YOUNGER GODS

The Lives Of Immortals

Warriors:

December 1st. An occasion of momentous celebration for the orthodox Sikh world. Two hundred and fifty nine years earlier, the legendary Khalsa veteran Nihang Gurbaksh Singh Shahid (1688-1764) and thirty subordinate warriors undertook their last stand against the parasitical Afghani Islamofascists. In the lead-up to this battle, the Dal Khalsa evacuated the sacrosanct Darbar at Amritsar having received intelligence that the fundamentalist Ahmad Shah Durrani was marching swiftly towards them.

Aware that the Dal and its non-combatants were unprepared for a decisive clash, the Misl Sirdars (confederate commanders forming the Dal Khalsa) advocated luring the Afghans within the Darbar to be ambushed while the greater body of Sikhs traversed away from Amritsar. However it was a foregone conclusion that the ambushers themselves would be slain in the ensuing engagement. Jathedar (generalissimo) Jassa Singh Alhuwalia was tasked with leading the evacuation due to his hierarchical seniority rather than dying unnecessarily on the front lines.

The Sikh who volunteered to stay behind was Gurbaksh Singh. A Nihang (warrior) of the Misl Shahid (martyr’s confederacy), Ratan Singh Bhangu describes Gurbaksh Singh’s stoic lifestyle in his Sri Gur Panth Prakash. He was a true Jeevanmukt, transcending all base attachments and obsessions forever conversant with his own physical mortality. Both prince and pauper were similar for him and he was armed to the teeth and a seasoned fighter . Not only did he volunteer to lead what was essentially a suicidal mission but also challenged others to stay behind.

When an unknowing Durrani and his extremist hordes entered the jungle precincts of the now silent Darbar, they were mystified as to the rapid disappearance of the much hated Sikhs. It was only when they ventured to enter the proximity of the Akal Takhat that they were suddenly greeted by a heavy barrage of bullets and projectiles. Misreading the ambushers’ strength, the Afghans engaged them with their own salvo. Their distance weaponry depleting swiftly, the Nihang and his fellows rushed forward for hand-to-hand combat.

The Singhs were bedecked as bridegrooms given Gurbaksh Singh’s poetic rendering of the moment as a wedding affair between the Sikhs and death. As their blood flowed like vermillion, the thirty-one Khalsas danced a macabre dance of death frenziedly slaying their Islamist foes. The Nihang was cornered but wielded his weapons with great dexterity mentally estimating the distance traversed by his fellow Sikhs with each sweep of his sword. Effortlessly dispatching Afghans, he acerbically targeted their religion with biting jibes.

Dusk spread its darkness and the stars shone down on a glorious scene where Gurbaksh Singh, despite having fallen to his knees out of fatigue, continued slaughtering the Islamist hordes shouting that every wound he ate washed away his sins. As the cadavers mounted, a foul sweep of the Islamofascist sword finally beheaded the elderly Nihang. Panting after a day-long battle and beset with trepidation at the demonic strength of the thirty Khalsa martyrs, the Islamofascist Afghans were set upon by returning Bhangi warriors and retreated.

Bhangu figuratively elaborates that upon entering the heavenly realms Gurbaksh Singh was honored by countless martyrs and finally received by Guru Gobind Singh himself. The martyrs subsequently bade him to sit in the divine court as they sought the Guru’s intercession praying that both Islamists and Sanataanis were plundering the Punjab. Only the Sikhs were dying for the land of five rivers and deserved relief for the successful implementation of their sovereignty. The Guru concurred while Gurbaksh Singh was transformed into a demigod.

Pattern:

There is a recurring pattern interlinking the ancient accounts of Khalsa martyrs. Everytime they fell in battle and/or were executed after refusing to concede on their faith, they were rendered demigods on account of their righteous obstinacy. Their physicality was supplanted with formless immortality increasing both their prestige and confirming their oneness with divinity. Despite the amalgamation of both the abstract and the metaphysical in the treatment of these martyrs post-death, it is easy to sift fact from fiction.

What transpires after death? In our prior article, we substantiated through Gurbani that the Khalsa’s self-consciousness continues by means of their soul extending influence from beyond the grave. There is no great change other than than the physical body dissipating into its constituent elements and the soul returning to its source.

ਕਬੀਰ ਸੰਤ ਮੂਏ ਕਿਆ ਰੋਈਐ ਜੋ ਅਪੁਨੇ ਗ੍ਰਿਹਿ ਜਾਇ ॥

ਰੋਵਹੁ ਸਾਕਤ ਬਾਪੁਰੇ ਜੁ ਹਾਟੈ ਹਾਟ ਬਿਕਾਇ ॥੧੬॥

“Kabir, why grieve when a seeker of the truth dies? They are only returning to their true homes. If anything, grieve for the unenlightened fools who repeatedly sell themselves.”

-Guru Granth, 1365.

Contemporary European accounts underscore that Sikhs historically celebrated death more than birth. The tradition continued well into the colonial era where slain Khalsa anarchists and revolutionaries were lionised as Mukat or liberated for their resistance to tyranny. It was well understood that after their deaths, they continued existing on the immortal plane guiding mortals via their legacy to emulate them in shedding their chains of baseness and transforming themselves into extensions of divinity, a new generation of immortal demigods.

Worship:

The Guru Granth is emphatic, true worship is reserved for the Creator and is performed when one lives a disciplined life within the confines of reality as mandated by divine wisdom.

ਨਾਮੁ ਤੇਰੋ ਆਰਤੀ ਮਜਨੁ ਮੁਰਾਰੇ ॥

ਹਰਿ ਕੇ ਨਾਮ ਬਿਨੁ ਝੂਠੇ ਸਗਲ ਪਾਸਾਰੇ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

“Your wisdom is my supplication and the source of all my righteous deeds. All other acts besides living your wisdom are obsolete nonsense.”

