CHAPTER IV
THE SIKH THOUGHT
The
basic problems of Sikh thought
are naturally the same as those of other world religions and, as may be
expected, their treatment by Sikhism is, in the main, on the lines of the
Hindu and Buddhist speculative thought. Wherever Sikhism differs or departs
from these lines of thought, it does so, as a rule, not by introducing new terms or concepts but by
underlining an already familiar concept or by amplifying or interpreting it
otherwise. This is, as it should be, for, thus alone
it is possible to affect a new advance of expansion in the cultural and religious horizon
of mankind and it is thus that all great cultures and civilizations have
emerged and developed.
THE UNIVERSE
We have already said that in Sikh thought, the final duality between the
Matter and the Spirit is denied. The basic Sikh thought is strictly monistic :
“From
One the Many emanate
and finally into the One
the Many submerge.” l
All that exists, whether in the form of phenomena and appearances, as Becoming, or as Numenon and Reality, as
Being, is, in fact, the Spirit and the Mind, The individual mind, the numerous
forms of life and the inanimate matter are all Spirit in different forms. Out
of its own impulse and initiative of the Spirit a process of involutions
occurred for some limited purpose, the precise nature of which is beyond human
comprehension. All we can say is that such is its nature and such its pleasure.
The fraction of the universe in its initial form, which the modern theorists,
such as Abbe Lamatre (1904 - ) call, the Primeval Atom; resulted from the
involutionary impulse of, the Absolute Spirit, God. In this Primeval Atom was
originally concentrated, in a super-dense state, that which expanded and
disintegrated, through an antithetical evolutionary impulse, for thousands of
millions of years of the human mind, and finally into the universe as it is
to-day. This eruptive, fissionary impulse, whereby the Primeval Atom has issued
into the innumerable forms constituting the universe has reached its highest
point, up-to-date, in the creation of man, and man, therefore, is the point in
creation from where the inverse movement of evolution may take a further leap
towards the Spirit.
These two processes of involution and evolution, apasarpani and upasarpani as the profound ancient Jaina thought
speculated, constitute a double but simultaneous movement and thus creation of
the universe is an involution-cum-evolution process, a descent and an ascent.
The universe, thus, is nothing but God in becoming. “The formless has become
all the innumerable forms, Himself. He is beyond the attributes inhere. Nanak
declares the doctrine of the one absolute Being, that is Becoming, for, the One
indeed is the Many.” 2
The main doctrines of Sikh theology
are grounded in this view of the Ultimate Reality and its nature.
GENESIS
With
regard to the coming into being of the Primeval Atom, the Sikh doctrine is that
the process was instantaneous, caused by the Will of God. “The forms become in consequence
of the Divine Will. Comprehension fails at this stage of understanding of the
Divine Will.” 3
After thus stating the beginning of the
Becoming, the further statements made in the Sikh scripture about the creation
and evolution of the universe are remarkably akin to the picture which has now
been adumbrated by scientific speculation after considering the data revealed
by the recent advances in Observational Astronomy and probes into the heart of
Matter. One of the basic hymns in the Sikh scripture, which may be called, the Hymn
of the Genesis, says,
“Four thousands and thousands of Ages, and for millions and
millions of aeons, there was nothing in the beginning but nebulous density. Neither
solids, nor spaces were there, only the Divine Impulse made become.
Neither the day nor night, neither
galaxies and solar systems nor satellites, but only God, self-absorbed.
The atmospheres, the imprimis waters, the preconditions of all
forms of life,
And the sound, the protyle of all becoming, they too were not
there.
There were no higher planes, middle regions or lower spaces, for
the Space as yet was not there. And there was no all-consuming Time either.
When God willed, He created the universes. The expanse was caused without a formal cause.
None knoweth His limits or limitlessness. The true Teacher revealeth this
secret”. 4
MAN
Paul
Tillich identifies man’s basic predicament as existential estrangement from his essential being,
estrangement which is expressed in anxiety about meaninglessness of life, gnawing
awareness to alienation and incurable lack of wholeness, as his existential
dilemma : “my bedstead of anxiety, strong with strings of pain and my cover
quilt of alienation is my existential predicament. O, my God, take note of it and have mercy upon me.” 4a
Paul
Tillich, the modern Western man, was not aware that in the Sikh
scripture, not only the human predicament has been noted but the way to its
cure has also been pointed out : Let man take refuge in God and proceed to cure his incurable
sickness through identifying himself with God’s purposes; “how else can man secure abiding peace and wholeness
except through refuge in and communion with God”? 4b
Man
being the highest-yet point in the process of creation, where the evolutionary
impulse has apparently near-exhausted its initial momentum, it is man on whom
now the responsibility rests for consciously revitalising this impulse for a further evolutionary
leap.
