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I. GENERAL
Religion
deals essentially with three subjects of the nature of
reality, the nature of man and it relation to this reality,
and lastly, with the way to reach this reality. The first two
subjects belong to philosophy proper and it is the third
subject which brings the other two also into the domain of
religion. As long as religion merely defines the nature of
reality and seeks to lay down the true values of human
activity, it is no more than philosophy and ethics, but when
it seeks and promises to help human soul to take these truths
to heart and to put them into action with the object of
resolving the problem of suffering, which is inherent in the
innermost core of man, the self-consciousness, then it becomes
religion proper. Man can possibly keep his mind away from the
intellectual problems of the mystery of universe, the nature
of his own self and that of the world around him and the
nature of the relationship that binds both, but he cannot help
yearning and suffering. As Pascal has said, "Man is the only
wretched creature that there is", and a religion which did not
whole-heartedly tackle this problem would ring hollow. In this
sense, Buddhism was eminently right when it declared that the
basic problem, demanding resolution of religion is "sab dukhan",
i.e., that all individuated conscious existence entails
suffering, which means that suffering inheres in the very
nature of the human individuality.
Sikhism is
essentially a Religion of the Way, i.e., something that must
be lived and experienced rather than something which may be
intellectually grasped and comprehended. True, there can be no
practice without the doctrine. Sikhism, therefore, has its
doctrines, its views of reality, its view of the nature of
man, and their interrelationship, but it lays primary stress
on the practice, the discipline, "the way which leads to the
cessation of suffering", as Gautam, the Buddha, had formulated
it.
A careful
reading and understanding of the contents of the Sikh
scripture shows that the religion of Sikhism has three
postulates implicit in its teachings.
One,
that there is no essential duality between the spirit and the
matter.
Two,
that man alone has the capacity to enter into conscious
participation in the process of evolution, which further
implicates that the process of evolution, as understood by the
modern man, has come to a dead-end and it, therefore, must be
rescued by the conscious effort of man who alone is capable
now of furthering this process. [2]
Three,
that when man reaches the highest goal of evolution, namely,
the vision of God, he must not be absorbed back into God of
voidness, but must remain earth-conscious so as to transform
this mundane world into a higher and spiritual mode of
existence. Brahmgyani paropkar onmaha.[3]
The first
of these propositions is a postulate of philosophy, though in
the context of philosophic speculations of the world, it is
startling enough. The view taken by Sikhism on this point is
that the spirit and the matter are not antagonistic to each
other, the one subtle, the other gross, and that the core of
the human nature, wnich is self-conscious, and the physical
nature, are accountable ultimately in terms of the subtle. The
mathematico-physical aspect of the universe is as real as its
subtle aspect is, though to a mode of consciousness which is
pin-pointed and individuated, they appear to be poles apart. A
true comprehension, however, which results from the religious
discipline of sublimating and integrating the human faculties,
removes this basic duality between the mind and the matter.
"When I say truly, I knew that all was primeval. Nanak: the
subtle and the gross are in fact identical.' [4] This
assertion is repeated in the Sikh scripture again and again in
exegesis of the basic formula of Sikhism given as the opening
line of the Sikh scripture in which it is postulated that,
"The Primary is true, the pre-Temporal is true, the Phenomena
is true, and also the yet-to-be-evolved is true." [5] This
view of reality, which Sikhism postulates, has far-reaching
implications, both in respect of the traditional Hindu
philosophy, and the problem of the true conduct for man.
Firstly, it, in essence, repudiates the basic concept of Hindu
thought embodied in the doctrine of maya, which is postulated
as the illusory power which createth appearances and
ignorance. True, the subtle Hindu mind characterises it as
anirvachnEya, "unsayable whether is, or is not", "real, yet
not-real", but it definitely is a veiling obscuring power of
nature, and an agent of error and illusion, accountable for
the manifestation of all phenomena. In Sikhism, the term maya
is retained, but it is interpreted otherwise so as to make it
not a category of existence, but a characteristic of a stage
and plane in the involution of the spirit. The result of this
reinterpretation is replete with tremendous consequences for
the practical outlook of man. The world of phenomena is no
longer a dream and a phantasmagoria in the minds of the gods,
to be bypassed and shunned. It is as real, in fact, as the
Ultimate Reality, but the perceiving human mind is beset with
limitations that must be transcended and cut asunder before it
can be seen thus. It is this that made it possible for Sikhism
to lay down that the highest religious discipline must be
practised while remaining active in the socio-political
context, and not by giving up and renouncing the worldly life.
It is this which has given the Sikh mind a sense of urgency,
and imparted to it a genuine strain of extroversion which the
Western mind has achieved only through adopting basically
different postulates, such as, that this one life on earth is
the only life a soul may look forward to till the end of time,
and that the essence of the real is its characteristic of
being the object of sensory-motor perception. It is the
peculiar virtue of Sikhism that while it retains the primacy
of the spirit over the matter, it prevents human life
degenerating into the purely secular, utilitarian and
expedient modes of activity. It is a further virtue of this
postulate of Sikh religion that it lends the necessary sense
of urgency to the mind of man, [6] and imparts to it an
extrovert motivation in so far as it is essential to retain
them for human welfare, material prosperity and spiritual
advancement of this earth.
The second
postulate inherent in the teachings of Sikhism is that the
blind urge of evolution, after reaching the point of creating
the self-conscious man, has come to a dead-end and, by itself
now, it is incapable of making any further progress, unless
the self-consciousness, in which is grounded the will of man,
now takes a consciously guided and directed part to goad the
evolutionary urge and guide it. "Hail the Guru, for, he
teaches and aids the ascent of man over himself.' [7] This
line of thought, in various forms, runs throughout the
voluminous Sikh scripture, and it is legitimate to say that
the concept of the 'superman', which agitated the mind of
Nietzsche during the 19th century in Europe, and from whom the
modern Indian thinker, Aurovindo Ghose, has taken his cue, is
first of all and truly adumbrated in the Sikh scripture; and
that the conscious effort of man alone is at this stage,
capable of furthering the process of evolution that has gone
so far to make and shape the material and human world, is now
more or less accepted by the thinking modern minds.
But by far
the most startling postulate of Sikhism is that the true end
of man is not such a vision of God which culminates in
re-absorption of the individual into the absolute reality, but
the emergence of a race of God-conscious men, who remain
earth-aware and thus operate in the mundane world of the
phenomena, with the object of transforming and spiritualising
it into a higher and more abundant plane of existence. "The
God-conscious man is animatcd with an intense desire to do
good in this world."8 In the past, the aim of the highest
religious discipline was taken and accepted as the attainment
of identity with or propinquity to God. It was not thought in
terms of utilising the God-consciousness for transforming and
spiritualizing the life on earth, and the humanity. It is this
revolutionary postulate of Sikhism which is the true prototype
of the sophisticated philosophy of the modern Hindu sage,
Aurovindo Ghose, though there is no concrete evidence to
suggest that he is directly indebted to the Sikh thought.
