BACK
Karam
Gajindar Singh*
The biggest impediment to furtherance of knowledge is the
human faith in the correctness of one’s convictions.
Wherever the scholarly pioneers have wanted to expand the
horizon of knowledge, people have stood up to defy all such
attempts and snubbed, ridiculed and tried their best to
silence the progressive voices of dissent. Old dogmas and
precepts, thus, continue to hold their own, even when people
realize the triviality of those doctrines and affirm to
be the adherents of the new divergences in philosophy.
Guru Nanak came to us with such a new and advanced philosophic
mission. He gave new dimensions to the misspelled doctrines.
He inspired deeper and fresh investigations into the speculative
theories of old religions. He picked fresh connotations
in the universal beliefs. After five hundred years, his
approach remains modern and logical. But ironically, the
man-in-street likes to live his life by set rules and traditions,
of habit and routine, to avoid logic and reason. Yet he
would like to be counted in the circle of intellectuals.
The Sikhs, literally ‘the student’ are supposed
to explore the truth in fuller detail, yet they seem to
prefer remaining ensconced in the discredited old traditions
and routine, thoroughly confused. This attitude was severely
criticized by none else than Guru Nanak in his sabds. For
instance, Gau Brahmin ko kar lavo, gobar turn n jai.(SGGS
471)
One wonders, to what consequence were those long arduous
journeys of Guru Nanak and his successor Gurus, since the
Sikhs continue to think and act in line with the old discarded
interpretations to the unique doctrines of Guru Nanak. It
is an accepted fact that Guru Nanak did not consider the
Vedas, Shastras and Koran as the last word in metaphysics,
although the flight of imagination attempted by those seers
is, indeed, scholarly. He did not seek solace in make-believe
theories about the soul and its destiny. Ikna hukmi bakhsis,
ik(i) hukmi sada bhavaieh. (Jap-2). At various places in
the gurbani, the question is left in suspense and wonderment,
why some receive God’s Grace and comforts while others
toil endlessly. The Upnishads make very interesting reading.
The hypothesis and assumptions were remarkable for that
age. But the resulting theories of life and after-life and
the varna-ashram with its inflexibility as well as the intra-caste
structure, which was the outcome of all that study and the
foundation of the Hindu society was frankly rejected, even
condemned. The Hindu emphasis was on covering the deficiencies
of man by cleansing on the strength of the Vedic chants
and sacrificial fires to remove the ill-effects of bad actions
as a sort of protective umbrella.
Atma and Pramatama were agreed to, whereas the Jains repudiated
it and Buddhism stayed clear of it. On the other hand, the
individual in Sikhism was placed under an overall discipline
and orderly harmony of Parabrahma. Man was the object of
study by our Gurus, but with a view to contain his waywardness
and to tame him for the role of a good citizen, a useful
and gentle person attuned to love of God and His creation,
not to serve demands of a raw, untaught, self-centered ogre.
As each soul struggled to come to terms with the order and
harmony of the Supreme Being, the Guru (sabd-Guru) assisted
the individual to graduate from the state of gross ignorance
of an ego-centric being, a manmukh to the sublime objective
of the God-oriented, the gurmukh.
Thus, the entire humanity was divided into two groups, namely
the manmukhs and gurmukhs. Unlike the old division into
the rigid compartmentalization of castes and sub-castes
by birth, any person was to be freely promoted or demoted
from the position of manmukh to gurmukh and vice-versa,
the emphasis being on the precondition of good societal
behaviour and actions to qualify to the fraternity of the
gurmukhs, a stage, where a person consistently remained
merged in God.
The above stipulation clearly delineates the departure of
the Sikh stance from the basic Hindu posture. Consequently,
there should have been a clear departure from the Hindu
postulates to be eschewed. In practice, the same old stereotyped
assumptions are being touted, unhindered, about the cause
of birth, life cycle and death of a self-willed brute, as
well as the post-death Hindu speculations. It has become
customary with our Bhaiji, the priest to invoke Almighty
to seek a place for the deceased in the lotus feet of God
and keep it from the cycle of rebirths! Has God lotus feet?
Is there really an abode out there in the skies? What is
the value or purpose of such sham prayer to grant absolution
to everyone from the so-called cycle of rebirth, without
merit? Does such prayer work at all, without reformation
of a vicious person into leading a virtuous life? Does God
adopt human standards of judgment? Gurbani finds it a puzzle
how someone may sleep cozy under cushions while the other
person stands guard (SGGS 471). What is this great enigma?
This theme reappears at several places in the Guru Granth
Sahib in the banis of Guru Nanak, (SGGS 566): Guru Amar
Das, (SGGS 644) and Guru Arjun Dev (614). The mystery persists.
