The Mosque built by, The Guru.

"Guru ki Maseet" (Guru's Mosque)

Shri. Guru Hargobind ji. 6th Sikh Guru

We inevitably find what we seek.
If we seek violence, hatred, and indifference we find them. If we seek out good souls, love, compassion, brotherhood, we find those too.
Below the surface of all religions lies a humanity, where individuals long to belong to one another.

Where do we go when we seek the divine? A spiritual teacher, the Muslims call such a great soul, 'Murshid' and the Hindus and Sikhs call 'Guru'. Unlike us ordinary mortals, they have only come to give. Though they will accept any offering for sharing with other disciples and for the common good, they never demand.


Guru Hargobind ji the sixth Sikh Guru and the Sikh disciples themselves provide numerous examples of universal brotherhood, love and devotion. 

One such instance is the 'Gur ki Maseet' (Guru's Mosque). 
In 1630 the greatly outnumbered Sikhs led by Guru Hargobind ji defeated in battle, Abdullah Khan, the tyrannical ruler of Jalandhar. The battle was for righteousness and justice not power and wealth in any name or pretext.
The Muslim residents approached the Guru with a problem, they had no place to pray.

To a Guru all people are the same, saving the oppressed, spreading love and amity by their every word and action. In probably the only known such example in history, the Sikh Guru built a mosque for the Muslims.  

Located at Sri. Hargobindpur, in Panjab's Gurdaspur district, midway between Jalandhar and Amritsar. The mosque is picturesquely situated on a hill overlooking a curve on the banks of the mighty Beas river.

Even now 387 years ago those values and that spirit the Guru espoused are vibrantly alive in the hearts and minds of many, as can be seen from the return of the mosque to the Muslim community.

In 1947  all the Muslim residents abandoned the town to move to Pakistan, during the horrific partition caused by power hungry, cunning, and soulless men.

Soon thereafter the local Sikhs got together and used the mosque as a Gurdwara (congregation hall) at the same site. Here prayers were offered and hymns sung from the Guru Granth Sahib (the holy book containing the hymns of all the Sikh Gurus, various great Hindu, and Muslim saints (30 of them in number). It was protected and served by the valiant and noble Nihang Sikhs, as their solemn responsibility. 

The Sikhs always maintained that this place belonged to the Muslims and wanted to return it to them. They constantly nagged the government and the Punjab Waqf Board to get Muslims to start offering Namaz at the mosque and to take over its upkeep.

The Muslims were mostly poor labourers who could not build a mosque for themselves and since 1947 they had to travel 10 to 15 kms away for offering prayers.

Though the mosque was a splendid structure it was in disrepair, and who would replace the Sikh staff who all worked as volunteers?  The Punjab Waqf Board requested the Sikhs to continue to look after the mosque, while they found a solution.


Eventually it is the people that have to take responsibility.
By 1997 a group of Sikhs and Muslims had come together, roped in the Cultural Resource Conservation Initiative (CRCI), and UNESCO to set things right. The restoration work began in 2000 with sikh families donating some land adjoining the Mosque. The Nihang Sikhs and the local population volunteered for most of the spade work. 



By 2002 the restoration was complete and  Maulana Hamid Husain Qasmi, the Imam of the Jama Masjid in Amritsar, led the first prayers in the mosque.

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Sikhs taking care of and protecting the Mosque

This is but one example of how magnanimous the true Sikhs are in helping all humanity irrespective of belief, all attributable to the teachings of the Sikh Gurus.

The Gurus taught that it is the solemn duty of Sikhs to fight against injustice, save the oppressed, share with others and particularly the needy and to remember God (Naam) always.

Sikhs are reputed for their gregarious, passionate, noble, valiant, honest, steadfast, and intelligent nature. Time and again one can usually experience this in the interactions with them. 



 

             

'Guru Ki Maseet' during restoration

'Guru Ki Maseet' after major restoration

Muslim and Sikhs discussing historical texts  about the mosque's history

Muslims offering prayers in the Guru's Mosque while Sikh brethren & the media watch them

                                       

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Did I tell you, I love you?

Once again as I embarked on a long journey, without my wife, I felt the pang of separation from my love and friend. I was filled with thoughts and emotions. 

When our being overflows with emotion it drives thoughts out of the mind emptying it, even if only for a brief moment. Then in this emptiness many thoughts surge in.