Those, however, who know how basic and revolutionary
postulates of this kind are capable of influencing men and
minds, far separated by distance and time from the original
epiphany of the doctrine, may perceive no difficulty in seeing
the connection between the two. In this connection, it is
interesting to recall that not long ago, when Ramakrishana
Paramhansa, the modern Hindu savant, was at his most critical
stage of theophanic development, it was a Sikh ascetic, Udasi
Totapuri, who imparted to the Paramhansa the Sikh esoteric
instruction efficacious for removing impediments on the
spiritual path, and that is why the most illustrious chela of
the Paramhansa, Swami Vivekanand, so often uttered and
introduced into his writings, the Sikh mystic formula,
Waheguru. Again, the Maratha upsurge of the 18th century, the
pride and symbol of the political consciousness and
self-respect of the modern Hindu nationalism, is admitted as
having been directly inspired and nourished by the teachings
of Ram Das Samarth, the spiritual guide of the great Shivaji,
and it is a true, though obscure, fact of history that Ram Das
Samarth is directly indebted to the Sikh teachings as imparted
to him when he met the Sixth Nanak, Guru Hargobind, in
Kashmir, in 1634. As the Gurmukhi manuscript (Khalsa College
Library, Amritsar, circa 1780 ), Pothi Punjab Sakhian
accounts, the Guru taught the Maratha saint that the essence
of Sikhism is to be an ascetic within and secular without, for
Guru Nanak taught mankind to transcend the little ego and the
appearances and not to renounce the world, whereupon the
Maratha saint exclaimed: "This appeals to my mind."[9] The
inspirer and preceptor of the founder of the Arya Samaj,
Vrijanand, a high-caste Brahmin, native of Kartarpur in the
Punjab, had before settling down at Banaras as a Vedalearned
man, imbibed the Sikh declaration that "unless the mankind
pays heed to that which is true essence of all Veda, namely
doctrine of the Name, they shall remain confused and
misdirected.'' [10] Be that as it may, the effects of the
seminal ideas of Sikhism can be shown to have molded and
shaped the entire history of modern India.
What is
the discipline and the practice which Sikhism recommends as
necessary and efficacious for attaining this
God-consciousness, and for yoking it to the evolutionary urge
for transformation of life and humanity on this earth, and on
the plane of mundane existence? It is the doctrine and
practice of the Name. "In the age through which humanity is
passing now, no other practice but that of the Name is
efficacious. Therefore, practice the discipline of Name.''
[1l] This message is repeated again and again in the Sikh
scripture. "O, my soul, there is no help but in the Name;
other ways and practices are not so sure.''[l2]
Now, what
is this 'discipline of the Name', which Sikhism teaches as the
essence of the religion for mankind in the present age?
In the
history of religion, broadly speaking, five paths have been
recognised as efficacious for leading to liberation, i.e., for
achievement of the summum bonum of religion:
(1)
disinterested action, known as the Karmayoga in Hindu
religious thought;
(2)
devotion, known as bhakti;
(3)
gnosis, the jnan;
(4) the
ritual, known as yajna; and
(5)
asceticism, maceration or tapas.
This fifth
and the last path to liberation is a typical Indian
contribution to the history of religious practices. All the
other four have been, more or less, universally accepted in
some form or other, with varying degrees of stress on each, as
valid paths to liberation. In the Sikh scripture, the first
three are variously mentioned and subsumed under the inclusive
title, 'the discipline of the Name'. No logically systematic
account of the theory or practice of the Name is given in the
Sikh scripture, however, for the idiom of the writings itself
forbids such an approach, but throughout its voluminous pages
it is stressed again and again with a wealth of metaphor and
imagery, illustrative material and exposition, that, at the
present stage of mankind the discipline of the Name is the
only suitable and efficacious practice for leading to the
vision of God and for achieving the unitive experience of the
Numenon. The discipline of Bhakti and discipline of Karma, the
disinterested works, is also mentioned variously, commended
and praised but throughout it is tacitly assumed that it is a
part and parcel of the generic discipline, "the practice of
the Name." The limitation and the sickness in the soul of man
can be removed only by mercerizing it with the chemical of the
Name. [13] The vision of God is not easier to have by any
other endeavor than that of the Name and man engages in this
effort only by good fortune, for all the other disciplines and
practices pale into insignificance before the practice of the
Name. [14] It is asserted that the true knowledge is a fruit
of the practice of the Name, and that devotion, Bhakti, is a
corollary of the discipline of the Name. [l6] It is further
said that disinterested action, the practice of Karmayoga, is
a natural disposition and propensity of the man in whom the
discipline of the Name is ripened. Prabhu kau simarahi se
paropkari. [17]
It is
clear, therefore, that Sikhism teaches a religious discipline
which is in essence a practice which includes the techniques
of yoga, the psychological and spiritual integration, the
technique of bhakti, the supreme training of the emotions in
the service of one supreme end, and a socio-politically active
life motivated not by the little ego of the individual, but by
an individual self which is yoked to the universal self.
The
technique of yoga has aroused a great deal of interest in the
West and in the whole of the modern world during the recent
years, but mostly as a technique for achieving mental poise
and physical health, though this is not the true purpose of
the science of yoga as originally conceived. The concept of
yoga, though, not the term, is as old as the Rig Veda itself.
That the Vedic material is complex is recognized in the
Nirukta itself which takes account of several methods of its
exegesis. In recent times, particularly by Western scholars of
archaeology, it has been suggested that Vedic material is
primarily historical events transmuted into myth. It is said
by others that it consists of poetic exordium to the Brahminic
ritual. There is then a theory, recently revived by Sri
Aurovindo Ghose, that the Veda is a vast piece of symbolism
representing the passions of the soul and its striving for
highest spiritual realms, a concept which he himself has
adopted as the prototype of his great poem, the Savitri.
Again, Bergaigne suggested the theory that all mythological
portrayals in the Veda are variants of the sacred fire and the
sacrificial liquor, the Soma.[18] Whatever maybe said about
this last as a general theory of interpretation of the Vedas,
it has the merit of suggesting a method which appears to be
plausible, for, obscure Vedic texts assume some kind of
coherence in general if in them we seek an attempt at
portraying correspondences between the world of men, the
performers of the yajna, and the immaterial ethereal world of
the gods, in short, the microcosm and the macrocosm. The
primary function of the rishis, the revealers and preservers
of the Veda, was to ensure the ordered functioning of the
mundane world, and of the religious ritual, by reproducing the
succession of cosmic events in their ritual and in the imagery
which that ritual embodies, and this is the true meaning that
tne Vedic ritual signified. The term rita, the basic concept
of Vedic imagery, is a designation of the cosmic order which
sustains the human order, the social ethics and the social
coherency. Terms such as dhaman, kratu, have a two-fold
significance according to whether they refer to men or the
gods, to the plane of the adhyatmam or the adhidaivatam, as
the Upanishads point out. Thus understood, the Veda portrays
the cosmic magical synthesis, symbolically expressed. The
cosmic order is conceived as a vast yajna, the prototype of
the yajna which the men must perform so as to ensure the
integration of the two. Thus, Vedism is already a form of
collective, communist yoga in which the gods and men both play
their parts as witnesses and participants. It is this strain
of thought which accounts for the yearning of the Hindu mind
that constantly seeks hidden correspondences between things
which belong to entirely different conceptual systems. The
science and the technique of yoga, as it has been developed in
India for thousands of years, is thus as old as the Hindu
thought itself. The term comes from the Sanskrit root yuj,
which means to yoke or join together. As the specific science
of spiritual discipline, it is intended to signify the union
of the individual self with the universal self, the vision of
God or the absorption into God. As an art, the technique of
yoga has been used, since the beginning of Hindu historical
times, as the archaeological discoveries recently made in the
Indus valley, Mohenjodaro, show, where a big tank surrounded
by unventilated cubicles, designed to ensure deoxygenation
calculated to alter body chemistry facilitative of
introvertion, has been unearthed, lending support to the
speculation that already in the millennia before the dawn of
the Christian Era, the art and practice of yoga was
well-developed and well-established. Its techniques and
teachings have been accumulated through a continuous stream of
adepts who have handed them down from generation to
generation. Patanjali, a Hindu savant of the 4th century B.C.,
is the author of the text Yogasutra, which is now the most
ancient text extant on the science of yoga, though its opening
sutra says, "Now, a revised text of yoga", which makes it
clear that this text is, by no means, the first of its kind,
The philosophical basis of this system of yoga, as expounded
by Patanjali, is the Sankhya which teaches that the world
order is risen and is an expansion of the highest kind of
intelligence, the Mahat; that there is no part without an
assignable function, a value, a purpose; that there is always
an exact selection of means for the production of definite
ends; that there is never a random aggregation of events; that
there is order, regulalion and system. It postulates two
ultimate realities, the spirit and the matter, the purusha and
the prakriti, to account for all experience, as logical
principles out of which all things evolve. The fundamental
tenet of the Sankhya is that creation is impossible, for
something cannot come out of nothing, ex nihilo nihilfit, and
that the real movement, therefore, only consists of
modification. This is the central doctrine of the Sankhya, and
is called, satkaryavada, (Sankhya Karika, 9) and its whole
system evolves from this as its logical ground. The Sankhya
divides this process of cosmic modification into 25 categories
of mind and matter, and shows how the whole phenomena has
evolved out of these two sources in accordance with these
categories. The philosophy of orthodox yoga postulates that
what is true of this macrocosm is also true of the human
microcosm and that, as the individual soul has involuted,
through a set process, out of the universal Spirit, it can, by
the reverse process, evolute into the universal spirit. The
yoga assumes that the individual soul is the part and parcel
of the universal substance, but so involved in the context of
time and space as to have lost all his own and original
position, to absolve him from the clutches of matter and to
return to the essence from which he came, and thus to abstract
him from every aspect of time and space.
