Sikhism is both a profound view as well as an idealistic way of life. As a view of life, it holds that the phenomenon of life, through ever and eternally changing, is real, substantive and subsisting and the reality as experienced is neither a dream nor an illusion nor does it have its effect on account of maya or avidya. That is, life, as it is, is a hard fact and it must be faced, confronted and lived as struggle. Life has purpose or destiny which promises an idealistic bliss for mankind. The cherished destiny is to be realized through a well set evolution of the man himself along the channels and patterns laid by the Divine perfection which is Truth, Consciousness and Bliss individuality is not only free to a large extent to shape its destiny but is also a center of the Divine affection to help it achieve its soul through enlightened guidance, inspiration and assistance. As an idealistic discipline Sikhism enjoins upon man to shape the ornament of characteristic personality out of the gold stuff inherently provided under Divine Will to all by working like the goldsmith in the inner mint of conscience. With the assistance of this sustained metaphor, Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism has prescribed the discipline for the aspirant thus:
Make continence thy furace, resignation thy furace, resignation thy goldsmith,
Understanding thine anvil, divine knowledge thy tools,
The fear of God thy bellows, austerities thy fire,
Divine love thy crucible, and melt God’s Name therein,
In such a true mint the World shall be coined.
This is the practice of those on whom God looketh with an eyue of favor,
This is the practice of those on whom God looketh with an eye of favor,
Nanak the Kind One by a glance maketh them happy.
(Japji, XXXVII1translated by M.A. McAuliffe)
The Sikhs born of such a philosophy and set in such a mint of character format, can make a real contribution in reforming and reshaping the spiritual, religious, political and social destiny of their country in particular and the whole mankind in general. Whatever respect they, as a religious group or community have been able to command is due to the part they have played in their country’s spiritual, cultural and political regeneration.
To trace the history of Sikhism as a powerful movement, we have not to go to the hoary past. It is a movement just 500 odd years old. Guru Nanak has left a clear record of the state of the Indian society as he found it in the 15th century. One sloka of his suffices to give a picture of the Indian sociopolitical, spiritual, religious and cultural degeneration;
The tax the cow and the Brahmin, and hope to be saved by (use of) cow dung (On one hand) they wear the dhoti and the frontal mark and the rosary, (On the other hand) they eat the barbarians bread,
They perform the idol worship at home, (in public to make show) they read the Koran and observe the code of the Turks O’ Brother shed the hypocrisy; tis through the God’s Name you shall swim across,
The man eaters say the prayers, they who wield the knife, wear the sacred thread.
The Brahmin blows the conch in his house,
But enjoys the viands of such people,
False is their capital, false is their trade,
By falsehood they make their living,
They are far removed from sense of shame and dharma.
Says Nanak, falsehood prevails everywhere, (Outwardly) they have saffron marks on their foreheads and dhotis girt round their loins, But their hands are knives; they are in fact butchers of the world.
They wear blue clothes to be acceptable to Muslim rulers,
They worship the Puranas succored by the bread of those whom they call malechas. They eat the he goat butchered in kosher fashion over which is breathed foreign words,
But allow no one to enter their cooking squares, marked and plastered with cow dung,
And within sit the false ones crying ‘touch not’, Touch not lest our food is defiled.’
Themselves defiled are they and what they do is already defiled,
They are impure in mind, though they clean their mouth. Says Nanak, “Dwell, O man, on the Truth if you are pure (of heart) you shall attain him.”
Deeply conscious of his mission for the regeneration of India and the world at large, Guru Nanak (14691539) gave the clarion call that the love of God means sacrifice of one’s head (for the love of mankind):
If you are desirous of playing (the game) of Love,
Then enter upon my path with your head on your palm,
Yea, once you set your foot on this way, then find not a way out, and lay down your head.
Before setting out on his itineraries he in his sermon in Sultanpur, resolved to strive for inculcation of the values; Unity, Truth, Creativity, Equality, Beauty, Freedom and Culture (light and sweetness) such being the connotations of the Mulkmantram or the fundamental doctrine of the Sikhism.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 3, 1989
