Japuji - Man’s Quest For Truth
Japuji, Guru Nanak’s prime composition, is the quintessence of Sikh thought and philosophy. While it embodies in a remarkably terse form the basic tenets of the Sikh faith, much else in Sikh scriptures is, for most part, an elaboration and elucidation of its contents.
The Japuji comprises, apart from the Mulmantra or the credal statement, two slokas and thirty-eight pauris. The paurisare not of equal length, nor are these in the same measure. The rhyming schemes too are diverse, and the rhythmic patterns frequently varying. Even the pursuit of the main enquiry, it is alleged, gets retarded at points because of the intrusion of verses seemingly out of tune with the basic line of thought. However, this is not quite so. The form shows a remarkable identity and continuity of thought and emotion; of course, with occasional slight digressions into allied spheres considered necessary to fortify the main argument. Still, whatever little seeming incoherences strike the supercilious critic, that may be due to the difficulty of reconciling, in the process of editing, revelations made in different situations and in different contexts.
The Japuji unfolds itself with what, in Sikh lore, is known as the Mulmantra. This is the credal statement affirming the Sikh faith in the existence of not only one God but a Sole Being pervading every conceivable object in the Cosmos - and yet staying independent of it. It expresses in a very terse form some of the most significant attributes of that Supreme Being, as can help man visualize Him. The Mulmantra, thus, by its very nature, makes an independent chapter of the Sikh thought and for that reason appears as a preface to each raga and a couple of other texts in the Guru Granth. Yet its kinship with the Japuji is integral and, precisely for that reason, Japuji is considered to be an exposition of the Mulmantra and the rest of Sri Guru Granth Sahib as an exposition of Japuji itself.
The Japuji opens with a sloka which appears to assume the form of a prologue. It is something in the nature of an invocation and serves to affirm Man’s faith in the existence of a Supreme Reality identified as Truth. Followed by thirty-eight stanzas, the composition again closes with a sloka. This sloka, placed at the end of this composition, sums up the whole argument and may thus be termed “the epilogue”. It recapitulates that Man is placed here on Earth which, in terms of stanza XXXIV is Dharmasal, the Abode of Dharma, Righteous Action, or Duty, in modern parlance. It is construed to be ideally equipped for man’s fullest moral and spiritual evolution. With all the physical wherewithal at his disposal, Man also has the Guru’s Word for his spiritual sustenance and guidance.
In the ultimate analysis of things, good deeds, as also loving devotion for the Lord coupled with His Grace, are to earn man his redemption. But those thus blessed have a social obligation to help redeem others too.
FIELDS COVERED
One of the most literose and spiritually inspiring of world scriptures, the Japuji is truly the product of a God-conscious soul brimming with love and compassion for mankind. It touches a whole gamut of man’s life. While in its sublime flights it encompasses the eternal and the divine phenomena, it fails not to take into account the realities of human life on terra-firma. With a view to comprehend the argument of the Japuji, it would be advisable to delineate the various areas covered by it, as it unfolds itself into several allied fields and, therefrom, into its main enquiry - the Search for Truth.
THE CONCEPT OF GOD
The Mulmantra, preceding the main text of Japuji, enunciates Guru Nanak’s concept of God. It is positive affirmation of the Unity of God - an eternal Lord who is transcendent as well as immanent; and whose essence are ‘Truth, Beauty and Love’, radiating to Man immense vistas for experiencing eternal bliss. (XXI.8)
Immanence and Transcendence being apparently antithetical, the problem of reconciling these twin attributes has been raking the minds of theologians at all times. Islam and Christianity hold that God created the Universe by the utterance of His Word and that, under His Will, He sustains it. God’s Will, thus, constantly pervades the working of the Universe. God remains outside it and yet, as Will, He permeates it. These two aspects of God signify the two attributes side by side.
Guru Nanak’s metaphysics, however, offers a somewhat different explanation. He holds that when God who defies all attributes (nirgun) becomes attributable (sargun), He becomes immanent and pervades the universe and can be comprehended in it. This sounds somewhat pantheistic, but is not quite so, for the Attributable God does not preclude the Being who is beyond the pale of attributes. Infinite God always remains outside and beyond. Just as all things are in space and space is in everything, and yet space is more than the objects that occupy it, similarly God transcends the phenomenal world of our senses, and also pervades it. This is how the Guru thinks of Him to be Immanent and Transcendent, both, at the same time. This view of Guru Nanak does not come close to the pantheistic notion but to what Dr Ing has termed Panentheism, that is ‘the being of God includes and penetrates the whole Universe so that everything exists in Him, but also that He is more than all the Universe.’
