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Guru Nanak
We had a Sikh Meeting here at the Temple of all Faiths in Reading on Sunday the 20th May to focus on the mystical aspects of Sikhism through the teachings of Guru Nanak. I was fascinated to see the similarities with the teaching of non-dualism. Guru Nanak encouraged his disciples to go beyond ritual. This of course was significant with the present changes within Oasis of going beyond ritual and form. This article (taken from a 5th Centenary diary)gives us a flavour of this remarkable mystic and includes some quotes of his,which are deeply inspiring.GURU NANAK
Religion, when confined and cramped by ritual, ceases to be the liberating and civilising force that it essentially is. It loses the capacity to expand human sympathies and bring men nearer to each other. Instead of being a uniting force, it becomes a dividing force. Rather than being an instrument of justice, it begins to provide justification for injustice. The essence is lost, the form remains which like a corpse without soul stinks and offends. When this happens to a religious order, revolt against it becomes inevitable. The spirit of man asserts itself against the stiff structure and reaches out to express itself in new modes and forms better suited to new knowledge and new society.
Nanak, founder of Sikh religion, belongs to that category of men who act as liberators of the religious spirit from ritual. It is quite often said that his was an attempt at reconciling Hinduism and Islam but that is an oversimplification. There is in essence no contradiction between one religion and another; basically the spirit is the same, the forms and expression may be different. The question of reconciling or adjusting,therefore becomes irrelevant. Once the real is freed from the apparent and the essence released from the accident the lines of division disappear. That is what Nanak was really doing. It did not matter to him by what name somebody remembered God as long as He was remembered with sincerity and devotion. On being asked what name of God is most sacred, Nanak replied, “Any with which thou canst be involved”
Nanak was born at a place called Talwandi (now known as Nanakans Saheb). The place is now a part of West Pakistan and hundreds of pilgrims visit it every year. His father, Mehta Kalu,was a village record keeper. Kalu and his wife Triptan both were devout Hindus. They were very fond of their only son and like all householders hoped that he would one day take his place in the biradari ( family circle).Hardly did they realise that the young and moody Nanak conceived of the entire humanity as his family. No worldly wisdom could confine his comprehensive soul. Neither the love of homely comfort nor the lure of family life could deter him from launching on a mission to proclaim the Truth that he was born with. The commodity in which he could deal was Truth, the name of One God, the Creator of All. Pursuit of the ordinary chores of life was not for him.
In the initial stages it created lot of misunderstanding and misgiving. His parents thought that he was suffering from some ailment. A physician was called but Nanak told him smilingly that his malady was nothing but separation from himself, that is, from his God. It is expressed in one of his verses:
My one malady is that I live separated from myself.
And the other that I seek to be what I ought to be
And the third that I’m in the eye of the all powerful Angel of Death.
And the fourth that I can sit not with myself.
In another verse he says:
I know not who’s my father, who my mother and from whence I came
Any, why have fire and water blended to make of what I am….
Within me there’s something that gnaws at my heart as if my soul is on fire
And I feel only if I submitted to my Lord’s will there’ll be peace for me.
This trend of thought was unusual and alarming for his kith and kin. They tried various methods to bring him round to the ways of the world but it was of no avail. There was a feeling that Nanak had gone wild. Referring to this he says: Some say, I’m wild,others that I’m out of step
And some say that I’m but a mere man, poor and lowly.
O men, I’m crazy after my king, my God,
And know not another than Him, nay, not another!
Yes, he alone is ‘mad’ who is struck with God’s fear and knoweth not another than His only Master:
And he alone who yoketh himself to his Master’s task,
And accepteth his Will and playeth not clever with His love:
Yea, and loveth no one other than Lord, the God,
And thinketh himself bad,and every else holy and good.”
Nanak was really a rebel against all rituals. As a young child, he refused to wear the sacred thread saying, “ I wouldn’t wear the thread which is soiled and may be broken or burnt and which does not go with one into the beyond” When he asked what kind of thread he would wear, he replied, “If compassion be the cotton, contentment the thread, continence the knot, and truth the twist, this would be the ideal thread for the soul. It will neither break nor burn, neither be soiled, nor lost. He who wears such a thread, is blessed by God.”
There are numerous stories how he broke people from the chains of blind belief in rituals. When he went towards Mecca, he slept one night with his feet towards Kaaba. The other pilgrims objected to it as a sacrilege. According to the legend, Nanak told them to turn his feet in another direction. As they did so, the legend runs, the Kaaba also shifted its position. The rational world today may be reluctant to believe this story, but it should not be difficult to believe that he through argument convinced them that God the omnipresent, could not be confined to any four walls.