“Thou
art the very essence of God. Therefore, know thyself as such.” 5
“The human body is the resting point of creation and it is from
here that the further upward movement towards God realisation starts. Therefore,
now make an all-out effort to reach the Goal and do not waste human life in
frivolities”. 6
It is
the. involution-cum-evolution
which is responsible for the creation of the universe and which
after reaching the point of human consciousness has reached a stasis, and the
man is thus a voluntary diminution of the infinitude of God, for some obscure
but limited purpose, as, indeed, all forms of existence, represent a diminution
of God. Since God is truth, knowledge, bliss, light, harmony and immortality,
the involuted forms of creation are, so much less of all these. Man being the
stage at which the
evolution has emerged into self-consciousness, man is capable of knowing that
he has reached a particular stage of the creative process, and he is capable,
volitionally, of taking steps to evolve upwards to the next stage. This is the
stage of the brahmajnani, or the God-conscious man, and it is to this
notion of evolution, the premonition of which finds expression in the later 18th and early
19th century West European literature in the form of the concept of ‘the
Superman’. “Lo, I preach to you the
Superman; Superman is the meaning
of the earth,” said Nietzsche. Again “Man is a rope stretched between the
animal and the Superman.. what
is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal”. 7 Sikhism
agrees with this except that Sikhism declares that ‘the meaning of the earth’ reaches far beyond the stage of
the Superman and Superman is only an interim stage ‘a bridge and not a goal’. Sikhism endorses Nietzsche that
the sphere of the activity of the Superman, and of the higher-still goal of the
evolution, is ‘the earth’, in the sense that it is on this
earth that a perfect human Society of God-conscious men, a psycho-social
perfection, is the ultimate objective of the impulse of the God which has originally
given rise to the process of creation. In contradistinction to all those and
previous philosophies and religions, which taught that the ultimate goal of man
was either absorption into God or entry into a supramundane Kingdom of God
wherein there is abiding propinquity to God, Sikhism urges man to divinise the whole of humanity
on this earth by transforming, mind, life and matter, through a conscious
effort and will, and with the aid of the spiritual technique of the Namyoga,
which is capable of taking along the whole psyche of man to a level of
existence, undreamed of before, where pure knowledge, limitless harmony and
divine bliss would prevail. This indeed would be a Society of gods, and the
ultimate purpose of the divine impulse of creation is the establishment of this
Society of human gods in the terrestrial spheres of the universe. It is the
teachings of the Sikh Gurus that the supreme duty of man is to make an all-out
effort towards this divine goal and the Sikh Gurus not only point out this goal
but also reveal the way towards it. “Hail, the Guru, a hundreds thousands times hail, for, he reveals the secret of transforming
man into a god.” 8
GOD
The
Sikh concept of the ultimate reality is more akin to the Judaic notion of an
Almighty Person than to the Aryan concept of an immanent neutral Principle.
The basic formula of Sikh dogmatics is the opening line of the Sikh scripture
which characterises the Ultimate Reality as follows :
“1.
Being-Becoming. Truth; Numenon; Creator.
Person. Without feat of another. Without
animus towards another. Beyond
Times,
Form. Unborn. Self-expression: Light.
Contacted by human mind through
(His) Grace.9
MAYA
The doctrine of Maya has been
basic to the Hindu and Buddhist speculations from the very beginning. The best
known work, apart from the omniscient, Mahabharta, in which the term, ‘maya’ (relative truth) is employed as a
philosophical concept, is the metrical treatise, Karika, by Gaudpad, where-in,
unlike the Mahabharta (Bhagwadgita XVIII. 61), the term is not taken for
granted but is explained and defined. Since this name, Gaudpad, was borne by
the teacher of the famous philosopher of Hindu monism, Samkara, the author of
the Karika may be the same person who might have lived at the end of the
7th century. This
work, Karika, is usually printed with the Mandukya-opanisad, and for
practical purposes, is regarded a part of it. In
language and thought, both,
it bears a remarkable resemblance to Buddhist writings of the Madhyamik School,
and the criticism of the Hindu orthodoxy that the monism of Samkara, in which
the doctrine of maya is embedded, is, in reality, crypto-Buddhism, is not without substance.10 In
the Karika, the world of appearances is compared to the apparent circle
of fire produced by a whirling lighted torch. This striking image first occurs
in the Maitraana Upanisad (VI. 24). It also occurs in the Buddhist
Mahayan scripture, the Lankavarsutra, which purports to be an account
of the revelation of the true Religion of Guatama, the Buddha, when he visited Ceylon and there gave discourses to the King of the Island , Ravna, and his wife, Mahamati. This represents a
well matured phase of speculation in Buddhism, as it criticises the Hindu schools of philosophy of the Samkhya,
Pasupat, as well as other schools. It includes a prophecy about the birth of Nagarjuna, the great
Buddhist savant of the 4th century A.D., and it mentions the advent
of Guptas which marks the renaissance of Hinduism in India
“What
is there positive to which we can give the name of maya? What positive activity
the maya is capable of?”