Since
Sikhism abolishes the duality of mind and matter, it, by
implication, refuses to base the philosophy of its discipline
of the Name on the orthodox categories of the Sankhya. The
Sikh doctrine of the Name does not assume the traditional
cosmological theory as set forth in the Sankhya system, but it
does assert that the basic sickness of the human soul arises
out of its individuation, its involution and descent from the
universal Spirit, and that the cure and health lies in a
process of evolution towards its primal source, which is
God.[19] For this, it recommends a psychological technique,
the first step and ingredient of which is the mechanical
repetition of the Name of God accompanied by a constant and
unceasing effort to empty the individual mind of all its
sensory and ideational contents, conscious as well as
sub-conscious. [20] Since Sikhism recommends that religion
must be lived and practised in the socio-political context, it
has modelled this practice of the yoga of the Name so as to
make it possible and practicable for a person to pursue this
discipline simultaneously while engaged in earning honest
livelihood. The complicated technique of yoga, as laid down in
the text of Patanjali, and the philosophical concepts by which
it is validated, both go together and the earning of
livelihood and this practice of the yoga, as it is explicitly
laid down, cannot go together. In Sikhism, this predicament
has been trancended by evolving a technique which is at once
practicable and efficacious. This practice of thc Name is
mechanical to start with, but has its dynamic adjuncts,
without which it cannot succeed. The first adjunct is the
ethical life. The Sikh scripture lays constant stress on it
that unless a man leads an ethical life, he cannot come nigh
unto God, although Sikhism does not confuse the ethical
commandment and value with the religious experience and value
as such. A Sikh, engaged in the discipline of Name, himself
must lead a life of the highest ethical purity, in word,
thought and deed, every faltering from this path of rectitude
constitutes a stumbling block in the path of his ultimate
realisation of God. "A man of religion must be wholly
motivated by ethical rules of conducts.'' [21] He is bidden to
rely upon prayer and the company of holy men to support and
sustain him in his life of ethical rectitude. As he progresses
in the path of spiritual realisation, he must deem it as his
duty to persuade and help others to tread the same path
through socio- political activity which must be progressively
purifled of all taints of selfishness. This is the doctrine of
seva of Sikhism, without which, the Sikhism declares, the
practice of Name does not fructify.
It is
further laid down in the Sikh scripture that the discipline of
Name must be constantly vitalised by bhakti, devotion to God.
"Increase your devotion to God in an ever-ascending measure so
that your mind may be wholly purified."[22] The word bhakt,
has the literal meaning of 'well joined'. The word, bhakti,
occurs in the Svetasvetara, the ancient Hindu text, which Otto
Schrader in his Der Hinduismus (Tubingen, 1930, p. 1) calls,
"the gateway to Hinduism", although the earlier, Panini, in
his Grammar, also appears to refer to it (IV. iii. 95-98). It
was the bhakti principle which brought about the transition
from the neuter to the personal principle in Hindu religious
speculation. Since bhakti is 'joining with' or 'participation'
in God, it presupposes an object distinct from the subject. A
purely monistic environment, such as the Sikh doctrine
projects, is not a very fertile ground for bhakti. Bhakti,
therefore, has always been better adapted to a Vaisnavite
background wherein a personal God is postulated as assuming
human and sub-human forms in the phenomenal world. The
orthodox Hindu theory of bhakti is that, a God without
attributes is inaccessible, and that, there must be an
intercessor. Since Hinduism has no founder or prophet
God-incarnate, the 'Word made flesh', as the Christians say,
this intermediary synust be one of the human or subhuman forms
of Vishnu, which he has assumed in various time-cycles of thc
creation. This is the basic doctrine of Hindu bhakti, though
gradually it has acquired many shades of secondary meanings.
Since Sikhism does not countenance avtarvad, the doctrine of
incarnation of gods of the God, it uses thc term bhakti, in
its pristine sense of canalizing and sublimating the whole
emotive energy of the individual to sustain the continuous
yearning for a vision of God. [23] This form of bhakti, the
Sikh scripture declares, is the necessary adjunct of the
discipline of Name: Gurman mario karsanjog, ahinis ravai
bhagat jogi. [24]
The last
adjunct of the discipline of Name, thc Sikh scripture says, is
the intuitive understanding of the philosophical truths which
underlines the world of phenomena.
This is
the true knowledge, the gnosis, and the Sikh scripture
commends that a Sikh must always strive by study, by
discussion, by meditation and by every mental effort, to
acquire an intellectual and intuitive understanding of the
scientific and philosophic truths. [25]
This, in
short outline, is the discipline of the Name which Sikhism
teaches as the path to the realisation of God, and, broadly
speaking,it consists of a synthesis of the three well-known
paths to liberation recognised in the religions of mankind,
namely, the path of disinterested action, the path of
devotion, and the path of knowledge, all subsumed under and
practised as adjuncts to the grand discipline of the
psychological technique of the Namayoga. The modern Hindu
thinker, Aurovindo Ghose, in his own way, has tried to expound
something similar under the title of Integral Yoga, though it
is definitely something less, but expressed in a more
sophisticated and modern literary style.
It is,
therefore, this discipline of the Name through which Sikhism
seeks not only to ensure continuous renewal but a firm
conservancy of the fundamental traditions of the great
religions of mankind and, in addition, it thereby seeks to
discover new expericaces so as to apply them for the purpose
of a new integration of human personality, such as would
transform the man and his destiny on this earth.
Out of the
five paths to liberation, generally followed by mankind, the
two, namely, the ritual and the maceration, have not been
recommended and approved of by Sikhism, for obvious reasons.
The ritual, in its original essence, is magic and its nature
and function is different from that of true religion as
conceived by Sikhism. Magic seeks to control powers of nature
directly through the force of spells and enchantments, while
religion recognises existence of spiritual beings external to
man and the world, and employs persuasive methods of sacrifice
and prayer to procure their aid. Magic is coercive and
dictatorial in approach, while the other is persuasive. Magic
depends upon the way in which certain things are said and done
for a particular purpose by those who possess the necessary
technique and the power to put the supernatural forces into
effect, while religion is personal and supplicatory. It is for
this reason that the path of the ritual and the yajna has been
discountenanced by Sikhism.
