The Ardaas that we do daily in the presence of Guru Granth Sahib Ji, at the beginning and end of every work of life. But the prayer that is done today, when it was not even a vocabulary of prayer, then the prayer was still there. In reality, there is no need of words to pray. In an ancient source, a very lovely thing has been written about prayer that a Sikh who started going to the battlefield, when he was riding a horse, had only saying that ‘Kalgiyan walya meri Rakhya kari’ means oh lord (refers to Guru Gobind Singh ji) protect me, that was the prayer for him. Behind the prayer is the feeling and not the words.
There should be no sense of pride in prayer. Sikh prayer is very unique. Among its forms are religion, philosophy and society. In Guru Granth Sahib, the word Ardaas comes in many forms. Where did the word prayer come from?
Islam people consider it popular and Sanskrit people also consider it popular. It is surprising that some words from the original Semitic and Sanskrit languages have the same pronunciation and letters, but their meanings differ. For example, the word Amar in Guru Granth Sahib,
“ਸਚਾ ਤੇਰਾ ਅਮਰੁ ਸਚਾ ਦੀਬਾਣੁ ।।”
If the word ‘Amar’ comes into Persian, it means the abiding one, commandment. It means that your commands are true and your court is also true. Here this word is coming from Persian.
ਪੀ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਆਘਾਨਿਆ ਗੁਰਿ ਅਮਰੁ ਕਰਾਇਆ ।।
Here this word is coming from Sanskrit and here Amar means deathless. One source of Persian is ‘Tuzk-e-Jahangiri‘. In it, the command to martyr Guru Arjan Dev ji was given by Jahangir. Jahangir begins with ‘Amar Kardam’, I commanded. Similarly, there are many other words.
But the word Ardaas is such that if it comes from Sanskrit, then its root word will be arj+dasht (ਅਰਜ+ਦਾਸ਼ਤ) meaning to request, to express one’s story in the form of a request. If the same word comes from Persian, then its root word will be arddh+aas (ਅਰਦਧ+ਆਸ), arddh means heart and aas is the desire means the desire of the heart. It is a word that has almost the same meaning in both its original languages as a wish or a prayer from the heart.
If people think that my vocabulary is very good, I have very heavy letters for Ardaas/Pray, but God does not pleased with these things.
Shaykh Saadi has a share among the verses which relates to an Arabic story related to ‘Hazrat Musa’/ ‘Prophet Musa’. Hazrat Musa is the most respected prophet of Islam. An incident in the life of Hazrat Musa is mentioned in his contemporary sources. The story goes that a shepherd lives on top of a hill. Shepherd had no family, no clan, living on a very lonely hill. He keeps some sheep, does process to get their milk, sells some for a living and drinks some himself. He only has so much life.
The shepherd was living a very simple life and one day it came to his mind that why not go into the city and see how the people live there and he went to the city. Naturally, when he entered the city, there was a religious place there. The religious person (Imam) of that religious place was giving religious education. He was explaining what ‘Allah’ is. He said the first word that Allah is unclaimed. The shepherd fell into thoughts that I thought that God does not know whose son, but he is same as me. No entity claims him, and no entity claims me Qazi said the third thing ‘Khuda’ is la-mukaam, means god is not living at any single place.
The shepherd said that God, I am richer than you, come to me, come to the hut. Shepherd thought that today he found out that God is very poor. He came to the city to explore and understand the nature of God but after hearing this, he went back and thought God is just like me, even poorer than me. He came back and sat in front of his hut. Now a very different attraction has arisen in him. He is thinking that I am an orphan, I have gone through so much pain and God will also be suffering through these pains.
He is sitting and thinking, “God, I thought that you are very big, but today I found out that you are even poorer than me.” You have no parents, no one feeds you now, no one changes your clothes now, you not even have a house, for God’s sake you should come to my house. I will keep you in my house, feed you, sew your clothes. He became engrossed in these things. Hazrat Musa was passing by. They saw a dirty little shepherd talking to God. He dragged the shepherd and slapped him and said have you ever seen your face? Will God come to the house of someone like you? The shepherd sat quietly because what could he do in front of the rich man? Musa went to his place of worship.
Hazrat Musa went and sat on the mountain on which he used to worship. But he is unable to maintain calm state of mind. He was sitting in bondage for a long time but could not meditate. At last, he asked God that God why I could not meditate today? what wrong has happened today? God said today you came by destroying someone’s prayer(Ardaas). These words have been written by Sheikh Saadi in his persian book ‘Gulistan Bostan‘ in a share, ‘ਤੈਂ ਬਰਾਇਯੋ ਵਸਲ ਕਰਦਮ ਆਮਦੀਨ ਮੈਂ ਬਰਾਇਯੋ ਫਸਲ ਕਰਦਮ ਆਮਦੀਨ’ Oh Musa, I sent you into the world to bring back those who are broken, but today you came back having broken someone, who was connected to me.
The power he has in his prayer that you do not have. The ego of your words, knowledge may be big but there is no such that love in your words. Musa went back and had to apologize to the shepherd. After that he got able to worship of God.
There are no big words or definitions in the Ardaas of that shepherd, with simplicity he is saying that God, come to my house, I am ready to serve you. He has no ingenuity. He has naivety. Prayer should always be done with humility. Ardaas should have the clean feeling, with full of love without any cleverness.
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