The
human soul is subject to the pleasure and pain principle in its very nature as
long as it operates on the individuated plane of consciousness.
Again,
“maya, in the form of a snake, entwines to render human mind immiscible with
the real and the more it is accepted at its face value the more it misguides.
Rare indeed is such a man who overcomes and casts it away.” Further “what is
maya except a befooling magic trick? Yea, a dry blade of grass afire, a passing
shadow of a summer cloud, a momentary flooding after a tropical rain, for him
who is out of communion with God” 11
What
do these dissertations on maya, in the Sikh scripture mean?
Maya
is the antithesis of moksha in Hindu thought. But Maya is not the
antithesis of absolute Reality. There is no incompatibility between the brahma and maya, for
the former is not opposed to the Many? It is advanda, non-dual, that is,
it has no opposite being outside all classification. To be precise ‘classification’ is exactly maya. Maya noun of Sanskrit is derived from
the root matr, ‘to measure
to form, to build, to layout a plan’, the same root from which Graeco-Latin
words, ‘meter’ ‘matrix’ ‘material’ and ‘matter’ are obtained. The fundamental
process of measurement is division. Thus the Sanskrit root, dva, from
which we get ‘divide’, is also the Latin root of ‘dus’, and the English, ‘dual’.
To say, then, that the world of ‘facts’ and ‘events’ is, maya is to say
that the words, ‘facts’ and ‘events’ are terms of measurement rather than the real itself, perse. ‘Measurement’
is setting up bounds of all kinds whether by descriptive classification or by
screening. Thus the ‘facts’ and ‘events’ are terms of measurement rather than the
real itself, perse. Thus, the ‘facts’ and events are as abstract as
lines of latitude or feet and inches, meters and centimeters. This is not to be
confused with the “Idealism” or “Monism” of the Western Philosophy” for all
concrete things are not, in reality, illusion, unreal, or just, the One they
are not unreal and illusory, because maya is not-existence; it is a wrong mode of
apprehension. It is not ‘One’, because ‘One’ is a thing, a mode of measurement
and, therefore, itself maya.
To join the ‘many’ into ‘one’
is as much maya as to separate the many from one. The world as we perceive it is made up of surfaces and lines, of
areas of density and vacuity, but the ‘maya’ concept of the Sikh scripture says
that these forms and appearances, these things and events have no “own-being”, svabhava;
they do not exist in their own right but only in relation to one another,
like “the spark of a dry blade of grass”, or like “the fleeting shadow of a
summer cloud. Concretisation and formalisation is maya, when the human mind
attempts to comprehend and control that which impinges upon his consciousness. This is the unreal world of
Buddhism, the world of ‘name and form’, nama-rupa. When the Sikh scripture says that “maya
is a snake which entwines human consciousness and whosoever takes it as its
face-value, him the maya misleads and confuses”, means that man confuses his
measures with the world so measured of identifying money with wealth, fixed
convention with fluid reality. The Sikh doctrine of Maya points out the
impossibility of grasping the actual world in the verbal net of man’s mind and
the fluid character of those very constructions he thus artifacts. This world of maya escapes both
the comprehension of the philosopher and the grasp of the pleasure-seeker like
water from a clutching fist, “like the fleeting shade of a summer cloud”.
This interpretation, of the concept of maya Sikh
technology has far-reaching consequences in so far as it pulls the Hindu mind
out of the slough of indolent introspective pre-occupation, and subjectivism, generated by the
belief that the whole world of the appearances in which man is born to pursue
his socio-political life, is no more real than a phantasmagoria in the minds
of the gods
above. By giving a foundation of solid reality to the world of appearance, this
re-interpretation of the concept of maya conforms a sense of reality, a
feeling of urgency and an objectivity to the whole frame of mind of man, which is necessary for the all-out
effort to speed up the evolutionary process through the human will and this is
the core of the precepts of Sikhism, as a way of life.
