Sikhism?

[Vouthon]

Sikhism is an incredible religion. I would encourage more people to study it since it can very much deepen one’s understanding of the mysteries of the Catholic faith, of which it has - surprisingly - much in common, especially with our mysticism.

Natural Law, reverence for marriage and discouraging of divorce, sacredness of human life from conception till grave, human life and the soul beginning at conception, children a gift from God and thus opposition to abortion, sex determination, euthanasia/mercy killings/assisted suicide are all key parts of Sikh morality.

Read:

“…Sikh moral and ethical values are based on the idea of natural law - similar to the Roman Catholic idea of natural law - the way God wants the universe too work…Nowhere in the Guru Granth Sahib is divorce mentioned because marriage is preordained by God. The Gurus believed in the commitment to marriage…Sikh theology, like Catholic theology supports the idea that there is only one kind of morally good sexual act: sex between a man and woman who are married and who are having sex to conceive and raise children to perpetuate God’s creation…According to the Guru Granth Sahib human life begins immediately at the moment of conception and that creation of life is the will of God…The embryo or zygote that God has created is a divine gift which has to be nurtured and nourished to prepare it for the world, and the time in the womb is a valuable element of the spiritual development of the human being…For Sikhs an embryo or foetus has feelings as soon as conception takes place. In the Guru Granth Sahib there are verses which describe how the unborn child has the ability to meditate upon God’s name as soon as it is conceived…Since Sikh theology argues that the soul is ‘born’ immediately upon conception it can be infered that it would be a sin to abort a foetus because, first, human life is created by God, and second, to abort the life would be to interfere with God’s creative work…The sex of a child is preordained and God’s hukam (will). Children are gifts from God and couples should accept God’s will…From an analysis of the Guru Granth Sahib it is clear that the Gurus had a high respect for life, which they viewed as a gift from God. Thus, a Sikh has to accept that the life he/she has was decided by our karma and that God has determined how many breaths we ‘breathe’. The injuction that God has preordained how long we live and whether we have to suffer goes against the increasing modern practice of euthanasia and mercy killings. As a result there is no place for mercy killing, assisted suicide or euthanasia in Sikhism, for death happens when God commands it…”

***- Jagbir Jhutti-Johal (in “Sikhism Today”) ***

I was really moved by reading this in the Sr Guru Granth Sahib ji:

“…From the union of the mother’s egg and the father’s sperm, the form of infinite beauty has been created. The blessings of the Light all come from You; You are the Creator Lord, pervading everywhere…In the first watch of the night, O my merchant friend, you were cast into the womb, by the Lord’s command. Upside-down, within the womb, you performed penance O my merchant friend, and you prayed to your Lord and Master. You uttered prayers to your Lord and Master, while upside-down, and you meditated on him with deep love and affection. You came into this Dar Age of Kali Yuga naked, and you shall depart again naked. As God’s pen has written on your forehead so shall it be with your soul. Says Nanak, in the first watch of the night, by the Hukam of the Lord’s command, you enter into the womb…”

- Guru Granath Sahib ji, p1,022 and p74

The sacredness of life within Sikhism touches me in a powerful way. In my opinion, this is probably one of the greatest evocations from any religious scripture as to why wilful abortion is a wicked and inhuman crime.

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

Some key concepts in Sikhism are:

Hukam commonly translated as the “Will of God”.

Hukam from what I have read of Sikh scholars, in simple terms, means Divine Command, Divine Will, Eternal Law, Cosmic Order etc. It is kind of all-encompassing and we are all subject to it and are urged to remove our contrary self-will, our ego, our passions, our self-absorption and live in the Divine Hukam. Hukam is the revelation of the Will of God. Understanding Hukam means understanding God’s Will for oneself, other people and all things in creation. The Hukam of God is single, active, absoute and is the divinely ordained principle governing the entire existence and movements of the Cosmos. By understanding Hukam and more importantly by living in Hukam, in conjuction with focusing all one’s attention upon repitition of the true Naam within the heart centre, and prayerfully reading over the Shabads (chapters of the Holy Scripture), one destroys ego and finds the complete fulfilment of Hukam - The Divine Will through Union with God.

