CHAPTER 8 From the Mouth of the Guru

“I have to go back a little in the story first, and that may take some time. Baba has been mulling over the idea of a new alphabet for Punjabi for which, as you know, there is no script. He wants this because only a few people understand Sanskrit—mainly priests who believe that religious truths must not be passed on to common people, women, and sudars.⁵⁶ This makes people dependent on priests to communicate with God, while Baba believes that each of us can have direct access to God through our own hearts. Baba wants to invent something closer to the spoken language of Punjab that even women and low-caste people can understand. He mentioned this idea to Bhai Lehna within a day or two of the latter’s first arrival at Kartarpur, and Bhai Lehna and Baba have already created beautiful new numerals for Punjabi. Since his return from Khadur, Bhai Lehna has been working with total focus on a script, inventing characters for the new alphabet for Sikh scriptures. I was there when Bhai Lehna brought the first letter of the alphabet, which he has named oodaa, to Baba. Baba looked at it and his face lit up with joy. It looks like this,” Buddha says, reaching for Aziza’s wooden slate leaning against the wall, and writing on it with geru⁵⁷:. “In an inspired flourish Baba took the upper shackle of oodaa and opened it up and then he put the new Punjabi numeral ‘one’ before it, like this.” As he draws, the upper arc of the second letter goes beyond the edge of the slate.

“You see how the oodaa is not closed, but open to space, pointing both down and up, toward the earth and the sky, its upper end making an arc in the air. Mine has gone off the slate to show you there is no end to the space in which it unwinds!”

“What does it mean?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. After Baba had done this, both Baba and Lehna went into a trance. I couldn’t tell what it meant, but as I looked at it I found myself resonating like a rabab when Baba first touches it to make music. Later I got an explanation from Bhai Lehna.

“The ‘1,’ called ik, from the Hindi, ek, the numeral one, stands for the One supreme Energy of the universe: One, encompassing all the multiplicity of creation and all the contraries you can think of: chaos and order, black and white, secularity and spirituality. The second syllable is the holy sound, Om, or AUM, which the Vedas extol as being the first vibration that created the world. The last syllable, the ‘M,’ the way the Hindu sanyasis chant it, closing their mouths and taking the breath in, is indicative of their faith that the universe is entirely inner. This is why they ‘leave’ the world and become recluses. Baba goes beyond the ‘M’ to that One indivisible, inner, outer, active principle of the universe. By adding ‘kar,’ which is the root for create, work, action, and which opens up the ‘M’ and takes it outward, he shows his faith that the duality of inner and outer is One.”

“Does the script have a name?” Mardana asks.

“Ah!” Buddha pauses. “Magical things are happening at the dera. They hadn’t come up with a name for the script till Bhai Lehna had a dream. A few days after the ik om kar incident, Bhai Lehna came to Baba in the morning, his eyes sparkling with excitement, and said: ‘I have had a very powerful dream, Guru Ji. I saw a being with fiery eyes drenched in a fine rain that was falling all around him like gossamer threads, enveloping him in a rich, warm, golden glow. The rain was full of healing nutrients for the earth. He was old, very old, toweringly tall, skinny, almost gaunt, with a gray beard, something like yours but whiter, thinner, longer, and on his head he had so many turbans—orange, blue, purple, green, all the colors of the rainbow. I couldn’t count them, couldn’t see the end of them as they ascended like a cone into invisibility. His palms were open toward the sky, like this, receiving the bountiful rain. Down by his feet was a little gnomish fellow, a lizard-like being that was sitting on the rim of a well and guarding it closely. “Mine,” said the gnome, “mine, all mine.” ’

“The old man bent toward me, and his breath upon my face was like the sweetest of kisses. He whispered into my ear: ‘Gur Mukhi.’ I didn’t know what he meant.

“After a stunned pause, Baba burst into laughter. ‘Gurmukhi! Of course, Gurmukhi! He has given us the name for our alphabet, Lehna! What a perfect name! From the mouth of the guru! For the ear of the one who is turned toward the Incomparable One!’

“They were both very contemplative, very inner, and then Nanak turned to the younger man and asked,

“ ‘But Bhai Lehna, who is this tall man with many turbans?’

“ ‘I don’t know, Baba jee. I was hoping you would tell me.’

“ ‘He is you, Lehna. And me. He belongs to us and we to him.’

“ ‘He didn’t appear to be like either of us.’

“ ‘Appearance! Clothes that we shed when our time comes.’

Baba is very pleased with the name and the script,” Buddha continues his narrative. “Bhai Lehna is not only transcribing but also composing. He is also learning to play the rabab; Bebe Nanaki is teaching him. He has a lovely, youthful, almost feminine voice.”

“Feathers?” Aziza asks.

“All right! All right! Bhai Lehna is copying Baba’s bani,⁵⁸ and he was picking the longest feathers to make quills. Bhai Lehna has become Baba’s scribe. Bebe Nanaki, who, together with Baba Nanak, has been making little pothis from a very young age, and transcribing Baba’s words in them, has been teaching him calligraphy. Everything Bhai Lehna does, from cleaning the space where he sits, to cleaning the tools, he does in the spirit of intense devotion, reverence, worship. He sits cross-legged at his little desk for hours, his body, hands, fingers, mind, heart falling into a harmonious rhythm as he copies Baba’s bani, sometimes reciting it aloud, sometimes going into a trance when, on the feathers of his quill and the wings of Baba’s words, he flies into the Beloved’s heart.

“Once I looked over his shoulder and it seemed to me the words were dancing, each with the space next to it, and with each other, a dance between the black and the white, a perfect dance of beauty with truth. You can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.”