-Guru Granth, 695.

How does one obtain this wisdom?

ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਬਾਣੀ ਨਾਮੁ ਹੈ ਨਾਮੁ ਰਿਦੈ ਵਸਾਈ ॥

“For the Gurmukhs (the enlightened individuals), this Bani (the Guru Granth) is divine wisdom and by following it they live wisely.”

-Guru Granth, 687.

When we sieve away the mythological epithets of demigods from the deceased Khalsa, we observe a commonality attaching them to the Ciceron school of thought. Cicero (c.106 BC-c.43 BC) opined that after death, the virtuous among mortals became immortal godlike entities in their own right although he decried their worship in conventional terms. Instead, they were to be honored by emulating their conduct in life. Similarly, the Sikhs are not to worship their forefathers but live like they envisioned them living.

Younger Gods:

Upon consuming the hemlock he was sentenced to drink for his execution, a dying Socrates theorised that the virtuous dead do not truly die but become one with the Gods. This oneness is not of power or of worship. The Gods, for Socrates, remained Gods. Nothing could alter their divinity or skew their hierarchy. Rather, moral individuals were admitted to their fraternity through an invitation to partake of their immortality having earned it by struggling successfully through the trials and tribulations of life.

These younger Gods were not Gods per se but similar to Gods in the sense they were a means of inspiring humanity to shed its ignorance and aim for a higher standard of existence. An existence bordering on the divine. Not Utopian but constantly pushing mankind’s mental and physical boundaries to increase its collective and individual worth. Socrates envisioned this constant state of self-revolution burning away the vestiges of base mindedness and ignorance forever raising man to a higher plane than his bestial existence denoted.

To paraphrase Dawkins, man cannot righteously assert that he is not battling. He is constantly warring against his own genes. The use of contraception, the writing and reading of books, the composition of music, creativity, technological innovation, comfort, education, and an endless list of other human wrought changes on the face of the earth-all these are acts of rebellion against our genetic drive that would have us propagating our genes through reproduction and then dying with no use for the aforementioned achievements.

The younger Gods are those who not only overcome their genetic drive but also the baseness of their ignorant minds to openly confront themselves and master both their psychology and physicality ushering in a superhuman constitution liberated from lust, wrath, fear, obsession, and arrogance. For them death is an eventuality that allows the final judgement on their herculean struggle in life, whether they have become Mukat and earned immortality or failed and must now be rendered non-existent with their self-consciousness effaced.

From Ignorant To Immortal:

Bhangu’s treatment of Gurbaksh Singh’s immortality, while laced with the Indic tropes of his days, complies with the Sikh purview that a Gurmukh’s (an enlightened individual’s) demise transforms them in a praiseworthy immortal continuing with their proactive service of Creation. They become like the rescuers throwing ropes into wells to guide others out having climbed out themselves first. In the Sikh tradition, they provide an organic guide through their lives on how to live Sikhi.

Contrary to Socratic thought that the virtuous immortal only communicate through their legacy and not intentionally, Sikhi expounds that the Gurmukhs forever reside in the realm of proactivity or Karamkhand infinitely and intentionally inspiring humanity to discard its bestial state.

ਕਰਮ ਖੰਡ ਕੀ ਬਾਣੀ ਜੋਰੁ ॥

ਤਿਥੈ ਹੋਰੁ ਨ ਕੋਈ ਹੋਰੁ ॥

ਤਿਥੈ ਜੋਧ ਮਹਾਬਲ ਸੂਰ ॥

“Within the state of proactivity permeate the teachings of force. None else reside there but great and valorous warriors.”

-Guru Granth, 8.

Their primary objective is to emphasize the supremacy of the Guru Granth, the content of which unlocks the path to living in consort with reality. Only when the mortal Khalsa follows the Guru Granth by shedding their ignorance can they become like their deceased predecessors: immortals.

ਗੁਰਬਾਣੀ ਵਰਤੀ ਜਗ ਅੰਤਰਿ ਇਸੁ ਬਾਣੀ ਤੇ ਹਰਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਪਾਇਦਾ ॥੩॥

“Gurbani is now revealed to the masses, it is only through its teachings can we learn to live wisely.”

-Guru Granth, 1066.

And,

ਬਲਿਹਾਰੀ ਗੁਰ ਆਪਣੇ ਦਿਉਹਾੜੀ ਸਦ ਵਾਰ ॥

ਜਿਨਿ ਮਾਣਸ ਤੇ ਦੇਵਤੇ ਕੀਏ ਕਰਤ ਨ ਲਾਗੀ ਵਾਰ ॥੧॥

“I am a sacrifice to the (Maker’s) divine wisdom for the rest of my days for it renders mere men into immortals without delay.”

-Guru Granth, Asa Di Vaar.

Conclusion:

Nihang Gurbaksh Singh Shahid’s last stand reverberates just as strongly today as it first did when news of his martyrdom spread like wildfire throughout the Punjab. His immortality was cemented when generation after generation arose to combat tyranny after deriving inspiration from his legacy. The blend of ancient Ionian Greek traditionalism with Punjabi culturalism and Sikh doctrines lends a semi-metaphysical element to his immortality. Whenever and wherever his name is invoked and men seek to live like him, he takes their hand and guides them.

There are many who would argue today that Nihang Gurbaksh Singh does more than just guide. Martyrs like him also supernaturally answer our prayers. Such garbage disservices our ancestors’ legacy. They rarely relied on the deus ex machina of such intervention and to associate them with such imbecility ipso facto only degrades their bestowals upon us. They were not granted immortality to satisfy our desires, but to make us the paragons of perfection that they themselves were when physically present on this earth.