This can lead to an experience which Catholic mystics refer to as, “the Uncreated Light” where we are absorbed by the Light of God flowing through our being, divinizing us.

The key in everything is the complete surrender and loss of self-will in the Divine Will; abiding by his Will and making it ours; willing what God’s wills so that He lives in us and we live in Him.

This is very similar to Catholic teachings such as:

“…Those who give themselves to prayer should concentrate solely on this: the conformity of their wills with the divine will. They should be convinced that this constitutes their highest perfection. The more fully they practice this, the greater the gifts they will receive from God, and the greater the progress they will make in the interior life…”

***- Saint Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582), mystic & Doctor of the Church ***

Since I regard self-will as being at the root of all human suffering, the translation of Hukam as Divine Will makes most sense to me on a personal level.

Consider: “Nanak! One who understands Hukam, does not speak in ego” - that is self-will.

“I came from the Celestial Lord; I go wherever He orders me to go. I am Nanak, forever under His Will” - again Will makes the most sense since it is where God’s wants us to be, his Divine Plan, his Sovereign Command over all creation.

All of creation exists and functions through, by, because and to the Divine “Hukam”.

Naam - a name for God which simply means “the Name”

Similar to HaShem in Judaism and the Tetragrammaton. Naam is imbued with an almost mystical significance. It is a state of being. It is also held by Guru Nanak that God is anaam (Nameless), yet He is possessed of infinite names: “Numberless Thy Names and numberless Thy places” (The Japji, Pauri 19). His Names are in consonance with His Attributes which are infinite. His Name is Truth (Satnam). His Name is Formless (Nirakar). His Name is the Absolute Creator (Karta). His Name is the Immortal Being (Akal Purakh).

In the Sukhmani (Ashtpadi, 3, Pauri 8), Guru Arjun Dev affirms:

Of all Religions the best Religion is:
To utter the Holy Name with adoration,
And to do good deeds.

Sikhs have a very respetful and open-minded view towards other religions. Their Holy Scripture - the Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji - contains poetry written by pre-Sikh Sufi and Hindu Bhagats (what we might call ‘mystics’), an inclusivism not really parralleled in any other faith.

The religion is not an offshoot of Hinduism. Never say to a Sikh that you think Sikhi (as they call their faith in Punjabi) stems from either Hinduism or Islam.

Sikhi (or ‘Sikhism’ to use the Western name) it is true was founded by Guru Nanak who was brought up as a Hindu. However at the age of 30 he had a spiritual experience while bathing. Afterwards he declared, “There is no Hindu or Muslim”.

While Sikhi has concepts which it shares particularly with Sufi Islam and Hinduism this is merely the result of its cultural background, the matrix of ideas from which the faith emerged. It purposefully has a unique understanding of God, of afterlife, of spirituality.

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

Guru Arjan Singh made it perfectly clear that Sikhism was separate from Hinduism and Islam:

“…I do not keep the Hindu fast, nor the Muslim Ramadan.
I serve Him alone who is my refuge.
I serve the one Master, who is also God.
I have broken with the Hindu and the Muslim.
I will not worship with the Hindu, nor like the Muslim go to Mecca.
I shall serve Him and no other.
I will not pray to idols nor say the Muslim prayer.
I shall put my heart at the feet of the one Supreme Being.
For we are neither Hindus nor Muslims…”

***- Guru Arjan ***

Now it might come as a surprise but Sikhism is similar in some respects to the spirituality of Opus Dei within Catholicism. Both proclaim daily life as the path to holiness and union with God.

