words of the weaver’s wife to heart. He made sure that no water spilled out of the earthen pot & then after getting up balanced the same on his head & brought it Guru Angad Dev ji for his daily bath. Guru Angad Dev ji knew what had happened because of his inner vision. After having his bath he showered Guru Amar Dass with praises & told everyone that Guru Amar Dass would be the protector of the weak, the homeless & the poor. He told Guru Amar Dass to have his bath & then made him sit down in front of him & Guru Angad Dev ji placed a coconut & 5 paise & bowed his head in front of him & said that from that day onwards Guru Amar Dass ji would be the Guru. So after 12 years of service to Guru Angad Dev ji, in the year 1552 Guru Amar Dass ji became the Guru & as per instructions of his Guru he left Khadoor Sahib after the demise of Guru Angad Dev ji & went to stay in Goindwal Sahib.

Mata Khiwi had come to Guru Amar Dass ji to seek forgiveness for her son but Guru Amar Dass ji told her that he will forgive Datu but the Almighty will not forgive Datu for what he has done. Maharaj ji also use to say the same thing. He use to say that he will forgive but the Almighty will not forgive the person who speaks against us.

Guru Gobind Singh ji has written in the Dasam Granth that whoever prays to Guru Harkrishan ji (8^th Guru) all his sorrows will disappear. Guru Hargobind ji (6^th Guru) had told Baba Gurditta ji that you have to establish a new village in the hills & I will eventually settle down there. After the war of 1634 at Kartarpur (near Jalandar) in which Guru Hargobind ji had defeated the Nawab of Jalandar & killed him, Guru ji told his family that they would now settle down at Kiratpur. Everybody agreed but Dhir Mal refused. When Baba Gurditta ji’s son Dhir Mal was born Guru ji had said that another Prithvi Chand has taken birth today. Prithvi Chand was the elder brother of Guru Arjan Dev ji & would always talk against Guru ji. Similarly Dhir Mal always use to take a stand which was contrary to Guru ji’s. When he ordered that the entire family shift to Kiratpur Sahib, Dhir Mal refused & he stayed back.

Guru Arjun Dev ji had established the Guru Granth Sahib at Golden Temple in the year 1634. Guru Hargobind ji wanted to take the Guru Granth Sahib with him but Dhir Mal refused. Guru ji then left the Guru Granth Sahib there. When Baba Gurditta ji passed away at Kiratpur Sahib, Guru ji asked his disciples to recite the Guru Granth Sahib. When the disciples went to Dhir Mal to get the Guru Granth Sahib he refused to give it. The disciples came back to Guru ji & told him everything. Bidhi Chand was also there & he told Guru ji that I was in the process of making a copy of Guru Granth Sahib & had completed same till Raag Bilawal so if was okay we should recite the Guru Granth Sahib from that copy. Guru ji agreed & the recitation was done from that copy of Guru Granth Sahib. Baba Gurditta ji had 2 sons, Dhir Mal & Guru Har Rai. Guru Har Rai ji had also shifted to Kiratpur Sahib. Guru Hargobind ji was very fond of flowers & he had kept many gardeners to maintain the beautiful gardens. Guru ji would go for a walk in the garden everyday after the morning prayers & Guru Har Rai ji would also accompany him. One day Guru Har Rai ji got left behind somewhat while walking. When he realized he rushed to catch up with Guru ji & in the hurry his chola (long shirt) got stuck in a plant which had only one flower & that flower broke off. When Guru Hargobind ji saw this he remarked that why do you wear such a long shirt if you can’t take care of it. From that day onwards Guru Har Rai ji would always hold the ends of his shirt in his hands while walking.

When Guru Har Rai ji became Guru, one day the Mughal king Aurangzeb asked him to come & meet him in Delhi. Guru ji sent back a message saying that as per instructions of his father he was not suppose to go & meet any king or emperor so he would send his son. Guru ji then sent his elder son Ram Rai to meet Aurangzeb. When Ram Rai met Aurangzeb at his palace in Delhi, Ram Rai showed him 72 miracles. Then Aurangzeb asked him the meaning of a certain verse from Guru Granth Sahib which refered to Muslims. Ram Rai wrongly told Aurangzeb that in the verse not Muslims but unscrouplous people was mentioned. When the disciples came to know about this they brought it to the attention of Guru ji. Guru ji then sent a message to Ram Rai never ever to meet him again. Guru ji said that Ram Rai had the power to show everyone the correct meaning of the verse but instead he changed the verse of Gurbani which is unpardonable. Ram Rai tried to meet Guru ji but Guru ji refused. Then Aurangzeb gifted Ram Rai with the kingdom of Dehra Dun. His place still exists in Dehra Dun.

When Guru Har Krishan ji became Guru, again one day the Mughal king Aurangzeb asked him to come & meet him in Delhi. Guru ji was 8 years old then. Guru ji told the messenger that he would reply the next day. Next day Guru ji sent back a message saying that as per instructions of his father he was not to meet the king since in the previous incident it had caused a separation between the two brothers but if his disciples in Delhi requested him to come then he would surely come. Then Aurangzeb told Raja Ajmer Chand to send a request on behalf of Guru ji’s disciples in Delhi. Then Guru ji agreed & came to Delhi.

Once at Kartarpur (near Jalandar) Guru Har Rai ji asked one of his disciples Bhai Bhaktoo when he was going to get married. Bhai Bhaktoo kept quiet. Next day again Guru ji asked him the same question & Bhai Bhaktoo remained silent. This happened 2-3 days continuously. So the next day when Bhai Bhaktoo was coming to meet Guru ji he saw a 5 year old girl in the fields protecting the bajra crops from the birds. He took 3 rounds around her & thought that Guru ji always asks him the same question today he had got married. So when Guru ji asked him the same question he said that he had already got married & come. Later Bhai Bhaktoo died. The girl’s father took his 5 year old daughter to Bhatinda where Bhai Bhaktoo’s family lived. He went & told his son Bhai Gaura (who was the king of Bhatinda) that this girl is married to your father & now she is like your mother & left her there. There was a another disciple who told others that Bhai Bhaktoo was already old, Guru ji should have told me to get married to that girl. When Bhai Gaura heard this he felt offended since now that girl was like his mother & in anger he killed that man. Guru ji felt that what Bhai Gaura had done was wrong & told him never to meet him again. Bhai Gaura would come as a disciple along with his 50-60 gaurds & soldiers (since he was a king) but would never come face to face with Guru ji. Once Guru ji was travelling from Kiratpur Sahib to Kartarpur. He was on his horse & his wife was following him when an army of Turks attacked the part of the caravan where Guru ji’s wife & all the jewels were. Bhai Gaura was also part of the caravan with his soldiers & they repelled the attack & saved Guru ji’s wife. Guru ji was very happy & forgave Bhai Gaura for his earlier mistake.

When Guru Harkrishan ji was on his way to Delhi from Kiratpur Sahib a lot of disciples also accompanied Guru ji. On the way they stayed overnight at Ambala. When the people of Ambala came to know of Guru ji they came in huge numbers & started offering grain, cloth, money etc. There was a pundit Lal Chand who lived in Ambala & was surprised to see all this. He thought that he was such a knowledgeful pundit & Guru ji was just an eight year old boy & the people were showering so much wealth on him. He came to Guru ji & told him that Lord Krishna had written the Bhagvat Geeta, your name is Har Krishnen can you tell me the meaning of the verses of Bhagvat Geeta. Guru ji told him that if I tell you the meanings then you will say that I have used my powers so you call anyone & that person will be able to tell you the meanings. Lal Chand brought a poor man Chajju who use transport water from one place to another & was both deaf & dumb & told Guru ji to make him tell the meanings of Geeta. Guru ji always use to keep a small stick with him. Guru ji touched that stick on Chajju’s head & he started telling the meanings of the verses from the Geeta whichever the Pandit would ask. Pandit said that he was happy with the answers. Then Chajju said that now he wanted to ask the pandit some questions & asked him the meaning of the verse which is the 16^th shaloka of the 7^th Chapter from the Bhagvat Geeta. Pandit gave the answer but missed out the meaning of one word Sukrit which meant virteous action or good deeds. Even Chinmay Mission, Mahesh Yogi, Aurobindo, Geeta Press of Gorakhpur (founded by Jai Dayal Govind) etc who have translated Geeta & this verse have missed out this particular word. Then the Pandit accepted his defeat & requested Guru ji to make him his disciple & he became one of the preachers for Guru ji.

Guru ji then told his disciples to go back & only he would be going further to Delhi with his family. He drew a line on the ground & told his disciples not to cross it. Raja Ajmer Chand requested Guru ji to stay at his house. In those days a huge house was called a Bangla. Aurangzeb told Raja Ajmer Chand to test Guru ji. Then Ajmer Chand told all his wives to dress up like maid sevants & made the maid servants dress up like his wives sent a messenger to call Guru ji. Guru ji refused but then his mother Mata Krishen Kaur convinced him to go since Ajmer Chand had been so helpful to them. Then Guru ji went & he had a stick in his hand & he touched it on the head of each of the woman dressed as a queen & kept saying that they were not queens & then he placed the stick on the head of the actual queen & said that she was the queen. Raja Ajmer Chand was now convinced of the greatness of Guru ji & reported it to Aurangzeb too.

During those days a disease had spread all over Delhi. Guru ji also became very sick & he had high fever. The disciples knew that his end was near & asked him who the next guru would be. Guru ji said Guru Granth Sahib. Then the disciples said that all the Sodhis will claim to become Gurus since the Guru Granth Sahib was in their possession. Then Guru ji told them that the next guru is staying in Bakale. After that Guru ji passed away.

In Delhi at Bala Sahib gurudwara there are 3 Deoras (Memorials or Angitha Sahib) – one of Guru Har Krishen ji, one of Mata Sundari ji (Guru ji’s 2^nd wife) & the 3^rd is of Guru Gobind Singh ji’s 3^rd wife Mata Sahib Devan.

When people came to know that Guru ji had said that the next guru was in Bakale, 22 Bedis & Sodhis established themselves at Bakale & started calling themselves the next guru. There was a rich trader Makhan Shah Lubhana & he owned many ships. One day his ship was caught in a severe storm. He prayed from the ship that he would gift 500 jewels to whoever is presently on Guru Nanak Dev ji’s seat if his ship was saved. Sure enough his ship was saved & when he reached Delhi he came to know about Guru ji words & left for Bakale. He was confused to see 22 people claiming to be the next guru so he thought of a way to test them. He started putting 5 jewels in front of each of them with the belief that the true Guru would himself ask for the 500 jewels when he puts only 5 in front of him. None of the so called gurus said anything. One of them was Dhir Mal also who established himself there with the Guru Granth Sahib that was in his possession. Then Makhan Shah asked if there was any other Sodhi here. The people told him that there was one Sodhi who always remained in deep meditation. So Makhan Shah decided to test him. He placed two jewels in front of him & bowed. Then Guru Tegh Bahadur ji told him that he had promised 500 jewels & now he was placing only 2. Then Makhan Shah knew that Guru ji was the true guru & came out & started shouting “I have found the Guru, I have found the Guru”. All the false gurus ran away except Dhir Mal stayed back. Everybody started bowing in front of Guru Tegh Bahadur ji.

Then Guru ji told everyone that now he will be going to Amritsar to pay respects at the Golden Temple. When he started from Bakale one of Dhir Mal’s men fired at Guru ji but he escaped. Then all the people caught & killed that man & also took the Guru Granth Sahib & all the belongings from Dhir Mal. They formed 3 groups of the caravan & left for Amritsar. In the 1^st group was Guru ji himself, in the second group was Mata Gujari & Mata Nanaki & in the 3^rd was Guru Granth Sahib. When Guru ji looked back he asked what was the 3^rd group then Makhan Shah told him it was Guru Granth Sahib. Then Guru ji scolded them that he had instructed his men to return everything to Dhir Mal then why the Guru Granth Sahib was not returned. Then he told his men to keep the Guru Granth Sahib in the river Beas & tell Dhir Mal to take it from there. Dhir Mal could not find it & then prayed to Guru ji to help locate it. Finally when he found it the portion where Gurbani was written was absolutely dry while the rest of the portion was wet.

When Guru ji arrived at the Golden Temple the priests refused to open the doors of the temple because they thought that if Guru ji starts staying here then nobody will respect them anymore & all the gifts & offerings will go to Guru Tegh Bahadur. Guru ji then paid his respects from outside. When the women of Amritas came to know about this they all offered their homes for Guru ji to stay. Guru ji did not stay but before going spoke harshly of the people of Amritsar but spoke highly of the women. He then left.

He came to Kiratpur Sahib but there too people were jealous of him & he was not welcome. He then settled down on a piece of land which he bought from the King of Bilaspur & late came to be known as Anandpur Sahib. Guru Gobind Singh ji writes that after this my father & mother left for a pilgrimage towards the east. After visiting & bathing in all the holy places on the way they arrived at Allahabad. There they would spend most of their time in helping the poor & in other good deeds. At Allahabad everyone knew that a child will be born to Guru ji’s wife & then I was born at Patna.

Guru Gobind Singh ji also writes that in his previous birth he meditated at Hemkunt. He described Hemkunt as the hill which is surrounded by 7 snow covered peaks. Guru ji writes that the Pandavs also meditated in this place. Ved Vyas writes in the 2119^th stanza of Adh Parab in Mahabharat that the Pandavs had meditated at Hemkunt. In 1968 Maharaj ji visited Hemkunt Sahib. Maharaj ji would take his disciples also wherever he went. The wife of Surjit Singh Majithia, who was the Deputy Defence Minister of India at that time, was a ardent devotee of Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji stayed in their house for 2 months & then said that he would be going to visit Hemkunt Sahib & that she should prepare a beautiful ‘rumala’ (set of cloth used to cover Guru Granth Sahib) to present it there. She was a rich lady & indeed got a very beautiful & esquisite rumala made. In the group that went with Maharaj ji there was one Colonel Gurdial Singh who always use to recite Waheguru inspite of Maharaj ji telling him to recite Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru. When they reached Hemkunt Sahib & Maharaj ji presented the rumala on Guru Granth Sahib the Colonel saw Guru Gobind Singh ji on his horse wearing clothes made out of the same cloth which was used to make the rumala & reciting Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru. The Colonel was so hardline & rigid in his views that even after experiencing such a miracle he left Maharaj ji. People who are so hardline & rigid in their views can never connect with God.

As per the orders of Guru Hargobind Singh ji, Guru Tegh Bahadur ji meditated for 22 years at Baba Bakale. Guru Gobind Singh ji writes that God was very happy with Guru Tegh Bahadur ji & sent me as their son. Guru Gobind Singh ji at that time was meditating at Hemkunt. At the time of Guru ji’s birth Bhikam Shah a resident of Kohram in Haryana sees early in the morning a light travelling down from the hills & descending into Patna. He knew that some great personality had taken birth at Patna. He along with his followers goes to Patna to pay respects to this child. Bhikam Shah did not have to ask anyone the way, he straightaway arrived at the door of the house where Guru ji lived. He told them that he wanted to see the child. Mata Gujari ji brought Guru Gobind Singh ji. Bhikam Shah decided to test the child. He had two bowls one containing water & the other milk. He thought in his mind that if Guru ji touches the bowl with milk then it would mean that he would look after the interests of the Hindus & if he touched the one with water then he would be the protector of the Muslims. Guru ji touched both the bowls signifying that he would protect both whoever was good. This was similar to the incident when Guru Nanak Dev ji came out of the river after 3 days & said that there were no Hindus or Muslims only good people & bad people.

There were many Muslims who had great faith in the Sikh Gurus. Guru Arjan Dev ji asked Mian Mir, a revered Muslim saint, to lay the foundation stone of Golden Temple. During Guru Gobind Singh ji’s time when the battle took place at Ponta Sahib Pir Budhu Shah helped Guru ji. When 500 of his men, whom he had assigned the task of serving Guruji, ran away then Pir Budhu Shah along with 4 of his sons & 700 followers fought in the war of Bhagani in which 2 of his sons & many of his followers laid down their lives for Guru ji. Another Muslim disciple of Guru ji was Jani Khan. When Guru Gobind Singh ji left Chamkor & came to Machiwada, Jani Khan , who considered Guru ji to be a great saint, carried Guru ji on a throne till Alamgir. Another Muslim disciple of Guru ji was Rai Gala. He requested Guru ji to stay with him when he was fighting battles with Aurangzeb. Guru ji then stayed with him & asked him to bring news of the well being of Mata Gujari ji & his 2 younger sons – Baba Zorawar Singh ji & Baba Fateh Singh ji. He then sent Noor Elahi to Sirhand. Noor Elahi brought the news that Mata Gujari ji, Baba Zorawar Singh ji & Baba Fateh Singh ji had been martyred. At that time Guru ji was sitting outside & kept firing arrows at the base of kayi plant & when the news came he uprooted the plant & said that the Mughal rule will now be uprooted from it’s roots. There Guru ji had gifted the Raikot family with a kirpan (small sword). This was in the year 1705. Guru Gobind Singh ji had left Anandpur Sahib on 5^th Dec 1705. All the men from that Raikot family had expired & only one woman remained. In 1852 she gave that kirpan to the Deputy Commisioner of Ludhiana.

Once Guru Gobind Singh ji heard a disciple of his reciting the Gurbani. He was reciting a particular verse in a wrong manner. Guru ji then told him the correct words of the verse. The other disciples also told Guru ji that they too were making this mistake & Guru ji should guide them. Guru ji told them that a time will come when he would guide them. After the battle of Mukatsar when Guru ji came to Sabo ki Talwandi to stay with Dala for 9 months & 9 days he got the Guru Granth Sahib re-written by Bhai Mani Singh & included 115 verses of Guru Tegh Bahadur ji in it. Then this compilation was called Adh Guru Granth Sahib & at Hazoor Sahib Guru ji finally told his Sikhs to treat this as the next Guru.

About Parsi (Zoroastrianism)

The Parsi faith is 4000 years old. Their prophet Zoroaster was born in Iran. His father was Pourushaspa Spit?ma & mother Dughdova. As per their scriptures, father Pourushaspa had a cow. This cow ate the leaves in the jungle & gave milk. Pourushaspa drank this milk due to which blood & sperm was produced & his wife became pegnant. When she was 5 months pregnant, she dreamt that an eagle came & tore open her belly & took the baby. She wanted to wave the eagle away but the baby tells her not to do that since the eagle was his friend. Thereafter an angel wearing bright clothes & holding a stick comes & waves away the eagle & puts back the child into Dughdova’s stomach. When she gets up she tells the astrologers about this dream. The astrologers tell her that the child will laugh when it is born & will grow up to be a prophet & will start a new faith. When Zoroaster was born he laughed out loudly. The news of this incident spread all over & the news reached the Emperor also. The Emperor believed in the faith of the Magicians. The Emperor decided to kill the child because he knew that this child would go against him & his faith. First he himself went to kill the child. When he took out his sword to kill him, the sword froze in the Emperor’s hand. Then the Emperor sent his men to kill him. The Emperor’s men burnt a large fire & threw the child into the fire. The fire immediately extinguished & turned into water. Then the Emperor’s men decided to keep the child on a narrow street through which all the cows & buffaloes of the town use to go to the forest for grazing. They thought that the cows & buffaloes would crush the child under their feet but one of the cows stood over the child & miraculously protected it between it’s 4 legs. The child was thus saved again. The magicians then collected a pack of wolves & first made them angry by killing their pups. They then threw Zoroaster infront of a pack of wolves but when the wolves attacked him their mouths got stuck in open position. Then they left him in a forest to die but a wild buffalo came & fed Zoroaster milk through her own teats. Finally Zoroaster’s mother found him & brought him home. One day the magicians made him ill by casting a spell on him. Initially Zoroaster became ill & when he recovered Zoroaster’s father threw a party to celebrate. He also called Turush who was the head of the magicians & asked him to prepare his horoscope. In the horoscope Turush found that one day the child will become a prophet. Turush told Zoroaster’s father to get some oranges since he wanted to perform some magic trick. Zoroaster immediately protested & said that performing any kind of magic was incorrect. Turush became angry & left the party. The following day Turush died.

Hence many attempts were made to kill Zoroaster but they were all unsuccessful. Since on one occasion a cow saved Zoroasther’s life & on another occasion fire saved him, the Parsis consider these two sacred. They always have a fire burning inside their temple & they do not eat beef.

After Zoroaster grew up a little, one day some angels came to him & told him that they wanted to take him to Yazdan (Almighty). He went with them & met Yazdan who told him that one day you will become a prophet. When he came back after his meeting with Yazdan, he started preaching about his new faith. The Emperor immediately put him behind bars. One day the Emperor went to meet him. When asked about his faith, Zoroasther replied that his faith was that of Yazdan. When he was talking to the Emperor, Zoroaster held burning coal in his hands & the Emperor was surprised to note that the coal did not burn Zoroaster’s hands. He realized Zoroaster’s greatness & converted to his faith. Hence Zoroaster established Yazdan’s faith all over Iran. Then once Islam gained ascendancy the Parsis were forced to leave Iran because they did not agree to give up their faith. Some of them came to India.

On Sanatan Dharam (Hinduism)

Sanatan Dharam (Hinduism) is the oldest religion in the world. There is no single person who started this faith. This faith has 4 types of literature, they are Surti, Smriti, Puran & Itihaas. In Surti, you have the 4 Vedas – Rig Ved, Sam Ved, Yajur Ved & Atharv Ved. Then there are the 28 Simritis which can also be called the Ethical Codes. These have been written by various Rishis & Munis (Saints) like Manu Simriti is written by Rishi Manu & Yagvalk Simriti is written by Yagvalk Rishi. Then there are 17 Puran like Vishnu Puran, Sikand Puran etc. All the Purans are written by Ved Vyas. Itihaas contains 2 books – Ramayan & Mahabharat. Ramayan was written in the Treta Yug by Maharishi Valmiki. Mahabharat was written by Ved Vyas in Dwapar Yug. There can be a something wrong with our understanding of these scriptures but there is nothing wrong written in any of the 4 types of literature.