Asceticism
and maceration have been likewise disowned as desirable paths
to liberation, for, these practices necessarily implicate
withdrawal from socio-political activity, and Sikhism firmly
discourages such a withdrawal in view of its basic doctrines
which envisaged an ultimate transformation of the man and his
destiny on this mundane earth as the fruit of the relgion. A
true religious man, therefore, must not macerate and 'burn
away' his physical frame through excessive tapas, but must
keep it in disciplined health. Nanak says, "the proper course
for man is to seek communion with God by keeping his corporeal
frame disciplined and fit". [27]
The order
of the Khalsa, which the tenth Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh
founded must be viewed in the background of these doctrines of
Sikhism, as intended to be a body of men who not only practise
the essential spiritual discipline of Sikhism in the sense
explained above, but who are also pledged to ensure, by every
legitimate means, the coming into existence, the expansion,
and the preservation of a world society, vitalised
continuously by the afflation of the truths of religion, which
religion is a fluence of all the best traditions of mankind
and which religion sustains a world culture in which all
traditions of all races of mankind, such as are consistent
with the spiritual dignity and the spiritual goal of man, can
participate on equal terms.
II. THE SIKH THOUGHT
The basic
problems of Sikh thought are naturally the same as those of
other world religions, and as may be expected, their treatment
by Sikhism is, in the main, on the lines of the Hindu and
Buddhist speculative thought. Wherever Sikhism differs or
departs from these lines of thought, it does so, as a rule,
not by introducing new terms or concepts, but by underlining
an already familiar concept or by amplifying or interpreting
it otherwise. This is, as it should be, for, thus alone it is
possible to effect a genuine new advance or expansion in the
cultural and religious horizon of mankind and it is thus that
all great cultures and civilizations have emerged and
developed.
THE
UNIVERSE:
We have
already said that, in Sikh thought, the final duality between
the matter and the spirit is denied; the basic Sikh thought is
strictly monistic. "From one the many emanate and finally into
the one the many submerge." [28] All that exists, whether in
the form of phenomena, appearances, or as numenon and reality,
is, in ultimate comprehension, the Spirit and the mind. The
individual mind, the numerous forms of life, and the inanimate
matter are all Spirit in different modes. Out of the own
initiative of the Spirit, a process of involutions occurred
for some limited purpose, the precise nature of which is
beyond human comprehension. The creation of the universe in
its initial form, which the modern theorists, such as Abbe
Lamatre (1904--), call the Primaeval Atom, resulted from the
involutionary impulse of God. In this, Primaeval Atom was
originally concentrated, in a super-dense state, that which
expanded and disintegrated, through an antithetical
evolutionary impulse, for thousands of millions of years,
finally into the universe as it is today. This evolutionary
impulse, whereby the Primaeval Atom has issued into the
innumerable forms constituting the universe, has reached its
highest point, up-to-date, in the creation of man, and man,
therefore, is the point in creation from where the inverse
movement of evolution may take a further leap towards the
Spirit. These two processes of involution and evolution
constitute a double but simultaneous movement and thus,
creation of thc universe is an involution-cum-evolution
process, a descent and an ascent. The universe, thus, is
nothing but God-in-becoming. "The formless has become all the
innumerable forms, Himself. He, that is beyond the attributes,
is identical with all that in which attributes inhere. Nanak
declares the doctrine of the One Being that is Becoming, for,
the one indeed in the many". [29]
The main
doctrines of Sikh theology are grounded in this view of the
Ultimatc Reality and its nature.
GENESIS:
Wlth
regard to the coming into being of the Primaeval Atom, the
Sikh doctrine is that the process was instantaneous, caused by
the Will of God. "The forms become in consequence of the
Divine Will. Comprehension fails at this stage of
understanding the Divine Will." [30] After thus stating this
beginning of the becoming, the further statements made in the
Sikh scripture about the creation and evolution of the
universe are remarkably akin to the picture which has now been
adumbrated by modern speculation after taking into account the
data revealed by the recent advances in observational
astronomy. One of the basic hymns in the Sikh scripture, which
may be called the Hymn of the Genesis, says:
For
thousands and thousands of ages and for millions of aeons
there was nothing in the beginning but nebulous density.
Neither
solids, nor spaces were there; only the Divine Impulse made
become.
Neither
the day nor night, neither galaxies and solar systems nor
satellites, but only God, self-absorbed.
The
atmospheres, the imprimis waters, the pre-conditions of all
forms of life, and the sound, the protyle of all becoming they
too were not there.
There were
no higher places, middle regions or lower spaces, for the
space as yet was not there; and there was no all-consuming
time either.
When God
Wllled, He created the universes. The expanse was caused
without a formal cause None knoweth His limits or
limitlessness. Thc True Teacher revealeth this secret. [3l]
MAN:
The man
being the highest yet attained point in the process of
creation, on the phenomenal plane, where the evolutionary
impulse has apparently near-exhausted its initial momentum, it
is man on whom now the responsibility rests for consciously
revitalising this impulse for a further evolutionary leap.
"Thou art the very essence of God. Therefore, know thyself as
such." The human body is the resting point of the process of
creation and it is from here that the further upward movement
towards the God-realisation starts. Therefore,
involution-cum-evolution which is responsible for the creation
of the universe, and which after reaching the point of human
consciousness has reached a stasis, and the man is thus a
voluntary diminution of God. Since God is truth, knowledge,
bliss, light, harmony and immortality, the involuted forms of
creation are, so much less of all these. Man being the stage
at which the evolution has emerged into self-consciousness,
man is capable of knowing that he has reached a particular
stage of the creative process, and he is capable volitionally,
of taking steps to evolve upwards to the next stage. This is
the stage of the Brahmajnani, or the God-conscious man, and it
is to this stage of evolution, a vague and distorted
premonition of which finds expression in the later 18th and
early 19th century West European literature in the form of the
concept of the superman. "Lo, I preach to you the superman;
superman is the meaning of the earth", said Nietzsche. Again,
"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the superman
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a
goal".[34] Sikhism agrees with this except that Sikhism
declares that the meaning of the earth reaches far beyond the
stage of this superman, and superman as conceived thus is not
only an inadequate and distorted concept, but is merely an
interim stage. Sikhism endorses Nietzsche that the sphere of
the activity of the superman, and of the higher still stages
of the evolution, is the earth, in the sense that it is on
this earth, and other similar terrestrial spheres that a
perfect human society of God-conscious men, of psycho-social
perfection, is the ultimate objective of the impluse of God
which has originally given rise to the process of creation. In
contra-distinction to all those and previous philosophies and
religions, which taught that the ultimate goal of man was
either absorption into God or entry into a supramundane
Kingdom of God, wherein there is abiding propinquity to God,
Sikhism urges man to divinise the whole of humanity on this
earth by transforming mind, life and matter, through a
conscious effort and will and with the aid of the spiritual
technique of Naamyoga, which is capable of transforming the
mental, vital and material stuff, of which the man is made,
into subtler, finer and nobler substance capable of taking
along the whole being to a level of existence, undreamed of
before, where pure knowledge, full harmony and divine bliss
would prevail. This, indeed, would be a society of gods, and
the ultimate purpose of the divine impulse of creation in the
establishment of this society of human gods in the terrestrial
spheres of the universe. It is the teachings of the Sikh Gurus
that the supreme duty of man is to make an all-out effort
towards this divine goal, and the Sikh Gurus not only point
out this goal, but also reveal the way towards it. "Hail, the
Guru, a hundred thousands times, hail, for, he reveals the
secret of emergent transformation of man into gods." [35]
GOD:
The Sikh
concept of the Ultimate Reality is more akin to the Judaic
notion of an Almighty Person than to the Aryan concept of an
immanent neutral Principle. The basic formula of Sikh theology
is the opening line of the Sikh scripture which characterises
the Ultimate Reality as follows:
"1,
Being-Becoming, Truth, Numenon, Creator, Person, Non-thesis,
Non-antithesis, Beyond Times, Form, Unborn, Self-expression,
Light . . ."
