By; Sardar Kapur Singh
It is often useful and necessary to define one’s terms before attempting to say something on them, Herein, what follows, the term “founder” means, not a follower, a metaphysician or a philosopher, but one who, while in direct contact with what, to Rudolph, in “idea of the Holy” calls “Mumenon”, and compulsively impelled by it, pro formulates and preaches way to such a contact by others.
A religion” is neither ethics or metaphysics, neither mystical awareness nor magic, neither theism nor worship of a deity or even the deity: it is they which moves a man to the depth of his being and yet has not its origin in the depths ‘of human soul but moves it from outside. Just as central concept in art is “beauty”, in ethic, “goodness”, so in religion is “holiness” an intimate contact or union with which is felt as utterly necessary for complete satisfaction and wholeness of human, A” world religion” ”is that way of life on which all mankind may walk without the apartheid of race, color, sex, caste, class, country and cl:
In this monograph it is intended to give, first, a brief life sketch of the historical man, Nanak, who became Guru ‘Nanak.
Nanak—The Man ‘Nanak was born on the 1Sth April, 1469 A.D.Gregorian Calendar) in the North West of India, at Nankana Sahib—The Holy Birthplace of Nanak — which is now Situated in Pakistan since 1947 When the outgoing British divided India in to two separate countries. Nanak, the son of a petty high cast revenue official, was, from the beginning of an unworldly turn of mind. Many attempts of his parents to engage him in some gainful occupation each time ended in disaster, till he per shaded to accept the gainful and important post of the Chief Supplies Master of a nearby Muslim principality, The turning point in his life came when he was 27 years old, During these days, he would while performing duties, pass out into reveries, which frequently became trances. On one such occasion, while supervising the weighing of grain stores, he stopped the count at the measure 13, which in Panjabi language is the word TERA, also meaning, I am thin, and he went on counting the refrain tera, tera, while measure after measure of stores was. Being passed out. As was to be expected, the Government took a serious notice of it and an inquiry into his gross negligence was ordered against him. While the inquiry was still in progress, Nanak.
as was his routine, went one early morning for his dip in the neigh boring stream and disappeared into the bed of the river for full three days; when a search for his body proved fruitless, he was presumed drowned, All these days, he had sat, what in ancient texts on Yoga is called JALASTAMBHASAMADHI, (trance in water), a skill gained through prescribed techniques and practices and also sometimes to gifted individuals from birth. (There are many who possess this skill in India even today.) On the fourth day he emerged from the depths of the waters and uttered the following words: “There is no Hindu, no Mussalman.”’ Whether he meant that deep down in the substratum of Aryan and Semitic religions there is an identity of basics or whether he intended to convey that the truth of both had been obscured and Lost to their practitioners on account of verbal formulae and empty rituals, it was a fill formula for the commencement of his divine mission that demands acceptance of genuine dialogue rather than formal con version as the goal of transcending particularisms of contending cultures and feuding religions. With a view to discover a universal concept, not synthesis or synthetic amalgam, but deeper penetration of one’s own religion in thought, devotion and action, and thus to arrive at the realization that in every living religion there is a point at which the religion itself loses its particularity elevating it to spiritual freedom and with it to a vision of spiritual presence in other expressions of the ultimate meanings of human existence. This is not the doctrine of the so called “fundamental unity of all religions”, for such a claim has its limitations. Given fundamental differences in conceptions of reality and attitudes towards the world, no real synthesis can be expected, there being incompatible elements in the cores of various religions. None of these religions can draw closer to the others, for each must claim itself to the way and the truth for its own believers, even if not for all men. No world religion can seriously consider abandoning its own absolutist claim, for if it did, it would scarcely have the right to call itself a religion, much less a world religion. But a sort of reconciliation, mutual understanding and respect is possible, generating civilized tolerance and growing Cooperation, It seems more likely that this is the intent and meaning of what Nanak uttered on this occasion. ‘The pious Sikh literature called “Janam Sakhis” almost unanimously described the experience of Nanak during his ‘trance in water: “As God willed, Nanak, His devotee, was escorted to His Presence. Then a cup filled with Liquid of Immortality was given to him, accompanied by the command: Nanak, pay attention. This is the cup of Holy adoration of My Name, Drink it —I am with the and thee do I bless and exalt. Go, rejoice in My Name and preach it to others—Let this calling.” Nanak himself refers to this as assignment with deep gratitude: “IA jobless minstrel was assigned a rewarding task.”
Nanak now had been exalted as the Guru Nanak, Nanak, the world teacher, and after resigning his government post he set out upon four long and arduous missionary.
journeys on foot into the four corners of the then accessible Paris of the world to him, India, Inner Himalayas, Ceylon, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Middle East, Eastern Turkey and Arabia, which lasted up to the year 1521 when he permanently returned to India to a religious commune town, Kartarpur, where he passed away on September, 1539. These journeys have been held and described in Sikh pious literature as having been undertaken: “to purify and make divine the entire mankind on all parts of the globe.”
To be continued
Article extracted from this publication >> November 18, 1994
