God in His pleasure and discretion
communicated with man through the word of the Guru, by filling the Guru’s
personality with His presence to make the basic distinction between
‘revelation’ and ‘literature’, by assigning to the former the validity of the
true guidance for man in matters 0f his ultimate concern.
The word of the Guru clearly
distinguished the Sikh mysticism of personality from the hitherto accepted
Jainist and Buddhist mysticism of infinite, the one that aims at the dental of
self, the vehicle of God’s Will, and the other that aims at its complete
annihilation.
The Sikh formularies sternly
declare a fault-finding approach towards other religions as anathema. The
fundamental dogma of Sikhism and its epiphany is that all the historical
manifestations of the Sikh Gurus constitute one historical Personality in
continuous movement through ten corporalities, and God of Sikhism is a God of
revelation Who, on His Own initiative, presses towards revealing Himself. This
dogma is the starting point of Sikhism and is fundamental to its understanding
and practice.
From this concept of summum
bonum follows the new definition of and also the new content of what Guru Amar
Das imparted to the fundamental concept of the Absolute Reality, conceived as sat-cit-anand in Hindu spiritual
tradition. True understanding and pursuit of this last component of the
Absolute Reality, ananda, has engaged
the Hindu mind throughout the ages, conceiving of it as the seedless and
featureless trance, where the mind, in
its utter unflickering, emptiness, is somehow, awake and aware and altogether
unsettled nothingness, and in another way, relating it to pure bodily
well-being.
Mohsin Fani, a Zoroastrian
contemporary of Nanak, the Sixth (1595-1649), on the basis of correspondence
with the Guru, specifically mentions this Sikh dogma as fundamental to Sikhism.
The dogma is reiterated at numerous places in the text of Guru Granth.
The scientific fact about
Sikhism is that it is neither a syncretism, an amalgam of other religions and
creeds, nor a sect of Hinduism or Islam, has been variously asserted from time
to time by numerous authorities.
It is an autonomous,
independent religion, complete and whole, with its validity inhering in its
revelations and proclamations, such as are repeatedly made in its literature,
and its historical movement. The newly developed science of religion and its
critique categorise all higher world religions into mystic and prophetic
religions. The basis of mystic religions is anonymous experiences of
individuals.
'The prophetic religions, on
the other hand, arise out of a confrontation of an individual, the Prophet,
with God in the relationship of ‘I’
and ‘Thou’, in the phraseology made
famous by Martin Buber (1878-1965). As an authority on the subject explains it,
“What is important in the mystic acts is that something happens. What is
important in the prophetic acts is that something is said.”
The religions taking their
birth in the middle east, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are
prophetic religions while those arising in India India
This, along with the record
left by, and pertaining to the great medieval and modern Christian mystics, as
well as the prestigious Sufi tradition of Islam, reveals that the goals are of
two kinds, distinct and distinguishable, one of the mystic religions and the
other of the prophetic religions.
Reynold Nicholson writes
explaining the nature and goal of Islamic mysticism that, “Unlike nirvana, which is merely the cessation
of individual; the fanah, the passing
away of the Sufi from his phenomenal existence, involves baqa. Baqa means the
continuance of his real existence and personality. He who dies to Self, lives
in God, and fanah, the consummation
of his death, makes the attainment of baqa,
the union with the Divine Life.”
The goal of Sikh mysticism,
as revealed in Guru Granth and the Dasam Granth of Guru Gobind Singh, is
indubitably the goal of baqa of Sufi
mysticism, not irrecoverable dissipation and merger of personality in the
neutral Absolute Reality, the Brahma, through nirvana and mukti, but
perpetuation of personality.
This perpetual personality is
through its phenomenal death and by its rise into unison with the person of
God, so that the liberated soul, the brahmgyani,
becomes a vehicle 0f God’s Will in transcendent relationship as well as in the
creative process of God. That is what is meant when Guru Granth says that “a
liberated soul is filled with zeal of cosmic welfare.” This is what is meant
when the Guru (Gobind Singh) says that, though he had achieved “Complete and
full unison with God,” yet God sent him back to propagate dharma.
This ultimate concern of man,
according to Sikhism, the goal of establishing permanent unison with the
Transcendent Reality, the person of God, Akal
Purkh, clearly separates and distinguishes Sikhism as a religion, apart
from and independent of the Hindu and Buddhist spiritual tradition. The claim
of Sikhism as an independent and autonomous world religion is no naive or empty
boast or a presumptuous claim. It is demonstrably valid and scientific
assertion.
There are no songs of nirvana in the Sikh doctrine and no
hungering for peace of nothingness, utter death, emptiness or immobile little
rest, shanti, here.
Not scattering of personality
or cleavage of individuality, karvat to
achieve submergence into the sum total 0f eternal substance, Brahma, is the acceptable goal in
Sikhism, nor unrealizable and unfulfilled human yearning for an utterly
inaccessible God is the Sikh doctrine and vision of religion, quest, but an
abiding unison of the nature of a love-duet between man and God. God, the
Creator of man and the Immortal Brahma, is Sikhism’s teaching.
APPRECIATION OF SIKHISM
There is one dogma and one
scientific truth without understanding both of which Sikhism cannot be properly
appreciated. There are two approaches to understand and appreciate a religion —
one valid and legitimate and the other invalid and arbitrary. The valid
approach is that of auto-interpretation, i.e., interpretation according to the
basic postulates and doctrines of that religion itself, and the other,
arbitrary and presumptuous approach is that of hetero-interpretation, that
seeks to evaluate and judge a religion according to postulates and norms
hostile or alien of itself. This latter is the domain of polemics and
confrontation and not of understanding and approbation. Hetero-interpretation
is, in the poetic imagery of Gitanjali, as if “a jewel has come to the garden
to test excellence of rose flower by rubbing it against its touchstone.” ln
Sikhism auto-interpretation 0f religion alone is approved. The Sikh scripture
lays down that, “a systematic approval towards a religion is alone fruitful and
satisfying, while an attitude of acrimony and fault-finding is frustrative.”
Related document:-
Sikhism - An Oecumenical Religion
http://sikhdigitallibrary.blogspot.in/2014/03/sikhism-oecumenical-religion-sirdar.html
Celebrating the Life and Works of Sirdar Kapur Singh
http://sikhdigitallibrary.blogspot.in/p/celebrating-life-and-works-of-sirdar.html
Related document:-
Sikhism - An Oecumenical Religion
http://sikhdigitallibrary.blogspot.in/2014/03/sikhism-oecumenical-religion-sirdar.html
Celebrating the Life and Works of Sirdar Kapur Singh
http://sikhdigitallibrary.blogspot.in/p/celebrating-life-and-works-of-sirdar.html
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