It seems, Guru Nanak had purposely placed integral 1 before omkar. He could have expressed the unity of God by a verbal expression, but did not choose to do so. The integral ‘1’ is unique in that all other numbers are but an expansion or a sum of it, or ‘1’ multiplied by that number. Secondly, this number is such that the antithesis of odd or even does not exist in it. The symbol ik thus is an unmistakable sign to conclusively indicate Unicity.
His name, which means ‘essence’ as against ‘forms’, is Truth, which is indicative of His eternity and immutability. He is, then, the Sole Creator, which means that he does not stand in need of Prakriti (the Primal Nature) to bring the phenomenal world into being, as is envisaged by the ancient Indian tradition, i.e. the Sankhya system of philosophy. For this reason he is to be looked upon as Purukha (the Universal Spirit). The Prakriti, on the other hand, is only a manifest expression of His Will.
God is sans fear and sans enmity. These two traits have been very succinctly set out in this concept, so as to set at rest the notions of some of the theological systems which attribute to Him the traits of anger and annoyance. For Guru Nanak nothing but boundless love proceeds from God’s Being. In stanza IV of the Japuji it is unambiguously stated that Lord’s ‘idiom is of Love Absolute.’
While, apparently, the attributes ‘sans fear’ and ‘sans enmity’ might seem negative ones, yet these are not really so. The absence of fear and enmity establish conclusively God’s absolute supremacy, His imperturbability and unicity. The Omnipotent Lord, thus, securely views His own creation with loving care.
The next three attributes emphasise God’s self as being beyond the pale of Time, as unincarnate and self-existent. Guru Nanak thereby refutes the Theory of Incarnation. This again is reaffirmed :
He can neither be installed
Nor His likeness be shaped ,
For, in sooth, formless and
self-existent is He. (C. 1-2)
In Guru Nanak’s system, God is both absolute and manifest, nirgun and sargun. In the absolute sense, He is the Primal Word, and is beyond Man’s subtlest and most exalting conceptions. On the other hand, while perceiving God as a ‘presence proximate’ or sargun, Guru Nanak refers to the boundless cosmic expanse as being an expression of His inscrutable Will.
Though Guru Nanak does frequently refer in the Japuji to Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and other deities, yet he does so only in order to emphasise that the powers and functions attributed to these, really pertain to God Himself. Supreme powers of creation, sustenance and destruction really belong to God, who created His own Self and beside whom all others are mere shadowy beings. Besides, since a certain nomenclature of deities was traditionally fixed in people’s minds, Guru Nanak avails himself of the popular and current idiom only to disabuse their minds of the earlier polytheistic notions.
Man, originally part and parcel of the Eternal Reality, lies helplessly stranded on the stormy ocean of this phenomenal world. Tossed around by turbulent waves of inclement forces, he yearns once again to be Real rather than fake and phoney. This will, he expects, put an end to his woes on earth and also relieve him of the cycle of births and deaths. The Japuji shows him the way - It is to rend the ‘pall of sham, untruth’ and thence arrive at the vision of Reality. In such a state alone can Man be in living communion with God, whose being is Man’s true home as well as destination. However, the morbid consciousness of the self or ‘I-am-ness’ or haumai forms the pall that separates man from the Divine Spirit. To regain the ‘beatific vision’ Man must rid himself of haumai :
Subdue the self in thee,
The world shall then thine be. (XXVIII.3)
THE DIVINE ORDER
The only method for getting rid of haumai, or morbid ego, is to perceive and abide by hukam or Divine Will. Hukam, though originally an Arabic and Quranic expression, has a different connotation with Guru Nanak. The Guru views hukam as the Divine Order that governs all Cosmos. In Japuji there are repeated references to hukam in stanzas II, III, XX, XIX and XXXVII. In all these, Guru Nanak insists upon implicit faith in the Divine Will. Such a faith ties us to the feet of the Lord and fills the heart with His love. It is such a love for the Lord that expels all misery from the human heart and makes it an abode of pure bliss. In the ultimate analysis of things, it is the right receptivity of the human spirit to welcome and imbibe the Divine Will and thus pave the way for the light of the Lord to settle therein, that determine the stage attained by the human spirit, for -
Mighty emperors with dominions vaster than the seas,
And holding mounds of wealth, besides,
Match not the puny ant,
In whose heart lies an iota of Thy Love. (XXIII. 3-4)
Guru Nanak concedes the ineffability of the Divine Order, yet he sets out to describe, in quite a few stanzas (XVI-XIX, XXII-XXVII), the limitlessness and the astounding variety of His creation and inscrutable Providence. This is only to promote that feeling of wonder and ecstasy which helps man to advance closer to the ‘Beautific Vision.’ It is like preparing the ground for that ultimate goal of union with the Lord, cherished ever so fondly by him.