“But why was he picking the longest feathers?” Aziza asks.

“I’m learning a bit about quills, so I know why. He picked the longest feathers, the ones that were not crushed and had a long spine under the plumes, because the nib of the quill is blunted after about five pages, and it has to be cut further down the tube to make another nib. There has to be enough smooth space for the quill to be held, and if the feathers are beautiful they adorn the other end and dance as the scribe’s hand dances. Once the main shaft of a feather has been hollowed, it is thrust into hot, burning sand to make it hard, like a sword, which becomes unbreakable after it has been tempered in fire.”

“The hot sand also makes the quill more brittle so the nib can be shaped,” Mardana adds. “I was also Baba’s scribe during our journeys, writing down the words as they poured out from him like water from a spring. My handwriting was adequate, but no matter how painstakingly I worked at it, it kept changing according to my moods,” he laughs. “If I was calm it flowed out of me beautifully, the letters consistent and lovely, but if I was agitated, it didn’t even come out in a straight line!”

“Once when Bhai Lehna was away from his desk, I saw Lakhmi walk over and spill ink on the paper on which Bhai Lehna had written. I screamed out loud, and Lakhmi caught hold of me and gave me such a beating I ached for days afterward,” Buddha says, starting to sob like a child.

How grown-up and how childish he is at the same time, Mardana observes.

“I haven’t told anyone but you. How much good work was ruined, how hard poor Lehna had to work to make up for it!”

“Strange that his sons should become what Baba has denounced all his life,” Mardana reflects. “And yet, not so strange. Children will rebel against parents. Even Baba rebelled against his father, as you know.”

“And once I saw Sri Chand slap Bhai Lehna and it broke my heart!” Buddha says, wiping his tears.

“I think Sri Chand has the wrong idea about how to be Udaasi,” Mardana comments. “One day on our travels we met a sanyasi ⁵⁹ who asked Baba to define udaas. Baba said, to make use of all things in this world, but not think they are yours; to live your life fully without being attached to anyone, anything, any desire, idea, and to keep the flame of Love alive in your heart is udaas.”

“The other day,” Buddha said, “some new musicians at the dera went to Baba and asked him, ‘How shall we mortify our bodies to get nearer to God?’ ‘Sing!’ cried Baba. ‘Learn your raags, make it your daily practice, they will bring you and your listeners solace, deepen your faith and transport you to the very heart of Love!’ ”

“I love that story,” Aziza cries.

“Baba preaches engagement with all aspects of life,” Buddha says.

“What if you’re a girl who is not allowed to do anything, go anywhere, become anything? Just live all locked up in purdah?”

Buddha and Mardana are silent. Then Buddha sings, rather off-key:

man ray garih hee maahi udaas.

gur kai sabad man jeeti-aa

gat mukatgharai meh paa-ay.⁶⁰

“Buddha, if you really must sing, put a little effort into studying music,” Mardana pleads.

“I didn’t think I was that bad.”

“You were.”

“You were,” echoes Aziza. “What does the song mean?”

“ O mind, remain detached in the midst of your household. Through the Word of the Guru’s Shabad,⁶¹ the mind is conquered, and one attains the state of liberation in one’s own home.”

“You must write down that shabad for me. I will compose my own music for it.”

Buddha looks at Mardana, who nods his head.

“Yes, she is already composing, something I still haven’t learned to do. I only sang Baba’s compositions. Fatima! Fatima! Time for my halwa.”

“I’ll have some, too!” Buddha says, licking his lips.

“You don’t want to eat this halwa. It has charas⁶² in it,” Aziza says.

“I will make some for us, too,” Fatima volunteers.

“Yes, Daadi. Listening to good stories always makes me hungry.”

“Some of Sri Chand’s followers also have the dirty habit of smoking and drinking bhang, charas, and opium,” Buddha says, turning up his nose.

“Ah, it’s not a dirty habit, my friend. Don’t close your mind to things you don’t understand. In my youth I too smoked it. It was one of the pleasures of my life and still is, sometimes, when Fatima is kind enough to get some for me. My poor old lungs can’t take smoking it, but Fatima cooks it for me in a delicious halwa! But I am careful not to eat too much of it. It gives me an appetite when I don’t have one, which is most of the time; it makes my fading senses spring alive.”

“Bhai Mardana Jee, I didn’t know you were so wild in your youth! But I will never smoke it. Akaal Purukh’s name is a greater high, as Baba says.”

“This herb that makes my life magical is also Akaal Purukh’s gift! It helps me love Allah and his creation more! I am a poor creature who needs his little supports.”

“I’ll tell you what makes my inner and outer senses spring alive: being around Baba. He is the visible part of the Invisible, the very pulse and heart of life, the point where the universe lives and fulfills itself without any effort or will. In his presence one has the briefest inklings of the invisible foundation of existence.”

“Why, Buddha jee, you are talking like a poet!”

“I’m no poet but a puppet who speaks as he is spoken through.”

Fatima hands small bowls of halwa to everyone.

“Daadu Jaan, tell us the story about when you and Baba were imprisoned by the emperor Babar.”

“Before I do, can I ask Buddha a question that has been tickling my brain? Tell me, what happened after the battle between Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das? How is Baba taking the conflict in his family?”

56. Low-caste people.

57. A dark paste made of clay to write with on a slate or as a paint for walls.

58. From Sanskrit vani: voice, sound, music, utterance. In the Sikh context it means the compositions of the gurus and the holy saints and Sufis, incorporated in the Sikh scripture, SGGS.

59. One who has renounced the world.

60. Explained below.

61. Divine utterances, holy sounds.

62. Hashish.