By Shanti Kaur
The mantra Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru came to Yogi Bhajan through an experience of prayer and spiritual challenge. Unlike many mantras drawn directly from Gurbani, this mantra came to us as a revealed mantra: a sacred sound current received by Yogi Bhajan in meditation. This mantra is an important part of our community, a channel for protection, healing, and connection to Guru Ram Das.
Before coming to Canada in 1968, Yogi Bhajan studied with Baba Virsa Singh in New Delhi. Baba Virsa Singh was a well-known mystic of his time. When Yogi Bhajan came to the West, he came as a student of Baba Virsa Singh.
In December 1970, Yogi Bhajan traveled to India as a yatra with a group of approximately 85 Western students, returning to India for the first time since he had left. For many, it was their first encounter with the land and culture from which the Sikh Gurus had emerged. They visited sacred places, met Sikh leaders, and presented the extraordinary sight of young Westerners wearing turbans, practicing yoga, chanting the Name of God, and adopting the Sikh path. Their presence was received with enthusiasm in some places and skepticism in others.
During the journey, Yogi Bhajan and the yatris returned with a sense of homecoming to Gobind Sadan, the newly formed ashram of Baba Virsa Singh near New Delhi. The group stayed for a time with Baba Virsa Singh, camping on the undeveloped land. A journal in our archives from that time records how difficult relations were between the Western students and the traditional Sikhs who were hosting them. Unfamiliar with the traditions of India, the young people shocked and appalled the longtime residents of the ashram. When he was asked to deal with it, Yogiji said that their devotion was unmatched and to leave them alone!
Eventually, Baba Virsa Singh told Yogi Bhajan that these new students were his own, as was the traditional relationship between a master and his students. He declared that they all should come and bow to him. This did not sit well with Yogiji, as he was very protective of these young people who had followed him to India. He knew that they were innocent and in the course of time, they would be taken advantage of both emotionally and monetarily. He avoided that encounter as long as he could.
Finally, Virsa Singh confronted him, and Yogiji took the difficult stand of breaking with his teacher. He said, “You are not my guru, and these young people are not your students. Guru Ram Das Ji is my Guru, and they belong to him.”
This answer brought a scornful laugh from Virsa Singh. With a sense of challenge, he asked, “If Guru Ram Das is truly your Guru, then what is your Gurmantra? How has he initiated you? A disciple claiming a Guru should be able to name the mantra received from that Guru.”
Yogiji replied that Waheguru was his Gurmantra. “No, no”, replied Virsa Singh, “Waheguru is the mantra of the Khalsa. That is everyone’s mantra. What is your personal Gurmantra from Guru Ram Das?”
Yogi Bhajan had no answer, and he left that meeting with a burdened heart. “If Guru Ram Das loves me,” he thought, “then he will save my honor.”
From about 1960, Yogi Bhajan had experienced Guru Ram Das as a living spiritual teacher whose guidance was received through devotion and meditation. Through the grace of Guru Ram Das, his own life had been transformed, particularly through seva at the holy Harimandir Sahib. He frequently spoke of washing the marble floors there and of receiving an inner awakening through that humble seva.
The morning after the challenge, Yogi Bhajan rose in the Amrit Vela and entered his personal meditation. According to the account he gave his students, Guru Ram Das appeared to him in his radiant form. In the words of Yogi Bhajan from the book, The Man Called the Siri Singh Sahib,
“And thus spoke the Guru: ‘At this time you need the protection of a mantra. The people who are following you are not ripe. Chant this: Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru. You do not want to claim anything as your own achievement, and you don’t want to take the blame either. Let the claim be mine and let me also take the blame. Now, say this mantra.’ And I started saying slowly, hesitantly, and I liked it.
“Then I just ran and told that man that I had actually seen Guru Ram Das in a very beautiful light and form. He got very annoyed because he thought he could prove that I had to come to him as my guru. He told me that he would show me the truth. After that, they did make plans and attempts to kill me and to do other things to us, but that mantra did protect us throughout the entire ordeal.”[1]
This was not a mantra Yogi Bhajan had intellectually constructed. It was a blessing received, an answer given through the subtle relationship between Guru and Sikh. The challenge of the previous day had not produced an argument or a defense. It had produced a prayer.
MSS Krishna Kaur’s recollection preserves the atmosphere of that morning. Shortly before four o’clock, she walked with Yogi Bhajan and Premka Kaur through the cold and quiet streets toward the place where the group gathered for sadhana. They entered a simple storage barn, where a wood-burning stove offered the only warmth and light. After leading the students through exercises, Yogi Bhajan taught them the mantra he said Guru Ram Das had given him only minutes earlier. Krishna Kaur remembered the tenderness and conviction with which he sang it. She described him as being like a child seated in the lap of his father, receiving the strength to carry a message of hope into a troubled world. Her recollection, first published in 1978, is the earliest detailed account by someone present at the mantra’s introduction, in January 1971.[2]
What followed gives the experience its continuing significance. Yogi Bhajan did not keep the mantra as evidence of a private spiritual attainment. He immediately carried it into the sangat and gave it freely. Over the years, musicians have composed many melodies for it, healers use it in their work, and countless people turned to it during illness, grief, confusion, and moments when no human solution seemed sufficient. The mantra became one of the most important, devotional sound currents of the Sikh Dharma community and an expression of its personal relationship with Guru Ram Das.
The way the mantra came reveals something about its nature. It arose when Yogi Bhajan’s relationship with his Guru was challenged. Yet the answer was not a self-assertion. It is a devotional call that directs the mind away from the teacher and toward the source from which guidance comes. Its power lies in the movement from human limitation into Infinite wisdom, and from Infinite wisdom back into a life of humility and service. In this way, Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru remains not only the account of a revelation received in 1971, but a call to every seeker to become quiet enough to receive guidance, humble enough to serve it, and devoted enough to carry it into the world.[3]
[1] The Man Called the Siri Singh Sahib, 1979, p.71
[2] https://www.sikhdharma.org/guru-guru-wahe-guru-guru-ram-das-guru/
[3] Author’s Note: Although many people know this story, the Siri Singh Sahib was very clear, out of respect for his former teacher, that no one should name Baba Virsa Singh in the retelling. I asked him if there would ever be a time when I could write Virsa’s name in this story as a historical fact, and he told me, “Yes, you may do this. But only after both he and I have left this earth plane.”
So, here we are.
