Issue 31 - May 2014

[Guru Fatha Singh Khalsa]

The Master of Delhi

If America is not your home, it can seem very fast, exciting and energizing, albeit lonely and unfamiliar.  If you make it to America, you know that in some sense you have really "made it," for America is the cultural hub of the universe – the centre of global entertainment, finance, innovation, space exploration, democracy and those really big bombs.

If India is not your home, on first visiting it can seem chaotic, aloof, archaic, beautiful, very poor, dignified, and occasionally very rich.  India is the hub of a different civilization, a different perspective, and a certain timelessness.  Some people coming to India thinking it is not their home are surprised to realize after a time of awakening familiarity, that India is and has always been their mother.

When the eighty-four students of Yogi Bhajan disembarked from the Air India plane where they had spent the last day and a half, they were already disoriented by jet lag, having traversed at least eleven time zones. 

Once they assembled as much of their luggage as had arrived with them, they set out in a pair of belching diesel buses for their pre-arranged accommodations at the Gobind Sadan ashram.

Gobind Sadan should have been familiar to some of the eighty-four as it was home to the illustrious teacher Yogiji referred to as "Maharaj-ji" or "my Master".  The teacher's photo adorned Yogi Bhajan's altar.  The important Santa Fe ashram where Dawson and Karen Hayward managed things was named Maharaj Ashram after Yogiji's teacher.  While it was true that Yogi Bhajan had learned from many men of God, this was a special relationship.  Some said it was this master who had sent Yogiji to America.

The eighty-four Americans were exhausted and excited both.  Outside the buses, there were monkeys frolicking overhead in the trees, cows sauntering through the streets, and a group of dark, wirey men  in identical green shorts and white undershirts jogging in formation.  There were trees the likes of which they had never seen before, and birds, and all around them, crowds of determined people going places – men in tunics, women in saris, and polite children on their way to school.  As the buses belched forward in the endless, honking traffic, the Americans could see that they were in a big city, vast, expansive, perhaps the size of Chicago or Los Angeles.

Eventually, the two buses stopped on the top of a barren, windswept hill.  Yogi Bhajan spoke with the drivers.  After a time, it became clear even to the eighty-four who understood not a word of Hindi, that something was not right.  Yogi Bhajan made sure everyone was settled, then set off on a mission. 

A couple of hours later, when Yogi Bhajan returned, he had with him the makings of a number of large army-style tents.  And a couple of hours after that, once the tents had been pitched, some cheerful volunteers arrived with a wonderfully aromatic cargo.  The hungry Americans were bid to sit in rows and their turbaned friends plied them with warm chapatis and dahl and rice pudding.  It was their first meal in India and it tasted delicious.

Yogi Bhajan did not spend much time with his students on the hill.  He had business to attend to.  Bibiji and his children Ranbir Singh, Kulbir Singh and Kulwant Kaur were anxious to see him.  And there was some problem he needed to attend to.  Money had been sent ahead for their accommodations, but he was told it had never arrived.  Then there was the simple joy of coming to see his teacher again.

It was not long before thirteen-year-old Ranbir had joined the Americans and was clowning with the best of them.  And one day, Yogi Bhajan returned with Maharaj-ji.  His Master unsheathed a sword and began to chant as he used it to stir a narrow steel cyllinder of water.  After a few minutes, Maharaj-ji offered the enchanted water to the students standing and watching nearby.  He told them, and Yogi Bhajan translated, that not a drop should touch the ground.

Two of the students, Alan Weiss and another, took up the bowl and took turns drinking its contents.  They could immediately feel something.  Drinking that water brought on an experience of great clarity and extraordinary intensity unlike anything they had ever felt before.  Alan would afterwards say this had been a turning point in his life.

In the confines of Gobind Sadan, Yogi Bhajan and his teacher – the one, a student of extraordinary acumen and the other, a master of considerable accomplishment - sat and talked.  What exactly transpired between them we can never know.  But we do know that somewhere in that unusual communion of spirits, there was a falling out.

Yogi Bhajan was told, but would not consent, to submit his American students to his teacher.  Yogiji asserted that he had not come to India to hand his students over to Maharaj-ji.  Rather, it was his intention to introduce them to the riches of his Sikh heritage, personified for him in the holy personage of Guru Ram Das.

The Master of Delhi challenged his student, "Everyone needs a personal Guru.  If Guru Ram Das is your Guru, he should have given you his mantra.  Every Guru gives his disciple their mantra.  What is the mantra Guru Ram Das gave you?"

Yogi Bhajan had to admit he had no mantra other than "Wahe Guru", the Guru Mantra of all Sikhs, but he trusted Guru Ram Das to give him a mantra in his hour of need.  "I have no such mantra, but I will return tomorrow with it."

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Guru Ram Das

The following morning, Yogi Bhajan meditated in solitude.  In the ambrosial hours before dawn, he recited his regular mantra, the mantra of the Khalsa, "Waahay Guru" over and over again as was his custom.

As he chanted, Yogi Bhajan became aware of a luminous presence in the room with him.  He knew that it must be Guru Ram Das.  In his consciousness, he bowed before his Guru and continued his meditation.  Slowly, as Yogi Bhajan chanted, he became aware of the change in the sounds his mouth was uttering.  First he heard the change.  Then he heard the actual sounds.  And then he understood that he had been given what he had prayed for.  Guru Ram Das had given him his Guru Mantra: "Guru Guru Wahe Guru Guru Ram Das Guru".

In that moment of grace, his consciousness melded with the divine consciousness of the holy Guru of Amritsar, disciple of Guru Amar Das, husband of Bibi Bhani, father of Guru Arjun.  As though speaking, the Guru's light wordlessly communicated to him, "At this time, you need the protection of a mantra.  You do not want to claim anything as your own achievement and you don't want to take the blame either.  Let the claim be mine, and let me also take the blame.  Now say this mantra."

Yogi Bhajan began to slowly, hesitantly say the mantra over and over again with full consciousness.  And he liked it very much.