Apart from this literature, there are 6 Shastras (books) of philosophy – Purabmasa, Visheshak, Nyay, Sank, Yog & Vedant. These are called the 6 Indian systems of philosophy. Purabmasa is written by Rishi Jaimini. Visheshak is written by Rishi Konard. Nyay is written by Rishi Gautam. Sank is written by Rishi Kapil. Yog is written by Rishi Patanjali. Vedant is written by Ved Vyas. These 6 shastras are the 6 schools of Indian Philosophy are neither contradictory nor contributory. They are the 6 successive steps of the same ladder. Some people who do not have enough knowledge call the Nyay granth as Anathma granth. Purabmasa granth tells us about how to conduct the religious rituals like how to offer flowers etc. Visheshak is also similar. In Nyay, logic science is used to prove God. Sank deals with theory while Yog deals with practical. Vedant deals with issues concerning God. Nowadays there are a lot of arguments over Vedant. Shankaracharya has written a commentary on Vedant. Many others have tried to explain Vedanta but only Shankracharya’s explanation is authentic. Each Sutra is just a line & then this has been explained in detail by Ved Vyas. Till the time we don’t read the explanation of Ved Vyas, we will not be able to understand it. The 194 sutras have been divided into 4 chapters. The 1^st chapter is Samadhi paadh & the 2^nd is Kriya paadh. The 3^rd chapter consists of miracles & the 4^th deals with Mukti. Ved Vyas explains in his commentary that a person’s mind has 3 qualities – Rajogun, Tamogun & Satogun. Patanjali’s Yogasutra also talks about the mind. Then the mind has 5 planes or place of movement. Our body has 2 parts – Mind & Soul. Soul means conciousness. For example we are sitting on a chair, the chair is stationary it does not know if anobody is sitting on it or not. The mind is always wavering & moving from one thought to another about the past or of the future. The mind never thinks of the present. We have to make it think of the present by struggle or effort. To make the mind stationary so that it thinks of the present is meditation. The first of the 5 planes of the mind is Raving mind. Here the mind is always thinking of things like food, drinks, sex, money etc. That means the mind is affected by Rajogun & Tamogun. Rajo means activity, Tamo means inertia & Sato means illumination. When the mind is co-mingled with active & inert energies then the mind becomes raving & raving mind can never become one pointed & hence meditate. The 2^nd plane of the mind is when mind is influenced by Tamogun. In this state one doesn’t feel like reading holy books or visiting temple, gurudwara etc. Such a mind is like an unconscious mind. When the mind is influenced by Rajogun then he starts thinking about whether he will be successful or not hence this mind is an oscillating mind. When the mind is not influenced by either Rajogun or Tamogun then it is illuminated & becomes one pointed. Hence it is influenced only by Satogun. The one pointed mind also has 4 stages – Jagrat, Supan, Sukrit & Turia. Jagrat means when the mind is awake. It is also described as Sthool or Gross. Gross means something that can be touched or seen. Hence for one pointed mind we first have to see the image. Here Supposition is important. We have to suppose that a particular image or thing is God. It can be Guru Nanak Dev ji, Guru Gobind Singh ji, Baba Srichand ji, Maharaj ji or anyone else.

Kalyug started after Dwapar Yug when King Parikshat was the Emperor. Parikshit was the grandson of Arjun & son of Abhimanyu. Kalyug started 5000 years ago.

On Buddhism

One day Queen Mahamaya dreamt that angels have come & taken her bed towards the heaven. They place the bed under a silver tree. Near the tree was a lake with golden water. The angels tell her to bathe in that lake. After that she lies down on the bed. After lying down an elephant appears. The elephant tears open her stomach & enters inside. Then she dreams that the angels bring her & the bed down & place the bed back inside the palace. Queen Mahamaya woke up & told the King about this peculiar dream. The King told her that he would consult the astrologers in the morning. None of the astrologers could tell the King what the dream meant. Then a pandit came & told the King that he could tell the correct meaning of the dream. He told the King that a son would be born & the birth will take place near a lake. Also when the child is 7 days old, the Queen would die. The child will grow up either to be a great king, who will rule over the hearts of many people, or a great saint. The pandit told the King this & then turned into a dove & flew away. In those days angels would appear like this & then after performing a miracle return back to heaven. Slowly it became apparent that the Queen was pregnant. When she was close to giving birth to the child she told the King that as per her family’s tradition the birth of her first child should be at her parent’s home. The King agreed & told his men to take the Queen to her parent’s home. While going, on the way they came to a beautiful garden. The Queen told the her servants that she would like to stay at the garden for some time. The name of the garden was Lumbini. The Queen started taking a walk in the beautiful garden & then sat down near some beautiful flowers. She lost conciousness there & when she regained conciousness after some time she saw that she had given birth to a baby. At that very spot a fountain started flowing. This baby was Siddhartha Gautam. The Queen told her servants that now she would like to return back to her palace. After 7 days Queen Mahamaya passed away.

The King realized that 2 of the 3 predictions by the Pandit had been proved right about the baby being born in the garden & the mother dying after 7 days. The King became over protective towards the child. The King noticed that the child was not taking interest in any activities as he was growing. He sought advice from wise men. They advised the King that he should get Siddhartha Gautam married & then he would automatically start taking interest in worldly affairs. Siddhartha Gautam said that he would marry as per the custom of his ancestors which was that a Swayamwar should be organized & he would take part in it. The King worried since he thought that Siddhartha Gautam would not be able to win any Swayamwar. Siddhartha Gautam said that there would be 3 kinds of competition – archery skills, sword skills & horse riding skills. During that time Arjun (not the one in Mahabharata) was the best in archery skills, Nanda was best in sword skills & Hans was best in horse riding skills. During the archery competition, some hit the target at 100 yards, some at 200 yards but Arjun hit at 300 yards. Nobody thought anyone could beat Arjun but Siddhartha Gautam told them to take the target as far as possible. Siddhartha was able to hit the target & won the competition. In the sword skills competition, some cut a piece of wood upto half inch, others to one inch but Nanda could cut upto 2 inches. Siddhartha told them that he could cut the entire trunk of the tree into two & successfully did that. The last competition was horse riding skills in which Hans proved to be the best till it was Siddhartha’s turn. Siddhartha told them to bring a horse which no one was able to ride. They brought a horse which took 7 men to control. People got scared & pleaded with Siddhartha not to attempt to ride the horse but Siddhartha was admant. Arjun & Nanda failed even to get on to the horse’s back while Hans was able to get on but fell off immediately. Siddhartha turned the face of the horse towards the sun & then patted him on the neck. After that he climbed on the horse’s back & the horse happily rode away. Everyone thought it would be a matter of time before Siddhartha would fall down but he kept riding the horse with ease. Everyone was overjoyed. Yashodra came wearing a black cloth on her head & put the ceremonial flower garland on Siddhartha as a traditional way of accepting Siddhartha as her husband. People felt bad about Yashodra wearing a black cloth on such a happy occasion & felt that she should have worn red. Siddhartha told them that they should calm down since Yashoda & he had been husband & wife on many previous births. He told them that in their last birth, he was a tiger & Yashoda was a tigress & that she was a black in colour.

A son was born to Siddharth Gautam & Yoshodra when Siddhartha Gautam was 16 years old. The King was very worried that Siddhartha was too inclined towards spirituality. One night when everyone was sleeping Siddhartha left the palace & rode away on his horse to the forest with one of his servants. On reaching the forest he took off his clothes & gave it to his servant and he wore the servant’s clothes & told him to return back. Siddhartha started meditating in the forest & became very weak. Once in the the nearby village a poor woman lived whose only child passed away. She went to various saints but none of them could make the child alive again. Then someone told her to go to a saint (Siddhartha) who was meditating in the forest. She came to Siddhartha & asked if he could bring back her only child from death. He told her that he would do so but first she should bring some black mustard seeds but they should be from a home where no one had ever died in their family. She went to the village but could not find even a single such home. She went back to Siddhartha & told him that she had understood that everyone in this world has to die some day & that she no longer wanted him to bring her child back to life. She then went & drowned the dead child in the river. This was Siddhartha’s first lesson. Thereafter many more people became his disciples but they all left him.

Siddhartha’s father wanted to find his son since he had not seen him since he had left at the age of 16. He would ask all travelers who came to his kingdom if they had seen anybody resembling Siddhartha but they all replied in the negative. Then one day a man told him that he had seen someone resembling Siddhartha about 60 miles from there & that he was preaching and people called him Buddha. The King told his men to go there & tell Siddhartha that his father remembers him & would like to meet him atleast once. When the men arrived Siddhartha was preaching. On hearing Siddhartha’s words of wisdom the King’s men forgot about everything & became his disciples. When these men did not return the King sent more men but they too became Siddhartha’s disciples & did not return. The King sent his men for the 3^rd time too but the same thing happened. The King’s chief minister was a wise man. He asked permission from the King to go himself to Siddhartha. When he reached there he saw all the men sent earlier had become Siddhartha’s disciples. He understood that Siddhartha had great powers to influence other people’s thoughts. He put his fingers into his ears & went straight to Siddhartha & gave him his father’s message. Siddhartha told him to tell his father that he would come. Siddhartha then returned back to the palace but straightaway went to his wife & made her his disciple. He told everyone that he had made his wife a disciple because their association went back to many previous births. In one of their previous births he was a trader & went out of his village for trade. A famine struck the village & his wife nearly died. When he came back to the village & found her in that state he decided to trade his most precious thing which he had earned. He bought 5 pounds of grain for 5 pounds of gold & saved her life. Siddhartha told the people that today my knowledge was most precious to me that is why I decided to give it to her too. He told the people that both of them had been married 555 times.

In the Islam, the belief is that once a person dies he is not born again instead they all will rise on the day of judgement. On the day of judgement the buried people will rise up again with heads of eleven individuals joined together. Then Prophet Muhammed will decide if a person will go to heaven or hell. In the Muslim faith there have been Sufi saints like the Persian poet Maulana Rumi who has written that like grass is cut & then grows back & the cycle of life is repeated. Maulana Rumi says that he remembers 770 previous births of his. Maulana Rumi also says that if one wants to achieve God then he should love his Guru endlessly. Only then will you receive God’s light within yourself. Two things are very clear from this. One is that the Sufi saints did not believe that there is no re-incarnation like it is written in the Sharia. Second, that Guru is very important & God always appears to a person in the form of his Guru. God has no form & we can see him only in the form of our Guru. When we close our eyes & see our Guru, it means that we have seen God.

In the Parsi faith they believe in 2 powers – Yazdan (God) & Ahmermand (Devil). Both these powers force us to do good & bad deeds. They believe that the followers of Yazdan will go to heaven & followers of the devil will go to hell. In hell a person will have to undergo mental & physical torture. The underlying principles of Parsi faith are pure heart, love & to remain binded in religion. Zoroaster emphasized on giving donations to the needy, harbouring good thoughts towards others, taking care of the elderly & respecting your teachers while he spoke against telling lies, harbouring bad thoughts & gambling. Parsis also believe in the day of judgement. They consider earth, sun, moon, stars, fire, water & air to be sacred. They consider fire as most powerful since it has the capability to destroy everything. They believe that there is a fire burning inside everyone & it has the capacity to burn all our bad habits & qualities. Their temples always have a fire burning since they consider it sacred.

One day when Zoroaster was 7 years old, the magicians saw him roaming about & planned to kill him. They use many tantras on him & made him sick. These people were jealous of him since he possessed many powers & performed many miracles. Once when he was 15 years old he was going somewhere in a group & they encountered a river. The river was deep & the women did not want their clothes to get wet. He prayed to the Almighty & the river dried up & they were able to cross the river. Nobody got wet & after they crossed the river, it became full of water again. Zoroaster realized that he was a prophet. One day he was meditating when an angel appeared to him. The angel asked him what he wanted, Zoroaster told him that he wanted to know the path to God. The angel replied that he will take him to God & Zoroaster can ask God directly. He told Zoroaster to close his eyes. When he opened his eyes Zoroaster was in the midst of stars & he saw his own reflection in front of him. All the angels started praising him & told him that he was a prophet. The angel then told Zoroaster that he would take him to meet God. God gave him a holy book Zend Avestha & told him to preach from this book & tell the Emperor too about it. The Emperor of Iran refused to follow Zoroaster’s path & sentenced him to 6 years in jail. He had to undergo severe hardships & torture. One day the Emperor went to visit him in jail & told him to change his ideas & he would not have to pursue the hardships. Zoroaster suggested to him that he should arrange for a debate with his learned scholars & whoever won, the Emperor should agree to follow his path. The Emperor agreed. The scholars formed two groups. One the first day the 1^st group debated with Zoroaster but they lost. On the second day the 2^nd group debated & they too lost. Then on the 3^rd day the Emperor himself asked Zoroaster questions & was finally convinced & agreed to follow Zoroaster’s path. He told all the people to follow Zoroaster’s faith. Zoroaster was 30 years old when he started preaching. The Emperor got 12000 copies of the Zend Avestha written in golden letters on pages made out of the leather (cow’s skin) & sent them all over Iran for it’s message to be preached. The Parsis consider Cow to be very sacred since a cow had saved Zoroaster when the magicians tried to kill him when he was a child. The Emperor declared that everyone will have to follow this Parsi faith. The underlying principles of the faith are truth, compassion, humility, helping the poor & pure thoughts. Zoroaster had predicted that an emperor by the name of Alexander will rule the world. He also predicted that the Arabs would conquer Iran, destroy it’s capital city & finish the religion being practiced. The Parsis had to flee Iran after it was attacked by the Arabs. They fled & many of them came to India. The Indian Emperor at that time accepted them but asked them to adopt the local language & the local dress & also to treat cows as sacred. Parsis accepted & set up homes at Kathiawad, Gujarat. They were mainly businessmen & traders.

The Parsis do not bury or cremate their dead. They consider fire, water & earth to be pure. A dead body is considered impure & hence should not be mixed with the pure. The dead body is handed over to professional men. They shape the dead body in the same way as a baby when it is born. Sometimes the limbs of the dead body become stiff but they forcibly fold them. These men wearing iron gloves then tear the flesh from the body & feed them to vultures. Then they put up the dead bodies on specially constructed towers where vultures, crows etc eat the remaining flesh & then the bones are thrown into a well. They have a big tower for this at Malabar Hill in Mumbai. Parsis consider men & women to be equal hence they are not allowed to marry more than once.

Prophet Abraham is respected by Christians, Muslims & Jews. Abraham lived in Arabia & was married to Saira. God told him that his generations will spread all over the world. Abraham told this to Saira. Saira told him that she was already 90 years old & could not bear children hence he should marry again. She suggested that he marry their maid Hazira. Abraham agreed & got married to Hazira. After marriage Hazira stopped looking after Saira & would not listen to her. Saira complained to Abraham & Abraham chucked Hazira out of the house. Hazira was pregnant & started staying at a place which is present day Mecca. A son Ismail was born to her. When Ismail was born & moved his hands & legs a fountain erupted from the ground at that spot. That fountain is called Chahe Jumjum. One day a trader was passing by & he saw a lady with a small child & asked who she was. She told him that she was Abraham’s wife & he had chucked him out of the house. The trader told her that he would give her a monthly wage & she should offer water to all the traders passing by. Since there was water available there slowly a township started developing. Makih was the name of the trader who use to pay Hazira a monthly wage. After his name the place became known as Mecca. One day Abraham visited Hazira but only Ismail’s wife was at home. Abraham asked her about their condition & Ismail’s wife complained about their sorry plight. Abraham told her to tell Ismail to change his door. When Ismail returned his wife told him that an old man had come & on hearing our plight told me to tell you to change the door. Ismail told her that the old man was his father & since she had talked badly he had told Ismail to change his wife. Ismail left her & married another woman. When Abraham visited again the new wife spoke of their good condition. Abraham told her to tell Ismail that the door was good. When Ismail returned his new wife told him about the incident. Ismail was happy with the answer. When Abraham came the 3^rd time he met Ismail himself. Abraham told him that both of them have to construct a room inside which they would sit & pray. Ismail agreed & both of them made a room. Both of them would pray inside this room. This room came to be known as Kaaba. During Haj Muslims pay their respects to Kaaba & bring back holy water from Chahe Jumjum. Inside this room they had kept a stone which is called Sange Azmat. Abraham & Ismail would sit around it & pray. The Muslims during Haj circumvent the Kaaba seven times. The black stone is engraved on the eastern corner of the Kaaba now.

God told Abraham that his first wife Saira would also bear a child. Saira told Abraham that she was too old to bear a child. Abraham told her that God can make even stones bear children. A son was born to Saira & they kept his name Isaac. One day God told Abraham that he should sacrifice the person he loves most. Abraham loved Isaac the most. Saira told Abraham that since God had asked for the sacrifice he should sacrifice Isaac. Abraham took Isaac to a mountain & prepared to sacrifice Isaac but he could not bear to see it. He covered his eyes & cut the throat but when he opened his eyes he saw that Isaac was okay & a goat had been sacrificed in it’s place.

Isaac later married & a son was born. He named his son Yakub or Jacob. Abraham, Isaac & Jacob are all considered prophets. Jacob was married twice. From the first marriage he had 12 sons & from the second one son named Joseph. Jacob use to love Joseph the most since he was the youngest & his mother had died. The 12 brothers were jealous of Joseph & did not like him. One day they told Jacob that they were going for hunting & asked if they could take Joseph with them. Jacob refused but they insisted & told Jacob that they would take good care of him. They took Joseph & threw him into a well. They brought some blood stained clothes of Joseph & told Jacob that a wolf had eaten Joseph. Jacob started crying & kept crying for 40 years. Next day the 12 brothers went to see if Joseph had died but saw that some travellers who were passing through & had gone to drink water from the well, had taken Joseph out of the well. They told the men that Joseph was their brother but the travelers told them that they had found him in the well. The brothers told the men that they could take him with them after paying 18 dinars. The men bought Joseph as a slave for 18 dinars. Before leaving with his owners, Joseph went to pay his respects on his mother’s grave. The men found Joseph lying on a grave & crying. They slapped Joseph twice. Joseph looked up to the sky & suddenly dark clouds spread all over, strong winds started blowing & it started raining heavily. The men got drenched. Joseph looked up again & the rain stopped & skies cleared. Joseph & his owners came from there to Cairo.

At Cairo, one day Joseph or Yusuf was having a bath naked in the river & he realized that when he was with his father he would have a bath without anybody looking since there would be proper partition whereas here everybody can see him. As this thought came into his mind nature formed a partition around him. After a few days Yusuf’s owner decided to sell him off. In those days slaves were sold off by auction. In Cairo there was a lady by the name of Zulekha. She had dreamt that she would be married to a very handsome man by the name of Yusuf & he would be a Prince. Whenever her father would bring up the topic of her marriage she would refuse. One day the Chief Minister of the King of Egypt offered marriage with her & she immediately agreed. After getting married she realized that her husband was not the same Yusuf that she had dreamt of. The Chief Minister was worry worried about his wife’s behaviour. One day he heard that there is going to be an auction of slaves & there is a very handsome slave to be auctioned. Zulekha asked her husband to buy the slave Yusuf. The Chief Minister was very fond of his wife & would fulfill all her wishes. During the auction the Chief Minister kept increasing the bid. During the auction Yusuf said that today it will be seen what is the value of Abraham’s grandson. When his owner realized that Yusuf was Abraham’s grandson he stopped the auction & said that he would not sell Yusuf. Yusuf told him to continue with the auction. The bid finished at a 1000 gold coins but Yusuf’s owner said that he would accept only 18 dinars since that was what he had paid for him when he had bought him. The Chief Minister brought Yusuf home. When Zulekha saw Yusuf she realized that he was the same person she had seen in her dream. She would think of ways to attract him but Yusuf would avoid saying that he was just a slave. Zulekha told her husband to build a house with 7 doors. Once this house was built she invited Yusuf to sleep with her & explained that she had seen him in her dream but Yusuf refused saying that he was just a slave. When she insisted, Yusuf started running. Zulekha told him that she had got all 7 doors locked. Yusuf just touched the lock of the first door & it opened. Like this he opened 6 locks. When the last one was left Zulekha tried to grab Yusuf due to which his clothes got torn but Yusuf freed himself & ran away opening the last lock. Zulekha was very angry & told her husband that Yusuf tried to molest her. Yusuf was arrested & thrown into jail. After a few years when the King of Egypt died all the prisoners were released from jail. All the prisoners went home but since Yusuf did not have anywhere to go he went & sat down at the outskirts of the city. The King did not have any son so it was decided by the elders that the first person to enter the city should be made the king. Yusuf entered the city first & hence he was made the King.

There was a famine at the place where Yusuf’s 12 brothers use to stay in Arabia. They came to Cairo in search of food. Yusuf immediately recognized them & treated them very nicely. He gave them sufficient quantity of grain & the 12 brothers took the grain & came back to Arabia. They told their father Jacob that the King of Egypt was very nice to them & they suspect it could be Yusuf. Jacob had been crying for 40 years & had gone blind. He told his sons to take him to Cairo. When Jacob met Yusuf, Yusuf just waved his hands infront of Jacob’s eyes & he regained his sight. They lovingly embraced each other. The 12 brothers also settled in Cairo & were given land.

