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| English: Guru Granth Sahib Ji (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Sikhism Related Photo of the takhat of Sri Guru Granth Sahib inside a Darbar Hall. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Guru Granth Sahib (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| From Source "This manuscript dates in part from the middle of the 17th century (c.1660-75), and is therefore one of the twenty oldest known copies in existence. It was purchased by the British Museum in 1884 from the Reverend A Fischer, who had been the principal of a missionary school in Amritsar, Panjab. The original ‘Adi Granth’, containing verses by the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, and other Sikh Gurus and saints, was compiled in 1603-4 by the fifth Sikh Guru Arjun." (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| The end part of the handwritten Adi granth, by Pratap Singh Giani, located on the first floor of Harmandir Sahib (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Nagar Kirtan - Siri Guru Granth Sahib (Photo credit: Gurumustuk Singh) |
The concept of God in Sikhism is uncompromisingly monotheistic, as symbolized
by "Ik Onkar"(one Creator), a
central tenet of Sikh
philosophy. However Sikhs believe that the Creator is all pervasive and is
the only truth, that all creation is illusory and the route to enlightenment is
the realisation that all creation is One. The Guru Granth Sahib
states "Toohe moohe, moohe toohe, antar kaisa?" (SGGS, 93),
translating to "You are in me, I am in you, what is the difference?".
This is similar to the Buddhist concept that we are all enlightened - we only
need to realise it. It is in sharp contrast to the concept of an external deity
to be worshipped as in the Abrahamic traditions. The fundamental belief of
Sikhism is that the existence of the Creator is indescribable yet knowable and
perceivable to anyone who is prepared to dedicate the time and energy to become
perceptive to their persona.[citation needed]
The Sikh gurus have described
the Creator in numerous ways in their hymns included in the Guru Granth Sahib,
the holy scripture of
Sikhism, but the oneness of
the deity is consistently emphasized throughout. The Creator is described in
the Mool Mantar, the
first passage in the Guru Granth Sahib, and the basic formula of the faith is:
(SGGS.
Pg 1)
— ੴ ਸਤਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਕਰਤਾ ਪੁਰਖੁ ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰਵੈਰੁ ਅਕਾਲ ਮੂਰਤਿ ਅਜੂਨੀ ਸੈਭੰ ਗੁਰ ਪ੍ਰਸਾਦਿ ॥
ikk
ōankār sat(i)-nām(u) karatā purakh(u) nirabha'u niravair(u) akāla mūrat(i)
ajūnī saibhan(g) gur(a) prasād(i).
One
Creator, Truth is His name, He is the Creator, Beyond Fear, Beyond Hatred,
Beyond Death and Time, Unborn, Self-Illuminated, the Guru's Grace.
Guru Arjan, Nanak V, says,
"The Creator is beyond colour and form, yet He is an elephant with eight
arms" (SGGS, 74), and "Nanak's Lord transcends the world as well as
the scriptures of the east and the west, and yet He is clearly manifest"
(SGGS, 397).
Knowledge of the
ultimate Reality is not a matter for reason; it comes by revelation of the ultimate
reality through nadar (grace) and by anubhava
(mystical experience). Says Guru
Nanak, budhi pathi na paiai bahu chaturaiai
bhai milai mani bhane which translates to "He is not accessible
through intellect, or through mere scholarship or cleverness at argument; He is
met, when He pleases, through devotion" (SGGS, 436).
The Guru Granth
consistently refers to the Creator as "He" and "Father".
However, this is simply because the Granth is written in north Indian
Indo-Aryan languages (mixture
of Punjabi and dialects of Hindi) which have no neutral gender. Since the
Granth says that the God is indescribable, the God has no gender according to
Sikhism.
Guru Nanak prefixed the
numeral one (ik) to it, making it Ik Oankar or Ekankar
to stress God's oneness. God is named and known only through his Own immanent
nature. The only name which can be said to truly fit God's transcendent state
is Sat (Sanskrit Satnam,
Truth), the changeless and timeless Reality. God is transcendent and
all-pervasive at the same time. Transcendence and immanence are two aspects of
the same single Supreme Reality. The Reality is immanent in the entire
creation, but the creation as a whole fails to contain God fully. As says Guru Tegh Bahadur,
Nanak IX, "He has himself spread out His Own “maya” (worldly illusion)
which He oversees; many different forms He assumes in many colours, yet He
stays independent of all" (SGGS, 537).