THE PATHS TO SALVATION
For the redemption of man’s soul the Indian spiritual tradition envisages three paths or margas known as yogas also. These are the Karma, the Gian and the Bhakti.
The Sanskrit yoga and the English “yoke” seem to stem from the same stock of Indo-European vocables. Both bring to mind the contraption adopted to make two bulls tread in harmony. In religious thought, mind is considered to be the main agent susceptible to a vast variety of distracting and unbalancing factors. Hence, in spiritual context, yoga has come to mean the suppression of psychomental states (cittavritti nirodha) with a view to enable man to concentrate on his real Self. This “harnessing” of mind to things spiritual, helps him concentrate his energy which, in the long run, equips him with the laser beam capable of destroying the pall of hypocrisy and falsehood so pointedly stressed in the Japuji.
The Karma Marga or the path of action envisages the cultivation of this energy through concentration on action. In the Smarta tradition (early Vedic period), this cult conformed to the performance of sacrifices and other rituals accompanied by the chanting of mantras, as also for fulfilling other obligations (samskaras) enjoined upon by religion and society. These acts were supposed to generate spiritual potency which could interfere with the cosmic order itself. The acts were, very often, performed for achieving definite objectives. In the later Vedic period the doctrine was stretched to the performance, by each individual, of acts or duties assigned to him or her by the religio-social order then prevailing, without, of course, entertaining any desire for reward. The world-renowned Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, dwells chiefly on this form of Karma Yoga, though it does not fail to take cognizance of the other two as well.
Opposed to the Karma Marga and yet complementary to it, in some respects, is the Gian Marga or the path of knowledge. The advocates of this path hold that the root cause of man’s ills and of the cycle of births and deaths, is sheer ignorance. So long as ignorance is not removed, man cannot attain salvation. They, therefore, insist, firstly, on cultivating a keener insight into the true nature of this phenomenal world, which is illusory (maya); secondly, on comprehending the Ultimate Reality, i.e. Brahma as eternal, immutable, all pervasive and the Only Essence; and, lastly on realizing the kinship of Man’s soul with Brahma. The Gian Marga, therefore, stands for Man’s complete detachment from things other than spiritual, and the former’s steady absorption in Brahma. Guru Nanak, while enjoining upon man to seek Truth and become sachchiar, truthful, does not approve of man’s relinquishing this world. He views renunciation of the world as a negative and static approach, fit to be shunned. He is for maintaining a harmonious balance between activities mundane and spiritual. This, in Sikh parlance, is called the sahaj avastha - the psychic state - because of which the Sikh path is sometimes referred to as Sahaj Yoga or Raj Yoga, i.e. the chief of the yoga systems.
Sahaj literally means ‘born with’, ‘innate’ or ‘natural’. Naturalness or moderation are the hall-marks of the state of sahaj or ‘equipoise’. In spiritual sphere, the Sahaj Marga advocates the traversing of the spiritual path in a natural state of disposition. This is the middle course that steers clear of the path of penances followed by the Yogis, or of wild ecstasy sought after by the Sufi orders.
In his Siddha Gosht, Guru Nanak defines the sahaj state as one wherein the seeker leads a normal life so far as his mundane activities are concerned, and yet does not lose himself in these. In mind and spirit, he is ever a seeker of the higher truths and one who is constantly endeavouring to meet his Master in a spirit of loving adoration.