There is a similar story about his reprimanding the bathers at Hardwar. They were throwing water in the direction of the Sun in the belief that this water would reach their forbears in high heavens. Nanak began to throw water in the other direction. He was questioned why he was doing that. He replied, “ There is a shortage of rainfall in my area and, therefore, I am sending water for fields”. How can that happen, everybody laughed. Nanak’s reply was: “ Why not? If the water thrown by you can reach the high heavens, why can’t the water thrown by me reach by fields, which are only a few hundred miles away.”
Most of these incidents reveal a strong strain of rational logic. Like Socrates, he questions the blind beliefs and lights the path to truth. The appeal of Nanak, nevertheless, was more through emotions than through knowledge: “ Reason thou mayst a million times but it will not help you to comprehend Him.”
He sought to turn the minds of men towards God, the infinite, the powerful. It would obviously be beyond the comprehension of any finite mortal mind. All knowledge and understanding emanated from Him and so the realisation of God could not be but His blessing: “ Thou art the River of Wisdom. How can I, a mere fish, know Thy expanse”
Nanak says, “He, the Lord of Taste, is the enjoyer; He, indeed, is the pleasure that He enjoys. He’s the bride: yea, He the spouse in bed with her. He it is who pervadeth all; yea, He the master who sports. He’s the fish, He the fisherman; He the net, He the river.”
God is not conceived in any form. It is the all -pervasive truth and even when realised remains beyond description. Instrument of language is all too inadequate to carry it: “ His knowledge is unutterable. Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell.”
Nanak, therefore, lays stress on devotion nam, the true word, the name of God. In doing this,he developed an interesting political concept too. Earlier God was conceived as the king and the temporal rulers were considered to be his prototypes on earth. Nanak gave the idea of Saccha patshak ( the true king) which in a way militated against the divine right of kingship. He may not have developed it as such but he certainly was reflecting the new democratic temper breaking out in many forms in various parts of the world. Revolts against ritualistic religion and divinity of rulers were manifesting in Europe also in the same century. It may not be far-fetched to say that Nanak was one of the harbingers of a new era of rationality and democracy in the world.
The appeal of Nanak lies in the transparent sincerity of his preaching. He did not want people to give up life and work. He wanted them only to earn by honest labour. The famous story of Malik Bhago and Bhai Lalo provides an example of his attitude to wealth and labour. Malik Bhago was a rich money-lender and Bhai Lalo a poor carpenter. Nanak was once invited by the Malik for a feast. When he showed reluctance, he was forcibly taken in the presence of the Malik, who asked him “Why don’t you eat with me, when you eat with a low caste person like Bhai Lalo?” Nanak replied: “ In your bread, there is the blood of the poor, while the bread of Lalo is earned by the sweat of his brow, is sweet like milk.” The Malik was enraged at this answer and asked Nanak to demonstrate the truth of it. According to Janam Skhi, the Guru pressed in his hands the bread from either house and it so happened that while Lalo’s bread oozed milk, blood came out of Bhago’s loaf. Nanak did not make any distinction of the high and the low. Good deeds were for him the criteria for judging men.
So sharp was his eye and so quick the response to attitudes of men that none could resist the effect of his word. He converted a highwayman, Sajjan, who wanted to rob him. It was Sajjan’s practice to sit on the highway like a holy man and invite the rich travellers to accept his hospitality for the night. The Hindus were lodged in a temple while the Muslims were accommodated in a mosque. While they were asleep,they were robbed of their riches as well as of life. When Nanak went that way, Sajjan considered him also a rich man and wanted to lodge him during the night.When Nanak was asked to go to sleep, he said “ I would first recite a hymn n praise of God and then retire to bed.” Then he recited.
“ How bright sparkles the bronze, rub it and it blackens your hand,
Wash it as well as you may, but its impurity goes not” ( Suhi, M.1)
Sajjan instantly realised that he had been discovered, and so fell at the feet of the Master, and begged of him to grant him forgiveness. Nanak said: “ distribute all you have among the poor, and meditate upon the Name of God”
There are many other stories, which show the wisdom of the Guru and his influence on the minds of the people. His greatest contribution was the establishment of equality among men and the release of the true name for the dross of ritual.
“All that is of this world is false and unreal – the ruler and the ruled, the palaces and the grand buildings, the gold and the silver and the garments. The body, its beauty and the apparel are false. The wife and the husband are unreal as they are all destroyed. Falsehood falls in love with untruth and forgets the God. The entire world is impermanent; with whom should one be friends? The sweet and the hohumilitythatney are unreal even as all the drowning with a boat Nanak realises in all all but He is unreal and untrue.”
GURU NANAK
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