ETHICS
The fact that religious experience, perse, is non-moral, has been
known to Hindu thought from the very beginning. In the West, it has been recognised clearly
only in recent times. It was, Dr. Otto who in his, Idea of the Holy, about
a quarter of a century ago, made this point finally clear. In the Judaic
religious tradition, for
all practical purposes, religious life and ethical conduct appear to have been
made identical. The ten Commandments of Moses are ethical precepts. In the
Koran, it is these
ethical commands which are presented as the essence of religion. Western
scholars are sometimes shocked at the stories narrated in the ancient Hindu texts, of the conduct of
gods that does not
conform with strict ethical standards and about which the narrator of the story expresses no moral horror and passes no censorial
judgement. From this, the Western reader erroneously concludes that ethics has no place in the Hindu
religious practice and tradition. This is far from the truth. From the very beginning, it has
been recognised that ethical conduct is the very foundation on which the life
of a religious man must be based. The rules of conduct of the Buddhist
shramans, the formulary of conduct of Jain bhikshus, the daily rules
regulating a Brahmin’s life bear ample testimony to the fact that the relation
of ethics to religious experience is well recognised and established, though a man with secular
sovereign status is exempted from moral censure.12 This moral exemption, .however, is more a juridical rule rather than a moral precept. The case of non-human gods, though is obviously on a different
law. In Sikhism, while it is recognised that the religious experience belongs
to a category of value which has a unique status and ontological structure in
its own right, it is, nevertheless,
insisted that without strictly ethical purity of conduct there is no possibility
of any advance in the religious experience. A religious life, not strictly
grounded in ethical conduct or a religious discipline which ignores the ethical
requirements is considered as a highly damaging error. “The seed of the teachings of the
Guru cannot germinate except in the field of ethical conduct, constantly
irrigated by the waters of truth”. 13
“A man
of religion is ever characterised by ethical deeds, honest living, sincerity of heart,
and a fearless passion .for truth” 14 “Nanak maketh this emphatic declaration, let all men ponder over it.
Ethical conduct is the only true foundation of human life on earth” 15
Sikhism, thus, lays a stress on morality which raises the moral law to a higher
and absolute status such as was not so in the Hindu and Buddhist thought.
The
Buddhist and Brahamanic systems appear to assume tacitly that morality is a
means to felicity and
it is not obedience to a law which exists in its own right as demanding
obedience, what Immanuel Kant called, the Categorical Imperative. It is
true that by them moral conduct is regarded as governed by the cosmic law, called, the law of Karma, which means that
good deeds bring good results and evil deeds bring evil results. “The evil
deeds I did in past lives have now become impediments and misfortunes for me” 16
Sikhism, however, raises ethical conduct to a higher and more independent,
absolute status and makes it as the true expression of the harmony of human
personality with the Will of God. All ethical conduct, therefore, is not merely
conducive to good results such as happiness, but it is primarily, an act of establishment of concord between the human personality
and the Person of God. Since this concords the highest end and the goal of human existence and endeavour, it is, therefore,
the basic ingredient of the highest activity of man which is religion. Thus,
Sikhism while recognising that the order of Reality which is revealed as
numenon to the human experience does not fall under the category of ethical
experience, it unequivocally emphasizes that the two cannot be divorced or
separated and that the nature of the numenon is such that its realisation is
impossible without ethical conduct. The ethical category. and the numenal category are
distinct but are structurally and inseparably joined.
In
this way, the Sikh thought fuses the Hindu thought and the semitic tradition on the subject of ethics and
religion.
FREE WILL
European
philosophy and theology have been much exercised on the subject of the ‘free
will’ while the Hindu tradition has considered this subject as of minor
importance. The explanation for this lies in the analytical understanding of
the concept by both the traditions. In European thought, an individual is
conceived of as a permanent fixed entity, basically separate from the rest of
the world which is his universe. It is argued that without freedom of will
there is no moral responsibility and if there is no moral responsibility, there
can neither be guilt nor punishment, either in society or hereafter, before the
throne of God. This problem has not much troubled the Hindu thought which
considers that there is no such thing as a completely and stable entity,
called, ‘the individual’ and secondly,
the Hindu argues, that if the human will is not free then what does the term “freedom”,
mean ? What instance shall we bring forth with which to contrast the supposed determination of the human will?
Our notion of “freedom” is inalienably derived from our own experience to which we give
the name of “will”. Whatever, therefore, we may mean by “freedom”, it is
ultimately in the terms of our experience of our own ‘will’, that we give
meaning to it. Thus interpreted, to say that human will is free is an axiom, as
well as a tautology. There is no meaning in the thesis that human will is not
free, for, “free” is that which
is like unto the human will. The trouble, however, arises when we give to the
expression, “free will”, a meaning which we have not derived from our
experience of our ‘will’ but which have been superimposed by our intellect.
Thus we like to think that, “free will” is that power of volition of the human
individual which is totally uncaused and unconditioned. The concept of ‘self-caused
inevitability’ and ‘freely chosen determinism’ would appear as puzzling, if
no, altogether non-sensical to the western mind. A little reflection, however,
will show that such a “freedom” does not, and cannot, in fact, exist and
further, that, if it did and could exist, it will destroy all foundations of ‘moral responsibility’, ‘sense of guilt’ and justification for ‘punishment’ either here or hereafter.