He elsewhere says that Man must live and grow out of this world much as a beautiful lotus grows in muddy waters, yet altogether unaffected by these, or an aquatic bird lives on and floats in streams and yet can, at will, move out of these, dry and unruffled.
THE PATH OF LOVING ADORATION OF GOD
The third path is that of Bhakti which rests on devotional faith. It is not a belief but a strong affection directed, in the case of Sargun Bhakti, towards a personal God, and, in the case of Nirgun Bhakti, towards His essence (Naam) or Logos (Word). It demands total surrender to Almighty’s Will. Surrender to God’s Will, no doubt, brings man deliverance from the clutches of ego and helps him demolish the ‘pall of sham and untruth’, yet something more has to be done to have His vision and to quicken man’s pace towards union with Him. God, we know, is kind and benevolent, and is always ready to welcome His men to His fold. Man has only to learn the idiom proper to converse with Him. This is none other than of loving adoration for Him :
Hear and sing of His Glories,
And let thy heart brim with love for Him.
Thus shall all misery depart,
And an abode of love be thy heart. (V. 5-6)
Now, the way to initiate dialogue with Him is the time-old practice we mortals are wont to use in this phenomenal world for winning our love. This is to eulogise him or her and seek proximity to him or her by striking a very personal note and ascribing a personal name according as it appeals to our hearts. It pays dividend in the spiritual world too, if pursued with a purity of heart and single-mindedness. In the case of God it comes to singing His praises, listening to His accounts, reflecting on His essence and having an abiding faith in Him and His ordainments (VII-XV).
Repetition of his Name (naam-simran) is believed to serve the purpose. It is supposed to pave for a deeply personal and intimate relationship. It may, however, be clearly understood that Name, in religion, usually stands for the proper Name of the deity whatever it is presumed to be: Yahwah, Allah, Hari Om, Ram, Vahiguru or Satinam, though in the ultimate analysis, Name, Word and Bani tend to indicate one and the same thing. Indian magical positivism assumes that the name of an object is the key to its essence. This belief persists in all great religions of the world. Repetition of the Name, in course of time is, thus, thought to develop in man a feeling of intense involvement with the Lord leading ultimately to a close communion with Him.(V-VI).
Loving adoration, manifested by the seeker through hearkening, reflecting and repeating of Lord’s Name, pays the seeker dividends in another way too. It arouses in him an aesthetic feeling of wonderment (vismad), which has great potentiality to intensify his feeling for God and, thereby, to quicken the pace of communion with Him. In such a state the exclamation vahiguru (Wonder is Thine, O Lord) - the Sikh Jap-mantra, the meditational formula - escapes spontaneously from the mouth of the seeker and he gets absorbed in that feeling which, in its turn, leads to purging of his soul from its dross :
When hands, feet and body be soiled,
Water may cleanse these sure;
When clothes too are with grime soiled,
Soap doth wash these clean;
But when human spirit is by sin defiled,
Love of Name alone may scrub it clean. (XX. 1-6)
Nam-simran, thus, has a special significance in Sikhism and, for that reason, it is referred to as the Naam Yoga Marga, or the Path of Naam. The Japuji testifies to its potency to draw the seeker to the abode of the Lord for an ultimate union with Him :
Had I but a hundred thousand tongues,
Nay, even twenty times that score;
And were with each tongue to repeat
A hundred thousand times the Sole Creator’s Name -
Thus may I ascend the stairs my dear Lord to meet. (XXXII. 1-3)
However, it should be clearly understood that Naam-simran is not a mechanical repetition of some stock mantras of formulae. Naam Marga, if viewed in this narrow sense, would smack of magical powers attributable to some expressions, the mechanical repetition of which would earn merit. Such a view has no place in Sikhism. On the contrary, Nam-simran in Sikhism is viewed as a reforming force, as an instrument for reconditioning of mind and heart, as a means for attuning one’s self to the Universal soul. It does not end up in reflection or meditation, but in living with Him, in experiencing a sense of loving proximity to Him.
