Bhai Puriya and Bhai Choohar were Chaudhary (headmen of a small area) by profession and came to the refuge of Siri Guru Arjun Dev jee. Their profession was such that they could not avoid lying and doing other such sinful practices including corruption.

They came to the Darbar of Siri Guru jee and truthfully pleaded, “O Satguru jee, since we are Chaudharies we lie a lot; how can we attain salvation?”

Satguru jee did bachan (said), “You will have to stop lying if you want to be saved.”

They honestly replied back, “Jee, we are Chaudharies by profession and it is not possible for us to carry on with our profession without lying.”

Siri Guru jee is Param Kirpaaloo (Extremely Merciful). Siri Guru jee could have denied them Sikhi but Guru Sahib is always Merciful. Siri Guru jee lovingly, showering love from his Mukharbind (mouth) said, “If you can't stop lying, then apart from your Amritvela Naam Jaap, listen to Gurbani for about 2 hours (4-5 ghariya), with love and all day long continue with your profession as normal. At night, write all your sinful activities on paper. Every month come to Darbar for darshan and bring along your account of sinful activities done during the course of your profession.”

The Chaudharies happily obeyed the hukam. They started getting up at Amritvela to do Naam Abhyaas. Later on they would listen to Gurbani paath for about 2 hours. During the night, they would write all their sinful activities like lying, doing corruption etc. Then every month they would go to the Darbar of Guru Sahib and read out all their sins there.

The Paaras Kala of Gurbani never fails. Who ever listens to Gurbani and Naam with love and devotion gets his heart and intelligence cleaned and these Chaudharies were no exception. They felt extreme remorse and embarrassment when they read out their sins to Guru Sahib. They started getting fearful of sinning. They had the following options:

1) Continue to sin and write all sinful activities. They read them out to Guru Sahib once a month.

2) Since they felt embarrassed, they could have continued their sinful activities but not write all of them on paper.

3) Stop sinning and thus save themselves from the embarrassment they felt when reading out their sins to Guru Sahib.

They of course chose the last option i.e. to stop lying and doing corruption. At first they reduced their sinful activity to a bare minimum. They only lied when they could not avoid but slowly they totally gave up lying. It took them 6 months to reach this state.

Their tendency towards Dharma increased and their sinful activities stopped. This way they attained salvation. Bhai Gurdas jee has written about them as follows:

ਪੁਰੀਆ ਚੂਹੜ ਚਉਧਰੀ ਪੈੜਾ ਦਰਗਹੁ ਦਾਤਾ ਭਾਰਾ।

May Guru Sahib erase our sinful tendencies and enable us to chant Naam and derive pleasure (Rass) from it.

Humbly,
Kulbir Singh