One day Yusuf called Zulekha & told her that now he had become King. He asked her if she wished to marry him but Zulekha said that she had become very old now & even become blind. Yusuf waved his hand & Zulekha suddenly became young again. Then Yusuf explained to Zulekha that their marriage was destined by God but earlier he was a slave so he could not marry her. When Zulekha tried to run away Yusuf caught her due to which her clothes got torn in the same manner in which Yusuf’s clothes had got torn earlier. Then both of them got married.

The 12 brothers had formed 12 tribes. Yusuf’s successor was told by God that a person would be born into one of the 12 tribes who will go against your faith. Yusuf’s successor gave the orders to kill all the babies that were born in these 12 tribes of Israel. When Moses was born, his mother decided to put him in a basket & left the basket in a garden. She told told her maid to see what happened to the baby. The daughter of the King of Egypt was taking a stroll in the garden & she heard the cries of the baby. She felt pity & brought the baby to the palace & raised him in the palace itself. When Moses grew up he saw that the Isrealis were treated like slaves by the Egyptians. One day he saw a well built strong Isreali being treated badly & beaten up by the Egyptian soldiers. He felt very angry & killed the Egyptian soldiers. After that he ran away from Egypt to Arabia fearing prosecution. One day he saw a group of young girls trying to get water for their goats but they were being pushed back by other people.

One day Moses saw a group of young girls trying to get water for their goats but they were being pushed back by other people. Moses was very disturbed to see the plight of the poor girls & he made the men clear away so that the girls could make their goats drink water. The girls returned home & told the chief of the tribe how an Egyptian had helped them. The chief told them to call the Egyptian so that he could thank him. When Moses came the chief thanked him & also offered him work. Moses was given the work of taking the goats for grazing. Moses got married to the daughter of the chief.

Once while he was grazing the goats, a bush caught fire. He heard a voice saying that the place he was standing at was a sacred place & he should take off his shoes & then stand there. The voice also told him that he had not been sent on earth to graze goats but to free his people is Egypt from bondage. Moses asked God why anyone will follow him. God gave him two powers – one was a stick which he could touch anyone & the job would be done & second was the power that whatever he said would be proved right. Moses left Arabia & came to Egypt. He told the King to free his Israeli men but the King refused. Moses touched the water of the river with his stick & it turned red. King refused to accept the miracle & said that his magicians could also turn the water red. He called his magicians & they too turned the water red by magic. Then Moses threw his stick on the ground & it became a snake & then when he picked it up it became a stick again. Then Moses hit the ground with the stick & many frogs appeared. Initially the King accepted these 3 miracles but thereafter refused. Moses went to his men of the 12 tribes. Moses told them that he had come to free them from bondage. Initially they were apprehensive but when Moses promised to stand by them they agreed. Moses led them to the sea & struck the water with his stick & the sea made way for all the men to pass. The Egyptian soldiers came after them but Moses again struck the sea bed with his stick & the water came back. All the people of the 12 tribes had crossed over with Moses & he led them to Israel.

One day the people told Moses that they had nothing to eat. Moses struck the ground with his stick & grain started falling from the sky. Then he struck the ground again & herds of sheep appeared. They would kill & eat the sheep as & when required. One day the people told Moses that all the tents were torn & there was no protection from heat. Moses again performed a miracle with his stick & clouds appeared to protect them from the sun. These miracles of Moses are mentioned in the Quran too. People would come to Moses with their problems & Moses would just say that the problem will be solved & it would happen. Moses would go to the Sinai (Toor) mountain & speak with God. One day the people asked Moses whom he spoke to. Moses said that he spoke to God. People asked if he had seen God. When Moses replied in the negative the people told him to tell God to appear before him next time he went to the Sinai mountain to speak to him. When Moses asked God to appear before him, God told Moses that he had not reached the stature where he could see God & that his stature was just to talk to him. When Moses insisted that he see God & refused to go, God appeared to him in the form of light. The light was so powerful that Moses could not bear it & fainted. The whole mountain was burnt by the light & the belief among the Jews is that it turned into surma which had great healing powers & is usually put in the eyes.

Once Moses went somewhere & did not return for many days. His disciples made a statue of Moses in gold & started praying to it. God was very angry that they had forgotten him & had started praying to Moses. He told Moses that he will finish all the Jews. Then Moses went back to his people & told them to worship only God.

God appeared to Moses twice & both times as light. Once was when the bush in the desert caught fire & second was when he appeared on the Toor mountain. God is infact light. Even when God performed a miracle for Zoroaster God appeared as light. Zoroaster had gone to the King to ask him to follow his faith & he held burning coal in his hands which did not burn his fingers. Zoroaster told the King that fire is derived from the sun, the sun from light & light from God. That is why fire should be held sacred. All prophets have given the message to their people that they should produce the light of God within themselves. This can only be produced by meditation. Other things like speaking the truth, being good to others etc are like the Sharia or the Ethical Code. The Ten Commandments are also ethical code like respecting your elders etc. There are two holy books – Old Testament & New Testament. Torah is the Old Testament while Bible contains both Old & New Testaments. The Old Testament was handed over to Moses by God. The Ten Commandments of Moses was accepted by Jesus also & finds a place in the New Testament.

Prophet Muhammed was about 1500 years ago, Jesus about 2000 years & Moses even before him. Abraham is considered prophet by all Christians, Jews & Muslims. Jesus was also a Jew. Bethleham was a sacred city. There was a woman by the name of Henna who could not bear any children. She went & prayed at Bethleham that if she was blessed with a child she would give it up for the service of the religion. Henna was blessed with a daughter & none of the priests were prepared to accept the girl. Later one holy person accept the girl & named her Mary. One day Gabriel appeared to Mary. Apart from Abraham, Gabriel is also respected by all 3 religions. Gabriel was the messenger of God through whom all the messages were sent to the various prophets. One day Mary was filling up water from a river when Gabriel appeared to her. Mary got scared & told him to go away. Then Gabriel told her that he had brought a message from God for her & that she would give birth to a prophet. Mary told him that she was not even married. Gabriel told her that God could produce children even from stone. Later Mary got married to Joseph but realized that Mary was already pregnant. He was very sad & upset. Then an angel appeared to him in the dream & told him that Mary was pure. Joseph was relieved & started loving Mary. An angel appeared to Mary in her dream & told her that she should take the baby & leave for Egypt otherwise the baby would be killed by the King’s men. Later they got back the child once the King had died. The stories of Abraham, Moses, Mary & Jesus are in the Quran also. There is a full chapter in Quran on Mary.

When India was partitioned in 1947, Maharaj ji was 13 years old. After migrating from Pakistan, Maharaj ji’s family was allocated land in Sarawan Bodla in Mukatsar district of Punjab. Around 1961-1962 one day Guru Gobind Singh ji told Maharaj ji that he wanted Maharaj ji to meet his old Sikhs. Guru ji brought him to Nising village in Karnal district of Haryana. On the main road there was a gurudwara of just one room. Outside the gurudwara a cot (manja) was lying & Maharaj ji lied down on it. There was an old woman in the village who would regularly take out 10% (dasvand) of her earnings. She had collected & kept it separately. She would take out 10% of all her earnings & collect it hoping that one day she would offer the dasvand at Guru Tegh Bahadur ji’s gurudwara. Maharaj ji slept on the cot that night. This old woman who had never met Maharaj ji, had a dream at night in which a voice told her that she had collected dasvand to offer it at Guru Tegh Bahadur ji’s gurudwara but did she think that the gurudwara of her own village was lesser than any other gurudwara? The voice told her that she should offer the dasvand at the village gurudwara & the person who is to take the dasvand is also here & the image of Maharaj ji came in her dream. Next morning she went to see who had come to the gurudwara. She was surprised to see the same person she had seen in her dream. She immediately went back & got the dasvand & offered it to Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji told her to get some ration like wheat, dal, oil, sugar etc out the money & to organize a langar. Also she should get an Akhand Paath organized at the Gurudwara. The Akhand Paath commenced the same day.

At the village Maharaj ji saw a child Nahchal from Dachar village, tied up with chains, & being taken away. Maharaj ji inquired about him. The people told Maharaj ji that the man had gone mad & they were taking him to a psychiatric hospital in Amritsar. Maharaj ji called the man to him & sprinkled some water on him. Immediately the person became okay & started talking like a normal person. The news spread like wildfire throughout the village & nearby villages that a saint had come & he had cured a mad man. In those days Maharaj ji never use to dress up like a saint. He would wear clothes like what people in rural Punjab would wear. Many people started coming to him to seek his blessings. In those days Maharaj ji would sing simple hymns in a very soulful voice. Hymns would be in simple words like “Guru Gobind Singh come & meet me”, “Guru Gobind Singh is present everywhere” etc. These hymns were very easy to understand for the illiterate village folk. Many miracles started happening & Maharaj ji developed a huge following.

A woman Amal Kaur from Gharonda village was one of them. It was her son’s engagement ceremony & Amal Kaur thought in her heart that she would let the ceremony begin only after Maharaj ji arrived. She did not tell Maharaj ji anything. During those days Maharaj ji was staying with Bibi Chand at Chandigarh. On that day in the evening Maharaj ji told Bibi Chand to get her car ready. Mahara ji sat in the car & told her to drive towards Ambala. When they arrived at Ambala Maharaj ji told her to drive towards Karnal. At Karnal he told Bibi Chand to drive to Gharonda.Then Maharaj ji arrived at Amal Kaur’s place to bless the couple. So Maharaj ji could hear the voice of his disciple at Garonda even when he was staying in Chandigarh.

Angrez Singh from Singra village in Haryana also became a devotee of Maharaj ji & would move around with Maharaj ji. One day he asked leave from Maharaj ji to go to his village in order to irrigate his paddy fields. Maharaj ji refused to give him leave. Again he asked for leave & said that otherwise his crops would be destroyed but Maharaj ji still refused. That night it rained so heavily that all the fields were soaked with water. His fields produced the best harvest in the area.

The mother of Jarnail Singh was an ardent devotee of Maharaj ji & would follow Maharaj ji wherever he went. Jarnail Singh did not like his mother following a saint & was very angry with Maharaj ji & even wanted to kill him. Maharaj ji was visiting his village Gumthala Garhu. Jarnail Singh hid a rifle on his roof. When Maharaj ji came to the village he stood in front of Jarnail Singh’s house & shouted out to him to shoot with his rifle. The trigger of the rifle got jammed & Jarnail Singh could not fire. Then he came down & fell on Maharaj ji’s feet & became a disciple and did lot of seva afterwards. Later he would also come to Gobind Sadan & do seva. One day his mother told Maharaj ji that her son was a very brave man & she wanted him to die a courageous death. Maharaj ji told her that Jarnail Singh will have to be careful of particular road near the village. Once while doing seva at Gobind Sadan he asked Maharaj ji for leave to go back to his village to sow the paddy crop. Maharaj ji told him that it was not safe for him to leave Gobind Sadan for 6 months. Jarnail Singh did not listen & went back to his village. While driving the tractor on that particular road his tractor tipped over & he was crushed under the tractor & died. In 1970, when Maharaj ji settled the disputed issue of Delhi gurudwaras, Jarnail Singh was one of the Maharaj ji’s men when they took over the management of Sis Ganj gurudwara.

Many miracles took place when Maharaj ji was in Haryana. One day he was singing some hymns at Nising village. He suddenly stopped singing & said that a woman with 2 children was coming to him. Everyone was surprised & started looking around. Then he continued singing & after some time said that the woman has just got off the bus & is going to reach. The woman was Joginder Kaur from Asand village. Her husband was patwari (incharge of land records) of the village. As soon as she saw Maharaj ji she started shouting “This is my Guru Gobind Singh, this is my Guru Gobind Singh”. Maharaj ji immediately told her to keep quiet & to sit down. So in those days miracles like this would take place & his following kept on increasing.

While Maharaj ji was staying in Haryana, one Jagat Ram became his disciple. Maharaj ji told him that he should call himself Jagat Singh & should stop cutting his hair and said that his business will be very successful. He became a successful businessman & all his 4 sons also set up their independent shops & were successful. When Emergency was imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975, Maharaj ji would sent 5 of his Sikhs to Amritsar to take part in the protest march organized by the Akalis against the Emergency. Maharaj ji asked Jagat Singh to send one of his sons to take part in it. Jagat Singh told Maharaj ji that all 4 of his sons very busy & hence he could not spare anyone. Because he refused to follow Maharaj ji’s orders, slowly his entire business collapsed & all the shops were sold off one by one. Jagat Singh was very repentant & asked for forgiveness. Then Maharaj ji forgave him & his business slowly recovered. People who did not follow Maharaj ji’s orders had to suffer the consequences.

Maharaj ji stayed in Haryana for many months. Then when Maharaj ji went back to Sarawan Bodla then his disciples from Haryana started visiting him there. One day tea was being prepared for all the disciples when they realized that there was no milk. Maharaj ji told them that there a man with a limp who is coming & he will be getting milk. Surely enough he came with milk & tea was prepared. After everybody had tea they asked this man if Maharaj ji had told him to get milk. The man replied in the negative & said that he got milk because he wanted to serve the disciples. When people would see miracles like this their faith would increase. Miracles are performed by the Guru himself. He blesses his disciples also with powers to perform miracles if they follow Guru’s orders.

In Haryana, Maharaj ji would sometimes get up at 12 am & all the disciples would get up with him & prepare water for his bath. One of these disciples was Dilip Singh. One day he told everyone that 7 letters would come today. When the postman came he got 6 letters. Dilip Singh insisted that 7 letters would come. After sometime a person from the nearby village came with another letter. Maharaj ji’s disciples also started getting blessed with such miraculous powers.

One day Maharaj ji’s father ordered that a khurli (place where cows & buffaloes are tied up) be made. Maharaj ji commented, who will you tie there? After the khurli was made, whichever cow they would tie up there would die. Slowly all the cows died. Whatever Maharaj ji would say would come true. In villages, people usually ask for a son to be born to them. Many children were born just by Maharaj ji’s blessings. Guru Gobind Sigh would come in the dream of the parents whenever a son was born & tell them to donate a buffalo, which had recently delivered a calf, to Maharaj ji. So from a time when there were no buffaloes, in a matter of 15 days 15 buffaloes were donated & milk was in abundance. Then Maharaj ji thought of riding horses. Guru Gobind Singh ji started telling people in the dreams that they should donate horses. Within 15 days 15 horses were donated to Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji would ride on a horse & his disciples would accompany him on horses also.

There was man Mian Singh in Haryana who was at an advanced stage of tuberculosis & doctors had given up on him. Some people suggested that they take him to Maharaj ji in Sarawan for his blessings. They carried him on a cot & brought him to Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji told him to get up immediately & go running to the railway station & then come back running too. People thought that Mian Singh would surely collapse & die while running but Mian Singh went running & came back also running & on his return his tuberculosis was totally cured. Later he became healthy & strong & Maharaj ji told him to wear only red clothes from then onwards.

The Patwari (person who keeps land records of the village) of Gumthala came to Maharaj ji. He had boils all over his body. He pleaded to Maharaj ji to cure him. Maharaj ji felt pity on him & told him that he would be cured. After a few days all the boils disappeared. After 6 months again the boils re-appeared on his body & he again came to Maharaj ji at Sarawan. Maharaj ji started recited a hymn jokingly meaning that “I went to him thinking he was a true guru but if I had known he was a fake I would not have gone to him”. After that Maharaj ji started laughing loudly & kept on laughing. As he laughed the boils on the body of the Patwari started disappearing & soon he was cured. He is perfectly healthy now & his family still visits Gobind Sadan.

When Gobind Sadan was still not established, Maharaj ji would stay with his disciples at Chandgarh, Shimla, Amritsar etc for approx 2 months at a stretch. Once Maharaj ji was staying at Surjit Singh Majithia’s house in Delhi. He was Deputy Defence Minister of India from 1952 to 1962. His wife was very fond of Maharaj ji & looked after him very well. She would make rosaries of wool & give it to Maharaj ji & then Maharaj ji would distribute it to his disciples. After staying there for 2 months Maharaj ji left. After Maharaj ji had left, every night at 12 am, which was the time Maharaj ji use to get up, Mrs Majithia would hear the noise of somebody having a bath in the bathroom. So she would take food to the room & pray to Maharaj ji to eat it even though Maharaj ji had already left from her house. She was very devoted to Maharaj ji. In 1968 Maharaj ji told her that he was going to Hemkunt Sahib & asked her to get beautiful rumalas made so that he would take them with him. Majithias were rich people & she got very pretty rumalas made. Maharaj ji would always travel with his disciples. This time in the group there was a new disciple Col. Gurdial Singh. Earlier he was the disciple of Sant Randhir Singh, whose disciples keep on repeating Waheguru, Waheguru, Waheguru. He had this doubt in his mind that though he repeats Waheguru, Waheguru, Maharaj ji is telling him to recite Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru. While they were going to Hemkunt Sahib, they stopped to rest at a certain place. Bibi Chand (from Chandigarh) & another family that was working at Central Secretariat (New Delhi) were sitting when a mango fell from above into Bibi Chand’s lap. She along with the other family went to Maharaj ji & requested him to eat a part of it. Maharaj ji told her that someone had already had a bite from the mango. When she saw the mango closely, she saw teeth marks on it. Maharaj ji wanted to tell her that he himself had given her the mango. When they reached Hemkunt Sahib, they offered the rumala. Col Gurdial Singh saw Guru Gobind Singh ji on a horse reciting Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru & wearing clothes made out of the same rumala that they had offered. So Maharaj ji showed him that the rumala that we offer goes directly to Guru ji & secondly that Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru is the naam to be recited. Still Col Gurdial Singh did not agree & left Maharaj ji. It is very difficult to change the thoughts of people who are so hardline in their views.

One day Maharaj ji was in Chandigarh at the residence of Bedis. Maharaj ji would give discourses every evening & people would come to hear him. Col Gurnam Sigh Randhawa’s wife Kundan Kaur also would come to meet Maharaj ji. She would come with her son & daughter. One day she told Maharaj ji that her husband, who was a Colonel in the army stationed in Assam, was coming on leave tomorrow. She said that her husband was very strict & will get annoyed if he comes to know that I visit a saint or a hermit. Maharaj ji told her not to worry since her husband would have even more faith in him than her. On the day Colonel Randhawa was to return, Kundan Kaur was sitting with Maharaj ji. When Maharaj ji realized that it was time for his train to arrive, he told her to immediately leave for home. He further told her that as soon as she reaches home & when she is about to take out the keys of the house from her purse, her husband’s taxi would arrive. Exactly the same thing happened & the children started laughing. When Colonel Randhawa asked why everyone was laughing his wife told him that they were sitting with a saint & he had told them exactly the same sequence of events. Then in the evening Colonel Randhawa also went to meet Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji explained that their association went back to their previous birth. The distance that a person had covered while trying to connect with God in the previous birth does not go wasted. In the next birth he continues from the same point. Maharaj ji then started describing Colonel Randhawa’s office in the forest areas of Assam. Maharaj ji told him that his office was a tent, it had a table & chair for him, there were 12 other chairs, the table had 2 phones – one green & one black, there were 2 golden coloured pens etc. He was surprised that this saint knew everything even though he was sitting far off. His faith in Maharaj ji immediately developed. Then Colonel Randhawa started visiting Maharaj ji daily. One day Maharaj ji told him that he was very happy with him & he should ask for something. Colonel Randhawa said that God had given him everything, he had a bunglow, car, two children, a good job with plenty of respect & a decent pay. Maharaj ji again asked second & third time but his answer was the same. When Maharaj ji asked for the 4^th time then Colonel Randhawa said that he was going back to join his duty since all indications were that war was going to erupt between India & Pakistan and asked for the gift that he should know beforehand the strength (number of soldiers, amount of ammunition etc) of the enemy. Maharaj ji said that he would come to know about all this beforehand. Then Colonel Randhawa said that he did not have a railway reservation & would have to go without reservation. Maharaj ji told him that he had got his reservation done till the destination. Colonel Randhawa requested for the same for his Major friend & Maharaj ji agreed. When they reached the railway station, they found the first class compartment of the train coming from Kalka & going to Delhi was empty. They comfortably went to Delhi. When they reached Delhi & requested the RTO for reservation for the onwards journey to Assam, the RTO replied that he has already received instructions that officers & soldiers of the army are returning back for emergency duty hence the railways had already arranged for extra train compartments to be attached. So Colonel Randhawa had a comfortable journey right till Assam. When Colonel Randhawa sat down in the train & closed his eyes he saw Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, Baba Srichand ji, Maharaj ji, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Hanuman, Durga & all the other Gods & Godessess in his vision. One always has visions when the eyes are closed, at a later stage a few can also have visions with their eyes open. So Colonel Randhawa got what he wanted & started having visions. When the war broke out he could clearly see how the enemy was planning the attack & their resources. He was responsible for liberating the maximum amount of area in Bangladesh from Pakistan. The government of India also noted this fact.

Surender Nath suffered a heart attack & was admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. Maharaj ji went to visit him. I was also with Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji told him that he was not suffereing from any heart attack instead he was feeling bad since he considered his new job at Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to be a demotion from his earlier job of Chief Secretary Mizoram. Maharaj ji told him that when he goes to US for check up the doctors there would also tell him that his heart was perfectly fine & that he had not suffered any heart attack. In US doctors told him exactly what Maharaj ji had said. Surender Nath came back from US & told Maharaj ji what happened. Surender Nath took CISF to great heights & greatly expanded the organization. Surender Nath was later posted as member of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). He would come daily to Gobind Sadan & mop the floor of the havan & meet Maharaj ji & then go for his work. He would ask Maharaj ji a lot of questions. Sometimes Maharaj ji would start speaking before his asking any question & would continue to speak for 30 mins. Afterwards he would ask Surender Nath if he had any questions & he would reply that all his questions had been answered. Later Surender Nath became Governer of Punjab in 1993 when terrorism was at it’s peak there & was also given additional charge of Himachal Pradesh. Even while posted in Chandigarh he would come often to meet Maharaj ji & did lot of seva & had tremendous faith in Maharaj ji. While he was Governer, Maharaj ji had told him not to leave Chandigarh without first contacting him on the phone. He established Guru Granth Sahib in one of the rooms of Raj Bhavan. He would take hukumnama from Guru Granth Sahib every day. He also established a havan & would do havan daily. He had designated some men from Punjab Police to daily do the seva of Guru Granth Sahib.