MAYA:
The
doctrine of maya has been basic to the Hindu and Buddhist
speculation from the very beginning. The best known work,
apart from the omniscient Mahabharata, in which the term maya
(relative truth) is employed as a philosophical concept, is
the metrical treatise, Karika by Gaudpad, wherein, unlike the
Mahabharata (Bhagvadgita, XVIII, 61), the term is not taken
for granted, but is explained and defined. Since the proper
name of Gaudpad was borne by the teacher of the famous
philosopher of Hindu monism, Shankara, the author of the
Karika may be the same person who might have lived at the end
of 7th century. This work, Kanka, is usually printed with the
Mandukaya-Upanishad, and for practical purposes, is regarded a
part of it. In language and thought, both, it bears a
remarkable resemblance to Buddhist writings of the Madhyamik
School, and the criticism of the Hindu orthodoxy that "the
monism of Shankara, in which the doctrine of maya is embedded,
is, in reality, crypto-Buddhism", [36] is not without
substance. In the Karika, the world of appearances is compared
to the apparent circle of fire produced by whirling lighted
torch. This striking image first occurs in the Maitrayana-Upanishad
(vi. 24). It also occurs in the Buddhist Mahayan scripture,
the Lankavtarsutra, which purports to be an account of the
revelation of the true Religion by Gautama, the Buddha, when
he visited Ceylon and there gave discourses to the King of the
island, Ravana, and his wife, Mahamati. This text represents a
well-matched phase of speculation in Buddhism, as it
criticises the Hindu School of Philosophy of the Sankhaya,
Pashupat, as well as other schools. It includes a prophecy
about the birth of Nagarjuna, the great Buddhist savant of the
4th century A.D., and it mentions the advent of Guptas which
marks the renaissance of Hinduism in India. It also alludes to
fresh incursions of the Hunas into northern India, which
incursions destroyed the Imperial Gupta dynasty at the end of
the-Sth century A.D. Throughout the Hindu speculative and
religious literature ever since, this doctrine of maya is
admitted as, in some way, an independent principle of the
process of creation. True, the subtle Shankra asserts that the
principle of maya is anirvachaniya, i.e., it can neither be
said to exist nor not to exist. A is neither A, nor not-A.
Whatever else this statement may mean, it does implicate that
maya has a positive existence. Sikhism denies the doctrine of
maya, thus conceived. As ignorance and nescience have no
positive existence, they merely being the aspects of the
self-limited involuted Spirit, likewise, maya, as such, has no
positive existence. It is merely a way of saying that the
individual consciousness perceives the reality only in the
form of partial knowledge, whch is so on account of the
process of involution. As the darkness is merely a negative
aspect of the light of the sun, similar is the case with
ignorance and nescience:
"What is
there positive to which we can give the name of maya? What
positive activity the maya is capable of? The human soul is
subject to the pleasure and pain principle in its very nature
as long as it operates on the individuated plan of
consciousness". [37]
This
interpretation of the concept of maya in Sikh theology has
far-reaching consequences in so far as it pulls the Hindu mind
out of the slough of much indolent introspective preoccupation
and subjectivism, generated by the belief that the whole world
of the appearances in which man is born to pursue his
socio-political life, is no more real than a phantasmagoria in
the minds of the gods above. By giving a foundation of solid
reality to the world of appearances, this reinterpretation of
the concept of maya confers a sense of reality, a feeling of
urgency and an objectivity to the whole frame of mind, which
is necessary for the all-out effort to speed up the
evolutionary process through the human will, and this is the
core of the precepts of Sikhism, as a way of life.
ETHICS:
The fact
that religious experience, per se, is non-moral, has been
known to Hindu thought from the very beginning. In the West,
it has been recognised clearly only in recent times. It was Dr
Otto, who in his Idea of the Holy, about a quarter of a
century ago, made this point finally clear. In the Judaic
religious tradition, for all practical purposes, religious
life and ethical conduct appear to have been identified. The
Ten Commandments of Moses are ethical precepts. In the Koran,
it is these ethical commands which are presented as the
essence of religion. Western scholars are sometimes shocked at
the stories narrated and adored in the ancient Hindu texts, of
the deeds of gods which do not conform with strict ethical
standards, and about which the narrator of the story expresses
no moral horror and passes no censorial judgment . From this,
the Western reader erroneously concludes that ethics has no
place in the Hindu religious practice and tradition. This is
far from the truth. From the very beginning, in the Hindu
thought and tradition, it has been recognised that ethical
conduct is the very foundation on which the life of a
religious man must be based. The rule of conduct of the
Buddhist sramans, the formulary of conduct of the Jain
bhikshus, the daily rules made obligatory for Brahmin in
almost all basic Hindu texts, bear ample testimony to the fact
that the relation of ethics to religion has always been
considered as intimate by the Hindus. It is true that the
Hindu thought recognises that the man of highest religious
experience is, like the superman of Nietzsche, beyond good and
evil, but that is not to say that in Hindu tradition the
ethical values have no place in religious life. In Sikhism,
while it is recognised that the highest religious experience
is unmoral and belongs to a category of value which is not
ethical, it is nevertheless stressed that without strict
ethical purity of conduct there is no possibility of any
advance in the religious experience. A religious life, not
strictly grounded in ethical conduct, or a religious
discipline which ignores the ethical requirements, is
considered in Sikhism a great error. "The seed of the
testament of the Guru cannot germinate except in the field of
ethical conduct, constantly irrigated by the waters of truth.
[38] A man of religion is ever characterised by ethical deeds,
honest living, sincerity of heart, and a fearless passion for
truth." [39] "Nanak maketh this public declaration, let all
men ponder over it. Ethical conduct is the only true
foundation of human life on earth." [40] Sikhism, thus, lays a
stress on morality which raises the moral law to a high status
which was not generally countenanced by the Hindus and
Buddhists. The Buddhist and Brahminic systems appear to assume
tacitly that morality is a means to felicity and it is not
obedience to a law which exists in its own right as demanding
obedience, what Immanuel Kant calls, the Categorical
Imperative. It is true that by them moral conduct is regarded
as governed by the cosmic law, called the law of Karma which
means that good deeds bring good results and evil deeds bring
evil results. Sikhism, however, raises ethical conduct to a
higher and more sovereign status, and makes it as the true
expression ol the harmony of human personality with the Wlll
of God. All ethical conduct, therefore, is not merely
conducive to good results such as happiness, but it is
primarily an act of establishment of concord between the human
personality and the person of God. Since this concord is the
highest end and the goal of human existence and endeavour, it
is, therefore, the basic ingredient of the highest activity of
man, which is religion. Thus, Sikhism, while recognising that
the order of reality, which is revealed as numenon to the
human experience, is not identical with the category of
ethical experience, it unequivocally emphasises that the two
cannot be divorced or separated and that the nature of the
numenon is such that its realisation is impossible without
ethical conduct. In this way, the Sikh thought fuses the Hindu
thought and the semitic tradition on the subject of ethics and
religion.
FREE WILL:
European
philosophy and theology have been much exercised over the
subject of the free will, while the Hindu tradition has
considered this topic as of minor importance. The explanation
for this lies in their analytical understanding of the
concept. In European thought, an individual is conceived of as
a permanent fixed entity, basically separate from the rest of
the world which is his universe. It is argued that without
freedom of will there is no moral responsibility, and if there
is no moral responsibility there can neither be guilt nor
punishment, either in society, or hereafter, bcfore the throne
of God. This problem has not much troubled the Hindu mind for
two reasons. In the first place, the Hindu thought rightly
considers that there is no such thing as a completely
independent and stable entity called thc individual, and
secondly, the Hindu argues, and quite rightly, that if the
human will is not free then what does the term 'freedom' mean?
