Bhai Nand Lal Goya was a contemporary of Guru Gobind Singh, it is said that when Guru Ji was about to go into battle Bhai Nand Lal approached the Guru and asked him to bless him before going into battle, but instead Guru Ji took Bhai Ji’s sword and gave him a Pen.
Bhai Nand Lal Goya was a great poet and his writings are approved for recitation in Gurdwara’s, however as the writings are in Persian, we do not often hear this wonderful poetry.
We present below an English rendering of one of his verses.
The Garden of Life
“Love for You, like the breeze, blew me into the garden of existence.
There was no other urge for me to take birth.
Happy is the life that is spent in Your worship.
What else is there to gain beneath the blue dome?”
Divan-i-Goya 1:1-2 (verse 1 lines 1-2 of the book by Bhai Nand Lal Goya)
The ego is hot and burning. We get hot under the collar, go green with envy, cut ourselves up with jealousy. Love is cooling and healing and ever-fresh like a breeze. Life is compared to a garden in which we have been blown by Love. Love is Active enjoying the scent from here and there. Without Love one is stuck in one place – the ego-prison and cannot experience the flowers of the garden. Without Love the breeze passes away and one burns in the heat: the garden becomes Hell. This is a shame, for, the world is a Gurdwara, covered with a blue dome. It is a place for the experiment of living, to experience the Beauty of the Gift of Life.
Kanwar Ranvir Singh