What if I never get to see her again? 
Its strange, that I have surrendered to Mohini, yet rather than becoming less I am further enriched, physically, emotionally and intellectually. This I guess is the power of love and friendship.


I always want to tell her that she means the world to me and I love her,  and a thousand other things. Words and thoughts which a man and woman, friends, and lovers  should be sharing with one another, but for some inexplicable reason almost never do so. 

Soon after leaving I usually sent her a message from my phone. The message could reflect care, love, regret, a joke, something romantic, advice, maybe even a reminder, whatever it is I feel at that moment. True friends and lovers never adulterate their feelings with too much thought. 

I asked myself, 'If you love her, why did you not tell her directly?'
For one my wife never believes me, after all the grief I give her. 
Secondly the last time I hugged and told her I loved her, , she spun around and confronted me, "Are you having an affair? "
"Of course not, I replied." 
I thought to myself, "By God! what a delightful thing that would be."  

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I like to converse with myself. 
Why do we seek to cling on to what we have? Maybe this is all that we have. 
There is God I am often told. 
But where is He?

God, He seems so very far away. The more I approach Him the more distant he seems to be. How many steps more must I travel to reach Him? And there are so many middle men.  My wife and my family, they are here and now. I have invested so much in these relationship, of course I have a right to expect a return on my love and devotion.

This is nonsense. If we expect something in return for our love and devotion then it's not love, its business. A commercial deal of give and take. 

Again I asked myself, 'what if I never saw her again?'  The survivor would be devastated. Really? Why should it be so?

From experience and understanding, realisation is born which blooms into acceptance.
Worry never robbed tomorrow of its sorrow, it just robs today of its essence.

We come alone into this world and alone we shall leave it.  How silly we humans are, that for the brief time we spend while we are here, to gather so much?  As if we will live here forever. Things, relationships, wealth, position, status, all we should relinquish voluntarily or they will be snatched away from us anyway.  Give and give with joy and without expectation. Share and share with compassion. 

Love is not a demanding but a giving. Only an Emperor can give with magnanimity. Where as a beggar is exacting, expecting his or her due in full, and if possible even more.  

Love and friendship fortunately are unlike money.
If we give and love unconditionally, the more we give the more we are enriched. 
Maybe I have evolved, maybe I have just grown too comfortable and lazy, maybe I am trying to fool destiny. I am lucky that I live like an emperor, I treasure just the moment, and I never send her sentimental messages anymore. 

Just a piece of meat

A few weeks ago, 40 year old Manmeeth my sister required to undergo surgery.

Normally independent and strong spirited Manmeeth was inexplicably very nervous and so Mohini my wife and I accompanied her to Pune's most reputed hospital, where she had already been booked by her surgeon.

The hospital handled the paperwork for her admission and collection of advance payment  very smoothly and efficiently. Soon after she went up to her room, a small army of 23 people went to work, doing their assigned 'jobs' in a factory like manner  preparing Manmeeth for surgery. 

Surprisingly except for the surgeon and the anesthesist no one engaged with Manmeeth to make her feel comfortable or provide her any sense of being cared for.  As observers we felt uneasy and completely helpless. All we could do was to hold her hand in ours.

A weak smile on her face and a strong grip on Mohini's hand did not disguise her nervousness as they took her to the operation theatre. 

Three hours later they wheeled Manmeeth back into the room, where she remained in a state of agony and dazed for the rest of the day and night.  

My unease grew the longer I stayed by her bedside. Most of the staff were were fairly efficient, but they  appeared  least concerned with Manmeeth the patient. I could not overcome my disappointment that the hospital staff had touched her body but not her being. To them she was just a job, a patient number and could have been nothing more than a living piece of meat.

Most hospitals like to claim they are in the health-care business. 

This is very misleading in the sense is that people go to the hospital only when they are ill. Therefore hospitals do not provide health-care they provide illness-care and that too coldly and badly.

What is true is that illness-care has become a business and that is not necessarily a bad thing. What is terrible is that the business of most hospitals only focuses on mere profits without consideration for the customer (in this case the patient) or the staff. Such hospitals will eventually lose their business whenever a competitor with more patient focus will emerge.

The surgeons and the hospital staff all said the operation had been a success. 

In physical terms  they were probably correct. Psychologically and emotionally the surgery was a disaster. They had treated a body and not a person.

Being compassionate is what makes a us human. 

Ask yourself honestly, "Have I lost my compassion?" 

If you have, then remember it's never too late to re-find your compassion because you never know when you might need it yourself.