THE CULTIVATION OF VIRTUE
Though Naam-simran is the keystone to man’s spiritual edifice, yet an essential pre-requisite, even to Naam-simran, is righteousness in thought and action. This aspect of the spiritually-oriented man has been stressed in the Japuji. The Guru categorically declares that even loving adoration may fail to help in the attainment of its objective, if it were not fortified with the cultivation of virtue or moral qualities :
Without imbibing Virtue
no one may cherish Thee. (XXI.6)
To be truthful or sachchiar - set forth in the Japuji as the aim of man’s spiritual quest - is itself a pointer to the demands that it should make on the moral conduct of a seeker of the Lord. The observation that the earth has been installed by the Lord as dharmasal wherein actions of humans are to be adjudged by the fairest norms, stresses the point further.
THE FIVE REALMS OR STAGES
As indicated earlier, human life, in Guru Nanak’s view, is an incessant struggle for spiritual evolution and not merely a phase of static speculation. In its raw and untended state the human spirit roams beguiled by low animal instincts and lost in ‘misleading bylanes’. In this situation, man is not even conscious of any higher purpose, or of any nobler ideal. From this turbid state, he has to so evolve himself through persistent endeavour, as to rend the ‘pall of sham, untruth,’ and attain the Ultimate Reality.
While the final goal is the realisation of Truth and the attainment of the ‘beatific vision’, this goal itself is attainable through a sustained process of spiritual discipline and experience. The discipline lies in an annihilation of ego, haumai, through an unqualified acceptance of the Divine Will and imploring of the grace of the Lord through loving devotion, Naam-simran. In this connection, Guru Nanak speaks of five stages of mystic experience, or spiritual evolution, and refers to these as Khands or Realms.
The basic and initial Realms is that of Dharma. In it every object, whatever its nature, is required to carry on its duty for the fulfillment of the grand design of the Creator. Accordingly, Temporal entities, represented by days and nights, years and seasons, are seen performing their tasks dutifully; physical powers symbolised by air, water and fire, run their errands ungrudgingly; the spatial entities covered by earth, nether regions, indeed, by the vast expanse of this Universe as a whole, are busy carrying on their tasks dutifully. Further, infinite variety of creatures and beings with myriad names are also seen carrying on their assigned duties. Such is the dispensation of the Realm, of Dharma. Placed in this realm man has to discharge his obligations; to tend to functions imposed upon him by the Creator. In fact, a special responsibility devolves upon him, for, endowed with superior consciousness, he is expected to carry on functions, both mundane and spiritual.
Now, in stanza XXXII of the Japuji, Guru Nanak says that the natural goal and challenge for the human spirit is to -
ascend the stairs my deal Lord to meet for -
So inspiring His Name do I ken
It tempts the meanest worm to soar. (XXXII.3)
If the meanest worm’s yearning is, to meet the dear Lord, man, whom God planted on Earth as the ‘roof and crown’ of things and created him ‘in His own image’, has it, as his inescapable and bounden duty, to try to deserve what the Almighty has endowed him with. Man’s placement on Earth is thus by itself a challenge for him to perform his duties which are subject to rigorous laws and rules of conduct and spiritual discipline. Man owes it to His Maker to justify his very existence and to acquit himself with credit. There is an added incentive to man to do his duty, as he stands firmly assured that his ‘actions shall be judged by fairest norms’. The true and the false in him shall be sifted and he shall be duly rewarded for all the good he does and also be pushed farther from the Master for all his failings and omissions. This consciousness, the Guru says, is to be gained in this realm, the Realm of Dharma.
The next is the Realm of knowledge or Gian Khand. In it Man’s intellect steadily gets keener and his mental horizons widen. He starts perceiving cosmic mysteries through deliberate intellectual effort. The vastness of this Universe, its infinite variety and the grand design behind it, begin to unfold before him in this realm. He begins to comprehend the basic unity underlying it. He is seized of his own reality, his kinship with the Sole Being and his predicament of ‘the paradise lost’. He, following Guru Nanak, begins to place his finger at the diseased spot, haumai, ‘the pall of sham and untruth’ and, as a result, begins to experience a yearning to regain his paradise. A proper integration of Man’s spiritual powers and his intellectual faculties takes place at this stage; and he not only becomes aware of the beauty and profundity of Creation, but also of the meaning and essence of things - deeper and far beyond what is manifest.