What instance shall we bring forth with which to contrast the
supposed determination of the human will? Our notion of
'freedom' is inalienable, derived from our own experience to
which we give the name of 'will'. Whatever, therefore, we may
mean by 'freedom', it is ultimately in the terms of our
experience of our own will, that we give meanings to it. Thus
interpreted, to say that human will is free is an axiom and a
tautology. There is no meaning in the thesis that human will
is not free, for 'free' is that which is like unto the human
will. The trouble, however, arises when we give to the
expression 'free will,' a meaning which we have not derived
from any deep analysis of our experience of our will, but
which have been superimposed by our intellect. Thus, we like
to think that 'free will' is that power of volition of the
human individual which is totally uncaused and unconditioned.
A little reflection, however, will show that such a 'freedom'
does not, in fact, exist and further, that if it did and could
exist, it will destory all foundations of 'moral
responsibility', 'guilt' and justification for 'punishment',
either here or hereafter. To begin with, there are the facts
of heredity, the environment, and the sub-conscious mind.
There is not much doubt that the individual is the product of
his heredity, the inner mechanism of which the science of
biology has partially discovered recently in the fertilized
germ-cells and its genes, which make all the organic cells
that make up the body, including the brain and the nervous
system. This pattern we inherit from our parents and our
ancestors, and it is certainly a determination of the choices
that we make in our lives from time to time. New psychology
has revealed to us the sub-conscious layers of human mind as
the seat of instincts, emotions, and intuitions, accumulated,
for those who faithfully follow the dogma of the Church
Council of Constantinople (553, A.D.), which anathematised the
doctrine of transmigration, in the race pattern during
evolution of millions of years or, for those who hold the
doctrine of metempsychosis as fundamental, accumulated in the
course of millions of previous births and rebirths of the
individual. They are certainly a determinant throughout a
man's life in the matter of his choice and the conduct that
follows it. Again, from outside, the social environment is
active in continuously influencing and moulding an
individual's mind, and thereby his power of choice and
conduct. These three factors, the physical, the environmental,
and the hereditary, are there as a fact and their power of
influencing the human powers of choice cannot be denied. In
this context, there cannot be a free will, as an uncaused and
unconditioned factor which solely determines as to what choice
an individual will make. But even if there were such a 'free'
will, it will entail disastrous consequences for the science
of ethics and the doctrine of moral responsibility. If a man's
actions are not free when they can be shown to be causally
chained to his character, the sum total of his heredity, past
experiences and environment, then the only circumstances in
which it would be proper to call a man 'free' would be those
in which he acted independently of his received character,
i.e., of his habits, desires, urges, and perspective on life
and all the rest. But if this agent of 'free' action is not to
be identified with that which is subject to particular desires
and urges, which is circumscribed by a given environmental and
circumstantial setup, which is devoid of character, motives,
persistent interests and the like, then who is this agent of
'free' choice, the 'he'? Such a notion of 'free' will
completely dissolves the agent of action; a person with such a
'free' will is a completely disembodied and unidentifiable
entity. Such an entity can neither be blamed nor praised, nor
held responsible for what it does, for it would be clearly
unreasonable to hold an individual responsible for his actions
if we did not think there was a causal connection between his
character and his conduct. When we can show that there is no
such connection, as, for instance, that an act is committed as
a result of coercion, we do not normally hold him responsible.
The reason is not that the one act is 'uncaused' and 'free',
while the other is 'determined'. The reason lies in the kind
of the cause; in the one case, the cause lies in the character
of the individual over which he has, in some sense, control,
while in the other case he has no such control. As we gain new
knowledge about the kinds of causes that affect conduct, we
change our mind about the kinds of behaviour for which we
should hold men responsible. The recent shifts of stress in
the science of penology in the modern world, and the ancient
wisdom of the east and west which iterated that an individual
is ultimately responsible for nothing, must be appreciated in
the context of this analysis, and not in the superficial frame
of reference of 'determinism' and 'free will'. "A man reaps
only that what he sows in the field of karma," [41] declares
the Sikh scripture. It simultaneously asserts that, "Say what
precisely it is that an individual can do out of his free
choice? He acteth as God Wllleth." [42] And the Bhagvadgita
asserts that, "God sits in the heart of every creature with
the consequence that all revolve in their set courses,
helplessly, tied to the wheel of maya." [43] That man is free
to choose and act to some extent, and to the extent that he is
so, to that extent alone he is morally responsible and subject
to praise and blame, is a true statement; that there is no
such entity, and no such entity is conceivable, which is
wholly 'uncaused' and 'undetermined', and further that in the
ultimate analysis, the whole area of individuality can be
shown to be linked to a penumbral cause of complex of causes
which are supra-individuality is also a true statement, and
these two true statements are not self-contradictory or
incompatible with each other, constitutes the Sikh doctrine on
the subject.
This
brings us back to our immediate experience that seems to carry
its own certitude with it, that in some sense we are free, we
have the notion of freedom as the core of this experience.
Sikhism, while implicitly taking note of the three factors,
and the ultimate factor out of which they stem out, which
determine the powers of human choice, lays pragmatic stress on
this fourth factor, perpetually present and operative in the
human mind, which is the autonomous power of choice. This
autonomous power of choice is the divinity in man, according
to Sikhism, and it is this core around which the whole human
personality is constructed. It is this central core of the
human personality which is at the heart of the individual
consciousness, and it is therefore, "the source of all human
misery, as well as the panacea of all his ills". [44] "How
shall man demolish the wall of nescience that separates him
from God? By being in tune with the Wlll of God. And how shall
we know the Wlll of God? Nanak answers: It is embedded in the
very core of human personality". [45]
It is this
autonomous power of free choice which is endowed to every
human personality and by virtue of which the effects of the
other three observable determining factors of human choice are
interfused and, thus, the act of free human choice gives birth
to a new event which is not wholly determined, and which is
not a mere combination and aggregation of all these four
factors, but which is a new event, unique in nature, and
potently capable of giving rise to other similar events in the
future. It is this power of free choice that is included in
man's heritage which has the capacity to go beyond this
heritage and, thus, within the limits given, a human being is
free to shape his own destiny. Nor are the other factors, his
received character, the individual circumstances merely
accidental and fortuitously super-imposed upon the individual,
for they too are the fruits of his past karma of many previous
births and, thus, are self-determined, result of free choices
made. When and why did an individual make the first free but
wrong choice? This question relates to the First Things, and,
therefore, exhypothesis, the individual comprehension fails at
this point for, "the son knoweth not the birth of his father."
This is
the view of 'free will' in relation to the doctrine of the
karma which Sikhism teaches.
KARMA:
The
doctrine of karma is not the same as the doctrine of
pre-destination of Christian theology. Karma is, in a sense,
fate, not pre-destination, for, within the limits given, and
these limits constitute the karma inherited from the previous
births, a man is free. This karma is not fate because all the
time we are making our own karma and determining the character
of our further status and births. The doctrine of karma, as
understood in higher Hinduism, and as expounded in Sikhism,
merely teaches that our present limitations are traceable to
our acts of autonomous choice in our past lives and as such
our karma is a source of rewards and punishments which we must
enjoy and endure. "Ignorant mind of mine, why blame God, for
the good and evil of this life is verily thy own karma." [47]
But this idea differs from the idea of fate, as commonly
understood in European thought, in as much as it is not
inexorable, for, all the time we are making our own karma
within a context, the core of which is always free and
autonomous.
EVIL:
The
existence of evil is the main reason, or one of the main
reasons for the existence of religion, and the explanation of
evil is the chief problem of theologies and religious
philosophies. Whether it was God who created evil and whether
evil is due to misuse of the gift of free will, are problems
which constantly occur and recur in almost all religions of
the world. The main trend of Hindu thought on this problem is
that since the world itself is unreal, the existence of evil
in it is not of greater concern to the individual than the
world itself. A Hindu would assert that the proper course for
the human soul is to seek mukti, liberation, or unison with
God, by renouncing and discarding this vain show of
appearances, called the world. The Hindu thus, is not very
much concerned to prove that evil does not really exist in the
world, or to explain why God allows it to exist. Since the
world itself is no more than a phantom and an insubstantial
dream, the evil itself cannot be of a more enduring substance,
and, at any rate, it is of no direct concern to the man of
religion. Sikhism cannot and, therefore, does not adopt this
view, because Sikhsm does not accept the ultimate dichotomy of
the matter and the spirit and does not accept as an
independent entity, the principle of illusion, i.e., maya.
