When I began writing The Singing Guru, the first volume of the Sikh Saga, my agenda was to finish Guru Nanak’s story and move on to book two, about Bhai Lehna, who later became the second guru of the Sikhs under the name of Guru Angad.
The writing process, however, is happily irreverent about agendas and plans, and The Singing Guru ended midway through Guru Nanak’s journey on this planet, with the establishment of Kartarpur, the city he founded and which became the cradle of Sikhism. Lehna only made his appearance in the epilogue as the prologue to the next book in the series.
Not having learned my lesson the first time around, my intention when I began writing Book 2 in the series, Into The Great Heart, was to center the book on Lehna/Guru Angad. But The Singing Guru, though it was done and published, was still incomplete. I hadn’t dealt with Guru Nanak’s death, or Mardana’s, nor with the entire story of how and why Lehna came to Kartarpur, his deep and abiding service and love for Guru Nanak, the jealousy of Nanak’s sons towards him, the unfolding of the rest of the narrative all the way to the deaths of Guru Nanak and Mardana, the main protagonist in the first book, and the transformation of Lehna into Guru Angad.
The history and story are so complex and intertwined that my intention was once again, happily, muscled aside.
I say ‘happily’ because these books ended up being what they needed to be even though they involved more time and labor to complete.
All the gurus and bhagats in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib sing of the imperative to hold the ego in abeyance so a space is created for the universe to go to work in. They call this process and the rewards thereof, sehej.
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