Armed with this awareness, he proceeds to the next realm, the Realm of Spiritual Endeavour, Saram Khand. Exquisite forms and Beauty are the hallmark of the images fashioned therein. Man’s intuition, understanding and insight are all are superbly forged there. In fact, Man begins to acquire the vision of sages and seers. His incessant labours in the spiritual field ultimately qualify him to enter the next realm, the Realm of Grace, Karam Khand. The noblest and most exalted spirits abide in this Realm, with their beings ever saturated in the love of the Lord. The blessed doughty spirits and mighty heroes abide here with the love of the Lord as their sole prop. They are their purest selves with their beings altogether untainted by any baser instincts. Even paragons of Beauty, assume their importance when they have the Grace of the Lord shining over them. The key to win His Grace is in a total involvement with His Name Divine which is itself its own reward and is indicative of the Lord’s grace, karam.
The long and arduous journey of the human spirit is by now well-nigh over; and it enters the Realm of Truth, Sachch Khand. This is the place from where the Almighty showers His Grace and issues forth His ordinances. Here Man’s spirit is face to face with the Ultimate Reality. It finds itself in constant communion with the Divine spirit, which is Man’s primal home and his final destination.
Incidentally, though salvation is often talked of in the Sikh scriptures, it is not viewed as a process in isolation. An individual effort might even seem rather selfish. The individual’s spiritual evolution, Guru Nanak felt, must be in a social context; for the individual’s moral, spiritual and social progress are inextricably linked with the social group which has nurtured him. Hence a Sikh is expected to advance on the spiritual path in such a way as to become an instrument of salvation for others too :
Such as the Lord’s Name do meditate,
Their life’s toil duly sublimate;
Rapt they advance in effulgence wide,
Redeeming many a more in their stride.
(The last sloka, V.4)
THE DOCTRINE OF GRACE
Guru Nanak introduces another concept in religious thought, i.e. Nadar or Divine Grace.
In all His Creation that I do behold,
Nothing save through His Grace avails. (VI.2)
The Karma theory appropriates conclusive merit for human action, which determines its own reward. Guru Nanak’s Doctrine of Nadar, however, has an over-riding effect. According to it, even though prayer and righteous actions are essential, yet these by themselves are not enough. Above everything else is the Grace of the Lord, which is something in the nature of a responsive love of God. Devotion and pious actions are basic essentials to merit His love; but these are not the final determinants, as beyond these, and overseeing these, is Nadar or Bakhshish. Even virtue may be imbibed, good deeds performed and devotion offered, only if the Divine Grace so facilitates :
Such alone are privileged to sing to Thee,
As Thy good Grace hath blessed;
And deeply steeped in Thy Love ever abide. (XXVII, 15)
The Lord’s Nadar or Grace thus being the final determinant of things, truly blessed are only those whom Divine Grace hath blessed.
THE GURU’S ROLE
Guru Nanak lays special emphasis on the need for the Guru - the Divine Preceptor - for the regeneration of Man. In the Mulmantra, placed at the head of the Japuji, he asserts that God can be attained only through the Grace of the Guru. And, in the concluding sloka again, he equates the Guru with ‘Air’ - which is vital for life - signifying, thereby, Guru’s indispensability in matters spiritual.
The Guru’s indispensibility conceded, what is he expected to do? What should be his credentials? While the Japuji lends some light in this regard, Guru Nanak’s utterances elsewhere in the holy scripture are more specific. Here are two, the first from Rag Majh and the second from Sri Rag :-
The Guru is the greatest benefactor,
Epitome of peace too.
The Guru is the lamp to enlighten Earth
Heavens and nether Hades. (SGGS:137)
The Guru is the ladder, the yacht, the raft, the ship,
To ferry folk across the ocean of life;
Yea, the Guru is the mighty river of Nectar. (SGGS:17)
The Guru, thus, true to the meaning implicit in the vocable assigned to him, is the Dispeller of Darkness. He is the God-consciousness guide, the enlightened preceptor and an essential link between Man and God. He is an object of utmost veneration; yet he is not to be worshipped. God’s gracious light rests on him and, in his turn and through him, the Word is transmitted to all mankind.
