Don't Die for your Guru!

The Other Well Worn Line


Yes. You've heard it all before. It’s about dying for your Guru.

Now, what relevance does that have in today’s world. Yes. Sacrifice is still very much needed. But it is not by dying. Live! Live Long! Live very long. Redefine sacrifice to mean ‘Living for the Guru’s work’. There’s no need to die. Become ‘Zinda Shaheeds’ - Living Martyrs! Live for your Guru. Live, go out and do something great for your religion. Give this title to the people in your local community who serve selflessly. Serve hard to get this title for yourself!

As long ago as 1995 at the World Sikh Sammelan in Amritsar, this declaration was made by the then Jathedaar of Sri Keshgarh Sahib, Prof. Manjit Singh Ji, who was also acting Jathedar of the Akaal Takht as the elected one had been unlawfully imprisoned by the govt. in New Delhi. Addressing the Sikhs of the Punjab, he said – “Marnaa Cchaddo! Jeenaa Sikho! Desh Benohnaa hai!” He was telling all of us, the youth, that we had lost hundreds of thousands of our young men and women in this war with a ruthless and unscrupulous regime, which was not going anywhere. “We cannot build our new nation out of your corpses! The dying must stop. We have a nation to re-build. Unquote.

Don’t have to tell you that the Jathedaar who had the guts to stand up amongst thousands gathered from 18 countries from Kenya to Fiji, was immediately accused of being in the pay of the Indian govt. because he had the audacity to tell them NOT to die for their Guru. It was outrageous, they said.

Point in passing. I am tempted here to quote Gen. Patton, the tank general and military genius who defeated the greatest military mind of Hitler’s Germany – Field Marshall Rommel of the Afrika Corps, in the Africa campaign of World War 2 and then again in Europe in the race to capture Berlin. Patton is today remembered by this quotation –
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You win a war by making the other bastard die for his country”. Unquote. Pardon the language, but those are his exact words. And you will find them written exactly as they are, on the walls of every military academy in the United States!