To begin with, there are the facts of heredity, the environment, and the subconscious mind. There is not much
doubt that the individual is the product of his heredity, the inner mechanism
of which the science of biology has discovered recently in
the fertilized germ-cells and its genes, which make all the organic cells that make
up the body including the brain and the nervous system. This pattern we inherit
from our parents and our ancestors and it is certainly a determination of the
choices that we make in our lives from time to time. Psychology has revealed to
us that sub-conscious layers of human mind as the seat of instincts, emotions,
and intuitions, for those who faithfully follow the dogma of the Church Council
of Constantinople (553 A.D.) which anathematised the doctrine of transmigration, in the race during evolution of
millions of years, or, accumulated, for those who hold the doctrine of
metempsychosis as fundamental, accumulated in the course of untold numbers of previous births
and rebirths of the individual. They are certainly a determinant throughout a
man’s life in the matter of his choice
and the conduct that follows it. Again, from outside the social environment is
active in continuously influencing and moulding individual’s mind and thereby
his power of choice and conduct. These three factors, the physical, the
environmental and the hereditary are there as a fact and their powers of
influencing the human power of choice cannot be denied. In this sense there
cannot be a ‘free will’, as an uncaused and unconditioned factor which solely
determines as to what choice, in a given situation, an individual will make.
But even if there were such a “free” will, it will entail disastrous consequences.
If a man’s actions are not free when they
can be shown to be casually chained to his character, the sum total of his
heredity, past experiences and
environment, then the only circumstances in which it would be proper to call a
man “free”, would be those in which he acted independently of his received
character, that is, of his habits, desires, urges, and perspective on life and
all the rest. But if this agent or ‘free’ action, is not to be equated and identified
with that which is subject to particular desires and urges, which is
circumscribed by a given environmental and circumstantial set-up, which is
devoid of character, motives persistent interests and the like, then who is
this agent of ‘free’ choice, the ‘he’ ? Such a notion
of ‘free’ will completely dissolves the agent of action; a person with such a ‘free’ will
is a completely disembodied and unidentifiable entity. Such an entity can neither be
blamed nor praised. Indeed, such an entity would be truly like the “Superman’
of Nietzsche, “beyond good and evil.” Nor can such an entity be held
responsible for what it does, for, it
would be clearly unreasonable to hold an individual responsible for his· actions if we did not think there
was a cause and effect connection between his character and his conduct. When
we can show that there is no such connection, as, for instance, an act is
committed as a result of coercion, we do not normally hold him responsible. The
reason is not that the one act is ‘uncaused’ and ‘free’, while the other is ‘determined’, the reason lies in the kind
of the cause, in the one case the cause lies in the character of the individual
over which he has, in some sense, control while in the other case,
he has no such control. As we gain new knowledge about the kinds of causes that
affect conduct, we change our mind about the kinds of behaviour for which we
should hold men responsible. The recent shifts of stress in the science of
Penology in the modern world, and the ancient wisdom of the East and West,
which iterated that an individual is ultimately responsible for nothing, must
be appreciated in the context
of this analysis, and not in the superfinal frame of reference of ‘determinism’
and ‘free will’. “A man reaps only that what he sows in the field of Karma”, 17
declares the Sikh scripture. It simultaneously says, that, “Say, what precisely it is that an
individual can do out of his free choice? He acteth as the God willeth”. 18
And the Bhagvadgita asserts that, “God sits in the heart of every
creature with the consequence that all revolve in their set courses, helplessly
tied to the wheel of maya.” 19 That man is free to choose and act to
some extent, and to the extent that he is so, to that extent alone he is morally
responsible and subject to praise and blame, is a true statement. That there is no such entity, and no such
entity is conceivable, which is wholly ‘uncaused’ and ‘undetermined’, and further that in the
ultimate analysis, the whole area of individuality can be linked to a cause or
causes which are supra-individual is also a true statement, and these two true
statements are not self-contradictory or incompatible with each other, constitutes
the Sikh doctrine on the subject.
This brings
us back to our immediate experience that seems to carry its own certitude with
it, that, in some sense, we are ‘free’, for, we have the notion of ‘freedom’ as
the core of this experience. Sikhism while implicitly taking note of the three
factors which determine the powers of human choice, lays stress on this fourth
factor, perpetually present and operative In the human mind, which possesses
the autonomous power of choice. This autonomous power of choice is, the
divinity in man, according to Sikhism and it is this core around which the
whole human personality, which is, at heart, the source of all human misery, as
well as the panacea of all his ills”. 20 “How may man demolish the
wall of nescience that separates him from God ? By being in tune with the Will of
God. And how shall we know the Will of God.