Since the Guru is ever in tune with God, who is the Ultimate Dispeller of all darkness, whatever comes out of the Guru’s mouth, is supremely efficacious; and has the power to convert the baser self of a person into something meriting Divine approbation. That is why, stanza V of the Japuji talks of the Guru’s Word as ‘the supernal symphony’ - the mystic sound yogis crave to hear; as also ‘the loftiest scripture’ that can reveal the highest Truth. Guru’s Word embodies in it all that is considered imperative for spiritual regeneration of Man. The Guru’s Word is all pervasive, for God’s Will bides therein. The Guru’s Word is thus the holiest of all holies, as it imparts Eternal Truth to man. It is through the wisdom of the Guru that man’s mind is attuned to the Lord in a state of equipoise. In this way the Guru through his Word rids the individual soul of darkness and lends it spiritual insight. He transmits God’s Word which enable the people to adore the Lord and thereby shed their feeling of illusion.
Sikhism, however, does not subscribe to the need for a personal Guru. In it, as also in the entire Sant tradition avowing impersonal or nirgun form of Bhakti, the saints or gurus, whenever they talked of their Guru, they meant the Divine Voice within them. They listened to it in their innerselves and transmitted it to the people outside for their benefit. That is why Guru’s Word, i.e. bani is considered to be Guru par excellence, nay, even the revelation from God Himself. And for that reason, Sikhism firmly disapproves of the idea of continuation of the line of personal gurus in any form.
FORMALISM IN RELIGION
Guru Nanak did not allow any quarter to formalism in religion. He saw little use for pilgrimages, rituals and austerities that had, for ages, been believed to be sure devices for gaining merit. A ritualistic religion, he felt convinced, was light and not serious in spirit. Rituals led people to start and end with these, and left little inclination for the true spirit of religion to be sought. They, thus, tended to take for kernel what was mere husk.
In unequivocal terms, Guru Nanak denounces rituals, etc. when he says -
Pilgrimage, austerity, mercy and charity,
May fetch one paltry as a seasame seed,
But he who hearkens, reflects and
love of Name partakes,
Bathes in the sacred fount within him,
And his soul all grime forsakes. (XXI.1-4)
Instead, the Guru held that the need was for man to cleanse his soul and bind himself in loving devotion to his Creator. The human heart so richly endowed by God may, he felt, be further sanctified with Naam-simran.
DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE
As if by sheer force of tradition, numerous religious groups in India had, for ages, been running down human life on earth, and even referring to the world itself as a mere illusion. This had resulted in a degree of diffidence and defeatism in people and had made them morbidly fatalistic. The belief in the world being an illusion had also generated a measure of lassitude and purposelessness. Escapist renunciation was a direct outcome of this approach to life.
Guru Nanak reversed this trend. By suggesting that ‘Latent in Spirit of Man, rarest of gems do lie’ (VI.3), and that ‘the sacred fount is within him’ (XXI.4), he lent unprecedented dignity to human life. He revealed to the common man remarkable potentialities in his own being.
Referring to the Universe he says -
The Creator doth with fond concern view,
The Universe created in His own image true. (XXXI.3-4)
This restored people’s confidence in the world, which being in the image of its Creator, was true and invested with a real purpose. Since God is Eternal Truth, how could the Universe, which is a manifestation of His Immanent Self, be a mere illusion? This new outlook on life and things, in due course, caused a revolution in people’s attitudes and revealed to them fresh horizons for human endeavour.
Reaffirmation of life on this Earth is, thus, a very important aspect of Guru Nanak’s teachings, particularly in the Indian context, in which most creeds prefer to lay emphasis on a life of renunciation.
THE IDEAL HIGHLIGHTED
Japuji is not merely an exercise in pure metaphysical speculation. If it were so, it would have missed the solid substance of precise guidelines for Man’s spiritual, moral and even social endeavours - which are, of course, its chief merits. It expects man’s mundane life to be moulded in accordance with ideals embedded in it, the chief two of which are ‘to be truthful’ and ‘loving’; others being ‘to be fearless’ and ‘free of enmity’. The last two are, in a way, concomitant of the first two, for man cannot be truthful unless he is fearless, and he cannot be loving till he forsakes hatred and enmity. Another, the fifth one, must not escape mention. This is the acquisition of knowledge which has been recognized as an essential prop and sustenance (food) for man :
Make Divine knowledge thy sustenance,
And Compassion thy steward be.