His daughter & son-in-law had come to visit him from US. They planned a trip to Himachal by government plane. The day they were to leave the weather became bad & the pilot told them that it was not advisable to travel. Surender Nath’s daughter insisted that they go & said that in US aircrafts fly even in bad weather. That particular day, 9^th July 1994, Surender Nath was in a hurry & did not do paath or havan nor did he ask Maharaj ji. The aircraft met with an accident & all 9 members of Surender Nath’s family – himself, his wife, his son, daughter in law, their son, daughter, son in law, their two sons died. If Surender Nath would have taken the permission from Maharaj ji before leaving, Maharaj ji would have saved him. Later Punjab Kesari newspaper spread a lot of false propaganda that lot of money was found in Raj Bhavan.

When Gobind Sadan was initially established, Maharaj ji would himself do a lot of work. He would get up early in the morning & do ardas first at the havan, then at Baba Srichand ji’s havan & then at Darbar Sahib. After that he would go for work. In the early days after Gobind Sadan had been established, Maharaj ji did not stay at Gobind Sadan permanently. He was staying at Teen Murti & after coming to Gobind Sadan in the morning one day he finished his ardas at Darbar Sahib & turned back. Behind Maharaj ji a lot of disciples were standing. He placed his hand on the shoulder of one man & told him that he had not taken a bath. The man agreed. Then Maharaj ji told everyone that no one should come inside the Darbar Sahib without having a bath. Any person who has not taken a bath should pay his respects from outside & go.

Maharaj ji had granted the powers of div drishti to Swaran Singh Kapoor who was an engineer in National Building Corporation (NBC). He could see clearly. One day someone asked about a theft, Kapoor sahib could see clearly & told the person that the thief has taken the money & is beyond reach now. He was able to tell the name of the person also. Kapoor Sahib’s younger brother Manohar Singh Kapoor, who was a businessman, also started coming to Maharaj ji. Once both the brothers arranged a series of 51 Akhand Paaths of Guru Granth Sahib one after the other. One day in their love for Maharaj ji they spread roses on the floor from havan to Baba Srichand ji’s havan & from there to Darbar Sahib. Maharaj ji as usual followed the route walking over the roses & after doing ardas at Darbar Sahib said that anyone having any problem of the stomach will be cured if he has even one petal of these flowers. The roses were lying in the store with the store keeper Kalha Singh for many days thereafter & Kalha Singh would give it to the people who were suffering with any stomach ailment.

In those days after the morning ardas Maharaj ji would go to the fields wherever work was going on. The land was very cheap then. The cost was only Rs. 3000 per acre. The price shot up only afterwards when the government announced that farm houses can be constructed here. When the land was cheap, Maharaj ji would buy land on regular basis. He had declared in the beginning that he would not ask anyone for help & would develop the land from the available resources. First Maharaj ji established a dairy farm here. There were 250 cows & buffaloes which use to give milk. Amongst the cows, the best breed of cows like the Jersey of US & the best breed from Germany were in the dairy farm. The cows would produce upto 35 ltrs of milk daily & the buffaloes produced upto 25 ltrs. The milk was sold in the market. Gurmukh Singh & Ralph among others were responsible for supplying the milk.

Once Gurmukh Singh, who had his workshop in Delhi, was struck in one eye while working & damaged it. He was worried about the eye & that it would look bad. Maharaj ji told him to do seva. Slowly his eye started healing & became okay.

Later Maharaj ji started horticulture farming & planted roses. Ralph would supply them to the various embassies in Delhi. Ralph would do a lot of work & even carried fodder to feed the cattle in the dairy farm. Vakil Sahib has also done a lot of seva here. At one time he would take vegetables produced here at Gobind Sadan for selling & then would carry the empty basket on the head & come back from Delhi by bus. Vakil Sahib is a very honest man. Three of us – Vakil Sahib, Colonel Sahib (who has passed away) & myself would stay in the same room here. One day Vakil Sahib decided to go back home but Maharaj ji told everyone that he would no go anywhere & that he had not come here to go back. Vakil Sahib never went back. He was such a capable person, I use to feel a lot for him. In those days Maharaj ji’s sevadars had great qualities. At 2 am the cows & buffaloes would be milked. They use to leave Gobind Sadan with milk at 4 am every morning & supply to various places even going house to house. This is how Gobind Sadan was developed.

Once Maharaj ji went to see some land at Surajpur (on the outskirts of Delhi & is Greater Noida now) for purchasing. Maharaj ji was looking around when one Lala (businessman) from Ghaziabad met Maharaj ji & offered to sell 250 acres of his land. Maharaj ji bought the 250 acres for Rs 42,000 from him. Maharaj ji even told the Lala that he would not be able to give the full amount now & would give the balance only next year. The Lala never thought that Maharaj ji’s disciples would be able to cultivate the land. Maharaj ji asked his disciples at Haryana to bring tractors & first leveled the entire 250 acres. No farming had ever been done on this land before & it was full of bushes & wild grass. Then he arranged for irrigation by setting up tube wells. The underground water table was very high there, at just 10 mtrs. When the Lala came back after one year to take his balance money, he was surprised to see that paddy was being planted. What shocked him more was that it was being planted by young boys & girls like Poppat, Colonel Sahib’s daughter, Baljit etc. Paddy planting is a difficult task which only village folk can do & he never thought that young boys & girls from college could do it. He went back to Ghaziabad & praised Maharaj ji to everyone there.

There was one Mal Singh (father of Balwant Singh) whose farm was close by & became a disciple of Maharaj ji. He had purchased land at Garh near Meerut. He told Maharaj ji that he wanted to give Maharaj ji 5 acres of land from that land. Maharaj ji agreed & went to see that land at Garh. Next to this land was another 90 acres of land which was under 15 feet of stagnant water & condemned by the government as worthless. Maharaj ji bought that land for 15,000 rupees. Maharaj ji got an embankment built along the Ganga & slowly the water dried up & then started farming there. A person by the name of Mokha was given a tractor & made incharge. There was no place there to sit, sleep or cook food. Mokha endured great hardships & was the person responsible for the initial development of the place. Maharaj ji then advised his other disciples also to buy land there. The rate was about 16,000 per acre. In order to control the rates, he told them not to give more than this amount. Slowly houses were built there. Thereafter Maharaj ji developed some land closeby at Tejpuri. Maharaj ji then decided to sow sugarcane since there were 2 sugar mills closeby. Later once the price of land increased at Gobind Sadan, he slowly started selling off small pieces & from that money started buying cheap land at Garh.

One day Nirlep Kaur asked Maharaj ji for 50% of the land at Gobind Sadan. Guru Gobind Singh told Maharaj ji to give her whatever she wanted. Guru ji told Maharaj ji that he would have such big farms that he would have to go on jeeps to inspect them. Maharaj ji gave Nirlep Kaur the land & she gave it to her children & grandchildren who built bunglows there. She also sold off a part of the land. Later she even asked for a portion of the Garh land. Maharaj ji did not owe her anything. Maharaj ji use to send all ration like milk, oil, sugar, wheat etc for her from Gobind Sadan. She never even had her own car. Infact it was Maharaj ji who bought her a car & was paying the monthly installments for it. She would come & cry to Maharaj ji after she was thrown out by her in laws. Maharaj ji was extremely soft hearted. He would forgive even the people who cheated him.

Gurmukh Singh ji: Maharaj ji use to say that when I give you a hukam (order) I also give you the strength to follow the order. What would you say about this?

Major Sahib: See, he gives us the strength but our mind at times becomes so admant that we do not bother.

Gurmukh Singh ji: Maharaj ji use to say that sometimes you think that you have followed the hukam but you forget that you have followed it successfully because of the strength we gave you.

Major Sahib: We were talking about Mokha, come to think of it who was Mokha & what was his background.

Gurmukh Singh ji: Mokha was left with Maharaj ji by his parents when he was about 5-7 years old because he was in such a bad health that they thought he was going to die & his parents had given up on him.

Major Sahib: In 1984 during the anti Sikh riots, some people from nearby villages were planning to attack Gobind Sadan & take away the cattle. On that day I had gone to Connaught Place to buy a gun. When I was returning with the gun I came to know about Indira Gandhi’s assasination & that people had blocked roads in protest. So I went back to the shop to return the gun but the shopkeeper refused to take it back. I was stuck with the gun so I took a taxi & came back to Gobind Sadan via another route. The same gun was used by Mokha to protect Gobind Sadan. He fired 4 rounds with it & all the villagers who wanted to attack ran away.

Gurmukh Singh ji: Maharaj ji use to say that wherever he purchased land, there was a history to that place. He had said that the Surajpur land was Bhagwan Vishnu’s place at one time. The nearby village Kasna is where Lord Krishna’s uncle Raja Kans had his fort. He use to say that wherever we go, maybe at the present the place is very backward but a time will come when land will become very expensive there. Today in Greater Noida land has become so expensive. Where the Garh farm is located, earlier it was Lord Krishna’s place. Maharaj ji use to say that Guru Gobind Singh ji has also visited this place. When he was traveling on his horse, Guru ji had rested at that place. Where the Nishan Sahib is installed, Maharaj ji use to say that one should burn incense sticks there. He further said that if someone’s child was not intelligent then they should come & mop the floor there & the child’s brain would become sharp. Maharaj ji had said that one day the Garh farm area would become like Chandni Chowk.

On Jainism

Jainism is about 4000 years old. The word Jain is derived from Jeena. Jeena means the one who has conquered bad qualities like anger etc. Persons who had achieved salvation were also called Jeena. Jainism does not believe in any God, Goddess or Creator. There have been 24 Tirathankar in Jain faith. The first was Rishab & the last was Lord Mahavira. Jains consider themselves to be one of the Sanatan Dharmas (ancient religions). Their holy books are in Pali & Sanskrit language. The Tirathankars came in this world to establish the Sanatan Dharma. Lord Mahavira was born about 2500 years ago. He was born 527 years before Christ & was born in a royal family. He was married to Yashoda & a daughter by the name of Priyanka was born to them. She was married to Jamali. When Mahavira was 30 years old he left his family & went to preach. He took off all his clothes. Initially he wore only a loin cloth but one day it fell off & after that he started staying absolutely naked. People would hurl abuses at him & some would physically assault him but he never felt angry. He gave up everything & did not even keep a bowl for drinking water or eating food. He would normally stay in the forest. He was against violence of any kind, meaning not giving trouble to any living thing. He considered harbouring bad thoughts in the mind also a form of violence. The Jain saints who wear white clothes are called Swaytamber & the ones who do not wear any clothes are called Digamber. The Digambers do not wear any clothes whatever season it might be. The Jains who follow the family way of life get up 2 hrs prior sunrise & chant mantras. Their rosary consists of 111 beads. They wash rice 3-4 times & then cook it. They make the sign of Swastik on it before offering it to their Lord. Their prayer involves praising their prophets, saints & the people who have achieved salvation. They do not believe in any kind of violence. They consider harming anything living a sin. They believe that the soul is originally pure but it has become dirty due to the karmas of the previous births. They believe that the soul remains in the cycle of 84 lakh forms of life & is only freed when all the karmas are finished. The colour of the soul of people who are killers or in a similar profession is black. The colour of the soul of people who are angry is light brown & the ones who are lustful is dark blue. Then the one who are honest have red coloured souls & similarly the people who have good values have white coloured souls. Hence Jains give importance to the colour of the soul. When Mahavira practiced penance for 12 years he achieved inner wisdom. At the age of 72 years when he died, 18 kings of the Kashi & Kaushal region paid their respects to him. Jains believe in the theory of rebirth till all karmas are cleansed since white signifies purity. Jains are famous for their statues. In their temples one can find statues of their saints in white marble. They have a lot of statues constructed in & around Gwalior & Mount Abu. In South India there is a statue of one of their saints which is 60 feet high. The influence of Jain religion was all over India before Shankaracharaya started a Hindu revivalist movement. Jains believe that the inner wisdom can only be achieved by meditation.

On Sufism

When Moinuddin Chishti reached Mecca with his guru he heard a voice from God telling him that he would make Moinuddin Chishti one of the well respected figures in the Islamic world. When they went to Madina, Moinuddin Chishti heard the voice of God telling him that he had given him the job of taking Islam to India & that he should go & stay in Ajmer, India. Moinuddin Chishti was just a boy of 17-18 years. He did not know where Ajmer was. The voice told him the way to Ajmer guiding him through Baghdad, Chaman, Quetta, Multan & Delhi. So Moinuddin Chishti set out for India with 40 of his disciples. At that time India was ruled by Prithviraj Chauhan. The emperor use to stay either in Delhi or in Ajmer. One day Prithviraj Chauhan’s mother had a dream that somebody from the Arab land was going to come & his rule would end. At that time the western limit of his kingdom extended till Hansi (in present day Haryana). At Hansi, the king ordered his guards to keep a check on all travelers coming to India & to refuse entry to anyone who came from Arabia. When Moinuddin Chishti arrived with his disciples he heard about this & decided to enter India through another route & finally reached Ajmer. The same day again Prithviraj Chauhan’s mother had another dream in which she saw that the person who would finish his rule has arrived in Ajmer. So the emperor ordered his soldiers to get the area where Moinuddin Chisti & his followers were staying vacated & to tell them to return back. The soldiers told Moinuddin Chishti & his disciples to get up since they wanted that area to tie their camels. Moinuddin Chisti’s disciples requested them to tie the camels elsewhere but the soldiers insisted on the same place. So Moinuddin Chishti shifted out from there. In the morning none of the camels, that were tied there, were able to get up. The soldiers reported this to the emperor. The emperor told them to request Moinuddin Chishti for a solution. Moinuddin Chisti gave them a stick & told them that whichever camel they touched with the stick, that camel would get up. Finally all the camels got up.

Since Prithviraj Chauhan knew that Moinuddin Chisti would be reason for his downfall, his soldiers started creating problems for them. The disciples reported this to him. Moinuddin Chishti knew that the emperor had to be defeated. Mahmud Ghazni had attacked Prithviraj Chauhan many times but had been defeated. Then Moinuddin Chishti met Mahmud Ghazni in his dreams & asked Ghazni to wage war against Prithviraj Chauhan. Ghazni attacked with 1,75,000 troops. Prithviraj Chauhan mobilized 3,00,000 troops. But whereas Ghazni split up his troops into 7 regiments of 25,000 each, Prithviraj Chauhan fought with all the troops together. Ghazni made only 25,000 troops fight for an hour & then would change them. This way Ghazni’s troops always stayed fresh while Prithviraj Chauhan’s troops got tired & were eventually defeated. Ghazni later returned back to his native Ghazni & appointed Qutabdin Aibek, a slave, as the ruler of India. Prithviraj Chauhan was captured & sent to Ghazni. There he became blind. Even without seeing with his eyes, Prithviraj Chauhan was capable of hitting a target with his arrow just by listening to the voice of the target. Mahmud Ghazni asked him to show his skill but he refused saying that now he was just a prisoner & he was also blind. There was a poet from his court who had gone with Prithviraj Chauhan to Ghazni. To inspire Prithviraj Chauhan, the poet recited a poem in praise of him.

Prithviraj Chauhan agreed to show his talent with the bow & arrow. The poet wanted that Prithviraj Chauhan should kill Mahmud Ghazni. He guided Prithviraj Chauhan by reciting a poem, the words of which hinted at the location of Mahmud Ghazni. The blind Prithviraj could figure out the exact location of Ghazni. He fired an arrow & the arrow killed Mahmud Ghazni. After that they knew that they would be killed too by the Ghazni’s men. So they made a pact in which the poet will kill Prithviraj Chauhan & while he was dying he would kill the poet. Hence both Prithviraj & the poet died together.

Qutubdin Aibak is the emperor who had Qutab Minar constructed. He was originally a slave of Mahmud Ghazni. That is why his dynasty is known as the Slave Dynasty. It was Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti who introduced Islam into India. Khwaja Qutubdin Bhakhtiar Kaki was 20th generation of Hasan & Hussien (grandsons of Prophet Muhammed) while Baba Farid was 15^th generation of Umer (father in law of Prophet Muhammed & also one of his 4 Yaars). Qutubdin became a disciple of Moinuddin & was instructed to go & stay at Delhi. He came & settled near Qutab Minar in Delhi. While he was coming to meet Moinuddin at Ajmer he met Baba Farid at Multan. Farid requested him to make him his disciple but Qutabdin told him that he would do so only after Farid came to him in Delhi. Thereafter Baba Farid studied at Multan for 14 years. After completing his studies at Multan he went to Baghdad. At Baghdad he asked the people if there was any saint there & the people told him to go to Shahabuddin. So Farid went to him. Shahabuddin had not spoken for 40 years. Due to his vision he knew who Baba Farid was. After 5 mins Shahabuddin spoke & said that if he wanted to achieve God he should become blind, deaf, dumb & crippled. Shahabuddin also told him that he had not spoken for 40 years & he was specially speaking to him only. Baba Farid started studying in Baghdad & after completion of his studies there he came to Delhi to meet Qutabdin. Qutabdin made him his disciple & gave him the task of preparing water for his daily bath in the morning – cold water during summers & hot water during winters. Then he told him to recite the entire Quran everyday, to recite Isban Husna 1000 times & to recite a certain verse 3000 times also daily. These recitations would take 20 hours. Hence Baba Farid was busy in this for 20 out of the 24 hrs & had only 4 hrs to rest. Once during an early winter morning Baba Farid was preparing to heat up water for Qutabdin. In those days there were no match sticks. Fire was kept smouldering in the fire place. That day he found that the fire had totally extinguished so he went outside to bring some burning coal. Since it was early hours he saw that everyone was sleeping except there was a candle burning in one house. He went there, introduced himself & asked for some burning coal. The woman told him that he would have to sleep with her first. Baba Farid refused & went away to find fire elsewhere. When he couldn’t find fire anywhere else he returned to the same house. The maid opened the door & told the woman that the same person had come again. The woman told him that if he wanted fire he would have to give her one of the eyeballs. Baba Farid immediately took out one of his eyeballs with a knife & gave it to her and took the fire & returned. On returning he found that there was no wood. Farid then cut up his sleeping cot & burned the wood to heat up water for his Guru. The husband of the woman who had asked him for one eyeball came running with the eyeball in his hand & asked for forgiveness on his wife’s behalf & told Qutabdin that his wife was just joking. The man was worried that the saint would utter a curse. Qutabdin asked Farid to place the eyeball back in the eye socket & press it. When Farid did that his eye became okay. Qutabdin had great powers. Once when Qutabdin’s 7 year old son was playing & fell into a pit & died. He brought him back to life. Whenever wheat flour for making food would finish, Qutabdin’s wife would request her neighbours to give her some. One day the neighbour’s wife taunted her that if she did not give her wheat flour Qutabdin’s family would have to go hungry. Qutabdin’s wife was very upset by the taunt & told Qutabdin about this. He told his wife to open the almirah in the house. When she opened she found a pile of rotis in the almirah. Qutabdin told her that from now on whenever she wanted she should just open the almirah & take out rotis. One day the wife wanted to check how many rotis there were in the almirah but when she opened there was not a single roti inside. Roti is called Kaki in Arabic. His actual name was Qutabdin, his guru added Bakhtiar to it & later he came to be known as Qutabdin Bakhtiyar Kaki.

One day at Sarawan Maharaj ji’s mother told him that there was no wheat flour remaining in the house. Maharaj ji called Bihara, who owned a grocery store, & told him to give his mother 30 kg of wheat flour. He told his mother to keep on making rotis from this wheat flour. After nearly a month Maharaj ji’s mother thought about checking how much wheat flour remained since she had been cooking a lot of rotis for the visiting disciples. When she opened the can to see there was nothing in it. This incident is similar to the one involving Qutabdin.

Qutabdin was very fond of listening to qawalis. The hard line Qazi was against music of any kind & told everyone that Qutabdin was going against Islam. Qutabdin invited the Qazi for dinner at his place & told his disciples to collect all musical instruments & get it. They collected 72 instruments & covered them with a sheet. When the Qazi came he told Qutabdin that music was against Sharia. Qutabdin told him that music was the food of his soul. The Qazi said that if there Qutabdin did not have anybody to sing then he would die of hunger. Qutabdin waved his hand & the covers came off & all the instruments started playing. Even after seeing the miracle the Qazi still maintained that music was against Islam & Sharia.

Qutabdin’s disciple was Baba Farid whose hymns are included in Guru Granth Sahib. Baba Farid’s disciple was Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia. The Qazis complained to the King that Nizamuddin listens to music. The King called him & asked him why he was going against the Shariat. Nizamuddin told him that since it concerned the Sharia the King has to sit with him on the floor & then he would talk. The King agreed. Everyone sat on the floor & the Qazi asked the same question. Nizamuddin replied that once during Prophet Mohamed’s time some girls were passing by & were singing songs. Abu Baker told them not to sing songs since it was against the Shariat. Prophet Muhamed told Abu Baker not to stop them since they were singing the praises of Jesus. It was Christmas & the girls were singing songs in praise of Jesus. Nizamuddin told the King that Prophet Muhamed was not against music. The King agreed. Nizamuddin then told the King that he would be insulting his Guru & their Gurus namely Baba Farid, Qutabdin Bakhtiar Kaki & Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti if he did not listen to qawalis. Since they all use to listen to qawalis, if he did not listen it would indirectly mean that his Gurus were wrong.

When Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti was going to Ajmer from Delhi many people were impressed by his views & adopted Islam. It is true that many people in India were converted forcibly by Kings like Aurangzeb but many people also adopted Islam willingly due to the Sufi saints. One day Baba Farid told his guru Khwaja Bhakhtiyar Kaki that he would like to go to Hansi. His guru told him to go after one day. Next day he again asked but the reply was the same. Baba Farid asked for the third time the next day. Then Khwaja Kaki told him to go but also told him that Farid would not be present at the time of his death. Khwaja Kaki also told Farid that Farid would come 3 days after his death. Farid went to Hansi & Khwaja Kaki passed away. He told Farid in his dream that he had left this world & he should come back & put 5 baskets of mud on his grave only then his grave would be considered complete. When Khawaja Kaki died his disciples sent a person to inform Farid but Farid already knew. Farid was returning & they met on the way. After Farid had put 5 baskets of mud Khwaja Kaki spoke from the grave that it was enough & his grave was complete now. Baba Farid then left & settled in Pak Pattan.

Nizamuddin Aulia use to stay in Delhi in the place which is Nizamuddin now. He would walk from there to Mehrauli to pay respects to Khwaja Kaki. One day a thought occurred to him if Khwaja Kaki even knew that he was walking all the way daily just to pay respects on his grave. When he reached Mehrauli he was surprised to see that Khwaja Kaki was sitting cross legged on the grave. Khwaja Kaki told Nizamuddin that when the thought enters Nizamuddin’s mind about going to his grave, even before he leaves his house, he comes to know that Nizamudin is coming.

One day the Qazis reported to the King that more workers go to Nizamudin for his work than come to the King. The King passed an order that the workers could work for Nizamuddin for a maximum of 3 days only in a week. The workers were so dedicated to Nizamuddin that they would work for the King till 5 pm & after that work for Nizamuddin. On another occasion the Qazis told the King that better & more variety of dishes are made in the community kitchen of Nizamuddin than his own. He asked them how Nizamuddin could afford this. The Qazis told him that ministers & members of his court donate money to Nizamuddin. The King was very angry & told everyone not to give any money to Nizamuddin. Nizamuddin instructed his cooks to prepare double the amount of food from now on. When they asked where the money would come from, Nizamuddin told them that they should just pick up the carpet & they would find money there & could take whatever money was required from there. The Qazis were very upset & told the King that Nizamuddin’s community kitchen was even better & bigger than before. The King had to accept it.

This incident shows that no King or Head of State can match up to any Saint. The community kitchens run by saints do not run from the treasures of Kings. Even at Gobind Sadan thousands of poor people from nearby villages come on Tuesdays & take 4-5 rotes each which lasts them for many days. Similarly on Thursdays sweet rice is distributed & on Sundays jalebis are distribured. Thousands of poor people come to eat & even take these back home with them. The community kitchens of saints are blessed by the Almighty.

One day Nizamuddin decided to visit Baba Farid at Pak Pattan. Baba Farid knew this & told his disciples that a person from Delhi would be coming & they should prepare a bed for him in the Jamaatkhana (visitor’s room). At Gobind Sadan too Maharaj ji had kept two rooms for visitors – one for gents & the other for ladies. When Baba Farid arrived a bed was already prepared for him. When Nizamuddin inquired how the caretaker of the Jamaat khana knew that he was coming, the caretaker told him that Baba Farid had already told him to prepare a proper bed & had also told him that the person who was coming was of high stature & that he should not sleep on the floor. Maharaj ji always gave me a lot of respect & would ask me to sit on a chair. Some people objected to this but when Maharaj ji made them realize they stopped objecting. A saint always knows what is the true stature of any person & what respect should be given to him.

One day Baba Farid was teaching Nizamuddin & Baba Farid was finding it diffcult to explain a certain point. Nizamuddin immediately told him that he had heard a certain explanation for the same point from someone. Baba Farid immediately stopped & told Nizamuddin that the disciple should never interrupt his guru & should never say that others have explained a certain thing in another way. This is a very important point & a disciple should never challenge the views of his guru.

Khawaja Qutubdin was once moving around with his disciples in present day Mehrauli. Those days it was just a mountainous area. He told his disciples to purchase that land & also told them the location where his grave should be made after he died. One day Gurmukh Singh had a dream that he should prepare a degh (parshad) for Qutabdin Kaki. After preparing he asked Maharaj ji if he should distribute it at the dargah or here at Gobind Sadan. Maharaj ji told him that he would ask Qutabdin Kaki directly. When Maharaj ji requested Qutabdin for guidance he replied that there was no need to come to the dargah & that he himself would come to Gobind Sadan & accept the degh. Then Maharaj ji told Gurmukh Singh to distribute the degh at Gobind Sadan itself. Maharaj ji had the powers to talk to anyone. This is called Div Drishti or divine sight. Maharaj ji use to say that when a Muslim comes to him & asks him a question, he asks Prophet Muhammed directly & the answer Prophet Muhammed gives him he passes it on to the person. Maharaj ji use to say that he applies the same method to give answer to people of different religions. Maharaj ji had immense powers.

Why did Maharaj ji chose Gadaipur for Gobind Sadan? Earlier this place was a forest & in the ancient Hindu shastras it is written that saints (rishis & munis) use to meditate here. King Altamash was a disciple of Qutabdin Kaki. He told Qutabdin that he would like to construct a pond for the benefit of the people. Qutabdin told the King that he had seen in his vision Prophet Muhammed on a horse & specifying the place where the pond should be made. This pond is known as Hauze Shamshi & is in Mehrauli. He got a 4 mile long pond constructed starting from Mehrauli & finishing at Gadaipur. The pond would become full during the rainy season & the water would remain in it for the whole year. Many of Qutabdin’s disciples use to stay at Gadaipur & meditate. Gada is the Persian word for Fakir or saint and Gadai means the place where a fakir or saint stays. Hence at this place during ancient times the Hindu saints use to meditate & then later on Muslim saints. The Hauze Shamshi which extended till Gadaipur has over time receded & is presently only at Mehrauli. King Altamash ascended the throne after Qutabdin Aibak. He was just a poor child aged about 8-9 years when one day Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti saw him & said to everyone, See the King of India is going. Many years later the same child Altamash got enrolled in Qutabdin Aibak’s army & rose up to become one of his generals. Aibak later got his daughter married to him & then Altamash ascended to the throne of India. So these Sufi saints had tremendous powers & possessed divine sight or vision. Whatever they would think or say, would come out true.

There was a time when Maharaj ji stayed at Sir Buta Singh’s house at Shimla. Later he invited Maharaj ji to stay at his house in Amritsar. Buta Singh was the son of Rur Singh who was the manager of Akal Takht during the British rule. When in 1919 Jallianwala Bagh incident took place & General Dyer commanded his troops to open fire, Rur Singh was the manager of Akal Takht. The manager of Akal Takht was under the command of District Commissioner. The British District Commissioner asked Rur Singh to present a Saropa to General Dyer. When in the British parliament the question was raised as to why General Dyer asked his men to open fire at unarmed people, the government replied that the Sikhs were indeed happy & that is why a Saropa was presented to General Dyer. This helped General Dyer in the investigations & he was let off lightly. The British also honoured Rur Singh’s son by knighting him. When Maharaj ji went to Amritsar Buta Singh offered Maharaj ji his house of 35 rooms, 300 bigha of land & a lot of money which was in his bank. He did not have any sons. He had 8 daughters. Maharaj ji told him to prepare parshad & he would do ardas the next morning. When Maharaj ji started doing ardas the next morning, Guru Gobind Singh ji appeared to him in his vision. Guru Gobind Singh ji stopped him & told him to leave the house immediately. Maharaj ji never use to bother what the other person would think. If he got certain instructions in vision he would just follow it. He got up & left. Later Sir Buta Singh started accusing Nirlep Kaur that she had influenced Maharaj ji. This was all loose talk of politicians. Then Guru Gobind Singh ji guided Maharaj ji to this place at Gadaipur which was truly sacred since many centuries of meditation had been done at this place.

Brahmjit: Is the place where the havan is located special?

Havan is sacred for the Hindus since ancient times. Sadly present day Sikhs are opposed to Havan. When I came to Maharaj ji & saw havan being conducted here I told Maharaj ji that havan has been considered sacred as per Guru Nanak Sahib ji’s gurbani. Guru ji says that when it rains & grass grows, the cows eat the grass due to which rich milk is produced. The women take out ghee from this milk & when this ghee is put in havan & people pray their wishes are fulfilled. Havans are sacred as per the bani of Guru Nanak. When I told Maharaj ji about the verses regarding Havan in Guru Granth Sahib he told me to write it & put it up near the havan.

Brahmjit: Who was Amir Khusro?

Amir Khusro was the disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Nizamuddin use to love him a lot. Nizamuddin would tell Khusro to pray to God that Nizamuddin should be blessed with a long life. He knew that Khusro loved him a great deal & that if he died Khusro will not be able to survive. Khusro was a great scholar. Maharaj ji would mention him many times during his lectures.

Buddhism does not believe in any Creator, God or Goddess & their powers. They believe that a person is responsible for their deeds & has to pay for them. They believe in an 8 fold path. The first is to have pure thoughts without any false beliefs in superstions etc. 2^nd is to have good intentions. 3^rd is to speak good words. 4^th is not to harm any living thing. 5^th is to do good & pure work. Truth is very important to them. They have 3 holy books called pataris. They were written after the death of Buddha. After his death many doubts started emerging regarding the correct philosophy of Buddha. Then all the disciples collected & asked Kashyap to explain. The philosophy that he described is called Adam Patari. After that Obali was asked to explain about the rules & customs of the religion. Whatever he described is contained in the Vinay Patari. Then a 3^rd disciple Ananda was asked about the stories from Buddha’s life & these were compiled in Sat Patari.

Once Anand came to Buddha & told him that he wanted to become his disciple but he had a few conditions. Buddha asked what the conditions were. Anand said that he should be allowed to meet him whenever he wanted, that he should be allowed to sleep near him & that he should be allowed to bring along whoever he wanted. Buddha agreed to all these. Now with all these things a person becomes too close & familiar with his Guru & is unable to acquire any inner wisdom. After some time, one day Anand told Buddha that he had not received any inner wisdom. Buddha told him that he would achieve this only after his death since he had become too free with him due to his conditions. A disciple should never become too free with his Guru.

Earlier the 3 Pataries were just handed over by the word of mouth. Later Emperor Ashoka got these written down. Later Buddhism spread to China, Japan, Sri Lanka & all other South East Asian countries. The 3 books were written in Pali language. It is written that a one should keep clear of all bad deeds & that one should have good thoughts & do good deeds. It is also written that one should take umberage of Buddha, Dharma & the fellow disciples. Buddhism lays a lot of emphasis on meditation of the body, soul & mind. It emphasizes on the need to get rid of the bad thoughts & to enhance the good thoughts further. The monks have to spend time in an ashram. There different ashrams for men & women. The men have to go out every day to seek alms & the women have to go once a week. They just walk around with a bowl in hand & bag slung on the shoulder without calling out to anyone. They do not talk to anyone. The people who want to give alms are already standing in the path from where the monks will pass & they give them the alma.

Maharaj ji’s Stories

Maharaj ji often use to say that various Gods & Goddesses come to Gobind Sadan to do seva (service). Before Gobind Sadan was established Maharaj ji would stay at the homes of his disciples. He would get a dedicated place established for Guru Gobind Singh ji & Baba Srichand ji at their homes. One of these disciples was Brig Gurnam Singh Randhawa. One day his son Sarabjeet prayed to Maharaj ji that he would not be able to meditate that day since he was not feeling well & had flu. Suddenly a hand appeared from the photo of Maharaj ji that had been kept on a special place established for Maharaj ji. The hand touched his nose & he heard Maharaj ji’s voice telling him that his running nose had been cured. Then the hand touched his head & told him that his fever was now cured. Then the voice told him that he should now meditate. Hence Maharaj ji would personally appear to his disciples & attend to their problems. That is the reason why he became so popular because nowadays people do not develop faith unless they see such miracles.

Maharaj ji would get up at 12 am & have a bath. Once when he was staying at Brig Randhawa’s house, his wife Kundan forgot to prepare water for Maharaj ji’s bath. When she got up after 12 am she heard someone going up by the stairs to the first floor. She immediately went to see & saw someone who did not look like a human being climbing up with 2 buckets of water. Thereafter she did not see anyone coming down. Later when Kundan apologized to Maharaj ji for not getting up at 12 am he told her that he was not dependent on anyone & that it was Hanuman who got the water for him.

Once a Russian lady who works in the Russian embassy in New Delhi came to Maharaj ji & told him that she had received a telephone call from Moscow that 4 unidentified men had kidnapped her daughter. Maharaj ji told her not to worry & that he would send Hanuman to rescue her daughter. Within 5 minutes she received a telephone call from Moscow that her daughter had come back home. The kidnappers started fighting amongst themselves & taking advantage of the situation the girl escaped. The lady asked Maharaj ji what was Hanuman’s speed. Maharaj ji told her that Hanuman was present everywhere. He created a rift amongst the kidnappers which allowed the girl to escape.

Maharaj ji had great powers. When people would come to him with problems, he would just tell them that the problems would be resolved. Sure enough it would start getting resolved immediately. Another power that Maharaj ji had was that he would make his deserving disciples do darshans of Guru Gobind Singh ji in their dreams. When Maharaj ji went to Russia about 4 years back, he took with him the photograph of Guru ji riding his horse. In Russia many people had darshans of Guru ji in their dreams & they would tell Maharaj ji the following morning that they had seen him in their dream.

When Maharaj ji went to Mizoram, Governor Chibber invited Maharaj ji to stay in the Raj Nivas (official residence of the Governor). Maharaj ji agreed. I was also with Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji told Governor that he too should get up early & recite naam. Governor said that he is unable to get up early & he usually gets up at 9 AM & after breakfast leaves for office. Maharaj ji told him to pray to God before going to sleep that he should be able to get up early. Governor said he did not know the Sikh way of prayer. Maharaj ji then told him to pray in his own way. Next day early in the morning he heard a voice calling out to him to get up. When he got up he saw Guru Gobind Singh ji on his horse calling out. Then Guru Gobind Singh ji told him to get up & go for bath. Then after bath Guru Gobind Singh ji told him to sit down & do meditation & that he was leaving. Suddenly Guru ji disappeared on his horse. Governor then told Maharaj ji in the evening about the whole incident.

Surender Nath suffered a heart attack & was admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Maharaj ji went to visit him. I was also with Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji told him that he was not suffereing from any heart attack instead he was feeling bad since he considered his new job at Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to be a demotion from his earlier job of Chief Secretary Mizoram. Maharaj ji told him that when he goes to US for check up the doctors there would also tell him that his heart was perfectly fine & he had not suffered any heart attack. The same thing happened & Surender Nath came back from US & told Maharaj ji what happened. Surender Nath took CISF to great heights & greatly expanded the organization. Surender Nath was later posted as member of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). He would come daily to Gobind Sadan & mop the floor of the havan & meet Maharaj ji & then go for his work. He would ask Maharaj ji a lot of questions. Sometimes Maharaj ji would start speaking before his asking any question & would continue to speak for 30 mins. Afterwards he would ask Surender Nath if he had any questions & he would reply that all his questions had been answered.

One day in Mizoram Maharaj ji was addressing the Indian army troops. He started speaking on Mira Bai. Slowly some of the armymen started getting up & going. It is difficult to know the religion of a person when he is in uniform. Maharaj ji saw in his vision that most of the soldiers were Muslims & they were not interested in stories of Mira Bai. Maharaj ji immediately changed over to stories from the life of Prophet Muhamed, Hasan, Hussien, Ali & Abu Baker. The soldiers started returning to listen to Maharaj ji. Hence Maharaj j knew what was in the hearts & minds of the people. He would often say that when you leave your house to come to Gobind Sadan I immediately come to know what is in your heart. This is called div drishti or divine sight.

One day Maharaj ji was staying with Brig Randhawa in Kashmir. On one of the hills nearby there was a Pakistani army post. That post had to be taken by the Indian army & Brig Randhawa was given the charge. The Indian troops under a Colonel moved forward but were scared to move further since they thought that they would come directly under attack from the Pakistani army from the hill top. When Brig Randhawa asked them to move forward they were hesitant. Maharaj ji then told Brig Randhawa that the troops were scared & he should go & directly lead them. Under his command when they attacked they found that the post had already been vacated by the Pakistanis.

While in Kashmir, Maharaj ji once went & stayed with one Jehar Baba. The Baba’s brother was known as Haji since he had undertaken a Haj to Mecca. Haji did not like Maharaj ji staying with them since he was a Muslim & Maharaj ji was a Sikh. Also he did not like Maharaj ji interacting with their women. Maharaj ji knew what was going on inside his mind. One day he told the Haji that Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti was standing besides him & was telling him that Haji had promised to offer a chaddar at his dargah at Ajmer Sharif but Haji had not fulfilled his promise. Haji remembered that he had promised to offer a chaddar. He realized the greatness of Maharaj ji & repented. Later he went to Ajmer Sharif to offer the chaddar.

One day Gurmukh Singh had a dream that he should prepare a degh (parshad) for Qutabdin Kaki. After preparing he asked Maharaj ji if he should distribute it at the dargah or here at Gobind Sadan. Maharaj ji told him that he would ask Qutabdin Kaki directly. When Maharaj ji requested Qutabdin for guidance he replied that there was no need to come to the dargah & that he himself would come to Gobind Sadan & accept the degh. Then Maharaj ji told Gurmukh Singh to distribute the degh at Gobind Sadan itself. Maharaj ji had the powers to talk to anyone.

Gaini Gurdev Singh ji used to do ardas with parshad at 12 pm every day. One day Maharaj ji told him that his parshad had not been accepted & told him to cook fresh parshad & then do the ardas. Gaini ji did the same & the new parshad was accepted. So at Gobind Sadan whenever an ardas is done & parshad is offered it is made sure that the person to whom it has been offered has accepted it.

When the Gurdaspur sangat first came to Gobind Sadan, Maharaj ji told me that Guru Gobind Singh ji told him that the Gurdaspur sangat were his Sikhs from Anandpur Sahib. They had been reborn at Gurdaspur. Later I told them what Maharaj ji had told me.

Somewhere around 1961-1962 while Maharaj ji was staying at Sarawan Bodla in Mukatsar district of Punjab, one day Guru Gobind Singh ji told Maharaj ji that he wanted Maharaj ji to meet his old Sikhs. Guru ji brought him to Nising village in Karnal district of Haryana. On the main road there was a gurudwara of one room. Outside the gurudwara a cot (manja) was lying & Maharaj ji lied down on it. There was an old woman in the village who had collected & kept her dasvand. She would take out 10% of all her earnings & collect it hoping that one day she would offer the dasvand at Guru Tegh Bahadur ji’s gurudwara. Maharaj ji slept on the cot that night. This old woman who had never met Maharaj ji had a dream at night in which a voice told her that she had collected dasvand to offer it at Guru Tegh Bahadur ji’s gurudwara but did she think that the gurudwara of her own village was any less important? The voice told her that she should offer the dasvand at the village gurudwara & the person who is to take the dasvand is also here & she saw the image of Maharaj ji in her dream. Next morning she went to see who had come to the gurudwara. She was surprised to see the same person she had seen in her dream. She immediately went back & got the dasvand & offered it to Maharaj ji. Maharaj ji told her to get some ration like wheat, dal, oil, sugar etc out the money & to organize a langar. Also she should arrange for an Akhand Paath at the Gurudwara. The Akhand Paath was arranged immediately.

At the village Maharaj ji saw a child Nahchal from Dachar village, tied up with chains, & being taken away. Maharaj ji inquired about him. The people told Maharaj ji that the child had gone mad & they were taking him to a psychiatric hospital in Amritsar. Maharaj ji called the man to him & sprinkled some water on him. Immediately the person became okay & started talking like a normal person. The news spread like wildfire throughout the village & nearby villages that a saint had cured a mad man. In those days Maharaj ji never use to dress up like a saint. He would wear clothes like what people in rural Punjab wear would wear. Many people started coming to him to seek his blessings. The people then requested Maharaj ji to wear clothes that would distinguish him from the others.

One day Maharaj ji’s disciples in Haryana decided to take out a procession from Karnal to Nising. It was a long procession & people came in cars, horses, tractors & buses. Union Minister Nanda was also present in the procession. For politicians these processions are an opportunity to become popular & gather votes. He would move around with Maharaj ji wherever he went.

When Gobind Sadan was established in 1968, this land was extremely rocky. No water was available & water had to be brought from nearby places by buckets. When Maharaj ji started farming here the water for irrigation had to be bought on rent. Maharaj ji sowed crops of wheat, jowar, sugarcane, maize etc. Slowly Maharaj ji started buying more land nearby. The land where presently the langar hall is constructed was bought by Maharaj ji for Rs 3000 per acre. At one time the land holding at Gobind Sadan increased to 150 acres. Surender Nath & Mr Kalha also had farms here. Maharaj ji would sell one acre here & buy many acres of cheap land elsewhere.

First when Maharaj ji came here, he got the Darbar Sahib room constructed & established Guru Granth Sahib there. It took 6 months to get a tubewell operational here. The water was just enough for daily needs of the people.

Dwapar Yug finished & Kalyug started when Arjun’s grandson & Abhimanyu’s son became the King. Mahabharat written by Ved Vyas is 5000 years old. Ved Vyas was alive when Kalyug started. Vedas are also just over 5000 years old. The period of Kalyug is 4,32,000 years. Dwapar Yug was 8,64,000 years long. Treta Yug is 12,96,000 years & Sat Yug 17,28,000 years. The total cycle is of 43,20,000 years. Brahma’s age is 100 years of which one day is completed when 4 Yugs complete one cycle. This is as per our ancient scriptures. After Kalyug directly Satyug will start.