Nanak answers : It is embedded
in the very core of human personality.” 21
It is
this autonomous power of free choice which is given to every human personality
and by virtue of which the effects of the other three determining factors of human
choice are interfused, and, thus, the act of free human choice gives birth to a new event which is not
wholly determined, and which is not mere combination and aggregational
consequence of all these four factors, but which is a new event, unique in nature, and potently capable
of giving rise to other similar events in the future. It is this power of free
choice that is included in man’s original heritage which has the capacity to go
beyond this heritage and thus, within the limits given, a human being is free
to shape his own destiny. Nor are the other three factors, his received character,
the individual circumstances, are merely accidental and fortuitously super-imposed upon the
individual, for, they too are the fruits of his past Karma of uncounted
previous births, and thus they are self-determined, self-caused, result of free
choices earlier made. When and why and how did an individual make the first free but wrong choice
? This question relates to, the First Things, and therefore, exhypothesis, the
individual comprehension fails at this point: “the son observeth and knoweth not the birth of his father”. 22
KARMA
The
doctrine of Karma is not the same as the doctrine of pre-destination of the
Christian theology. Karma is, in a sense, fate, self-caused inevitability not
pre-destination, for, within the
limits given, and these limits constitute the Karma inherited from the previous
births, a man is free. This Karma
is not ‘fate’ because all the time we are making our own karma and determining
the character of our further status and births. The doctrine of Karma as
understood in higher Hinduism, and as expounded in Sikhism, merely, teaches that our present limitations are traceable to our acts of
autonomous choice in our past lives and as such our Karma is a source of
rewards and punishments which we must enjoy and endure, but this idea differs from
the idea of ‘fate’, as commonly understood in European thought, in as much as
it is not inexorable, for all the time we are making our own Karma within a context, the core of which is
always free and autonomous.
EVIL
The
existence of evil it might be said, is the main reason for the keen interest of religion and, therefore, the explanation of evil
is the chief problem of theologies
and religious philosophies. Whether it was God who created evil and whether evil is due to
misuse of the gifts of free will, are problems which constantly occur and recur
in almost all religions of the world. But the presence of evil, as a de-tranquiliser
and disturber of the composure of human mind cannot be ignored or argued away, so much so that perceptive minds
regard it as the preponderant characteristic of existential human situation. 23
The
main trend of Hindu thought on this problem is that since the world itself is
unreal, the existence of evil in it is not of greater concern to the individual
than the world itself. He asserts that the proper course
for the human soul is to seek mukti, liberation or unison with God by
renouncing and discarding this vain show of appearances, called, the world. The
Hindu, thus is not very much concerned to prove that evil does not really exist
in the world, or to explain why God allows it to exist. Since the world itself
is no more than a phantom and an insubstantial dream the evil itself cannot be
of a more enduring substance, and, at any rate, it is of no direct concern to
the man of religion.
Sikhism
cannot and does not adopt this view, because Sikhism does not accept the
ultimate dichotomy of the matter and the spirit, and does not accept as an
independent entity, the principle of illusion the maya. Since Sikhism
postulates that religious activity must be practised in the socio-political
context of the world, the problem of evil is a very much real problem to
Sikhism as it is to the European thinker. Sikhism, therefore, therefore almost returns the same answer to
the problem of evil which the European pantheist gives, namely, that since God
is all things and in all things, the evil is only something which is a partial
view of the whole, something which appears as such when not seen from the due
perspective. Sikhism asserts that there is no such thing as the independent
principle of evil, as some theologies postulate, although there are things in
this world which are evil. This antithesis of evil and good, according to
Sikhism, is a necessary characteristic of the syndrome involution involved in
process of creation of the world. Evil and good appear at one stage of this
involution-cum-evolution and they disappear when the process of evolution
culminates into the unitive experience of God, just as the white ray of light
splits into its variegated spectrum while passing through a prism, and again gathers these multi-chromatic hues
into its all-absorbing whiteness, when it becomes itself again. In the final
stage of things, “all evil transmutes itself into good and all defeat into
victory”. When a complete perspective is granted to man by the Grace of God,
all evil melts into its source which is All-Good24 “There is no independent principle of evil in the universe
because God is All-Good and nothing that proceeds from All-Good can be really
evil, and there is naught, which proceeds from any other source but God.” 25
But this Sikh metaphysical speculation on the ontological status
of Evil, does not supply a clear cut answer to the problem of evil as man
encounters it in his everyday experience and life.
Ours is a time of upheaval political, social, religious, and moral; our most
urgent problem is to forestall the catastrophe that menaces us, catastrophe of
total destruction, and unprecedented unrest and violence. The causes of the
present troubles and future dangers can all be traced back to the lack of any root-principles, generally agreed in philosophy, religion
and politics. Everywhere old class structures of society have been undermined
by the advent of democracy. European hegemony and overlordship in Asia and Africa
has yielded place to independence or partnership. In religion the simple faith in the ancient theologies, and in
their sacred writings as the explanation of universe and as the foundation and
sanction of morals has been shaken by the impact of modern science.
