Daily Fix
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T. SHER SINGH
Heard through the grapevine the other day that Prof. Darshan Singh ji is back from his winter travels, and is once again in full form with his Friday evening and Saturday noon kirtan sessions at the Guru Granth Sahib Academy in nearby Brampton.
So, on Saturday morning, I feel the inevitable pull of gravitation and soon find myself listening to his kirtan and discourse at the Academy.
He is currently in the midst of Bhagat Kabir’s shabads … he picks up one in each hour-long weekly session and explores its inner-most recesses with you.
Kabir’s words are simple and pierce the heart in an instant. They require no exegesis … no exposition, no explanation. You hear the message and you say to yourself: I knew that!
Yet, Kabir’s words are transforming, no matter how often you hear them sung. They well forth from deep within you the desire to better yourself from that very moment on, to align yourself with the universe.
This morning’s shabad exhorts us to let go of wants, to reduce our needs … to take a short-cut to the ultimate goal of all enterprise: contentment.
It’s a simple message. We’ve heard it over and over again. Yet, the path is elusive.
That’s where Prof Darshan Singh ji’s genius comes into play. He not only slows down your thought processes so that you don’t just hear and enjoy the words; he also teaches you to drink them in, sip by sip, to let them drip past your tongue … and feel them make their way down your throat, exuding warmth and comfort. Until they arrive in the darkness of your innards and turn into nourishment.
Who could imagine one can add another dimension to Kabir’s words which are a complete and self-sufficient package on their own? But Prof Darshan Singh performs the alchemy: a chemical reaction takes place within you.
Each time I go for his kirtan, I come back a different man. Is it Kabir, or is it Darshan Singh, or is it the Guru? It’s a waste of time trying to analyze or dissect the experience. Why? Why does one need to know why a mango gives so much pleasure. In the words of Guru Granth, can one separate the waves from the ocean?
It just does. They just are.
* * * * *
After the service, I sit with Prof Sahib to catch up with stories of his recent trip to Punjab and India.
We are creatures of habit and often say things with no thought or intent attached. I have barely blurted out the words, “And how are things in India?” and I realize, what a useless question to ask!
I immediately regret having opened the subject, knowing it can only lead us into a depressing conversation, and little that I don’t already know.
“Things are wonderful in India. Really looking up!” he said.
I glance at him. He’s being polite, I say to myself. He too doesn’t want to open up a can of worms. Kind of … let’s stay from unpleasantries?
“How so?” I asked, not expecting anything but generalities.
“It’s chardi kalaa all over. I’ve come back reinvigorated!” he said.
I know him as a blunt-spoken man, never wasting his breath on inanities, never shying away from truth. I looked at him again. No, he isn’t shrugging me off.
“What makes you say that? What did you see?” I pressed on.
He didn’t hesitate. Nor struggle with words.
Sikhs in India are undergoing a transformation, he said. There’s a growing awareness, a renaissance. It’s everywhere you go … a feeling that we need to take a grip on our own destiny. True, the majority has upped its excesses … but that’s proving to be good for us. It’s driving our people up against the wall.
And that’s good, he said. We are at our best when we are under siege. We turn into better Sikhs, we think clearly, we become better focused.
Only good can come of this turn of events, he adds.
I look at him again.
His face is glowing as I’ve never seen before. He truly means what he’s said. He looks happier and younger than I have seen him for years.
His chardi kalaa is infectious. I know he’s not cheering me on for the sake of cheering. He means what he’s saying.
I feel the electricity in his words and his demeanour. It charges me.
On the drive home, I mull over his words and know that they are true.
As waves of ’bad news’ come from India on a daily basis, I too sense a change in the air.
Deep within me -- and this is not a case of rah-rah-ing -- I feel a heart-felt gratitude to the Indians for their endless badmashees. My people need to become even better and stronger, to shed their weaknesses and throw off their ambivalences, to hone their skills, to forge alliances, to build institutions ...
