Ardas

The word Guru is made up of two root words. Gu, meaning darkness and Ru, meaning light. Throughout the ages, different wisdom traditions have acknowledged that a Guru is needed for a human being to cross out of the darkness of ego and ignorance into the light of awareness, where the Divine is experienced within one's own self.

For countless generations, Gurus were human beings who guided other human beings towards enlightenment. But human Gurus often bring with them the problem of spiritual ego. Rather than acknowledging the One God, a human Guru may mistakenly think of himself or herself as a God and use their wisdom and power to mislead many.

Guru Nanak understood that the True Guru is not a person at all, but divinely-inspired sacred words that awaken a soul to its highest realization. For two hundred years and through ten Gurus, God created a Guru that was not a human - but simply the essential words that can guide a person to enlightenment. Through Guru Gobind Singh, God gave the Sikhs a Guru that would never die, that would never have a human personality or ego to mislead or confuse people. This Guru is the Shabd Guru, held in the form of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. This gift from God to all of humanity insures that, if any soul ever genuinely seeks truth, there is one place he or she can go to receive the truth directly, without the interference of a human ego.

The Ardas is a prayer that asks us to reflect on all that it took for the Divine to create this pure Shabd Guru on earth and all that the Sikhs had to endure in order to protect the Shabd Guru and insure that it made it into the hands of future generations. The Ardas recounts historical events that are deeply and profoundly moving, showing that the spirit of the Divine within the human being is capable of great acts of courage and sacrifice. The Ardas is a total meditation of the hundreds of years and thousands of people that acted in the Will of God in order for us to have the gift, today of meditating upon and understanding the Guru's wisdom. It also blesses the sangat today that it will do what it takes to make sure the Shabd Guru is handed to the future generations in tact.

The Ardas is always recited before the hukam is taken at Gurdwara as a way to inspire reverance in the listeners. If we truly reflect on all that has occured to give us this opportunity to be guided out of the darkness of our own ego and ignorance, we can receive the Guru's instruction with love and gratitude in our hearts.