Instead of adopting the traditional solution of action and
reaction, karam-bhog, Guru Arjan Dev in Canto 21 of the
celebrated Sukhmani challenges the concept of Karam-Bhog.
There is, indeed, mention of reincarnation and Heaven and
Hell fires in their sermons recorded in the Sri Guru Granth
Sahib, obviously for consumption of the congregations with
Hindu and Muslim participants who perhaps had not yet formally
adopted the Sikh way of life. The very purpose of Guru Nanak’s
philosophy is stated clearly on the first page of the Guru
Granth Sahib, to become attuned to godly qualities and that
the whole creation is acting in accordance with His Will.
God is our role model, our utopia, our beau-ideal. Nothing
prospers, or, let us say, even happens that is against His
command and He represents harmony in divine order. Wherefore,
the discussion about one’s karma is rendered obsolete.
It is confined to sakta who hanker after the supremacy of
individual’s Will. Karma rules over lives of those
societies.
Till such time that the self, atma is given all importance,
as is the case with the ancient faiths, the debate about
right and wrong, to the benefit of the individual and its
atonement by the Vedic yagnas, vidhis, havans or puja, archa,
vandhna, will maintain their validity. There will be no
difference in going to a gurdwara in stead of the temple.
The hopes and prayers of the unrestrained egotist will be
the same as were practised in the pre-Nanak times. The alternatives
as suggested by the six schools of Vedanta or the breakaway
Jainism and Buddhism will continue to be operative in the
life of our people. They are even quizzical about the significance
and new dimensions of the gurmat dynamism! We are told that
in the Guru period, many ordinary Sikhs were knowledgeable
enough to put forth the Sikh point of view, to the stupefaction
of the learned enquirers. Many missionaries from the times
of Guru Nanak preached the Sikh philosophy far and wide
and created sangats all over the sub-continent and beyond.
With the shrinking of the missionary activities, the uniqueness
of the Sikh panth tends to be less appreciated, even in
the very cradle of our faith, in Punjab itself.
There has been a paucity of good scholars among the Sikhs
attuned to the gurmat philosophy and the traditional point
of view of the Brahmin, based on his scriptures and speculations
is easily swallowed and readily dispensed by our priests
and sant babas. In fact, all ancient religions did their
best for those times and situations. Those theories and
assumptions and presumptions now stand unfounded, outdated,
not potent anymore. We are easy prey to any disinformation.
It is no use pointing finger at the squeezing, stifling
embrace of the old society as we are perpetuating the act
ourselves in our stark ignorance.
In Sikhism, the exercise is heavily weighed about converting
base stock, the manmukh to the supreme state of gurmukh.
Instead of avoiding the issue, by renunciation, by running
away from the problem or the vidhis and puja as a post-event
surface-dressing, the Guru teaches the Sikh to face adversities
by adopting virtues, discarding vices, maintaining calm
and poise at all events, fighting weaknesses of character,
to become a useful member of the society and recognizing
the divine principle of harmony with nature. Whereas a traditional
prophet or avatar propounds doctrines in God’s name,
to his flock as strictly laid down by him, Guru Nanak had
prepared for his mission by his study and enquiry of the
various schools of divinity and deep meditation to evolve
a mature, well considered thesis. Besides all the rich tomes
of the past literature in India, he had occasion to study
in depth the Islamic and older versions of the biblical
theories. Many a time, Guru Nanak refers to not only Koran
but to Kateban, in plural, the other holy books of the Semitic
stock. In his sojourn in the Middle East for upward of two
years, it is not possible that he did not come across or
notice the grim rivalry of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic
bid for supremacy, staying in hot spots like Madina, Baghdad
and Turkey. There is definite semblance of the Guru’s
thought beyond the current Hindu and Moslem stance, with
the Christian doctrine of Grace, the search by the Church
on the basic moral significance, rather than blindly accepting
the traditional value systems, like flogging, stoning, beheading,
and their treatment of sins and pride and covetousness as
the main evils, as well as the Buddhist postures about consciousness,
detachment and naam, among others. That there is no direct
mention about Christianity or Judaism in his writings is
due to negligible presence of these systems in India during
Guru Nanak’s period and his addresses mainly to the
Hindu and Moslem congregations and assemblies. Similarly,
there is little mention of Buddhism, because, there were
hardly any numbers of that faith in India at that time.
On the other hand, there are strong references to Jainism
which was then quite active in western and northern India.
The interaction of Guru Nanak and his successors with Buddhists
was, in fact quite intimate in the Indo-Tibetan regions
where Guru Nanak is still remembered in Buddhist monasteries
and their periodic pilgrimages to some of the Sikh historical
shrines.
There is an interesting Surah Wakiah in the Holy Koran where
God says that many generations of estranged people were
given opportunity repeatedly, to revert to godly ways, but
they did not. There are, therefore, three queues of people.