God is Karta Purakh, the Creator-Being. He
created the spatial-temporal universe not from some pre-existing physical
element, but from His own Self. Universe is His own emanation. It is not maya (illusion), but is real (sat)
because, as say Guru Arjan,
“True is He and true is His creation [because] all has emanated from God
Himself” (SGGS 294).
But God is not
identical with the universe. The latter exists and is contained in Him and not
vice versa. God is immanent in the created world, but is not limited by it.
“Many times He expands Himself into such worlds but He ever remains the same
One Ekankar" (SGGS, 276). Even at one time "there are hundreds of
thousands of skies and nether regions" (SGGS, 5). Included in Sach Khand (Realm of Truth), the figurative
abode of God, there are countless regions and universes" (SGGS, 8).
Creation is "His play which He witnesses, and when He rolls up the play,
He is His sole Self again" (SGGS, 292). He is the Creator, Sustainer and
the Destroyer.
What is the
Creator's purpose in creating the universe? It is not for man to inquire or
judge the purpose of His Creator. To quote Guru Arjan again, "The
created cannot have a measure of the Creator; what He wills, O Nanak,
happens" (SGGS, 285). For the Sikhs, the Creation is His pleasure and play
"When the showman beat His drum, the whole creation came out to witness
the show; and when He puts aside his disguise, He rejoices in His original
solitude" (SGGS, 174, 291, 655, 736).
Purakh added to
Karta in the Mool Mantar
is the Punjabi form of Sanskrit
purusa, which literally means, besides
man, male or person, "the primeval man as the soul and original source of
the universe; the personal and animating principle; the supreme Being or Soul
of the universe." Purakh in Mool Mantar is, therefore,
none other than God the Creator. The term has nothing to do with the purusa of
the Sankhya school of Indian philosophy where it is the spirit as a passive
spectator of prakriti or creative force.[clarification needed]
That God is nirbhau (without fear) and nirvair (without rancour or enemy) is obvious
enough as He has no sarik (rival). But
the terms have other connotations, too. Nirbhau
not only indicates fearlessness but also the absence of fearfulness. It also
implies sovereignty and unquestioned exercise of Will. Similarly, nirvair implies, besides absence of enmity,
the positive attributes of compassion and impartiality. Together the two terms
mean that God loves His handiwork and is the Dispenser of impartial justice, dharam-niau. Guru Ram Das, Nanak IV,
says: "Why should we be afraid, with the True One being the judge. True is
the True One's justice" (SGGS, 84).
God is Akal Murat, the Eternal Being. The timelessness
involved in the negative epithet akal
has made it popular in Sikh tradition as one of the names of God, the Timeless
One, as in Akal Purakh or in the
slogan Sat Sri Akal (Satya Sri
Akal). One of the most sacred shrines of the Sikhs is the Akal Takhat, the Eternal Throne, at Amritsar. Murat here does not mean form, figure, image
or idol. Sikhism expressly forbids idolatry or image-worship in
any form. God is called Nirankar, the
Formless One, although it is true that all forms are the manifestations of Nirankar. Bhai Gurdas, the earliest
expounder and the copyist of the original recension of Guru Granth Sahib, says:
"Nirankar akaru hari joti sarup anup dikhaia (The Formless One having
created form manifested His wondrous refulgence)" (Varan, XII. 17). Murat
in the Mool Mantra, therefore, signifies verity or manifestation of the
Timeless and Formless One.
God is Ajuni, un-incarnated, and saibhan (Sanskrit svayambhu), Self-existent. The Primal Creator
Himself had no creator. He simply is, has ever been and shall ever be by
Himself. Ajuni also affirms the Sikh rejection of the theory of divine
incarnation. Guru Arjan
says: "Man misdirected by false belief indulges in falsehood; God is free
from birth and death. . . May that mouth be scorched which says that God is
incarnated" (SGGS, 1136). Nevertheless, there are verses in the Guru
Granth Sahib that seem to support the teaching that God incarnated, on which
the some Sanatan Sikhs call on, like:
ਜਗ ਅਉਰੁ ਨ ਯਾਹਿ ਮਹਾ ਤਮ ਮੈ ਅਵਤਾਰੁ ਉਜਾਗਰੁ ਆਨਿ ਕੀਅਉ ॥ jag aour n yaahi mehaa tham mai avathaar oujaagar aan keeao || In
the great darkness of this world, the Lord revealed Himself, incarnated as Guru
Arjun.
