Introduction

Excerpted from Baisakhi Day 1699 and the Gift of Chardi Kalaa by SS Shanti Kaur Khalsa. 

The late seventeenth century was a brutal time in India. It was a time where it was punishable by death to sit next to someone of higher rank. Where, at the whim of the local ruler, dozens of common people could be rounded up and their blood fed to the emperor's hounds. This was the state of existence on the great continent of Bharat; the price of life was cheap, and in the matter of life and death there was no court of appeal.

During this time, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Rai (later to be known as Guru Gobind Singh) - sent out a call for all of his students to meet with him during the annual harvest celebration of Baisakhi. The year was 1699. Hundreds of thousands of people came. Guru Gobind Rai then tested his Sikhs. With sword in hand, he asked for a head. Out of the hundreds of thousands of people present, only five Sikhs had the bravery and courage to come forward and give their physical head to the Guru. But these five, later known as the Panj Piaray or Five Beloved Ones, became the first Khalsa. Guru Gobind Rai blessed them, and then initiated them with the first Amrit Ceremony. Most extraordinary, after the Guru had given Amrit to them, he then turned and asked the Five Beloved Ones to initiate him. Guru Gobind Rai received Amrit from the hands of the Five Beloved Ones and took the name Guru Gobind Singh. For the first time in the history of humanity, the Master became the disciple of his own students.

The Khalsa were created to be spiritual warriors or saint-soldiers who developed their spiritual capacity while defending the weak and down-trodden. During the centuries after this first Baisakhi, the Khalsa prayed and battled to bring about an end to the darkness that had taken over India.

In 1977, the Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji shared a story about the first Baisakhi. Excerpts from his talk are below:

Order of the Khalsa
By Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji
Originally published in Beads of Truth, Vol. 1, No. 35, Summer 1977

"Three hundred and some years ago, the finite being known as Guru Gobind Singh, the father of the Khalsa, could see the unseen times to come. He understood completely in the very depth of his being that times were going to come when humanity would have unlimited technology of the machine but would be very limited in their technology of the mind. And it is that barrier of technology of mind which we are unable to cross, which is causing us nothing but neurosis and insanity.

It is towards the one reality, that humans can live as humans, humans can enrich themselves as humans, humans can behold themselves as humans, and humans can behold themselves in the form, shape and in the energy and extension of their ecstasy unto God, that Guru Gobind Singh established the order of the Khalsa. It was for that thought, that this direct descendant and son of God so promised and so ordered and so told and so practiced. He said not a word from himself because he was not himself. He was the very self of God. And those today who do not understand his message are simply denying the time and space. Because within this time and space there are two things you can do: Blend yourself as pure ones, blend yourself as a totality, and then excel and experience yourself as the being of God: or work your neuroses, get sick, pay the psychiatrist, pay thirty dollars per hour and live on booze and whatever. The choice is now clear and it is so clear because whether you're in Viet Nam or in India or in Nepal or in Germany or in France or in America or in Argentina, you cannot escape the time and space. These political boundaries shall not bind the spirit.