Five Special Shabads in Praise of Guru Ram Das

Guru Ram Das Painting by Guru Kirin Kaur (Phoenix, Arizona)

Guru Ram Das Ji’s compositions in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib are characterized by deep emotional longing, profound humility, surrender, and a lyrical, devotional style that focuses on the soul’s union with the Divine through the Guru’s guidance.

He contributed a total of 679 compositions to the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. These hymns or shabads are spread across 30 different Raags (musical measures) out of the 31 primary Raags present in Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.

The breakdown of his compositions by type includes:

264 Shabads (shabds)
183 Pauris (stanzas)
105 Sloks (couplets)
58 Ashtpadis (hymns with eight stanzas)
38 Chhants (poetic stanzas)

In addition to Guru Ram Das Ji’s own compositions there are sixty compositions in praise of Guru Ram Das Ji in Siri Guru Granth Sahib referred to as Swayas. These Swayas written by bards, court poets or Bhatts (5 writing in praise of Guru Ram Das Ji) are found within a larger collection of Bhatt Bani located between pages 1389 and 1409 of Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.

The Swaiyās praise the Guru as the channel of Divine grace, through whom ego dissolves and the seeker realizes Truth. Liberation is not self-achieved but Guru-bestowed and external religious acts, intellectual pride, or ritual performance without humility are described as hollow. Only surrender and love lead to realization.

Each morning at the Golden Temple a selection of five swayas, including those described here, are recited as the sadh sangat observes the opening/Prakash of Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.

The Siri Singh Sahib Ji found these shabads to be a healing salve for the ego and made them an anchor of his soul and inspired many others to the beauty, inspiration and divine guidance of these shabads.

Guru Shabad Singh Khalsa created an album called “Raj Yoga: The 5 Shabads of Guru Ram Das”. This album is based on the collection of the five special Shabads (Swaiyas) in praise of Guru Ram Das, which the Siri Singh Sahib, Yogi Bhajan used at a particular time in his life.

The following is Guru Shabad Singh’s recollection about the history of why these Shabads were so important to the Siri Singh Sahib Ji:

One time there was a Gurdwara being held outside under a big tent. Yogiji was sitting there in a deep blissful meditation. As he sat there, a big wind picked up, and a monsoon storm started to gather. The Sangat began to disperse, grabbing all their things and leaving. After the storm left, an old man disrupted Yogiji who was still deep in meditation. The old man spoke to him, ‘You are a Yogi, aren’t you?’ Yogiji replied, ‘Yes, I am a Yogi. Why are you disturbing me?’ The old man said, ‘You have yogic powers and you stopped the rain.’ Yogiji said ‘No I didn’t’. The old man said, ‘Yes, you did. And if you continue to do that, you are going to reap the karma of having to relive all of the water life incarnations again. Now you have to hand water the Gurdwara grounds that were supposed to get water today, to make up for your mistake. When you use your yoga powers like that, you change the Will of God and for that there’s always a price to pay.’

After some reflection, Yogiji realized that in fact, he did stop the rain. In his blissful meditation, he didn’t want the rain and the wind to disrupt the peacefulness of the gathering and wanted to remain in his meditative state.

Hearing the warning from the old man, Yogiji put in a request to his superior officer to be stationed to Amritsar. He was going to wash the floors of the Golden Temple until he got rid of his Siddhi. He would later say, ‘All of you would beg to have the yogic powers that I have. But I wanted to get rid of mine, to be free of the entanglements they bring’.

For 4 1/2 years, every day he washed the floors of the Golden Temple. While he washed the floors, he would often touch the water to his forehead, and pray to Guru Ram Das, that the dust of a saint might be in that water.

Day by day, while washing the floors, the Gurbani seeped into his brain. Until one day, he had an experience that was like seeing ‘a light like the light of a million rays of the sun’. The experience was so liberating that he wanted to express his gratitude to Guru Ram Das. He thought, ‘maybe I will write some poetry’. Soon after, his thought became ‘No, my poetry would be completely insufficient. It has to come from Gurbani’.

He decided that he would search for five Shabads that would truly express his deep gratitude. And after finding these five Shabads, they became ‘The 5 Shabads of Guru Ram Das’. Some years later, after he came to the West, he shared those five Shabads with us, indicating that since Guru Ram Das is his ‘personal Guru’, he is also then ‘our personal Guru’, since we are his students. This was his gift to us.

He would later teach us that the lesson from this also meant that as our teacher, he cannot ‘make’ someone’s destiny come to them, even though he had the power to do that. He could only ‘guide’ his students to their destiny, as he would otherwise be changing the Will of God.