ਤਤੁ ਬਿਚਾਰੁ ਯਹੈ ਮਥੁਰਾ ਜਗ ਤਾਰਨ ਕਉ ਅਵਤਾਰੁ ਬਨਾਯਉ ॥ thath bichaar yehai mathhuraa jag
thaaran ko avathaar banaayo || O Mat'huraa, consider this essential truth: to
save the world, the Lord incarnated Himself. (SGGS 1409)
The Mool Mantar ends
with gurprasadi, meaning thereby that
realization of God comes through Guru's
grace. In Sikh theology Guru appears in three different but allied
connotations, viz. God, the ten Sikh Gurus, and the gur-shabad or Guru's
utterances as preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib. Of God's grace, Gurus'
instruction and guidance and the scriptural Shabad (Sanskrit sabda, literally 'Word'), the first is the
most important, because, as nothing happens without God's will or pleasure, His
grace is essential to making a person inclined towards a desire and search for
union with Him.
God is thus depicted
in three distinct aspects, viz. God in Himself, God in relation to creation,
and God in relation to man. God by himself is the one Ultimate, Transcendent
Reality, Nirguna (without
attributes), Timeless, Boundless, Formless, Ever-existent, Immutable,
Ineffable, All-by Himself and even Unknowable in His entirety. During a
discourse with Hindu recluses,
Guru Nanak in reply to a question as to where the Transcendent God was before
the stage of creation replies, "To think of the Transcendent Lord in that
state is to enter the realm of wonder. Even at that stage of sunn, he permeated
all that Void" (SGGS, 940). This is the state of God's sunn samadhi,
self-absorbed trance.
When it pleases God,
He becomes sarguna (Sanskrit saguna, with attributes) and manifests Himself in creation. He
becomes immanent in His created universe, which is His own emanation, an aspect
of Himself. As says Guru
Amar Das, Nanak III, "This (so-called) poison, the world, that you see
is God's picture; it is God's outline that we see" (SGGS, 922). Most names
of God are His attributive, action-related signifiers, kirtam nam (SGGS, 1083)
or karam nam (Dasam Granth, Jaap Sahib). God in the Sikh Scripture has been
referred to by several names, picked from Indian and Semitic traditions. He is
called in terms of human relations as father, mother, brother, relation,
friend, lover, beloved, husband. Other names, expressive of His supremacy, are
thakur, prabhu, svami, sah, patsah, sahib, sain (Lord, Master). Some
traditional names are ram, narayan, govind, gopal, Allah, khuda. Even the
negative terms such as nirankar, niranjan et al. are as much related to
attributes as are the positive terms like data, datar, karta, kartar, dayal,
kripal, qadir, karim, etc. Some terms peculiar to Sikhism are naam
(literally name), sabad (literally word)
and Vahiguru (literally Wondrous
Master). While nam and sabad are mystical terms standing for the
Divine manifestation and are used as substitute terms for the Supreme Being,
Vahiguru is a phrase expressing awe, wonder and ecstatic joy of the worshipper
as he comprehends the immenseness and grandeur of the Lord and His Creation.
Immanence or
All-pervasiveness of God, however, does not limit or in any way affect His
transcendence. He is Transcendent and Immanent at the same time. The Creation
is His lila or cosmic play. He enjoys
it, pervades it, yet Himself remains unattached. Guru Arjan describes Him in
several hymns as "Unattached and Unentangled in the midst of all"
(SGGS, 102, 294, 296); and "Amidst all, yet outside of all, free from love
and hate" (SGGS, 784-85). Creation is His manifestation, but, being
conditioned by space and time, it provides only a partial and imperfect glimpse
of the Timeless and Boundless Supreme Being.
That God is both
Transcendent and Immanent does not mean that these are two phases of God one
following the other. God is One, and He is both nirguna
and sarguna. "Nirguna sargunu hari
hari mera (God, my God is both with and without attributes)," sang Guru
Arjan (SGGS, 98). Guru
Amar Das also had said, "Nirguna sarguna ape soi (He Himself is with
as well as without attributes)" (SGGS, 128). Transcendence and Immanence
are two aspects of the same Supreme Reality.