Since Sikhism postulates that religious activity must be
practised in the socio-political context of the world, the
problem of evil to it is very much a real problem, as it is to
the European thinker. Sikhism, therefore, returns almost the
same answer to the problem of evil which the European
pantheist gives, namely, that since God is all things and in
all things, the evil is only something which is a partial view
of the whole, something which appears as such when not seen
from the due perspective. Sikhism asserts that there is no
such thing as the principle of evil, as some theologies
postulate, although there are things in this world which are
evil. This anti-thesis of evil and good according to Sikhism,
is a necessary characterstic of the process of involution
which the spirit is undergoing in the process of creation of
the world. Evil and good appear at one stage of this
involution-cum-evolution and they disappear when the process
of evolution culminates into the unitive experience of God,
Just as the white ray of light splits into its variegated
spectrum while passing through a prism, and again gathers
these multichromatic hues into its all-absorbing whiteness,
when it becomes itself again. This explanation and statement
of the doctrine of evil is laid down almost in as many words
in the Sukhmani of the Fifth Nanak, and also at numerous other
places in the Sikh scripture. "When a complete perspective is
granted to man by the grace of God, all evil is seen to melt
into its primal source, which is all-Good". [48] "There is no
independent principle of evil in the universe, because God is
All-Good and nothing that proceeds from All-Good can be really
evil, and there is naught which proceeds from ought but God".
[49]
NUMENON
AND SANSAR, OR THE REALITY AND APPEARANCE:
Sansar is
the principle of change, which determines the world of
phenomena, and in Hindu thought and in many other systems of
mataphysics, it has been argued that on this account it is
un-real. It is presumed as axiomatic that the real must not be
infected with change. The basic theological formula of
Sikhism, with which the Sikh scripture opens, is proceeded by
the exegetic statement that, "all change, all evolution, all
that is characterised by the time-process, is ultimately
real''.[50] The numenon, the order of reality, which is
revealed to the human mind through gnosis, therefore, is not
something which is fundamentally different and away from the
phenomenon. That what is altered in the gnosis is not that
what really is, but it is the mode of perception and the
quality of prehension of the individual, which is transformed,
thus revealing the vision of the numenon. It is this very
mundane and the material world and the phenomena which is
freshly and differently prehended and congnised by the human
consciousness, when it is enlarged and purified. Sikhism,
therefore, is in agreement with the aphorism of the great
Buddhist philosopher, Buddhagosa, who declared, that "Yas-sansaras
tan-nirvanam", i.e., "the flux and the Absolute are the same."
"This world of fleeting appearances that you see, is, in fact,
the true face of God and as such it is revealed to the
consciousness of the emancipated man".
III. SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF SIKHISM
The life
story of Guru Nanak, called the Janamsakhi, the earliest
written record we have of the travels of the Guru, records
that Guru Nanak summed up the Sikh tenets wherever he went, in
the following triple precept: Kirat Karo, Wand Chhako, Nam
Japo.
It means,
thou shalt earn the livelihood by honest creative labour, thou
shalt share the fruits of thy labour with the fellow beings,
and, thou shalt practise the Discipline of the Name.
These are
rightly regarded as the basic commandments of Sikhism.
We have
already explained, in brief, the implications and consequences
of the discipline of the Name and its import for the man of
religion. This discipline of the Name, a new synthesized and
integrated yoga, is to be practised in the context of
socio-political life, in which man does not turn his back on
the society, and does not renounce the world. The first two
precepts, that of honest productive work, and sharing of its
fruits with fellow-beings, are to constitute the foundation of
the Sikh society, while the remaining third is to vitalise and
regenerate it.
Sikhism
envisages a time, almost within sight now, when the local
heritages of the different historic nations, civilisations,
peoples, and religions will have coalesced into a common
heritage of the whole human family, and Sikhism further
declares that neither the natural sciences, nor philosophical
intellectual speculations, which integrate the basic concepts
of natural sciences into philosophy and metaphysics, can
rescue man from his state of inherent limitation and
suffering, and that the religious discipline of the Name alone
can do it. Guru Nanak says that:
"Even if a
hundred moons arise and a thousand suns shine, all this light
combined cannot dispel the nescience with which man is
afflicted and which the light of God, that is the religion,
alone can dispel and destroy." (Var Asa, I).
The words
"sun" and "moon" have been used in this text by the Guru in
the idiom which has been set by the Veda, for, the Veda's
imprint upon Hindu Aryan mind is permanent and unmistakable,
even on those who represent a reaction against Vedism. Vedism
is not only a religion, it is even more technique of learned
theologians and inspired poets, vipra, "the quivering ones",
and it constitutes also the Mimansa, the jurisprudence of the
yajna the ritual act. Vedism has also developed a number of
secular disciplines, such as phonetics, grammar, astronomy,
and even rudiments of geometry and law. Nighantu is the oldest
lexicon in any Indo-European language and in the Nighantu the
words are grouped as series of synonyms. These synonyms, as
arranged in the Nighantu are, as a rule, secondary
mataphysical acceptations constituted and arrived at in
accordance with the laws of occult equivalences In the Veda,
the words employed are multivious, polysignificant, and that
is why the Vedic idiom is described as vakrokti, 'crooked',
and for this reason the Nirukta commentary says that, proksa
kamahi devah, the gods are in love with the cryptic. It is in
this sense that the Rig Veda declares that "the moon took
birth in the mind and the sun in the eyes (of the Cosmic
Man)." [52]The metaphysical correlation and occult equivalance
of 'moon', then, is mind and that of 'sun', the physical
perception, the 'eye'. In the text of Guru Nanak just quoted,
the expression 'moon' signifies the integrating speculations
of the mind, which result in philosophy, based on the stuff of
the basic concepts and hypotheses of the natural sciences.
Likewise, the term 'sun' here means the objective natural
sciences, the knowledge of which is derived through the
sensory motor perceptions and, thus, the text under reference
refers to the natural sciences and the systems of metaphysics,
as it has been explained above.
In the
Semitic Judaic religions, the religion is equated with the
law, which is reduced into dead letters of utilitarian ethics.
Sikhism emphasises that the ethical law is not religion per
se, that the core of the religion is the numenon, sacredness
in the sense of non-moral holiness as a category of value, and
a state of mind and a spiritual experience, peculiar to
religion, but that the ethical law is, in some intimate sense,
a necessary adjunct of religious life and a penumbra of the
religious experience. It, therefore, insists on these three
precepts as necessary ingredients of the life of man who would
practise religion.
To begin
with, therefore, in the society which Sikhism recommends as
the pattern for the global society, every individual must
engage himself in honest creative labour. Parasitism, in any
shape or form, is not only anti-social, but anti-religious
also. Secondly, these precepts of Sikhism ensure that there
shall be no exploitation of man by man with capital, i.e., the
accumulated wealth shall not be employed as an instrument of
exploitation. This is a necessary implication of the precept
that the religious man must share the fruits of his labour
with his fellow creatures. From this it follows that Sikhism
regards a co-operative society as the only truly religious
society.