Those on the right are those who will be passable to heaven,
and those who fully deserve to cross over to all the luxuries
therein, but those on the left, who were unresponsive to
the prophets, are destined by providence to perpetual hell
and no advocacy from any angel or prophet will ever redeem
them. This theme is repeated in the Koran, for instance,
in Surah Muhammad. God is stated to have deliberately sealed
ears and eyes of infidels against the right path and their
noncompliance with God’s Will. There is, thus, no
scope left at all for their redemption. There are two points
to be noted: Firstly, it divides hopelessly the faithful
from the kuffar. This has been followed to the hilt by the
faithful who are guided by the wrath of Almighty to the
lot of unbelievers, called Jehad (Ref. Muhammed:4) Secondly,
God has evidently given up on this wretched multitude without
any chance of deliverance and resurrection.
It is extraordinary that the Sikh philosophy should likewise
divide humanity in the right and left grouping, but, of
course, with the addition that anyone and everyone is allowed
compassion and a chance at any time to cross over from left
to the right and claim the privilege to enter the heavenly
state. Those who still do not heed to the opportunity are
comparable to demonetized, base coins destined to be put
through the process of revivification, gharie sabd sachi
taksal, in the Sikh parlance, or whatever it may mean, the
perpetual Semitic hell fire or the long drawn cycle of reincarnation
of the Indo-Buddhist speculation. Also mark the similarity
in rigidity of the Islamic justice comparable to the grossly
inflexible Hindu theory of transmigration through what is
a variable hell of 8.4 million rebirths to each soul for
all acts, fair and foul.
Notwithstanding these controversies, there is total change
in the Sikh definitions of hell and heaven from old physical
destinations to spiritual moorings, like the torturous mental
sufferings of the manmukh compared to the tranquility of
the saintly gurmukh. Guru Nanak has given a new dimension
to the well entrenched Vedic division into the four yugas,
time scales, refer sabd Ramkali M:I, Guru Granth Sahib,
p 902. Soi chand chadhe se tarey… All yugas manifest
simultaneously now and here, according to each person’s
perception, character and actions! The ardas, our ardent
and earnest prayer is sufficient to motivate virtues and
dispel vices, over mechanical reading of scriptures and
karamkand practices of the other systems being increasingly
adopted and propagated and in turn, confused with the Sikh
philosophy by the unsophisticated preachers and sant-babas
wallowing in outdated and discarded Hindu precepts. Guru
Nanak had a clear perception of a much traveled and experienced
person about the mythical bull of the puranas, supporting
the mother Earth. Dharti hor parey hor hor, tis de bhar
taley kwan jor? Earth extending far and still farther away;
how many bulls would be supporting it? And for that matter,
the myth of the sacred rivers, eventually, issuing forth
from the tresses of Mahadev or the gomukh? Refer to, Kita
pasao eko kavao, tis te hoe lakh dariao. Creation happened
at one go, all rivers being sacred since they are God ordained.
Water is the pita, life bestowal. He deliberated, therefore,
on qudrat kwan kaha vichr, varia n java ek var, who has
the wherewithal to explain the mystery of Creation. (Jap)
Guru Nanak has repeatedly wondered in his celestial utterances
about the heavenly dispensation, while one is bestowed with
all luxuries and basks in all sorts of comforts, there are
others who toil for their very existence. It happens according
to God’s will and pleasure and cannot be judiciously
explained by all sorts of theories proffered and plausible
arguments extended by the ancient sages. The votaries of
the Bhakta School abjectly based all adversities on the
previous karma of the individual in line with the ancient
texts, but Guru Nanak blamed the lax attitude of the people
in adopting the virtues in their character and curbing evils
as essential preparation to face the exigencies of the given
situations, instead of the tantras and mantras of the ancient
beliefs. He did not hesitate to reproach God in Eti mar
pae kurlaney, (Page 360) for the unequal combat to which
the ill-equipped populace was subjected. The usual Hindu
pattern would be to blame the ‘past’ misdeeds
of each person so involved in the Invasion!
In the old texts of all ancient faiths, one point is common,
that is, punishment against bad acts. Acts of vices, the
bad acts, however, are always far more than virtues, the
good acts, due to the inherent baseness born of ignorance
in human nature. It has been presented, in the old religions,
in the manner of a horror story to put the fear of reprisals
into the die-hard criminal. Yet the effect has been nominal,
as only those respond who are either good by nature or weaklings.