Banda Bahadur always use to say that we have established Satyug. Guru Gobind Singh ji blessed Banda Bahadur with immense powers & told him to destroy the evil forces that had committed crimes against the Sikhs in Punjab. Guru ji gave him 5 arrows & told him that he should use them only when he needs to overcome an extremely great difficulty. Guru Gobind Singh ji also gave him letters & told him to send them to his different Sikhs in Punjab. When these letters from Guru ji reached his Sikhs they all came to assist Banda Bahadur. Banda Bahadur formed an army & first attacked & defeated the various minor Kings around Sirhind. First the small kingdom of Mansa was attacked & defeated. He killed the jalaads (professional executioners) who had executed Guru Tegh Bahadur ji & the younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh ji. He established a Sikh as the new Nawab. Then in 1710 he attacked Sirhind. The army of Sirhind was led by Vazir Khan. It consisted of canons in front followed by soldiers on elephants then soldiers on horse back & finally other soldiers. Banda Bahadur’s army consisting of Sikhs from Majha & Malwa were all on foot. The Nawab of Sirhind had sent 1000 of his men to disguise themselves & mix themselves with Banda Bahadur’s army with instructions to create panic by deserting them in the middle of the battle. When the battle started Banda Bahadur’s men told him that it was impossible to proceed due to the immense force of the enemy. Banda Bahadur told them to wait till Guru ji was on their side. When the 1000 men deserted then Banda Bahadur told his men that now Guru ji was with them. Then Banda Bahadur used one of the 5 arrows given to him by Guru ji. When he fired the arrow suddenly a storm started blowing which blinded Vazir Khan’s army. Banda Bahadur’s men took advantage of the situation & passed the line of cannons, elephants & horses & then directly attacked the foot soldiers. Vazir Khan was captured & tied up & then dragged by his feet. It was Banda Bahadur who established the Sikh Rule in Punjab. A Sikh was made the Nawab of Sirhind who ruled for 6 months. That is when he said that Sat Yug had been established.

Earlier the Sikh farmers would toil in the fields to produce grains & the Nawabs would come & forcibly take whatever quantity of grains they wanted. Infact the Nawab of Malerkotla was doing this even till the time the British arrived. Banda Bahadur stopped this practice & ordered that only the farmers would own the land & only they would have the right to their grains.

Guru Gobind Singh ji could have done all this himself but he assigned one of his Sikhs this task. This was the greatness of Guru ji.

During the martyrdom of the younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh ji first a wall was built upto their faces & then their heads were cut off. Mata Gujari ji also died there. Todar Mal cremated the bodies of Mata ji & the two younger sons.

Swastik is the Sign of Safety & Purity

One day Emperor Jehangir requested Guru Hargobind ji to accompany him to the forest for hunting. In the forest a lion attacked Jehangir & would have killed him but Guru Hargobind ji immediately got down from his horse & killed the lion by piercing the lion’s stomach with his sword. When they were resting at night a man came to pay his respects to Guru Hargobind Singh ji but he mistook Emperor Jehangir for Guru ji & prayed to him to always protect him. Emperor Jehangir told the man that he was incapable of even protecting himself & the true protector was Guru Hargobind Singh ji.

One day Jehangir became very ill. Chandu told the pandits to tell Jehangir that he was under the influence of bad stars & he could only be cured if someone does penance on his behalf at the Gwalior fort for one & quarter months. Emperor Jehangir requested Guru ji to do this. Guru ji knew what the mischevious Chandu was up to but he agreed. Chandu sent a letter to the caretaker of the Gwalior Fort that if they manage to poison & kill Guru ji then he would reward them handsomely. The caretaker gave the letter to Guru ji. Guru ji told Bidhi Chand & his disciples that he would not eat anything cooked by the prison gaurds. He told his disciples that they should go & earn a living and out of that prepare food & give him. Bidhi Chand & other disciples would go to the forest to collect wood, sell it in the market & then out of what they earned prepare food for Guru ji. When Guru ji was still at the fort even after one & quarter months had passed then Baba Srichand ji went & asked Jehangir to let Guru ji go. Jehangir immediately told his men to let Guru ji go. There were 52 kings of various small kingdoms who were imprisoned in the fort when Guru ji was there. Guru ji asked Jehangir to release them. Jehangir agreed but said that while Guru ji is leaving the fort whoever can hold on to Guru ji’s robe (chola) will be freed. Guru ji then got a robe stiched which had 52 strings attached to it. All the 52 kings held on to one string each when Guru was leaving & hence they all became free.

There is a lot of misinformation being spread regarding Dasam Granth. Gyani Bhag Singh of Ambala formed an oganisation called Sikh Samaj & spread a lot of false propaganda against Dasam Granth. He was excommunicated from the Sikh Panth by Akal Takht in July 1977. There was a newspaper by the name of Spokesman which was published from Chandigarh by Hukam Singh (Former Speaker Lok Sabha 1962 – 1967) but due to some reason the printing of the newspaper had been discontinued. Later one Joginder Singh started a newspaper by the same name Spokesman. People thought it was the same newspaper. In this newspaper he wrote rubbish against Dasam Granth & was excommunicated from the Sikh Panth by Akal Takht in 2003.

Dasam Granth has been established in the Darbar Sahib at Gobind Sadan. The prakash of Dasam Granth is also at Patna Sahib & Hazoor Sahib gurudwaras. All Nihangs also respect Dasam Granth a lot. Earlier in Akal Takht also Dasam Granth had been established & an akhand paath of Dasam Granth was also conducted there but thereafter this was discontinued. But SGPC & Akal Takth have full respect for Dasam Granth.

Guru Gobind Singh use to write his baani (verses). It was not in one book form during his time. Guru Gobind Singh ji left this world in 1708. Later his wife Mata Sundari ji told Bhai Mani Singh to collect all the various verses of Guru Gobind Singh ji. During Guru Gobind Singh ji’s time Sikhs would take copies of Guru ji’s verses with them. Bhai Mani Singh knew which Sikh had copy of which verse with him. He then asked for all of them to be brought & thereby consolidated it in one book. It was completed in 1721 & this book was blessed by Mata Sundari ji. Others like Baba Deep Singh & Sukha Singh of Patna also compiled as per whatever verses they could get but Dasam Granth compiled by Bhai Mani Singh is considered the most authentic & is also blessed by Mata Sundari ji. From 1695 to 1734 Bhai Mani Singh was the jathedar of Akal Takht. After Guru Hargobind ji left Amritsar, Guru Arjun Dev ji’s elder brother Prithvi Chand’s family carried out the seva of Akal Takht. Sodhi Kaul was from this family. When Sodhi Kaul died in 1695, Sikhs from Amritsar requested Guru Gobind Singh ji to appoint a jathedar. Then Guru ji sent Bhai Mani Singh with 5 other Sikhs to do seva of Akal Takht. Bhai Mani Singh carried out these duties till his martyrdom in 1734.

There is only one shalok of Guru Gobind Singh ji in Guru Granth Sahib but it is under Guru Tegh Bahadur ji’s verses (Salok Mahala 9) – ” Bal hova bandhan jhute sab kuch hot upay, kaho Nanak sab kich tumahre haath mien tum hi hoth sahay”.

The Deora “Agya payee akal ki tabhi chaloyo panth sab sikhan ko hukam hai guru manyo granth” is not written anywhere. When Guru Gobind Singh ji established the Guru Granth Sahib at Anandpur Sahib he uttered this verse. The granthi at that time use to read this verse & told everybody about it. Hence this deora is recited by the Sikhs even today.

After the first copy of Guru Granth Sahib was written by Bhai Mani Singh, Baba Deep Singh ji wrote 4 copies of Guru Granth Sahib with his own hands. He sent one to Akal Takht Amritsar, one to Anandpur Sahib, one to Patna Sahib & one to Hazoor Sahib.

Waheguru word was not used by any of the Gurus in their verses. The word which is to be recited is never written down. This word can only be found in Guru Granth Sahib under Bhattan De Saviye – “Wahe guru Waheguru Waheguru Waheguru Wahe jiyo” & that too only 13 times – 11 times in Bhatan de Saviye & 2 other times. Bhai Randhir Singh, who was ex-Tehsildar & was imprisoned by the British, use to say that unless he got a naam from Guru Granth Sahib he would not recite it. He did not go anywhere for 8 days. Then when he went to the gurudwara at 2 am he heard this verse “Wahe guru Waheguru Waheguru Waheguru Wahe jiyo” & then suddenly the Guru Granth Sahib was covered by a rumalla. He was convinced that Waheguru is the naam & he started reciting Waheguru Waheguru.

After British took control of Punjab on 28.03.1849 they felt the need to study the history & culture of Punjab. They did not know Punjabi & the people of Punjabi did not know English. Then they found a German professor Dr Ernest Trump who would teach Punjabi & also Gurbani in Munich University. The British told this German professor to study the history of Punjabi people. They also gave him a book generally refered to as Vilayatwali Janam Sakhi & was written in Punjabi. This German professor came to India in 1869 & traveled all over Punjab & met all the Punjabi scholars. He returned back to Germany in 1872. In 1879 he published the English translation of Guru Granth Sahib up to Asa raag. This book The Adi Granth: The Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs is with us in the Gobind Sadan library. In the preface to this book he wrote that “a rubbish of miracles” had been assigned to Guru Nanak’s name. When the Sikhs came to know about this they protested & complained to the British. At that time McCauliffe was Deputy Commisioner of Punjab & he spoke and understood Punjabi. He would give lectures at different places on Gurbani. The Sikhs requested him to write the history of the Sikhs. Then he wrote the book History of Sikh Religion. He discarded all the doubts raised by the German professor. He wrote the actual history of the Sikhs. It is the most authentic book on Sikh history. I do not agree with just one story in it concerning Aurangzeb & Guru Tegh Bahadur. He writes about an incident where Aurangzeb asked Guru Tegh Bahadur why he was staring at his Queens & Guru ji told him that he was not looking at the Queens but he was looking at his Sikhs with hats meaning the British. This was just a fabricated story of McCauliffe to make the British happy. It is not possible to look at the quarters of the Queens at Red Fort from the place (now Sis Ganj) where Guru ji was kept. The quarters of the Queens were at the back side of Red Fort. On the front side first there is Diwan e Aam & after that Diwan e Khaas. Red Fort was built by Shahjahan & later Aurangzeb stayed in it. Everything else written by McCauliffe is correct including the meanings of Gurbani.

The Gobind Sadan library contains comparatively few books but each one of them is invaluable. Each & every one of them has been bought personally by me.

Before Guru Gobind Singh ji became Guru, the initiation into Sikhism was by charan amrit. If a person asked to be initiated into Sikhism, Guru Nanak would touch water in a bowl with his feet & then ask that person to drink it. When Guru Gobind Singh ji became Guru he stopped this practice & started amrit from baani. He would ask for Chandi di Vaar or Jaap Saheb or any other baani to be recited & then make amrit. Then in 1699 when he established the Khalsa, he started the practice of reciting 5 baanis – Japji Saheb, Jaap Saheb, Sawaiye, Anand Sahib & Chaupayee Sahib & then preparing amrit. Only after drinking this amrit a person would be made a Khalsa.

The first Ramayan was written in Sanskrit by Rishi Valmiki before the birth of Ram. It is called Valmiki Ramayan. Then 500 years ago Tulsidas wrote another edition of Ramayan & this is called Tulsi Ramayan. It’s language is much easily understood & stories from this Ramayan are read out in temples all over India. The Valmiki Ramayan is much shorter than the Tusi Ramayan. Tulsidas has written 20 different compositions on Lord Ram. Tulsidas was a great follower of Ram. He could literally talk to Ram. Once when he went to Mathura he saw idols of Lord Krishna holding the flute. He thought in his mind that he would only pay respects to the idol if he saw a bow & arrow in it’s hand. Immediately the flute of the idol changed to bow & arrow.

Guru Gobind Singh ji’s first wife was Mata Jeeto ji & second wife was Mata Sundari ji. The eldest son Baba Ajit Singh of Guru ji was Mata Sundari ji’son while the other three were Mata Jeeto ji’s sons. Mata Jeeto ji passed away in 1700 at Anandpur Sahib & her deora is located there. After her death some Sikhs came to Guru ji & offered the hand of Mata Sahib Deva but Guru ji told them that he had left family life. The Sikhs told Guru ji that when the girl was born the villagers had made up their mind to offer her to him. Now everybody calls her Mata ji & nobody will marry her. Then Guru ji allowed her to stay in his palace & accorded all respect to her but did not marry her. She accompanied Guru ji to Hazoor Sahib till 1708 & then before he passed away he sent her with Bhai Mani Singh to stay with Mata Sundari ji at Delhi. Mata Sahib Deva ji said that she had taken an oath that she would eat food only after seeing Guru ji. Then Guru ji gave her 6 of his weapons like sword etc. He told her that seeing these would be equivalent to seeing him.

When Guru Hargobind ji had appointed Guru Har Rai ji as his successor, Mata Nanaki ji (Guru Hargobind ji’s wife) said that their grandson had been appointed the next Guru so what would be the future of their son Guru Tegh Bahadur ji. Then Guru ji told her that a time will come when her son will become Guru & her grandson will also become Guru. When Mata Nanaki ji asked if there would be any Guru who would fight wars like him, Guru ji replied that her grandson would fight more wars than him. Mata Nanaki ji asked if she would be there to see these wars. Guru ji told her that she would see these wars. When Guru Gobind Singh ji fought his first war, the Battle of Bhangani in 1688 while he was staying at Poanta Sahib, Mata Nanaki ji was alive. Guru Hargobind ji had given the same 6 weapons to Mata Nanaki & told her to give these to their grandson when he becomes Guru & to tell him that these were from his grandfather Guru.

The 6 weapons eventually were handed over to Mata Sahin Deva & she brought them to Delhi with her.

Once when Guru Gobind Singh ji & Mata Sundari ji were in Delhi, they saw a small boy lying in the forest. Mata Sundari felt sympathy for the boy & told Guru ji that he reminds her of Sahibzada Ajit Singh & that she wanted to get him home with her. Guru ji told her that the boy would trouble her in times to come. Mata Sundari ji insisted & they brought him home & named him Ajit Singh Palak. Guru ji left the world in 1708. Ajit Singh Palak grew up with Mata Sundari & also got married. One day he started wearing the 6 weapons which Mata Sahib Deva had brought with her. Both Mata Sundari & Mata Sahib Deva told him not to wear them since these weapons were of the 6^th Guru & were to be treated with utmost respect. Ajit Singh Palak became angry with them. Mata Sundari ji then left Delhi & went to Mathura. The Raja of Bharatpur (Rajasthan) donated one village in Mathura to Mata Sundari ji. Meanwhile in Delhi, Palak Ajit Singh killed a faqir & the King sent 100 soldiers to capture Palak Ajit Singh. Palak Ajit Singh fought with the soldiers & was killed in battle. Palak Ajit Singh had a son named Hari Singh. Mata Sundari ji thereafter took care of Hari Singh. The 6 weapons are still in Delhi.

What is Gobind Sadan’s Mission?

The mission is to spread the message that God is one. All prophets have brought his message. We have divided ourselves into different religions & have become enemies of each other. Gobind Sadan stresses on One God, respect for all prophets & the unity of all religions. A conference was arranged to mark 100 years of the Conference of World Religions in Chicago where Swami Vivekanand gave a spectacular speech & got instant recognition in USA & the western world. The president of this conference Mr Neil came to Maharaj ji & told Maharaj ji that he had called the religious leaders of all religions. Maharaj ji told him that he would be disappointed. The Muslims will say that the only prophet of God is Mohammed & the only holy book is Quran. In the same way the Christians will only talk of Christ & Bible & the Hindus about Vedas. To celebrate such days we should emphasise on the unity of all religions. Maharaj ji said that at Gobind Sadan our mission is to celebrate the days of all prophets. Maharaj ji said that in these conferences the leaders of various religions will only speak on their religion & will not go out of their religion at all. Maharaj ji told him that he always spoke on all prophets & all religions. He said that Inter Faith dialogue will not be successful without this.

The mission of Gobind Sadan Institute for Advanced Studies on Comparitive Religions (now just Gobind Sadan Institute) is to teach on all religions. In our library we have all the holy books. Nobody has come here to learn from me though I have issued certificates to some people.

There are 72 different sects in the Muslim religion.

Khwaja Qutabdin Bakhtiar Kaki was 20^th generation of Hasan & Hussien (the grandsons of Prophet Muhammed). Baba Farid was 15^th generation of Umer (father in law & also one of the 4 original disciples of Prophet).

One day Umer came to kill Prophet Muhammed. On the way somebody told him that he should first kill his sister who had become Muhammed’s follower. When he came to kill his sister, she told her that he should first listen to the message of Prophet Muhammad & then decide whether to kill her. When he heard the message his heart changed & he decided to become a follower too. When he arrived to meet Prophet Muhammed the people thought he had come to kill him & got scared. Umer went to Muhammed & became his disciple. Umer was a great warrior & after he became Prophet Muhammed’s disciple the Muslims became very strong militarily.

Prophet Muhammed was from the Qureshi family. Qureshi family had protected the Kaaba when it had been attacked on some earlier occassion. After that the Qureshi family became the care takers of the Mecca. They were called the Shariefs of Mecca like in Sikhism we have Jathedar of Akal Takht. Prophet Muhammed’s grandfather was also one of the Shariefs of Mecca.

Shankaracharya was born in Kerala about 1000 years ago. At that time most people in India had adopted Buddhism. People started forgetting about the Vedas. Shankaracharya was like a prophet & right from childhood he performed many miracles. He wanted to go out & preach about Hinduism but since he was the only child his mother did not want him to go. One day he was having bath in the river while his mother was watching him. Suddenly he started going towards deeper water & the water reached till his neck. His mother pleaded with him not to go any further. At that time he told his mother that he would only return if she let her go outside the village to preach. His mother agreed & he started preaching first from Kanyakumari. He was only 9 years old at that time. He would engage in debates with Buddhist monks & would defeat them & burn their books. He started proceeding north defeating all the Buddhist monks in debates & reached Benares. There he met a Buddhist monk & started debating with him but could not defeat him. Shankaracharya was very surprised. At that time the monk suddenly appeared as Ved Vyas & told him that he was actually Ved Vyas disguised as a Buddhist monk. Ved Vyas told him that his life was only 16 years but he wanted him to live longer so that he could preach longer & revive Hinduism in India. Ved Vyas told him that he was increasing his age to 32 years. From there Shankaracharya went to Kashmir & by then he had eradicated Buddhism from rest of India. He met a Buddhist priest there & defeated him in debate but his wife asked for a debate with her also since a wife is 50% part of her husband. She immediately started questioning him on sex. Shankaracharya was stumped & had no answers since he was a bachelor. So Shankaracharya told her to give him 8 days time. He told his disciples that he his soul would be leaving the world for 8 days but they should protect his body & nobody should cremate it. He took a disciple with him & told him to write whatever he told him. The king had died & his body was being taken for cremation. Shankaracharya’s soul entered the king’s body. The king suddenly got up & the people thought that the king had come back to life. He went to the palace & had sex with the Queen for 8 days & kept on telling his disciple his experiences. On the 8^th day the Queen realized that he was not her husband but was some saint. She ordered that all dead bodies in the kingdom should be cremated immediately. Before Shankaracharya’s body could be cremated he read out a mantra & the king died & Shankaracharya came back alive in his body. He then went to the monk’s wife & gave her all the answers from the book his disciple had written. This book is called Kamasutra. So like this he eradicated Buddhism from India.

There are 5 ways in which a person get powers to perform miracles. These are Janam, Aushadhi, Mantar, Tapa & Samadhi. Janam Sidhi is when a person is born with powers like Guru Nanak Sahib. From childhood itself they start performing miracles like in the case of Guru Nanak Sahib. One day when he was still a child & was sleeping, a snake came & instead of biting him gave him shade. Aushadhi Sidhi is miracles due to medicines. A person has the power to diagnose correctly & prescribe correct medicines. Mantar Sidhi is when a person can cure others by just reading out certain mantras. My own father & uncle could cure people of snake bites just by reciting a particular mantra. In villages, snake bites are a common occurance. Villagers would get these people to my father or uncle & they would read out certain mantras & the person would get cured. Tapa Sidhi is achieved through tapasya (penance). It means to follow the instructions of your Guru to the fullest. Our Gurus have given us instructions to follow the message of Guru Granth Sahib & the 36 Rehatnamas. A person gets powers to perform miracles due to this also. Next is Samadhi Sidhi which means to sit & recite God’s name or meditate. With this also a person gets powers.

The Arya Samaj movement started in 1872. It was started by Dayanand Sarwati who was born in Punjab. He was very upsaet by the fact that many people in Punjab were converting to Christanity. He studied all the religions & then started giving lectures. He use to preach mainly from the Manu Simriti & would condemn other holy books. One day he was preaching about the 14^th chapter of Manu Simriti dealing with politics to the Raja of Bikaner. When he came to the palace he saw the King with a prostitute. He told the King to think about the child the prostitute will bear, whether he will be a prince or a commoner. The King left the prostitute & she became very angry. She went to the King’s cook Jaganath & offered him Rs. 2000 for poisoning Dayanand Saraswati. Dayanand Saraswati was anti Sikh also & has written in the Satyarath Prakash that Guru Nanak was an illiterate, he did not know about the Indian culture & that he has been wrongly assigned many wrong miracles. Dayanand Sarawati knew that people wanted to kill him by poisoning him. So he started eating one tola (10 gm) of poison every day to increase his immunity to poison. The prostitute found a poison that did not have any colour or taste. She was planning to poison him with it but Dayanand Saraswati came to know about it. His well wishers advised him to escape to Nepal. He had gained a lot of popularity. Surender Nath’s forefathers were prominent Arya Samajis. Swami Dayanand Saraswati died on Diwali day in 1872 due to poisoning.