Civilisation has been disadjusted and confusion prevails. Mass opinion is
agreed that the present age is mostly concerned not with the world of ideas but
with the world of things, material things that we make and use, sell and buy; Though physical sciences,
technology and economics are of immense value to mankind, it is not anywhere in
that world that we may hope to find the solution to our problems, and that
solution, whatever it might be, lies in the world of ideas. Men’s actions are determined by
their ideas and not vice versa as
fanatical Marxists fondly hope and obstreperously assert. Right ideas are those
that lead to good actions and good actions are those that are known to lead to
welfare. Wrong ideas are those that lead to opposite results, suffering and
disaster. Welfare means everything worthwhile material, intellectual, moral and
spiritual welfare.
To
discover wherein welfare consists and to find ways to attain it, constitutes a
continuous enquiry, discussion, study meditation and argument. Thus, the ancient problem of evil is reopened and
the explanation of it that monotheistic theologies give, namely, to argue it away at the
transcendental level, appears unsatisfying : the two world-wars of our times, for instance. If God is
omnipotent and benevolent, why are there wars? The answer that the ontological
status of Evil is negative and non-existent or the answer implicated in the
Book of Job, constitute impressive argument and a magnificent poem,
respectively but in the face of the concrete evil, the latter appears a sterile
philosophy and the former an evasion, but no straight answer. In the case of a
dualistic theology that concedes two real and positive opposing Powers, the
Good and the Evil, it would appear that if God has created a maleficent power, the Power of Evil of negation and denial,
then the God is not all benevolent, but if this Power is coequal and co-existent then the God is
not all powerful. The problem of Evil may be a mere abstraction, but there are
problems of evil every day, tangible and concrete situations and they raise not
merely the philosophical questions about the status and origin of evil, but
also what is the moral imperative for man, in dealing with evil situations, day
to day life.
Sikhism takes direct and full cognisance of this aspect of the
problem, while it denies Evil an ultimate status in the structure of Reality,
it squarely faces the concrete existence of evil in the day to day life of man,
as well as the agents of evil in human affairs.
“The cannibals say ritual prayers of Islam and the assassins
strut about as practising Hindus .... All concern for human decencies and respect for ethical conduct has disappeared and the Evil rules supreme.” 26
Sikhism calls upon all men of moral perception and spiritual
awakening to oppose the agents of evil, the evil doers and their aides singly,
through appropriate organisation, to oppose relentlessly, till the end, till
this evil is destroyed or contained. The Light of God, that shone through the
Sikh Prophets, to guide mankind is unambiguous and uncompromising on this point
: “O, God of Benedictions,
this blessing above all, we do ask of you : the will and tenacity to tread the path of good promoting
actions and fearlessness in opposition to the agent of evil.” 27 “The Light of Sikhism is for the
supreme purpose of urging men to destroy and extirpate evil doers.” 28
But, since according to Sikh metaphysics, the evil is just a
passing phase, a phenomenal occurrence, neither there in the beginning nor
there at the end and, therefore, having no substance or real existence why
should any man of understanding bother to oppose it or to destroy or contain it
?
Sikhism answers this question. The ancient Hindu insight into
the scientific laws governing character formation tells us that, “what a man does, what he attitudinises,
that he becomes”. 29 To tolerate evil, to coexist with it and not to
confront it is to accept and
compromise with it. Such
acceptance and compromise is antivirtuous passivity and negative life-style
and the destiny of ethical and spiritual negation is hell. A negative
personality is a
naked personality, in the absence of a proper covering of virtue and merit,
there is no more frightful fate
that can over take man: “On its pre-destined march towards hell, a naked soul
looks truly frightful.” 30
Jacob
Boehme in his, Signatura Rerum, tells us that
“What
is evil to one thing, that is good to another. Hell is evil to the angels for they are not
created thereunto, but it is good to the hellish creatures. So also heaven is
evil to the hellish creatures, for, it is their poison and death.”
Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) wrote in his, Heaven and Hell:
“No
punishment is from the Lord, but from Evil itself; because Evil is so joined
with its own punishment that they cannot be separated.”
By co-existence and non-confrontation with evil things man is
utterly degraded from his essential humanity, and becomes a hellish creature
and thus his punishment is great.