But first, before they turn into diamonds, they need more fire and more time in the fire. They need to burn off their impurities and become crystal clear.
And who can do a better job of stoking the fire, of pumping the bellows and adding oil and tinder, than the good people of Hindustan -- the very land and people who valiantly claim a monopoly on much that has gone wrong with humanity today?
May 8, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Gurmeet Kaur (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), May 08, 2013, 11:39 AM.
I so needed to hear this ... Thank you.
2: Dr Birinder Singh Ahluwalia (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), May 08, 2013, 12:37 PM.
Every individual, every community, every city, every state, every nation (in the face of adversity, at one time or the other) formulates it's destiny both in singularity and as a collective - Sikhs and Sikhism are no different. It is great to hear that an awareness to better ourselves individually and and as a community is in the air, that it is infectious and is spreading. If all of us do it, the world will be a better place to live in and we will leave a lasting legacy for humanity ... which is exactly what we as Sikhs are meant to do!
3: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), May 08, 2013, 4:56 PM.
Whenever I need to push-start the automatic car because of a run-down battery, I need a pair of heavy duty cables and another car to link the batteries in parallel before it is kicked back to life. Prof. Darshan Singh is such a link-cable. Every time my battery is down, he helps me to kick-start myself. Take any shabad and his vyaakhya is profound and leaves its imprint. Always. Somebody obviously did the seeding operation. In his case it was his Nana ji (maternal grandfather) Bhai Arjan Singh, in whose lap he was nurtured. The first time he did kirtan was at the age of 9 in 1949. There was no looking back. Like Bhai Surjan Singh, he has his own distinctive style that subliminally works on you. Even if you listen to the same CD over and over again, each time you will find something that you had missed previously. In 1986 he was honoured with the well-deserved title of 'Shrimoni Raagi' and given the 'Bhai Mardana Panth Ratan' award.
4: N Singh (Canada), May 08, 2013, 5:33 PM.
I too have been feeling the shift to a greater chardi kalaa quite recently, both for myself and the community. Despite our setbacks, we have made substantial progress. There is a greater sense of awareness and less confusion about our recent history, and a greater sense of urgency that we need to hone our skills in all areas in order to be successful and to survive. I totally agree that sometimes we need fire in order to shape the metal. Interestingly enough I have been seeing more 'bad press' about our friends, the Hindustanis, more exposure of their true nature rather than their propaganda ... most of which is usually from the Indian media and their cronies. Let's keep it up. Onwards and upwards, as they say ...
5: Kanwarjeet Singh (USA), May 08, 2013, 5:45 PM.
First Banda Singh Bahadar and now Prof. Darshan Singh - look how we foolish Sikhs have judged these two great men so wrongly! Back to your story: reminds me of Maskeen ji's katha. Someone tired of all the anti-Sikh rhetoric and the majority's agenda asked him (back in 1984), 'saaddey kaum tey eh balaa kadoo(n) hattey gi?' (When will these bad times pass from over our nation?). Maskeen ji instantly replied: "kadhey vi nahee(n)!" - 'NEVER.' Here was his explanation, a most beautiful and logical one: only a burning diya (oil lamp) has the danger of being extinguished by the wind, only a live human has the danger of dying. Our quom (nation) is ever energetic, lively and living, breathing, and therefore always under the risk of being extinguished - we, like the oil lamp, have to fight the wind to stay alive. As I think of this katha everyday, I am reminded of how strong one needs to be to keep the Sikh bana and bani alive - and as long as we keep fighting for keeping it alive, we will feel self-energized and invigorated. We will never be assimilated in the manner in which Hinduism swallowed both Buddhism and Jainism and obliterated their unique ideology and philosophy from the subcontinent.
6: Harinder Singh 1469 (New Delhi, India), May 09, 2013, 10:43 AM.
Yes, indeed. I was longing tohear this. A person of his wisdom who has spent over 6 decades and dealt with almost every kind of situation in every corner of the world, can't be wrong!