The ruler of Kolhapur (Maharashtra) was responsible for destroying the monopoly of the pandits. At that time only pandits could conduct marriage ceremony, religious functions etc. The King of Kolhapur questioned this & asked why Marathas could not do the same. He started a school where he got Marathas trained in the Vedic scriptures. The pandits became against him & plotted to kill him by poisoning him. The King met Dayanand Saraswati & told him about the plot. Dayand Saraswati told him not to worry. He started giving the King small doses of poison mixed in food & slowly increased the quantity daily. After some time the King was able to eat a tola (10 gm) of poison daily without anything happening to him. The King became a disciple of Dayanand Saraswati. Even today the Marathas carry out the jobs traditionally carried out by pandits. I have stayed in Maharashtra for 32 years.

Arya Samaj temples do not have any idols in them. They believe only in the 4 Vedas & nothing else. Nowadays young couples who want to get married against the wishes of their parents just go to an Arya Samaj temple & the priest has no problems in getting them married. Hinduism has 4 types of literature – Surti (4 Vedas), Simiriti (28 nos), Puran (18 nos consisting of Itihaas & Mithihaas) & Itihaas (Mahabharat & Ramayan). Itihaas is history while Mithihaas is fiction. Fiction has been included to explain the difficult concepts.

Was Swami Vivekanand an Arya Samaji? No, he was not. He was a disciple of Ramakrishna Parmahans. Ramakrishna Parmahans was called a Bal Jati (renouncer from childhood) because even though he was married & stayed with his wife, he never had any physical relations with her. She is often addressed as Mata. He use to worship Kali Mata & stayed near Kolkata. He was a great saint & possessed many powers. Ramakrishna Parmahans loved Mata Kali so much that whenever he would take food to feed Mata Kali, the idol would actually open it’s mouth to have the food. While meditating, snakes would crawl over him but none of them would bite. God had granted him such powers.

Vivekanand would often visit him. He became Ramakrishna’s disciple. One day he told Vivekanand that Kali Mata was very happy & he could ask whatever he wanted from her. Vivekanand prayed to Goddess Kali to grant him Vivek Buddhi (mind filled with wisdom) which the Goddess granted him. Then he went to USA. During those days World Religion Conference was scheduled to be held at Chicago. Not everyone could attend this conference. Anyone wanting to speak had to be a prominent religious leader or needed a letter of recommendation from one. There was an American lady who took a liking for Vivekananda because of his views. She brought him to her home & listened to his views in detail. Vivekananda would talk about the Vedas. She wrote a letter to the President of the World Religion Conference. In the letter she wrote that Vivekanand had more knowledge than all the other participating religious leaders combined. Vivekanand received an invitation to attend & was allotted 15 mins of speaking time. When he spoke the organizers extended his time by another 15 mins & then another 15 mins. Finally he spoke for many hours at a stretch & left the audience spellbound. Thereafter he gained a lot of respect & recognition in USA.

About the caste system, Bhagvat Geeta says that the four castes (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaish & Shudra) have been divided on the basis of karmas & qualities. Brahmins were teachers while Kshatriya were fighters, the Vaish were traders & Shudras did the other manual work. Initially Jats were also considered Shudras & it was Guru Gobind Singh ji who took us out of this caste system. One can read about this in Panth Prakash by Bhangu Rattan Singh. They considered anyone who did not fit into the first 3 castes like farmers to be shudras. All Jats were considered shudras. Bhangu Rattan Singh was Mehtab Singh Meerakotia’s grandson. Mehtab Singh was the Sikh who had chopped off the head of Masse Ranghar. Mehtab Singh’s son was Roor Singh & he was married to Shyam Singh’s daughter. Their son was Bhangu Rattan Singh.

Guru Gobind Singh ji took us out of the caste system. A Sikh after drinking the holy water becomes a Khalsa. The father of a Khalsa is Guru Gobind Singh, mother is Sahib Dewa & he is resident of Anandpur Sahib. During earlier times Sikhs use to answer questions regarding themselves in this fashion. There were 12 Misls (like kingdoms) of the Sikhs. After Banda Bahadur, whenever a group (jatha) of Sikh fighters captured a territory they would declare it a Misl. The Misl of Phoolkiya consisted of Nabha & Patiala. Similarly there was another Misl of Kapurthala which was headed by Jassa Singh Ahluwalia.

Banda Bahadur was given the task of liberating the areas of Punjab from the Mughals. First he liberated Samana. Samana was the native place of the jalads (executioners) who executed Guru Tegh Bahadur ji, the younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh ji & Budhu Shah. Bhudhu Shah (a Muslim) had fought for Guru Gobind Singh ji in the Battle of Bhangani where his 4 sons were martyred & he also lost most of his 700 men strong army. He killed all the jalads, he did not leave even a single jalad alive. There was a door in front of the grave of a Muslim fakir & the Mughals had spread a false belief that anyone who passed under the door would not be burnt after death but would be buried whatever his religion was. Banda Bahadur burnt the door & the grave & declared that from now even the Mughals should start cremating their dead instead of burying them. Banda Bahadur was a great warrior. He achieved martyrdom in 1716. After this Wazir Khan & Zakaria Khan, the rulers of Lahore started harassing the Sikhs. Sikhs had to flee to the jungles. They fled to different jungles & regrouped themselves there. These groups came to be known as Misls. Maharaj Ranjit Singh’s grand father Charath Singh was a great warrior & belonged to Shyam Singh’s Misl. The Misl of Phoolkiya consisted of Nabha & Patiala. The other Misls were on the other side of Sutlej river.

First Nadar Shah attacked India in 1739 & looted Delhi. When he was taking his loot from India in a convoy of carts one Sikh group of fighters led by Dilip Singh (resident of Sabo ki Talwandi) attacked them near Kaithal (Haryana) & took away the loot. The loot included 20,000 women. He freed these women & each one of them was escorted back to their homes. After 1740 the Sikhs started forming many such groups. Nadir Shah was killed by Ahmed Shah Abdali who attacked India 17 times. His aim was always to loot India since India was considered to be the land of prosperity. Apart from other treasures, they would loot grains & even the utensils from the villagers. One day a new general was appointed in Ahmed Shah Abdali’s army. He had heard a lot about the Sikhs & wanted to meet them & see how they were. His men told him that the Sikhs could only be found in the jungles. He came from Lahore to the banks of river Ravi with a few of his men. The Sikh group thought that it was another attack & fled from there. The General was surprised at the cowardly act & wrote to the Sikhs that he had thought they were brave but what he saw had made him change his mind. He also wrote that if any Sikh had the guts then he should fight with him alone. Jathedar Shyam Singh got this letter but none of the Sikhs were prepared to fight alone. Then a 13 year old boy Charath Singh agreed to fight alone with the General. At that time Sikhs maintained a high degree of discipline. In any Sikh family if a girl child died at birth, the Sikhs would ex communicate the parents from Sikhism. There was one Sukha Singh whose daughter died due to non availability of medical facilities. The Sikhs thought it was intentional & ex communicated him from Sikhism. One day he was roaming about when he met Charath Singh who was on his way to fight the General. Charath Singh told him the whole story. Sukha Singh told Charath Singh that he was just a kid & would not be able to fight such a powerful general. He told Charath Singh that he would fall to the General’s first blow with the sword. Sukha Singh told him that he would fight instead & that Charath Singh should arrange for a horse for him. On the horse Sukha Singh challenged the General to fight while Charath Singh looked from far. Both Sukha Singh & the General, who was over 6 feet tall, fought fiercely & their swords broke. Both fell on the ground badly wounded. At that time Sukha Singh took out his 6 inch long kirpan & killed the General with it. The General’s men were shocked. Charath Singh quickly took Sukha Singh on his horse & returned back to Shyam Singh. All the Sikhs received Sukha Singh with a lot of respect & gifted him a horse. Jathedar Shyam Singh gifted him 2 horses. Sukha Singh told them that he did not want the horses. He told them that he only wanted that he should be accepted back into the Sikh fold since he had not killed his daughter intentionally but she died due to lack of medical facilities. He was taken back into the Sikh fold. Charath Singh became a good friend of Sukha Singh.

Guru Nanak Dev ji was responsible for stopping the killings of newly born girls. He wrote in his verses that women was one who gave birth to prophets & kings hence why should they be considered lowly. At that time even a person of the stature of Tulsidas (who wrote Ramayan) wrote that a woman was only half nectar & the other half was poison.

Tria Charitra in Dasam Granth describes the deceipts of a woman. The Sikhs who stayed in the jungles use to read Tria Charitra. The Sikhs had a very high character. The aim of Guru Gobind Singh ji in writing Tria Charitra was to warn the Sikhs against the deciepts of women. They maintained their high moral character by reading the Tria Charitra. Most of the people have not even seen Dasam Granth, forget about reading it & still they speak against it. There was a time when there were more copies of hand written Dasam Granth than the copies of hand written Guru Granth Sahib. This shows that Dasam Granth was widely read at that time. A few years back we got 2 copies of Dasam Granth from Nanded to Gobind Sadan. Publication of Dasam Granth had stopped in Punjab & only Nanded published it. I sent one person to Nanded & he got 2 copies by train to Delhi. At New Delhi railway station all of us went & received them with a lot of respect. Many TV channels also covered it. We then established them here inside Darbar Sahib.

There was a Muslim from Balochistan who came with Ahmed Shah Abdali. He writes in his book that Sikhs maintained such a high moral character that even young girls were addressed with the respect fit for an elderly woman. During partition in 1947, the Muslims advised their women to go to Golden Temple & take refuge since the Sikhs maintained a high moral character.

Is the story about a dhobi alleging that Sita was impure in Ramayan actually a fact? No, these are all stories made up later. Actual fact was that Lord Ram & Sita abstained from any physical relationships during 14 years of exile. Sita became pregnant after they returned to Ayodhaya. Sita told Lord Ram that she wanted that her son should be raised in a place where he would grow up to be a great warrior. When she was going to give birth, Lord Ram told Laxman to leave Sita in which ever place she wanted. Laxman left her near Rishi Valmiki’s ashram. There Luv & Kush were born & raised.

After Aurangzeb died, Bahadur Shah Zafar’s brothers plotted against him. Guru Gobind Singh ji killed Bahadur Shah’s brother with his arrow but others claimed that they had killed him. Then Guru ji told them to check whose arrow it was. Guru Gobind Singh ji’s arrows always had a little bit of gold on it. Bahadur Shah Zafar then invited Guru ji to his palace. He took him to his library to show Guru ji some rare books since Guru ji was interested in books & literature. There Guru ji saw a book Hanuman Natak written by Pandit Hardayal. Guru ji said that he liked this book most out of all the books in the library & wanted to take it. Hanuman Natak was written by Pandit Hardayal when he was in prison, imprisoned by Aurangzeb.

Christmas was first celebrated 600 years after the death of Christ by Saint Benedict. Afterwards the Christian calendar was established. For 600 years the Christians were hounded & killed by non Christians. In Turkey there was a well in which a lion was kept & into which the Christians were thrown.

The 1^st granthi of Guru Granth Sahib was Bhai Mani Singh & then Baba Deep Singh. Baba Deep Singh ji stayed in Sabo ki Talwandi. From 1695 to 1734 Bhai Mani Singh was the jathedar of Akal Takht. After Guru Hargobind ji left Amritsar, Guru Arjun Dev ji’s elder brother Prithvi Chand’s family carried out the seva of Akal Takht. Sodhi Kaul was from this family. When Sodhi Kaul died in 1695, Sikhs from Amritsar requested Guru Gobind Singh ji to appoint a jathedar. Then Guru ji sent Bhai Mani Singh with 5 other Sikhs to do seva of Akal Takht. When Guru ji left Anandpur Sahib on 5^th Dec 1705, Bhai Mani Singh was in Amritsar. After leaving Anandpur Sahib, the battle of Chamkor took place on 7^th Dec 1705 & after that the battle of Mukatsar took place. Thereafter Guru ji came to Sabo ki Talwandi after staying for 2-3 days at Raikot with Rai Kalha. He stayed there for 9 years & 9 months. Bhai Mani Singh met Guru ji here at Sabo ki Talwandi. The Sikhs requested Guru ji to explain the meanings of Guru Granth Sahib. At Sabo ki Talwandi Guru ji added 115 verses of Guru Tegh Bahadur ji to Guru Granth Sahib & then the present Adi Guru Granth Sahib was complete. Bhai Mani Singh & Baba Deep Singh were given the job of reading & explaining the verses of Guru Granth Sahib. The job of a granthi is to read & explain the meanings of Guru Granth Sahib.

When Zakharia Khan was the ruler of Lahore, permission had to be sought from him prior conducting any function at Golden Temple. When permission was sought, Zakharia Khan allowed them but he levied a fee of 10,000 rupees for carring out the celebrations. Actually Zakharia Khan thought that it would be a good opportunity to attack the Sikhs since they were going to be present in large numbers during the function. Bhai Mani Singh came to know of this evil plan & told the Sikhs that the function had been cancelled & they should not come to Amritsar. Zhakhariya Khan demanded the 10,000 rupees even though the function was not held. Since the Sikhs did not come this amount could not be collected. The Sikhs of Lahore collected the amount & said that they would give the amount to Zakhariya Khan but Bhai Mani Singh told them not to give anything. Bhai Mani Singh was taken to Lahore & order was given to execute him by cutting one joint of his body at a time. Bhai Mani Singh attained martyrdom in 1734 at Lahore.

Bhai Gurdas wrote 40 Vaars during Guru Arjan Dev ji’s time & then the 41^st Vaar (Waho Waho Gobind Singh Aape Gur Chela) was written by another Sikh Gurdas Singh during Guru Gobind Singh ji’s time.

Bhai Dayala Singh was Bhai Mani Singh’s brother. When Guru Tegh Bahadur went to Delhi, Bhai Dayala, Bhai Madi Dass & Bhai Sati Dass accompanied him. They all achived martyrdom there, Bhai Madi Dass was boiled alive while Bhai Sati Daas was wrapped in cotton & set on fire.

Bhai Taru Singh was a farmer & lived with his mother & sister. They were very sympathetic to the Sikhs living in the jungle. Bhai Taru Singh would give all the harvest to these Sikhs. He even gave all the clothes, sheets, blankets etc he had to the Sikhs. Since they did not have any blankets etc., in winters the family would sit around a fire to keep themselves warm & spend the night in this fashion. One Harbhagat Niranjani reported to Zakhariya Khan that Taru Singh was helping the Sikhs in the jungle. Bhai Taru Singh was imprisoned & taken to Lahore. When Taru Singh said that “Sikhi Swasa Kesan Naal Nibhegi” they called a barber & told him to cut off his hair. When the barber attempted to cut Taru Singh’s hair, the hair became strong like wires & the barber was unable to cut even one strand. Then order was issued that Taru Singh’s hair should be cut off along with the scalp on the skull. Bhai Taru Singh’s scalp was cut away from the skull with a sharp knife. Taunting him they asked him now where his Sikhi had gone, Bhai Taru Singh replied that they had failed to cut off his hair & that was his victory. He told Zakaria Khan that he would die only after sending him first to hell. As soon as he said these words Zakharia Khan’s urine stopped. He called many doctors but none of them were able to cure him. Zakharia Khan became extremely miserable & the pain became unbearable. His ministers told him about Taru Singh’s prophecy. They all came to Taru Singh for help. Taru Singh told them to hit the Nawab on his head with his shoe. They were unable to find Taru Singh’s shoe. They bought a new pair of shoes & first put it on Taru Singh’s foot & then with that hit the Nawab on his head with it. Whenever they would hit him his urine would flow & thereafter again stop. Eventually the Nawab died of this problem. Bhai Taru Singh was kept in a dharamsala till his death. In those days gurudwaras were called dharamsalas. Mehtab Singh, who had killed Massa Rangan, came to meet Taru Singh. Harbhagat Niranjani recognized him & reported this to the authorities. They captured Mehtab Singh. Mehtab Singh was executed by tying him to a big wheel with another wheel turning in the opposite direction.

Mai Bhagon had brought the 40 Sikhs with wadhawa to Guru Gobind Singh. She was wounded in battle & then went with Guru Gobind Singh to Hazoor Sahib. She died there. She was from the family of Bhai Langaha who was the owner of the Nau Lakha Patti. Patti province use to generate an income of 9 lakh rupees hence it was called Nau Lakha Patti. Bhai Langaha was the owner & he had accompanied Guru Arjan Dev ji to Lahore.

Who Was Bhai Vir Singh?

He was a writer & a scholar. He wrote many books. He translated Guru Granth Sahib. Whenever anyone had any doubts or questions regarding Guru Granth Sahib, Dasam Granth etc they would come to him for explanation. His answers were considered authentic. Sahitya Sadan in Delhi was established by him. He did not have any son. He had one brother Dr Balbir Singh. Dr Balbir Singh was educated in England & was a great scholar. He had a farmhouse named Panchvati in Dehradun. After the death of Dr Balbir Singh’s wife, Bhai Vir Singh advised him to adopt a girl. He raised her & got her married. After marriage also she stayed with him & presently lives in Dehra Dun. After Bhai Vir Singh died, Dr Balbir Singh carried on with his work & wrote many books. He also compiled Bhai Vir Singh’s translation into English of Guru Granth Sahib in 6 volumes. After he died all the work was handed over to Punjabi University.

Is keeping the photo of Maharaj ji in Darbar Sahib correct? Maharaj ji’s orders were to keep only one photo inside Darbar Sahib. This photo is the photo of Guru Gobind Singh ji on a horse. No other photo was to be put up inside Darbar Sahib. Later people put up many photos inside Darbar Sahib but this was against Maharaj ji’s wishes. Regarding Maharaj ji’s photo inside Darbar Sahib, there is nothing wrong with it. As per SGPC there should be no photos inside any gurudwara but we are an independent gurudwara. At Gobind Sadan everything is Maharaj ji’s & we have put the photo due to the love & respect we share for Maharaj ji. It is a question of faith. We have put this photo after his death not when he was alive. This photo has been enlarged & framed by Ralph Singh. He truly loved Maharaj ji. There is no harm in doing chaur on Maharaj ji’s photo in front of Guru Granth Sahib. It is out of love, respect & faith.

In 1605 Guru Arjun Dev ji was martyred. At that time Guru Hargobind ji was only 11 years old. Thereafter in 1608 Guru Hargobind ji, Baba Budha ji & Bhai Gurdas ji constructed the Akal Takht themselves. They did not take the help on anyone else. Guru Hargobind ji received instructions from the Almighty that during his lifetime he would sit in the Akal Takht & afterwards his death his weapons should be placed there. Guru Hargobind ji sat in the Akal Takht from 1608 to 1628. After 1628 Guru Hargobind ji left Amritsar & thereafter never returned to Amritsar. In 1628 he fought his first battle. He had gone for hunting when suddenly a white falcon came to him. Guru ji caught the falcon. The falcon belonged to the General of the army of Lahore province. The General asked Guru Hargobind ji to return the white falcon but he refused saying that the falcon had come to him by itself. A battle followed in which 600 Sikhs of Guru Hargobind ji fought against 6000 men of the General’s army. Next day the wedding of Bibi Miro, the grand daughter of Guru Hargobind ji was to take place. Before the marriage Guru ji sent his family to Chawhaal where Bhai Langaha (owner of Nau Lakha Patti, near Amritsar) lived. Guru ji had decided to marry Bibi Miro into a family which was not afraid of the Emperor, so he decided on Bhai Langaha. Guru ji stayed back at Amritsar to fight against the General & defeated him. After that he went to Chawhaal & got Bibi Miro married. Thereafter Guru ji never returned to Amritsar. He visited various places in the Malwa region. Then when he was at Kartarpur (near Jalandur) he told Baba Gurditta ji to find a suitable place in the hills where he could settle. Then Baba Gurditta ji established a village in the hills. Guru ji requested Baba Srichand ji to lay the foundation stone of the village. At that time Baba ji was at Barath. Guru ji ordered that Baba ji should be brought with full respect in a Paalki (Palanquin) since Baba ji was very old then. Baba ji was born in 1494 while the foundation was laid in 1631, hence he was 137 years old then. So Gurditta ji brought Baba ji from Barath & he lay the foundation stone of the village. Baba ji named the place Kiratpur.

Thereafter Guru Hargobind ji fought a battle against the army of the Jalandar province in 1634. Guru ji fought with only 4000 troops while the Jalandar army had 50,000 troops. Guru ji’s troops were victorious. Then Guru ji told his family to shift to Kiratpur. All agreed except Baba Gurditta ji’s son Dhir Mal. When he was born Guru ji had said that another Prithia had been born in their family. Prithi Chand was always opposed to his brother Guru Arjan Dev ji. Guru Hargobind ji told everyone to let Dhir Mal stay back since he was stubborn & was not going to listen to anyone. Dhir Mal was 13 years old then. When Guru ji wanted to take the Guru Granth Sahib written by Guru Arjan Dev ji, Dhir Mal opposed that too. Guru ji told his disciples to leave the Guru Granth Sahib behind with Dhir Mal. Guru ji, his family & his disciples then left Amritsar & came to Kiratpur.

