Sikhs in the west always talk about their children caught between two cultures, the Indian, and the western. When they go to work and school, they are expected to conform to the western culture. When they come home, they have to suddenly switch to Indian culture. We hear of many instances where the children eventually run out of stamina, living this ‘double life’. They collapse from the immense stress, and fall out, discarding their Indian-ness. Also, a tiny minority flip on to the other side. They reject the western instead, and join ethnic or religious fundamentalist groups or organizations. Then, they attack those who have taken a modern view, declaring them to be traitors, apostates, ‘fallen’, etc
I think the very same thing has happened to me. I live in an ultra modern world. All the time, everyone in this modern world is looking forward and, projecting and preparing strategies FOR THE FUTURE, including every single person in my religion. They want to be highly successful in their business ventures and careers, acquiring the latest ‘tools’ in the business world.
But when it comes to the religion they practice, they are seemingly incapacitated. All capacity to act on their own wisdom and judgement becomes removed from them. They feel dis-empowered and powerless to make even the most trivial conclusion for themselves. So those of us like me are expected to live two lives, one with the blinkered world-view of some conservative co-religionists, and the other, the life influenced by our professional, modern and universal exposure.
For example; men who may solve the world’s greatest mathematical problems, invent the most fascinating gadgets for their corporations, will go to a ‘religious person’ to ask him if it is ok for them to do paath from a romanised English gutka. Is it still ‘counted’ or not? They keep going from one person to another, each time getting a different answer, further adding to their confusion. They are so dis-empowered when it comes to their religion that they cannot even answer simple questions for themselves, and it has to be sanctioned by a priestly figure.
On a community scale, many seem unable to find the answers and make the decisions they need on their present issues for themselves. They are shakled to the past and chained to history. They keep turning to look behind into the past for answers to their religious queries and dilemmas. Fear, cripples them. They can run huge corporations, but cannot act in religion, until a man dressed in white tells them so. When it comes to their life and career, they can make the most outrageous decisions that will allow them to surge forward, without consulting anyone, any, actually telling others that they. They will probably be able to give that same priest advice on every other matter. But when it comes to religious life, they suddenly become incapacitated!
It seems to me that religion seems to dis-empower and take people’s power to think and act for themselves, away from them. This is actually the ‘yoke’ that Guru Nanak wanted to remove from our necks, the power of the mullahs and the pundits over our minds. They controlled our minds then. Today, that is not the case. Yet we are only too eager to look towards other persons for guidance, rather than think for ourselves!
Guru Nanak wanted to liberate the human spirit to soar, fearless, ie, Nirbhau, and at eh same time to be Sai-bhang – self-creating and re-newing through self-illumination and self education. In the presence of all his relatives, very important guests, and his outraged parents, Little Nanak told the pundit to keep his precious janayoo. Would any of us be here today if He had turned back to look at history, like we do all the time, to see if there was any such precedent of any other kid having done that before?
The answer is - No. Though still a child, Nanak did what needed doing. It did not concern Him whether it had been done before or not, or whether the Hindu Rehat Maryada, the religion of His family and relatives, allowed Him to do that.
He could have looked back at history too, like we do all the time, and then said – “I guess I better put on this janayoo, since in history, everyone has been doing it and no one has ever questioned it before. It must be the right thing to do and I should not question it. That’s what my ancestors have been doing for centuries! So why change it.
How many of us would have had the guts to do what Baba Guru did? We are disciples of Baba, Father, but we have benefited little from what His life stood for. Guru Nanak went to Hardwar and in the presence of millions standing with Him in the Holy Ganges, turned His back to the sun that was sacred to the others around Him, and started to make His water offering in the opposite direction. Did He turn to look back at history, to find a precedent and a justification for what He had to do to move people forward? If He had, He wouldn’t have found any at all. He stood alone. He was alone. And He did what He had to do, because the times needed it. Because the times had changed, people’s thinking had changed, people’s understanding and world –view had evolved, He said it was time to move forward and make His point. It is up to the people to decide for themselves if that was right for them or not. Many decided it was. ‘This ‘man’ is making sense’. They became Sikhs. Many more refused.
He then marched off to Mecca and lay down with His feet pointing towards the “House of God’. Baba always looked forward. He wanted to move people forward. You can’t do that if you keep looking to History for precedents and justifications. He looked at ‘the way things were’ and ‘the way that things should be’ IN THE FUTURE. Whereas we always keep looking backward, for historical justification. Whenever we don’t find a parallel example in our history, we are thrown into confusion. We start groping around for justifications. We start calling a person a heretic. We forget completely, that that is exactly what every Brahmin and pundit called Guru Nanak, because He refused to look back at history for precedents –
SGGS pg 991, line 6
koeI AwKY BUqnw ko khY byqwlw ]
Some call him a ghost; some say that he is a madman.
ko-ee aakhai bhootnaa ko kahai baytaalaa.
koeI AwKY AwdmI nwnku vycwrw ]1]
Some call him a mere mortal; O, poor Nanak! ||1||
ko-ee aakhai aadmee naanak vaychaaraa. ||1||
How different, really, are we today from the people of Guru Nanak’s time? No different actually. In those days, our ancestors lived in fear of the mullahs and the pundits. And anyone who did not conform or agree with the general view of that time, they called a heretic. Today, we live in fear of our ignorance, and rush to get everything sanctioned by a priestly looking figure, just to be sure we don’t end up in hell. It exactly the same thing. We are no different from those people hundreds of years ago!
