Goindwal – A Poem by Guru Tej Singh Khalsa
Where the Land lies green on fertile ground, At the bend of the river, Goindwal is found, In the humble village lived three Gurus; Amar Das and Ram Das, and Arjan, too But up in the village of Goindwal, In a sacred house with a peg in the wall, Lived Guru Amar Das, the third […]
Where the Land lies green on fertile ground,
At the bend of the river, Goindwal is found,
In the humble village lived three Gurus;
Amar Das and Ram Das, and Arjan, too
But up in the village of Goindwal,
In a sacred house with a peg in the wall,
Lived Guru Amar Das, the third Guru,
In the place where Arjan was born and grew.
I walked those streets to find that place
Where Guru sat in his sacred space,
Each step brought me closer to understand
That this path was carved by Guru’s hand.
For against that wall Guru would sit
And fate and destiny he would knit
Together in his meditations deep,
with his hair tied so that he wouldn’t sleep.
Around that peg his hair was tied,
To wake him up whenever he tried
To sleep, instead of meditate;
It pulled him up to stay awake.
And I understood, when I saw the wall,
That this path is the same for us all,
That only when we sit and meditate
Can we find the substance that makes us great.
It is the same for me, the same for you
As it was the same for the Guru;
That day by day we must sit and grind
ourselves slowly, slowly but exceedingly fine.
That wooden peg is smooth and worn
In the house where Arjan was born,
For the Guru was a man like you or me
Who followed this path to Victory.
Four hundred years later, here in the West,
Each new day we rise and face the test
To identify ourselves and stand our ground,
In this land where demons are found.
The course hasn’t changed since Guru’s time,
We all must bow low to be divine,
Japa and Tapa we must combine,
To give the light to shunya’s shine.
Guru has walked this way before,
As I walk it now to find his door
And it gives me hope when I recall
that humble peg in Goindwal.
-Guru Tej Singh Khalsa