At Kiratpur one day Baba Gurditta ji accidently killed a cow while hunting. He offered 2000 rupees as compensation to the owner of the cow but the owner insisted that he wanted his cow back. Baba Gurditta ji brought the cow back to life. Guru Hargobind ji got very upset with Baba Gurditta ji for performing this miracle. Guru ji said that now Baba Gurditta ji would have to give up his life. Baba Gurditta ji immediately lied down, covered himself with a sheet & gave up his life. Guru ji told everybody to recite the Guru Granth Sahib on this solemn occassion. When Guru ji’s disciples went to get the Guru Granth Sahib from Dhir Mal, Dhir Mal refused even though it was on the occasion of his father’s death. They came back empty handed. Bidhi Chand told Guru ji that he had started making a copy of Guru Granth Sahib which he could not complete & was till Bilawal Raag. Guru ji agreed & recitation from this copy of Guru Granth Sahib was conducted on the occasion of Baba Gurditta ji’s death. Thereafter many times the same recitation was done by Biddhi Chand ji on different occasions. After the death of Biddhi Chand in 1644, his son Lal Chand started doing the recitation. So then onwards the recitation of Guru Granth Sahib was done from Bhidhi Chand’s copy which was till Bilawal Raag.

Thereafter during Guru Gobind Singh ji’s time some Sikhs would get copies of Guru Granth Sahib hand written by them & would present it to Guru ji. Guru ji would ask his disciples to check & verify the contents & if found in order would sign it & return it to them. Then when Sodhi Kaul died in 1695, Sikhs from Amritsar requested Guru Gobind Singh ji to appoint a jathedar. Then Guru ji sent Bhai Mani Singh with 5 other Sikhs to do seva of Akal Takht & Bhai Mani Singh became the granthi of the original Guru Granth Sahib.

Was Kabir a Hindu or a Muslim? Kabir was a Muslim weaver.

Maharaj ji use to say that Lavan were actually 4 stages of spirituality? Anand Karaj ceremony was started by the Namdharis. Ram Singh Bhaini conducted the first Anand Karaj ceremony. The verses of Lavan are actually 4 stages of spirituality.

Guru Nanak Dev ji stayed at Bhai Lalo’s house for 1 year & 3 months.

After Guru Gobind Singh ji fought the battle of Chamkor he went to various places in the Malwa region. First he went to Alamgir where he got a horse. Then he stayed at Raikot with Rai Kalha & after that he went to Kot Kapura. He asked Nawab Kapura to hand him over the fort since he had to fight the war. Nawab Kapura was reluctant & told Guru ji that he would be hanged to death if he handed over the fort to Guru ji. Guru ji was not happy with his reluctance & left. Then Sodhi Kaul (who was from Prithvi Chand’s family) saw Guru ji & requested him to stay with him. When Guru ji had left the forest of Maachiwara he wore blue robes. Sodhi Kaul requested him to change to white robes so that he could not be recognised, to which Guru ji agreed. After that he went to Mukatsar to fight another battle. The 40 muktas (liberated beings), who had given it in writing (bedawa) to Guru Gobind Singh ji that “We are not your Sikhs & you are not our Guru”, came to meet Guru ji at Mukatsar but when they saw the enemy army approaching they decided to fight it first. All of them except Maha Singh were martyred in the battle. Maha Singh was badly wounded & Guru ji cleaned the blood from the face of Maha Singh & Maha Singh requested Guru ji to forgive them for their mistakes. Guru ji told him that while leaving Anandpur he had left everything behind but kept the bedawa because he knew that they would come to ask for forgiveness one day. Guru ji then tore the paper & gave them the title of 40 Muktas. Thereafter Maha Singh also died. Gurudwara Tooti Gani is situated at that place. After cremating all the martyrs, Guru ji went to Sabo ki Talwandi (Bhatinda) & stayed with Bhai Dalla for 9 months & 9 days & got the Guru Granth Sahib re-written.

The Panj Pyaras were from different parts of India & belonged to different castes. Out of the Panj Pyaras, 3 (Sahib Singh, Himmat Singh & Mohkam Singh) achieved martyrdom at Chamkor. Daya Singh & Dharam Singh stayed with Guru ji after Chamkor till Sabo ki Talwandi. Then Guru ji wrote the Zafarnama & asked Daya Singh to deliver it to Aurangzeb. Thereafter Aurangzeb died & Guru ji helped Bahadur Shah ascend the throne. Both Daya Singh & Dharam Singh then went to Hazoor Sahib with Guru ji. After Guru ji left for his heavenly abode they came back to Punjab. Guru ji instructed only Santokh Singh to stay back in Hazoor Sahib after his death & told the rest to return back to Punjab. Santokh Singh was given the duty to look after the Angitha Sahib.

Who Was Bachittar Singh?

Bachittar Singh was the son of Bhai Mani Singh. When the Muslim army surrounded Anandpur Sahib, they decided to first break open the gate of the fort with an elephant. Guru Gobind Singh ji told his Sikhs that one of them would fight with the elephant. The first Sikh whom he ordered ran away. Then Guru ji ordered Bachittar Singh to fight with the elephant. When the gate of the fort was opened, the elephant started approaching. The elephant was given alcohol to drink so that it would become mad & rowdy. Bachittar Singh threw his pointed spear straight to the elephant’s head. The elephant was wearing steel protection on his head but the spear pierced the steel protection & hit the elephant on his head. The mad elephant turned back & instead started attacking the Muslim army. Guru ji said that Bachittar Singh was his elephant. Bhachittar Singh’s brother Uday Singh also got inspired & wanted to show his bravery. He went & attacked the General of the Muslim army & killed him. Then he cut off his head & got the head with him. Guru ji left Anandpur on 5^th Jan 1705 & Bachittar Singh was with Guru ji when he left. Later he died at Ropar on 8^th Jan 1705 due to his injuries.

In Muslim faith, what is the difference between Hazrat, Auliya, Khwaja, Imam etc? These are all words of respect. Auliya means prophet, Hazrat Nizamuddin was a prophet hence he is called Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. Maulvi is one who teaches.

Did Maharaj ji attend the 300 years celebration of the Khalsa in 1999 at Anandpur Sahib? Yes, Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal invited him & Maharaj ji went. Badal arranged for Maharaj ji’s stay at the Bhakra Nangal guest house. When the main function was held, Maharaj ji was made to sit on the stage in full view of the entire public.

Did Maharaj ji visit Golden Temple? Yes, Maharaj ji paid his respects at the Golden Temple & Akal Takht. It was around 1977/78 when Maharaj ji visited various places in Punjab.

Did Maharaj ji visit Mumbai? Yes, Maharaj ji went to Mumbai when the Babbars invited him. Pinky, the wife, had lot of faith in Maharaj ji. They use to stay at 52, Colaba Reclamation in Mumbai. He stayed there for about a week or so. I was with Maharaj ji. This was many years back when Gobind Sadan had recently been established. Maharaj ji also visited Bangalore with his disciples but that was before Gobind Sadan was established.

What is the sequence in Guru Granth Sahib? First is Japji Sahib then Rehras & then Kirtan Sohilla. Then the various shabads are numbered & then arranged as per the 31 Raags. These raags were chosen & arranged in sequence by Guru Arjun Dev ji. Guru Nanak Dev ji use to write his Gurbani himself. Then Guru Amar Dass ji arranged the verses of Guru Nanak, Guru Angad Dev & himself into Pothi (book). When Guru Angad Dev ji wanted to added the verses of Guru Ram Das & himself, he asked Bhai Gurdas to get the Pothi from Bhai Mohan. Bhai Mohan & Baba Mohri were sons of Guru Amar Das ji. Bhai Mohan use to meditate for many days continuously. Bhai Gurdas ji waited for 3 days for Bhai Mohan ji & then returned. Then Guru ji sent Baba Buddha ji. Baba Buddha ji too waited for 3 days & then went inside & shook Bhai Mohan ji in order to break his meditation but Bhai Mohan ji still did not get up. He too returned. Then Guru ji went himself. He sat on the floor outside Bhai Mohan ji’s room & started singing praises of Bhai Mohan. Bhai Mohan ji was Guru Arjun Dev ji’s uncle (mama) since Guru ji’s mother was the sister of Bhai Mohan & Baba Mohri.

When were the Sharia’s written? They were written after Prophet Muhammed. They are the Ethical Codes for the Muslims. These were written by Prophet Muhammed’s disciples about 30 years after the death of Prophet Muhammed. Whatever Prophet Muhammed use to say became Sharia.

How much land was donated by Nirlep Kaur when Gobind Sadan started? She gave 7.5 acres land to Maharaj ji. All the land from the main Havan to this Library is that land. Later she started asking for the land to be returned back to her. Maharaj ji increased the land holding to 150 acres. Then she wanted 50% of all the land since the prices had increased. She even wanted 50% of the 250 acres land at Surajpur (U.P.). Guru Gobind Singh ji told Maharaj ji to give her whatever she wanted & also told Maharaj ji that he would have so much land one day that he would have to travel in jeeps to inspect the land. Maharaj ji gave her whatever she wanted but nothing from the Surajpur land. Nirlep Kaur’s grandchildren still have their farms here. Nirlep Kaur’s husband Rajdev Singh (owner of Imperial Hotel at Connaught Place) told his sons that the land was Maharaj ji’s & that they had no right on it.

Sant Baba Ishar Singh ji Rarewale wanted to establish a place on a land which had a historical background. Nirlep Kaur’s father Gian Singh Rarewala gave his land which was sandy & on the banks of a river to Sant ji. Gian Singh Rarewala owned the entire village of Rara. Saints are happy wherever they are even if it is on sand. Sant Ishar Singh ji started doing kirtan on that worthless land. Then Nirlep Kaur & her mother told Gian Singh Rarewala that Sant Ishar Singh ji would occupy the land & never leave. Gian Singh asked Sant ji to return his land. Sant Ishar Singh ji did not think even for a second & left. There was an old woman who had some land which was adjoining this land of Gian Singh. She request Sant ji to accept her land which was 70 acres.

Baba Narinder Singh ji (Chandigarhwale) was a disciple of Baba Nand Singh ji. He retired as a DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police). Baba Nand Singh ji told him to go to Hazoor Sahib & recite Toseefe Sana (Nasuro Mansoor Guru Gobind Singh…..) till Guru Gobind Singh ji appears to him. Then Guru ji appeared to Baba Narinder Singh ji. Maharaj ji had instructed everyone to recite this 3 times in a day, at 8 am, 12 pm & at 7 pm. Toseefe Sana means praise of the Guru.

What is Brahm Boota near Golden Temple? There were 2 Udasi saints, Santokh Das & Pritam Das. Santokh Das started the Sanglawala Akhara while Pritam Das started the Brahm Boota. At Brahm Boota, Pritam Das planted a Pipal tree. He got water from all the various tirath (sacred places) of India & poured it into the tree. There are 2 nishan sahibs in front of Akal Takht. One of these were put up by Guru Hargobind ji & the other by these 2 Udasi saints. When Kumbh Mela takes place, all sadhus & saints go for a holy dip at Haridwar. At that time there is a competition between various groups of sadhus to have a bath first. Santokh Das use to wear a loin cloth with a chain (sangal) around his waist. Once during a competition to decide which sadhu would bathe first, Santokh Das opened this chain & it transformed into a snake. All other sadhus got scared & Santokh Das took the holy dip first. From this incident, they got the name Sangalawala Akhara.

Jesus preached only for 3 years from the age of 30 to 33 years. Mother Mary was 14 years when Jesus was born. Lord Krishna was 7 years old & Radha 12 years old when Ras Lila took place at Brindavan. After he left Brindavan, Lord Krishna never visited Brindavan again.

Once a poor Brahmin pandit named Sudama came to meet Guru Gobind Singh ji. He recited a poem about Lord Krishna & Sudama. The pandit told Guru ji that for him he was like Lord Krishna since Krishna & Gobind mean the same. Guru ji was so happy with the poem that he gave a lot of wealth to the poor pandit Sudama & removed him from poverty in the same manner like Lord Krishna removed the poverty of Sudama.

When the Sikhs were fighting battles & were hiding in the jungles, it was the Udasis who use to look after the gurudwaras including the Golden Temple. Mehtab Singh Meerakotia use to stay in the jungle. He had left his wife with an Udasi sadhu in Meerakotia. Also he left his 5 year old son Rai Singh with a local landlord Nathu.

There was one Bhai Hindaal. He heard about Guru Amar Das ji & came to serve him. One day he was making dough when suddenly Guru ji came. Everyone bowed down to pay their respects. Hindalia’s hands were dirty so he crossed his hands behind his back & bowed his head. Guru ji was very impressed & told him to always pay his respects in the same manner. When Guru Amar Das ji formed 22 manjis for preaching he made Bhai Hindali the head of one of them. He formed Pidis too for the women preachers. Bhai Hindal started acting like a Guru after become a preacher. His son Bidhi Chand wrote a book Janam Sakhi in which he praised his father & wrote derogatory things about Guru Nanak Dev ji. Bidhi Chand had a Muslim mistress. To cover this up, he wrote in the book that Guru Nanak also had a Muslim mistress. Harbhagat Niranjan was from this family & he was the one who reported against Bhai Taru Singh & Bhai Mehtab Singh.

Udasis use to look after Nanakana Sahib gurudwara also but thereafter they started thinking as if they were the bosses. Maharaja Ranjit Singh had donated a lot of land to various gurudwaras so that they never fall short of funds. The entire city of Nanakana was donated to the gurudwara. The Udasis were overflowing with funds & became corrupt. The Udasi Mahant Narain Das became characterless. One day in 1921 a Sindhi family came to pay respects at Nanakana Sahib. The Udasis abducted their 16 year old daughter. The family came & reported the matter to the Sikh authorities at Amritsar. The Sikh committee in Amritsar decided to free the gurudwaras from the control of the Udasis. The Golden Temple was not under the control of the Udasis. Earlier in 1872 the Singh Sabha movement had started in Punjab. One of the objectives of the movement was to free the gurudwaras from the Udasis. The British were looking at ways to control the Sikhs. The Dogras suggested to them to take over control of Golden Temple & Akal Takht. They told the British that once they had control of these important Sikh gurudwaras, the entire Sikh community would listen to them since they could issue hukumnamas from Akal Takht. The British appointed their Sikhs to take charge of 4 gurudwaras – Golden Temple, Akal Takht, Taran Taran & Baba Atal. Deputy Commisioner of Amritsar was also incharge of these gurudwaras. For any function at these gurudwaras the permission of the DC had to be sought. The DC’s men would not let lower castes inside the gurudwaras. This was against the teachings of the Gurus. A group of professors from Khalsa College, Amritsar decided to take matters into their own hands. They took a low caste Sikh with them & told the priests at Golden Temple to perform the ardas for him. The priests refused. The Sikh professors told the priests that they would perform the ardas. Seeing this all the priests left the Golden Temple in protest. The Sikh professors happily started performing the various duties of the priests & from that day onwards the Sikhs got full control of the Golden Temple.

When the Sindhi family came to Golden Temple & told the authorities their plight, they decided to go to Nanakana Sahib on a particular date. Two Sikhs, Dilip Singh & Lachman Singh also decided to take their jathas (group of men) on the same date to liberate Nanakana Sahib. The Sikh authorities in Golden Temple postponed the date of of their visit but Dilip Singh & Lachman Singh were not aware of this so they continued on their mission to Nanakana Sahib. Udasi Mahant Narain Das had called some local Muslim thugs to assist him in their fight aganst the Sikhs. Lachman Singh went & sat in attendance to Guru Granth Sahib. A fight ensued & shots were fired. One shot wounded Lachman Singh. Some shots hit Guru Granth Sahib too. Karam Singh, Station Master of Nanakana Sahib Railway Station, heard the shots. He immediately made phone calls to the authorities in Lahore, the Sikh authorities at Amritsar & also to Gandhi. The Commisioner of Lahore rushed to Nanakana Sahib with a contingent of soldiers. Mahant Narain Das & his men captured many of the Sikhs who had come to liberate the gurudwara & killed them by setting them on fire alive. The British troops captured Narain Das & his men. A court cases ensued & after that the British handed over the control of Nanakana Sahib to the Sikhs. So many Sikhs were martyred to liberate Nanakana Sahib from the control of the Udasis.

When was prakash of Dasam Granth stopped at Akal Takh? In 1932 the SGPC formed a Rehat Maryada Committee to finalise a certain maryada for the Sikhs since till then the maryada was not fixed. The convener of this committee was Prof Teja Singh, who was professor at Khalsa College, Amritsar. He arranged for a meeting of the committee & a certain maryada was decided in it. This was circulated for all Sikh scholars to comment on it. Some changes were suggested & these were incorporated & circulated again. This process went on for 13 years. Finally a Rehat Maryada for Sikhs was adopted in 1945. A copy of this is in our library too. In this Rehat Maryada it was decided that only the prakash of Guru Granth Sahib will be allowed in gurudwaras.

As per the tenants of Sikhism, should a Sikh use a surname other than Singh or Kaur? No, surnames other than Singh or Kaur should not be used. Grewal, Sidhu, Sandhu etc are “Goths”. Goths do not change after marriage. We have started following the British & change the surname of the girl after marriage but how can the goth of the girl change. Actually a boy & girl from the same goth should not get married.

How did Guru Gobind Singh ji pass away? Vazir Khan, the nawab of Sirhind, who was responsible for the martyrdom of Sahibzada Zorawar Singh & Ajit Singh, had started feeling very insecure since Guru ji & Bahadur Shah Zafar had very cordial relations. He sent two of his men to kill Guru ji at Anandpur. First for a few days they mingled with Guru ji’s Sikhs. Then one day when Guru ji was resting & none of his Sikhs were close by, one of them attacked Guru ji with a knife. Guru ji was hurt in the stomach but managed to get hold of this man & killed him. Bahadur Shah Zafar sent his best hakim (doctor of natural medicines) to treat Guru ji. The wound was treated & the hakim sewed it. The wound started healing. One day a person brought a new bow which he was unable to use. Guru ji picked it up & fired an arrow. During this the wound opened up because of the pressure. Guru ji then passed away due to this wound.

Who was Bulle Shah? Bulle Shah was a great poet Sufi saint & lived near Amritsar. His guru was Inayat. Inayat became angry with him due to some reason. Inayat use to love to watch dancing. Bulle Shah started learning how to dance in order to make his guru happy. One day Bulle Shah was dancing when his guru saw him & asked him if he was Bulla, he replied that he was Bhulla. He wrote “Na kahoon ab ki na kahoon tab ki baat karon mein jab ki, gar na hota Guru Gobind Singh sunnat hoti sab ki”.

Who was Bhai Nand Lal? He was Bahadur Shah Zafar’s munshi (clerk). He was a scholar of Arabic & Persian. One day Aurangzeb asked his son Bahadur Shah Zafar to translate a certain verse from the Quran. He asked for 8 days time. Nand Lal asked Bahadur Shah the reason why he was so sad. He replied that non one was able to translate correctly the verse from the Quran. Nand Lal immediately translated it. When Bahadur Shah told Aurangzeb the meaning of the verse, Aurangzeb knew that he had not translate it & asked who actually translated it? When Bahadur Shah told him that it was his Hindu munshi Nand Lal, Aurangzeb was surprised & called for him. Aurangzeb asked him the meaning of many more verses from Quran which Nand Lal translated immediately. Aurangzeb decided to convert Nand Lal to Islam. Bahadur Shah told Nand Lal that if he wanted to remain a Hindu then only Guru Gobind Singh could save him. He told Nand Lal to escape & go to Guru ji. Nand Lal came to Anandpur from Delhi with few of his Muslim servants. Nand Lal bowed & paid his respects to Guru ji but the Muslim servants did not. Some Sikhs objected but Guru ji told them that since Nand Lal had paid his respects & the servants pay their respects to him, it was okay. Guru ji then kept Nand Lal with him. He would be very happy to hear his poems. He has written Toseefe Sana (Nasuro Mansoor Guru Gobind Singh…..). Thereafter when Guru ji asked all the scholar to leave Anandpur he went back to Bahadur Shah Zafar.

What is the difference between Gurmantar & Moolmantar? Bhai Gurdas ji writes that Waheguru is Gurmantar. During Guru Nanak Dev ji’s time whenever any person would come & tell Guru ji that he wanted to become a Sikh, Guru ji would touch water in a cup with his thumb & tell the person to drink it. Also a mantar Waheguru would be given to him. This is Gurmantar. There is another mantar that is for repeating. Moolmantar is the root mantra & is Ek Onkar Satnam Karta Purakh Nirbhau Nirvar Akal Murat Ajooni Sabhang Gurparsad. Gurmantar is never written down. Waheguru is not included in any of the verses of our Gurus in Guru Granth Sahib. It comes 13 times & that too in Bhattan de Sawaiye. Moolmantar comes 33 times in Guru Granth Sahib. Ek Onkar Satgur Parsad has come 522 times in Guru Granth Sahib. This mantra & the moolmantra are Mangalacharans. Ek Onkar Satnam Sri Waheguru is mantra for repeating. This mantra is also not written anywhere except in end of the 50^th Saakhi of Sau Saakhi. Sau Saakhi is the conversation between Bhai Ram Kaur & Guru Gobind Singh ji where Guru ji answers the questions of Bhai Ram Kaur.

An Interview with Major Sahib

About Parsi (Zoroastrianism)

On Sanatan Dharam (Hinduism)

On Buddhism

On Jainism

On Sufism

Maharaj ji’s Stories

Swastik is the Sign of Safety & Purity

What is Gobind Sadan’s Mission?

Who Was Bhai Vir Singh?

Who Was Bachittar Singh?

Baba Virsa Singh

Baba Virsa Singh JI

Baba Virsa Singh JI

Baba Virsa Singh JI

Baba Virsa Singh JI

Baba Virsa Singh JI

Baba Virsa Singh JI

Baba Virsa Singh Ji

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