So what have we gained from having a Father and teacher like Baba Nanak? Ignoring the wisdoms taught us by Guru Nanak, all we have done is just transferred the source of our fear, from one to another, from the pundits and the mullahs in the time before our Gurus, to whatever it is that cripples us from action today. Even though we are Sikhs by name, it appears that Sikhi has not empowered us enough. We are still at the mercy of ‘Fear to Act’, since there are no ‘precedents in history’. Better not change anything until the Gurus come back and “tell us what to do”, since we can’t think for ourselves. Well, the Gurus ain’t coming back. That’s why they left us their wisdoms in their history, their sakhis, and in the Guru Granth Sahib, for eternity. If we still feel paralysed and can’t think, and have to keep looking back at history for ‘What shall we do now type of questions’, I can see a lot of trouble ahead.
One may recall that today, no one seems to know what to do when a person of Sikh faith wants to marry someone from another faith. It’s anybody’s guess. Nobody knows what to do, because there are no precedents from the Guru’s times. So, what do we do? Simple. Don’t do anything. Let the people wander from gurdwara to gurdwara, trying to find one where they might do something to help them. Sometimes they get lucky and someone helps them. Sometimes, they get so sick of getting the run-around that the marriage eventually takes place in another religions place of worship!
Todays life skills trainers teach us this –
Yesterday is in the tomb. Tomorrow is in the womb.
The past is in the grave. Yesterday lies buried. It is over. Tomorrow is still in the making. There is much you can plan and think and bring into existence for tomorrow. Stop worrying about the past. Solve your problems that are coming towards you in the future. You may look to history for your answers. But if you don’t find them, don’t be afraid to act. All leaders teach that ‘a BAD decision is still better than NO decision!’ which is where we are standing today.
History only defines where we come from. It cannot be allowed to define where we have to go, and what we have to do to face the future. All companies and corporations have pictures of their humble beginnings hanging in their sprawling modern and spanking new buildings. But that’s not where they go to look, to see where they have to go in the future. To do that, they have to look at the future, towards the future.
Do we only tell sakhis to our kids just to have fun and entertain ourselves bashing up the bad guys in history and making our Gurus and our heroes look cool? Or is there something we are supposed to learn from there, from how steadfastly they acted at a time that needed action.
Another one I heard was; “But Nanak was Guru. We are not Guru Nanak. We cannot change anything”.
In this case, we actually confirm my earlier analysis; Religion dis-empowers people instead of empowering them.
I remember a joke that went around in the nineties. It was about a priest who was ship-wrecked. As he is drifting in the sea, a boat comes up alongside, and the people ask him to climb aboard. He refuses. He tells them that since he has been praying to God all his life, God will come to save him. Then comes a huge ship, and everybody is calling out to him to grab the rope and be pulled on board. He waves them on, saying the same thing. Then the Search and Rescue helicopter comes and they want to winch him up. He waves them off too. Soon of course, he drowns. When he is brought before God, he angrily accused God of not coming to his rescue even though he had been praying all his life. God said,
“You silly man, who do you think sent the boat, the ship and the helicopter!”
This exactly is our problem. We are sinking in an ocean of problems that we are surrounded in. the answers to our problems are clearly visible. But we are waiting for God to come and save us! There is a hole in the boat. The boat is sinking. But all the passengers, are looking for God above to come down and save it, when all they have to do is take a little rag and plug the hole. This is what I mean when I use the phrase ‘religious paralysis’. If we are afraid to act because of fear, then has religion liberated us or has it actually chained us and deprived us of our ability to act? If this is the case, then what, have we benefited from having liberating Gurus like those we had?
Today, at universities across the world, people are doing doctorates, studying the reasons why the thousands of giants like IBM have gone the same way as the dinosaurs, into extinction. Every seminar you go to on leadership, these are the case studies being presented; from the extinction of the Egyptian and Roman Civilizations to the sudden demise of mega corporations from the face of the earth. Yet we are not aware that the same fate awaits us. Unless we can decide to change tactics, change methods, change systems, change paradigms.
Part 2 will contain the startling revelation of how another religion has on the 22 July 2009, changed one of its strictest rules that for 2000 years condemned people to hell. Need time to scan the newspaper cuttings from the Daily Mail, UK.
Satnam