I see many similarities between:

“…Spiritual liberation is attained in the midst of laughing, playing, dressing up and eating…”

- Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji, p 522

And:

“…There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it. Our ordinary everyday life can be a path to holiness…It is in the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must sanctify ourselves, serving God and all mankind…We cannot live a kind of double life: on the one hand, an interior life, a life of union with God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social and family life. There is just one life, made of flesh and spirit. And it is this life which has to become, in both soul and body, holy and filled with God. Side by side with our colleagues, friends and relatives and sharing their interests, we can help them come closer [to God]…”

- Saint Josemaría Escriva, founder of Opus Dei

**Some Similarities between Catholicism and Sikhism: **

*** Catholicism and Sikhism both teach that God is One**

*** Catholicism and Sikhism teach that God is inexpressible and beyond understanding

• Catholicism and Sikhism both teach that God is everywhere and in everything, that creation is filled with his Presence and that “God is All**” (Book of Sirach).

• And yet for Sikhs and Catholics, whilst creation is permeated with the presence and reality of God, he is in all things without being contained by them or limited to them, indeed he both indwells all created things and at the same time transcends them as their ultimate origin and Creator

• Because of this both religions teach that creation is good, the world is good, reality is good and that every place is a meeting point with God and provides us with an opportunity to be in his Presence.

• Catholicism and Sikhism both believe in the brotherhood of all human beings ie that all humanity is one

• Catholicism and Sikhism both believe in the equality of all human beings

• Catholicism and Sikhism both place great emphasis upon the Will of God. This emphasis on following the “Will of God”, in Catholicism, as known to one through the dictates of conscience and one’s faith to attain to a state of union with God (salvation) rather than “faith alone”.

• Heaven and Hell are defined in both traditions as not being literal “places” but rather spiritual states that can be experuenced in the here and now. Pope Benedict XVI explained that “Heaven is not a place, it is wherever God’s Will is done”.

• Catholicism and Sikhism both teach that all human beings have their origin in God and that he is our ultimate end. We will all return to Him. In Catholic tradition we all experience the Presence of God after death. As the Catholic declaration Nostra Aetate explains: “All men and women form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth (cf. Acts 17:26), and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all”.

• The Ultimate state in both traditions is complete Union with God (in Catholicism) and union/absorption into God (Sikhism). The Catholic mystics describe this, in the words of Saint Bernard as follows, “…There is a point of rapture where the human spirit forgets itself . . . and passes wholly into God. Such a process is to lose yourself, as it were, like one who has no existence, and to have no self-consciousness whatever, and to be emptied of yourself and almost annihilated. As a little drop of water, blended with a large quantity of wine, seems utterly to pass away from itself and assumes the flavour and colour of wine, and as iron when glowing with fire loses its original or proper form and becomes just like the fire; and as the air, drenched in the light of the sun, is so changed into the same shining brightness that it seems to be not so much the recipient of the brightness as the actual brightness itself: so all human sensibility in the saints must then, in some ineffable manner, melt and pass out of itself, and be lent into the Will of God…To experience this state is to be deified…”

• Both traditions have strong moral teachings against abortion and euthanasia, since both uphold the sanctity of life.

• Both believe that salvation or union with GOD is “open to all” and not just Catholics/Sikhs in that God enlightens all people.

• Sikhism believes that there is no separation between daily life and holiness. There is no division between the profane and sacred, as does Catholicism

 

[Contarini]

Well all I’ll say is that my friend (who is a Sikh, with Turban and all) once told me, “Our leaders were under pressure as we were in between to groups of people, the first groups were Hindus and wanted us to convert to Hinduism, while the second group were Muslims and wanted us to convert to Islam, so for the sake of not starting a war, our leader combined BOTH Islam and Hinduism and this combination created Sikhism.”

That’s what he told me, but since Hinduism is not a Monotheistic religion, I would not classify Sikhism as being a monotheistic religion, even though it might have evolved as one.

Hinduism has monotheistic aspects. Sikhism takes those aspects and runs with them.

Most Sikhs I’ve talked to or whose writings I’ve read don’t like this way of describing Sikh origins (Hinduism + Islam), but it seems probable to me (in the same way that a non-Christian will typically see Christianity as a form of Hellenized Judaism).

Edwin