The Creator also
sustains His Creation compassionately and benevolently. "My Lord is ever
Fresh and ever Bountiful" (SGGS, 660); "He is the eradicator of the
pain and sorrow of the humble" (SGGS, 263-64). The universe is created,
sustained and moved according to His hukam
or Divine Will, and Divine purpose. "The inscrutable hukam is the source
of all forms, all creatures. . . All are within the ambit of hukam; there is
nothing outside of it." (SGGS, p. 1). Another principle that
regulates the created beings is karma
(actions, deeds). Simply stated, it is the law of cause and effect. The popular
dictum 'As one sows so shall one reap' is stressed again and again in the Guru
Granth Sahib (SGGS, 134,176, 309, 316, 366, 706, 730).
The created world,
though real, is not eternal. Whenever God desires, it merges back into His
Timeless and Formless Self. Guru Gobind Singh calls this process of creation
and dissolution udkarkh (Sanskrit utkarsana) and akarkh
(Sanskrit akarsana), respectively:
"Whenever you, O Creator, cause udkarkh (increase, expansion), the
creation assumes the boundless body; whenever you effect akarkh (attraction,
contraction), all corporeal existence merges in you" (Benati Chaupai).
This process of creation and dissolution has been repeated God alone knows for
how many times. A passage in the Sukhmani
by Guru Arjan visualizes the infinite field of creation thus:
(SGGS.
275-76)
—Millions
are the mines of life; millions the spheres;
Millions
are the regions above; millions the regions below;
Millions
are the species taking birth.
By
diverse means does He spread Himself.
Again
and again did He expand Himself thus,
But
He ever remains the One Ekankar.
Countless
creatures of various kinds
Come
out of Him and are absorbed back.
None
can know the limit of His Being;
He,
the Lord, O Nanak! is all in all Himself.
Man, although an
infinitesimal part of God's creation, yet stands apart from it insofar as it is
the only species blessed with reflection, moral sense and potentiality for
understanding matters metaphysical. Human birth is both a special privilege for
the soul and a rare chance for the realization of union with God. Man is lord
of earth, as Guru Arjan says, "Of all the eight million and four hundred
thousand species, God conferred superiority on man" (SGGS, 1075), and
"All other species are your (man's) water-bearers; you have hegemony over
this earth" (SGGS, 374). But Guru also reminds that "now that you
(the soul) have got a human body, this is your turn to unite with God"
(SGGS, 12, 378). Guru Nanak had warned, "Listen, listen to my advice, O my
mind! only good deed shall endure, and there may not be another chance"
(SGGS, 154). So, realization of God and a reunion of atma (soul) with paramatma
(Supreme Soul, God) are the ultimate goals of human life. The achievement
ultimately rests on nadar (God's grace),
but man has to strive in order to deserve His grace. As a first step, he should
have faith in and craving for the Lord. He should believe that God is near him,
rather within his self, and not far away. He is to seek Him in his self.
Guru Nanak says:
"Your beloved is close to you, O foolish bride! What are you searching
outside?" (SGGS, 722), and Guru Amar Das reassures:
"Recognize yourself, O mind! You are the light manifest. Rejoice in Guru's
instruction that God is always with (in) you. If you recognize your Self, you
shall know the Lord and shall get the knowledge of life and death" (SGGS,
441). The knowledge of the infinitesimal nature of his self when compared to
the immenseness of God and His creation would instil humility in man and would
rid him of his ego (a sense of I, my and mine) which is "the greatest
malady man suffers from" (SGGS, 466, 589, 1258) and the arch-enemy of nam or path to God-Realization (SGGS, 560).
Having surrendered his ego and having an intense desire to reach his goal (the
realization of Reality), the seeker under Guru's instruction (gurmati) becomes a gurmukh
or person looking guruward. He meditates upon nam
or sabda, the Divine Word, while yet
leading life as a householder, earning through honest labour, sharing his
victuals with the needy, and performing self-abnegating deeds of service.
Sikhism condemns ritualism. Worship of God consists of reciting gurbani
or holy texts and meditation on nam,
solitary or in sangat or congregation, kirtan
or singing of scriptural hymns in praise of God, and ardas
or prayer in supplication.
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