Thus alone shalt thou taste of celestial melody
That vibrates in all hearts. (XXIX.1)
Again, in the Realm of Knowledge, it is Reason which reigns supreme and opens up vistas to ‘myriad melodies and sights capable of enrapturing the soul’ (XXXVI.2). Indeed, in Guru Nanak’s philosophy of religion, knowledge, whether it comes through intuition or systematic reasoning, is a necessary stalk to stem the onslaught of blind and misguided faith. In fact, Guru Nanak has elsewhere strongly pleaded for a rational view of life, nay, even of religion :
Let reason shape man’s adoration of the Lord;
Let sanity and reason fetch him honour and name;
Reason doth help decipher what man may scan;
Sanity need determine his acts of charity;
Of sanity alone, O Nanak, is the enlightened path;
Save sanity, it is all the Devil’s vaunt. (SGGS:1245)
THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF GURU’S TEACHINGS
For Guru Nanak, a truly religious life is a struggle and not merely a hymn. Virtue and evil are no mere verbal expressions :
Such as be our actions
Such a meed shall we receive. (XX.8)
Besides -
Without imbibing virtue,
No one may even cherish Thee. (XXI.6)
Man’s imbibing virtue and cherishing the Lord are, however, not to be individual acts in isolation. His spiritual endeavours are to be in an essentially social context. Man must not think merely in terms of his own salvation, for he owes an essential duty to his fellowmen too. As his spirit evolves through his own individual efforts, a social obligation automatically devolves upon him. For, Guru Nanak says,
Reflection gets one to the portals of salvation;
such a one’s fellows too find liberation.
Firmly assured of one’s own salvation,
One leads on the congregation.(XV.1-3)
Thus, just as a lamp, once lit, lights may more, so a person, illumined in his own self, is duty-bound to lend light to many more of his fellow beings. In fact, the unicity of God has the entire human family as its logical corollary. The brotherhood of all mankind automatically proceeds from the common Fatherhood of God. In stanza XXVIII while addressing the Yogis of the Ayee sect, Guru Nanak suggests - ‘Let Brotherhood of Man be as Ayee Panth to Thee’. In fact, the self-same golden chains of love that bind Man to the feet of the Lord, also bind him to the Lord’s Creation.
COSMOLOGICAL TRUTHS
Unlike some other prophets, Guru Nanak makes no pretence to unfold the mystery of Creation. Though various notions regarding Creation had been current, yet Guru Nanak felt that these had been fanciful and had little rational basis. He, therefore, categorically rejects the traditional Indian and Semitic beliefs as to the time, size, sequence and sustenance of the Universe. For anyone to try to fix the date, time, season and circumstance of creation, would be something utterly presumptuous, for -
The Lord that created the Universe
Hath had all this mystery is His Will. (XXI.14)
Besides -
And he that vaunts, knowledgeable is he,
Welcome at Lord’s door shall never be. (XXI.18)
Even as regards the size and expanse of the universe, Guru Nanak affirms that -
Spheres there are beyond our own;
And numberless more beyond these. (XVI.11)
It staggers human imagination to ponder how His one Word created the Cosmic expanse; and ‘instantly ran a myriad streams of life therein’ (XVI.20). Prior to this, the Guru, like the other prophets, envisaged a state, in which the Divine Essence lay dormant for billions and trillion of years. This, in a revealing canto in Rag Maru, the Guru calls the dhundhukara - something analogous to the gaseous state of the present day scientific conception. In that state, regarded by the Guru as a state of quiescence (sunn samadhi) of the Attributeless, nothing prevailed except His Will. Then, when He thought of manifesting Himself, He created this huge expanse of myriads of diverse hues and forms. This He did with one word as if out of nothing. The vastness and variety of this manifest form is so bewildering that Guru Nanak deems all speculations about it as futile:
Limitless His Creation,
Its bounds we never ken.
Millions have vexed to know its extent,
Yet success have had they none. (XXIV.5-8) (SGGS:1036)
Guru Nanak’s stance is thus nearer the modern scientific view; it not only cleanses people’s minds of the cobwebs of earlier fanciful and irrational beliefs, but also establishes the boundless enormity of the Lord’s powers and the inscrutable nature of His Will. It is, indeed, refreshing to find that in a single stroke Guru Nanak achieves two seemingly irreconcilable objectives - (a) cleansing peoples’ minds of the ages-old irrational beliefs regarding the process of Creation and the shape, size and sustenance of the Cosmos, and, as a logical corollary thereto, (b) reaffirming and reinforcing their implicit faith in the Divine Order.