The remedial measures suggested to correct the anomaly have
proved to be inadequate, which is, of course, admitted universally
by the old religions. The reasons seem to be that
a) There is little importance given towards strengthening
the basic human character and its responses, only secondary
in nature, to the preliminary routine of dedicational practices,
b) More emphasis is placed on circumventing the weaknesses
in character by additional load of repetitive prayers, meditations,
invoking heavenly pardon, ignoring the primary need of eradication
of flaws in human mind and their essential rectification
to the benefit of the society. The routine prayers, the
harsh body tortures of Hath yogins, the tantric-magical
mantras and special readings of scriptures did not yield
the results.
Whereas the Indo-Buddhist schools rigidly affirm the indispensable
course of payback of all actions, good and bad, the Semitic
emphasis is on redeeming the transgression by means of prayers
and simple remembrance of God’s name. The Sikh point
of view is that salvation is not possible; howsoever one
may meditate on God’s name, and good deeds do not
compensate or wash away the bad ones, until the vices are
converted effectively to virtues, beneficent to the society.
(Without virtues devotion is impossible – Jap: 21)
Once the faults are removed from the character of a manmukh,
he emerges as a perfected soul. Also, anyone and every one,
irrespective of community, caste, class or gender may be
able to effect this change of attitude and characteristics
at any time and accomplish the transformation. Another difference
in the Sikh reckoning from earlier systems is that such
a being is automatically resurrected beyond any charge-sheet
of his earlier misdemeanors, his status being a jiwan-mukt.
(Guru Granth Sahib, p 614: 1348:698:38)
Whatever happens to those who are not perfected souls? Gurmukhs
are a rarity, but the much-reformed souls who have crossed
over from the stark stage of self-centered egoists, are
assured of being protected by liberated gurmukhs, as guides
and masters, (they take many with them to the state of liberation
– Jap.) For those dedicated Sikhs, at any stage, firmly
committed to the path to perfection, the charge-sheet is
obsolete and ineffective, which is affirmed in the Guru
Granth Sahib. ‘What will the Dharamrai ever do when
the charge-sheet stands annulled’ (Guru Granth Sahib,
p 614).
One point needs to be clarified is that in Sikhism, it is
neither the function nor the privilege of a heavenly appointed
prophet, nor the prerogative of a liberated soul or God’s
angels to secure allowance to an unworthy soul to sneak
through by the strength of any stratagem, either as their
witness or pleadings into devlok or the Garden of Eden.
To a gursikh, therefore, the philosophy of Karma as defined
in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism or Islam does not apply.
How our priests blindly acquiesce to it is neither correct
nor permissible. It is a system wherein the scholar (Sikh)
learns the values of good over evil and sets about shaping
his life in accordance with the heavenly discipline, (raza).
How it may be achieved is in tempering his personality by
the positive yoking of the five tendencies, namely, desires,
wrath, pride, avarice and egocentricity to contain them.
Instead of man’s helpless reaction to these vigorous
urges, overwhelming him and driving him wild, one has to
harness and control these base powers to the best effect.
The whole matter is reduced to the proposition, whether
one remains a hapless witness to his destruction by these
forces, inherent in his nature, defined as weaknesses, for
which the ancients chanted mantras as antidote as well as
the prescribed prayers, or, to be the wielder of the moral
sword to cut them down to size and to one’s emancipation
as the gurmukh.
Karam, is therefore, used by Guru Nanak predominantly as
a heavenly opportunity to perform righteous deeds. That
was its earliest connotation when in the Vedic period it
stood for pious and religious acts. It was the later corruption
when it was qualified as kukaram, bad deeds and sukaram,
good deeds. In Persian, karam is benevolence, grace, kindheartedness
and a good turn. Karam in the Sikh parlance, thus, means
heavenly grace, gracious act and kindness. It has been also
used simply as an act or deed. It depends on the interpreter
how it is correctly construed. It is possible to totally
go haywires in narrow-minded explanations, depending on
the stretch and vision of the scholar. But it should be
clear that the karam-phal syndrome of ‘action-and-reaction’
as defined in the ancient religions does not pertain to
the Sikhs of the Guru, who are steered by heavenly discipline
and live in God. They are protected by the Creator who is
also the Doer and the Sikh understands it while going about
his chores. After all, to be good, does not need inducements
of bonus or rewards. It is the sacred duty of all of us
to do good and act for the improvement and betterment of
the society in general. Let others roast in hell or bask
in heavenly comforts for their bad and good deeds, but a
Sikh lives a clean life in step with God as his role-model
and there is no need for such devices creating threat or
fear psychosis at motivation. It is not rare that one comes
across such peaceful and contented Sikhs who create serenity
and harmony wherever they happen to be, in whatever situation,
as they remain merged in God. Gurbani exhorts the Sikhs
to search for such company of the saintly so that evil is
routed and heaven prevails.
¤
©Copyright Institute of Sikh Studies,
2007, All rights reserved.
