Issue 33 - July 2014

[Guru Fatha Singh Khalsa]

Village Folk

Yogi Bhajan took his students to the heart of Punjab where the real people lived and life still went on much as it had in the time of Guru Nanak.  Yogiji, once a villager himself, shared his home and his country and its history with his students as they went from village to village and town to town. 

Everywhere, there was history.  There were stories to be told, landmarks to decipher, things to celebrate, introductions to be made.  At one little village, Yogi Bhajan pointed out a blue-clad Nihung, a diminutive member of a warrior clan dating to Guru Gobind Singh.  Yogiji told everyone that the man was a great saint, and that they should shake his hand and get to know him.  And so, as much as the limitations of language and their short stay allowed, they got to know him.

One day, Yogi Bhajan told Jim Baker, who owned the restaurant in Los Angeles where Ganga worked, "Wait till you get to the next village.  See how the people receive you."

Sure enough, when the entourage disembarked from from their buses, the locals there seemed to be especially in awe of Jim.  The villagers were generally respectful of their visitors from afar, but for some reason they congregated around him in a most humble and devotional attitude.

Yogiji explained that Jim reminded the people there of a Sufi saint who had lived with them and looked exactly like him.

Throughout the tour, at all hours of the day and night, the members of the tour would sing and chant to the guardian angel of the Aquarian Age, Guru Ram Das, as they had been taught: "Guru Guru Wahe Guru Guru Ram Das Guru".  Sometimes Yogi Bhajan would instruct Krishna, his personal attendant, "Go sit down over there and face this person, and chant this chant until I tell you to stop."  An hour or two might pass in this way, as inspiration passed from heart to heart.

One time, Krishna and Devorah found themselves on the balconies of two opposing buildings.  What did they do?  Why chant, of course!  They chanted to and from, line to line, back and forth in beautiful melodic style.  Guru Nanak had said that chanting was the great presiding power of this age, and so they chanted in fulfilment of his word.  For those who heard it, their spontaneous performance was one of the high points of the tour they would remember for years to come. 

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The Cloud of Death

The royal city of Patiala loomed up ahead, an ancient city with a real maharaja, a carryover from centuries past.  It had an ancient fort and a palace, a museum and several Gurdwaras.  There was much to see and appreciate.  But when the buses pulled up to their latest waystation, a large Gurdwara, the occupants were sore and cramped.  For many of them, their first and only thoughts were to shower and rest their bodies.

As it happened, there was a scheduled event, a plan to attend a Gurdwara in Patiala.  The Yogi was going.  Who would accompany him?  Though they were tired, about twenty students roused themselves and followed in the train of the Master.

As they crossed the courtyard outside the Gurdwara, an uneasy feeling came over Ganga.  The closer they came, the stronger her sense of foreboding.  She caught Yogiji's attention and stopped beside him, saying, "Sir, don't take another step.  I see the black cloud of death hanging over that Gurdwara.  We can't go in there because they're going to kill us!"

Yogi Bhajan looked for a moment into Ganga's terrified eyes and calmly assured her, "Ganga, a Sikh never shirks from death," and continued walking toward their engagement at the Gurdwara.

Ganga's mind went to hyperdrive.  Her insecurity screamed loud: "A Sikh!  What are you talking about?  I'm an American!  I'm not walking to my death!  Do you think I'm a fool?"  But when she saw her teacher going ahead with calm assurance, Ganga thought again: "I have to go with him.  I don't have any choice.  I am this man's daughter.  If he is going, I have to go.  If he has the courage to go, I have to go with him."

Yogiji and his twenty students went inside, bowed themselves one by one before the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, and seated themselves as a group in the congregation, but not for long.  Within a few minutes, a small group of men entered and, from the back of the Gurdwara, began to shout at the congregation.  Everyone turned.  Some shouted back.  Then there was more shouting, all in Punjabi utterly incomprehensible to Yogiji's students, except that it seemed abusive and dangerous.  It felt like the beginning of a riot.

Yogi Bhajan was completely aware and had already surrendered himself to what was going to happen.  As a yogi, he closed his eyes, drew his attention deep within, and became motionless.  For their part, his students formed a protective ring around their master, with their faces to the danger outside, and began to chant their protective mantra out loud.

The angry people gathered like a storm around the Americans and their teacher.  They encircled them, waving sticks and shouting, shouting and screaming, waving their sticks threateningly in the air.  Like a thunderstorm, they broke all around them, thundering and crashing, their faces angry and contorted, while in the centre of the storm, the Yogi meditated and his students chanted bravely, defiantly around him.

Yogiji meditated, and the crowd shouted and threatened and screamed, but they did not, or perhaps they could not, approach the ring of the Master's students, roused in love and prepared to sacrifice.

Eventually, the storm passed and the angry people, like clouds, seemed to blow away.  Having spent their fury, they turned and vanished.

Some people from the temple management remained and tried to console the Americans.  One who spoke English, assured them that everything was safe and they could go now.

Ganga spoke for the group.  She was not about to be consoled.  The subtleties of who was who and why things had turned out so violently escaped her.  She refused to trust anyone she did not know.  Ganga insisted the police come and provide an escort.

When the police arrived about a half hour later, everyone was still chanting and Yogiji far removed from his physical shell.  Finally, when the chanting stopped and he came to life, there were tears in his eyes.

The head policeman remarked, "You are a yogi, and you are crying?  But they've all run away.  There's no problem."

The policeman could not have understood.  Yogi Bhajan was crying tears of love, tears of thankfulness, tears of humility, knowing that in his own country where he had lived for thirty-nine years, where he had been a government officer and could count hundreds of friends, when an attack was made on his life, none of that had mattered in the least.  Those who put their lives on the line in his defense were these Americans, these American students who belonged to him. 

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Questions in Amritsar

After their close encounter with death, the tour continued.  Out of concern for their security, there were frequent detours and changes of plan, but still they soldiered on.

As Yogi Bhajan and his students continued their way in the east of Punjab, further to the west, in the holy city of Amritsar, some people in the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the body that governed the religious affairs of the Sikhs, discussed reports they had been hearing about a former government officer and a number of American youth touring the countryside.  It sounded very odd. 

Who was this man?  And why would any officer of the Indian Civil Service just quit and go to America?  Some said he had left his family in Delhi.  Some said he was associated with Gobind Sadan.  But what was he doing with all these Americans? 

Punjab was a rural, clannish and insular culture.  It was also a border region.  In 1965, it had been the front for a war between hostile neighbours India and Pakistan and in a few months it would be so again.  There was a history of being suspicious of outsiders, and good grounds for it too.  They could be spies, foreign agents, communists, troublemakers.  Who knew?

Most young Americans who came to India and Pakistan and Nepal were easy enough to figure out.  They came over for the cheap and readily available hashish and marijuana.  But why was this group touring Punjabi villages?

Some foreigners came for spiritual enlightenment.  Why weren't these Americans further north at Dharamsala with the Tibetan Buddhists, or in the sadhu culture of Rishikesh and Benares to the east?  Why were they in Punjab, and why were they following a Sardar?

The committee member decided the situation was too odd to simply ignore.  Besides, the group seemed to be slowly making its way closer to Amritsar, the city of the sacred Harimandir, the Golden Temple.  A couple of SGPC men were assigned to go east and find the group and figure out what they were up to. 

If there were grounds to be suspicious, there would still be time to stop them, one way or another, before they disturbed the holy ambiance of Amritsar.

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