“Fall and rise, rottenness and ripeness are known and seen hereafter in the next world.” 31
NUMENON AND SAMSAR, OR THE REALITY AND APPEARANCE
Samsar is the principle of change, which determines the world
of phenomena and in Hindu thought and in some other systems of metaphysics, it
has been argued that on this account it is un-real. It is presumed as axiomatic
that the real must not be infected with change. The basic formula of Sikh
dogmatism, with which the Sikh scripture opens is preceded by the exegetic
statement that “all change, all evolution, all that is characterised by the
time-process, is
ultimately real.” 32
The
numenon, the order of Reality,
which is revealed to the human mind through gnosis therefore, is not something
which is fundamentally different and away from the phenomenon, altered in the
gnosis is not that what really is, but it is the mode of perception and the quality of prehension
of the individual, which
is transformed, thus
revealing the vision of the numenon. It is this very mundane and the material world and the phenomena
which is freshly and differently prehended and cognised by the human
consciousness, a
consciousness that is enlarged and uplifted. Sikhism, therefore,
is in agreement with the aphorism of the great Buddhist philosopher, Budhagosa who declared, that, ‘‘yas-samsaras tan-nirvanam”, that is, “the flux and the absolute are the same.” “This world of fleeting
appearances that you see, is, in fact, the true face of God and as such it is revealed to the consciousness
of emancipated man.33
1. ikkas te hoio ananta, Nanak ikkas mahi samae jio. — Majh
2. nirankar akar apu nigrun sargun ek,
ekahiek bakhanano Nanakek — Gauri,
Bavanakheri.
3. “hukmi hovan akar huknm na kahia jai.”
4. arbad narbad dhundhukara, dharnima
gagna hukam apara, na dinu rain; na candu no surja sunnasamadhi lagaida. Khani no bani paunna pani, opati khapti
na avanjani, khand patal sapt nahi sagar nadi na niru vahaida, no tadi suragu macch piala, dojaku
bhisatu nahi khaikala ..... ja tisu bhana ta jagata upaia, bajh kala adani rahaiya ... Taka antu na janai koi,
pure gur te sojhi hoi — Maru, Sohile
4a. cint khatola van dukh birhon vacchavan laif. ihu hamara jivana tu
sahib sacce dekh. -Slok-Farid
4b. binu hari kat paie bisram ?
5. man tu jotsarup hain apna mul pachhan. — Asa
6. bhai prapat manukhadehuria, gobind milan
7. Thus spake Zarathustra, I. 4.
8.
balihari gur apne diohari sadvar, jini manas te devte kie karat na lagi bar. —Var Asa.
9. 1. Onkar, Satu, Namu, Karta, Purukhu, Nirbhau. Nirvaira, Akal. Murti Ajuni Saibhang. Gur Prasadi.
10. mayavadam asachhastram, prachhannam
bauddham. — Padam-purana
11. “maya kishnau akhiye ? kia maya karam kamai ? dukh sukh iha jio baddh hai
haumai karam kamai.”
maya
hoi nagani jagati rahi laptae, is ki seva
jo kare tisi hi ko phir kahe, koi gurmukh garadu (tini malidali laee pau.)
“mai
maya chhal; trin ki agan, megh ki chhaya Gobind bhajan binu had kajal. — Guru Granth
Sahib
12. samrath ko nahin dos gusain. — Tulsi, Ramcaritmanas
13. amal ki dharti bij sabdo kar sace ki ab nit deha pani — Srirag
14. Sac karni sac taki rahit, sac hirdai sac mukhi kahit — Sukhmani
15. bhagar Nanak bujhe ko bicarci, issi jag mahi karni sari — Sorath
16. purva janamam kritam papam byadhi rupen pitadam — samgrah
17. jeha bijai so lunai karma
sandra khet — Baramaha
18. Kahu Manukh te kia hoe ave? jo tisi bhave soi karave. — Sukhmani
19. Ishvrah sarvbhutanam brideso Arjun. nishtoti, bhramayan, sarvabhutani
yantrasudhani maya. — XVIII. 61
20. haummain diragh rog hai daru bhi is mahi. — Var Asa
21. kiv sachiara hoiai kiv kude tuttai pal? hukamrajai callana Nanak
likhai nal — Japu
22. pita ka janam kai janai put —Sukhmani
23. Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than
ills
And while the sun and the moon
endure
Luck’s a chance but trouble is
sure
I’d face it as a wise man should,
And train for ill and not for
good. — Houseman, A.E.
24. Guru Granth; p. 1302.
25. isu te hoe su nahi bura, orai kahahu kinai kachhu kara. — Sukhmani
26. manas khane karahi nivaj churi vagayin
tin gal tag ...... saram dharam ka beda dur,
Nanak kud rahiya bharpur. — Asa,
Var
27. deha siva bar mohi
illai subh karman te kabahun
na taraon, no daraon, ari te jab
jae laraon. — Dasamgranth
28. eha kaj dhara ham janamam .... dust sabhnn kau mul ukparan. — ibid ,
29. yatha karl yatha cari tatha bhavati.
30. nanga dojak calia ta disai khara draona —
Asa Var
31. kacc pakai othe pai, Nanak gaia jape jae. — Japu
32. adi sacu, jugadi sacu, hai bhi sacu, Nanak, hosi bhi sacu. — Japu .
33. ihu visu sansar tum dekhde ehu hari ka rup hai harirup nadri aia. — Ramkali
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