How is
this Sikh co-operative society distinguished from the modern
concepts of socialist society, a welfare, and a communist
society? The basic element which distingtushes a Sikh
co-operative society from all these modern social concepts is
grounded in the Sikh concept of the world as the very "form of
God". Hari ka rup, and the status of the individual as the
very microcosm of God, Joti sarup, and an individual,
therefore, must never be imposed upon or coerced. "If thou
wouldst seek God, demolish not the heart of any individual",
[53] is a text in the Sikh scripture. The Tenth Nanak, in one
of his hymns, addressing God says that, "I pray to you, God,
for this purpose, so that I may be imposed upon by no
authority external to myself ." Herein lies that which
essentially distinguishes a religious co-operative society, as
conceived by Sikhism, from the modern societies that are
grounded in the doctrines of socialism, communism and
welfarism.
It
sententiously declares that "GodAlmighty alone is the
undisputed King competent to rule over men; all mortals who
claim the right to do so are false pretenders". [55] While
Sikhism is in sympathy with most of the ideas with which it is
sought to justify the ideals of these theories, and in fact
maintains that the ideal Sikh society shall be based on these
ideas, it is out of sympathy with the evolution and growth of
any apparatus which enables a class of men to exploit an
individual to suppress and subjugate him in the name of
abolishing the exploitation of man by man.
It,
therefore, follows that while Sikhism seeks to establish a
social pattern and eventually a global society in which the
socialist ideas of individual welfare, equality and freedom
shall have full application, it is opposed to any development
which, in practice and reality, seeks to curtail and destroy
the worth and inner autonomy of the individual. It is for this
reason that Sikhism conceives of the religious evolution of
man as a necessary and integral pre-requisite and condition of
its march towards the ideal society.
Sikhism
warns against the fa'uae;y uut Vf \,U,hinh this dilemma
arises, and it uncompromisingly opposes all theories and
practices which seek to build a fully happy and prosperous
society on merely secular basis.
A possible
misconception about the Sikh notions on the subject must be
removed here. The ideal Sikh society is not a religious or
church state or a theocratic organisation. A religious state
is based on the assumption that unity of religion is, more or
less, necessary in order to secure national unity and
strength, and in order to maintain order and social harmony.
The terrible life and death struggle into which the Sikhs were
pushed by the Mughal emperors, informed and guided by the
doctrines of the political Islam, as expounded by the Mujaddid,
resulted precisely from this assumption of Islamic polity. The
wars of religion, and the prolonged periods of bloodshed which
have disfigured the history of Europe for hundreds of years,
are also seen to be the necessary concomitants of this
assumption. The peace of Augsburg in 1555 concluded to end
wars of religion in Europe on the principle, cuius regio cius
religio, i.e., that every subject must accept the religion of
his ruler, is precisely the principle which animated and
sustained Emperor Aurangzeb throughout his long and eventful
reign. The sub-conscious traces of this assumption still
linger in the India of today to which alone certain recent
developments in the body politic of the country can ultimately
be traced. Similarly, a theocratic state is based on the
presumption that the rulers are answerable, not for the
welfare of the bodies of their subjects, but for the salvation
of their souls, and that the end of all political endeavour is
not in this world but the next. Sikhism considers these
assumptions as unwarranted, for, it believes that there lies a
fundamental and higher unity in all true religions which are
apparently diverse and that, therefore, the social harmony and
the national unity of a state must be founded on this
fundamental unity and not wholesale conformity. The Tenth
Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, has laid it down that, "The temple
and the mosque, the worship of God by the Aryans and the
prayers to Him of the Semitics, are fundamentally the same".
[56] Sikhism thus postulates that it is the duty of an
organised religion, which postulate is an article of creed in
Sikhism, not only to acquiesce in the provision of liberty of
conscience to non-Sikhs, but also to defend the right to such
liberty of those whose conscience moves them in a seemingly
different direction. For achieving enduring agreement and
unity, the order of the Khalsa relies upon the methods of
enlightenment and persuasion in place of coercion and
brain-washing, while recognising all the while that though the
Truth is one, the roads to it are many, and, therefore, the
Sikhs pray that, "Let all be saved through whatever path can
save them". [57] Sikhism generally endorses the view of the
medieval saint that, "the heart of so great a mystery cannot
ever be reached by following one road only". [58]
These,
broadly, are the social implications of Sikhism, in the
context of the modern political world situation and thought.
IV. CONCLUSION
In the
year 1960, we are at a stage of world history in which not
only the distance has been annihilated, but other walls such
as those of language, history, tradition, that separate
peoples and nations from each other, have also been
considerably lowered, the different living religions,
therefore, are now in a position to look at each other with
the eyes of comparison and to find as to in what points they
fundamentally differ from their contemporaries, in the matter
of doctrine and religious experience. This task of comparison
entails re-assessment of the ancestoral heritage of each
religion and this process of re-assessment is by far the most
hopeful sign which promises the emergence of a world Religion
and a world Society, which is the dream of Sikhism.
To
distinguish Sikhism from the other higher and world religions,
therefore, it is necessary to point out the broad points of
agreement between Sikhism and the other religions, as well as
the points of difference.
It is a
common postulate of all higher religions of mankind that there
is a spiritual presence which mysteriously sustains the
universe of phenomena, and that it is this spiritual presence
which is absolutely real. In this postulate, Sikhism agrees
with the higher living religions of the world, such as,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.
Another
postulate of these higher religions is that man finds himsclf
not only in need of arriving at an awareness of this absolute
reality, but also to be in communion with it, in touch with
it. There is a basic urge in man which demands that unless
this is done, he cannot feel himself at home in the world in
which he finds himself born and living.
This is an
implicit postulate of all the aforementioned higher and living
religions, and Sikhism is in agreement with them in accepting
this postulate.
Wlth
regard to the nature of this spiritual presence, which lies
behind and sustains the world of phenomena, it is agreed by
all these higher living religions that it is not contained in,
and is greater than, either some of the phenomena or the sum
total of the phenomena, including the man himself.
Sikhism
agrees with this.
All these
great religions agree with each other in asserting that the
nature of this absolute reality, which lies behind and
sustains the phenomena, has an aspect which is neuter and
which is impersonal. The nirvana of thc Buddhism and parbrahma
of Hinduism, and the experience of the mystics of Islam and
Christianity, affirm this aspect and characteristic of
absolute reality. But, they further agree that this absolute
reality has also a personal aspect. The Mahayana Buddhism,
Hinduism, Christianity and Islam are all agreed that the
absolute reality has a face which is personal, in the sense in
which a human being is a person, and that human beings
encounter this personal face of the absolute reality in the
same sense in which one individual human being encounters
another. What precisely this personal aspect is, whether it
periodically manifests itself in the form of an avtar, a
divine descent, or it has manifested itself only once-for-all
time and in a unique incarnation, is not universally agreed.
But all these great living religions agree that the spiritual
presence which permeates and sustains the world of phenomena
has a personal aspect. Mahayana declares that this personal
aspect of absolute reality manifests itself in the
bodhisattavas and is plural. For Hinduism and for
Christianity, this personal aspect is triune, i.e., it assumes
the form of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; or the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost. In Islam, this personal aspect is deemed
as singular in the form of God, the Allah.
In this
matter, Sikhism, while accepting that the personal aspect of
the absolute reality is singular, declares this Person to be
the Universal Mind of which all other finite minds are but
emanations. These finite minds are at each moment one with the
Universal Mind, the essence of their finitude being
eliminative and not productive. That what makes a mind finite
and distinguished from the Universal Mind is, what has been
eliminated out of it, and not what has been produced by it. It
is this Universal Mind which Sikhism holds as the absolute
Reality, and it is from this doctrine that the basic teachings
of Sikhism, which essentially aim at the destruction of the
self-centredness of the individual mind, arise.
Thus,
although Sikhism is largely in agreement with the basic
postulates of the great living religions of the world, it has
its points of distinction which are not less important and
which when translated into action, i.e., into the counsel
which it gives to mankind to attain its highest destiny, lead
to practices and consequences which not only mark Sikhism from
the other great religions, but also make it of peculiar
interest to the modern man.
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