There was a man I heard stories about in my youth, an elder whose name was carried on the wind like a prayer. His story wasn’t about war, though he fought. It wasn’t about struggle, though he endured. It was a story of love, the kind that expands past the limits of body and time, the kind that elevates a person beyond themselves.

This man lived for love – not the fleeting, conditional love we often mistake for devotion, but a love so pure and unshaken that it transformed him. It shaped his every action, filled his every breath, and made his body a vessel for something far greater than survival.

His love was discipline. His love was duty. His love was unwavering.

The Power of Devotion

My understanding of him is that the moment he could understand the world, he had given himself over to something higher. He studied. He trained. He prepared. Not because he sought glory, but because love demands readiness. He sharpened his mind with wisdom and his hands with skill. He woke before the sun and bowed his head in reverence, not because he was told to, but because his heart could not do otherwise.

And when the time came for him to stand, to protect, to uphold all he held sacred, he didn’t hesitate. They say his steps never faltered, that even when the world tried to bring him down, love lifted him. His body may have suffered, but his spirit remained untouched, unbreakable.

How does a man achieve the impossible? How does he defy the limits of flesh and bone?

Love.

Not the love that clings or begs. Not the love that is fickle or afraid. But the love that frees, the love that burns bright enough to make suffering irrelevant, the love that transforms a person into something beyond themselves.

Beyond the Physical

We live in a world where strength is measured by endurance, by how much we can take before we break. But this man showed that true power doesn’t come from resistance. It comes from surrender. He didn’t fight because he hated what was in front of him. He fought because he loved what was behind him.

And when his body was supposed to fail, love carried him further. When the mind should have given in to doubt, love turned it into clarity. He did not merely endure; he transcended.

Love elevates. It takes us past the small self, the self concerned with pain, with loss, with fear. It places us in alignment with something greater, something eternal. It asks us to let go, not to retreat, but to rise.

The Game of Life

We all play a game, one where the stakes are high and where the challenges are many. Some play to win, to conquer, to claim what is theirs. But the ones who truly change the game are those who play for love.

Love isn’t soft. Love isn’t passive. Love is the force that moves mountains, that bends time, that allows a person to stand when every law of nature says they should fall.

That man I heard about in my youth, he didn’t just live. He became something more, something eternal. And if we’re willing, if we’re devoted, if we choose love over fear, perhaps we can too.

This is a story isn’t just about one man, but of all of us. Love is the path. Love is the power. Love is the game.

And when you play for love, you never lose.

With love, 

Gurmukh

P.S. Baba Deep Singh Ji