Sabad and Naam (Word and Name)

Tejwant Singh · #10 (**permalink**) 07-Oct-2009, 00:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kookar Guru da

Vahiguru Jee Ka Khalsa

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kookar Guru da

Vahiguru Jee Kee Fateh !

I am grateful to Narayan Kaur Jee for kindly supplying information on Sabad and Naam.

However, I have read many such articles and explanations before and they do not quite hit the mark for me. Can it really be that Sabad and Naam mean the same thing? Some people go so far as to say that Bani also means the same, i.e. Sabad=Naam=Bani. I don't see how this can be the case, or how the Guru would would permit such ambiguity for words that are clearly different in their meaning.

The fact is that Sabad=Word, Naam=Name, Bani=Hymn. Let us take an example from panna 687 of the Guru:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kookar Guru da

DnwsrI mhlw 1 CMq
dhhanaasaree mehalaa 1 shha(n)tha
Dhanaasaree, First Mehla, Chhant:

<> siqgur pRswid ]
ik oa(n)kaar sathigur prasaadh ||
One Universal Creator God. By The Grace Of The True Guru:

qIriQ nwvx jwau qIrQu nwmu hY ]
theerathh naavan jaao theerathh naam hai ||
Why should I bathe at sacred shrines of pilgrimage? The Naam, the Name of the Lord, is the sacred shrine of pilgrimage.

qIrQu sbd bIcwru AMqir igAwnu hY ]
theerathh sabadh beechaar a(n)thar giaan hai ||
My sacred shrine of pilgrimage is spiritual wisdom within, and contemplation on the Word of the Shabad.

In two consecutive lines we see Sabad and Naam and the Guru is clear on the distinction (although the Bhai Sant Singh translation is clumsy - to be the subject of a separate post). Naam is the thing that a Sikh must be immersed in (like immersing in a teerath), whereas Sabad is the thing that a Sikh must contemplate in order to attain understanding and thereby Naam.

I believe this deeper understanding of the distinction between Sabad and Naam is crucial. Sabad and Naam are not the same thing. When first introduced to the word "vahiguru" it is a sabad, a word. Your only knowledge of this Sabad is that it means "wonderful Guru", i.e. it causes you to praise the Guru. But further beechar/contemplation of this Sabad - carefully reading the Guru, understanding the meaning, thinking on it, acting on it - gives you more familiarity with the Sabad. You like the Sabad more and more, you come to love the Sabad, to adore the Sabad. No longer is it a Sabad alone, but a Naam. Your increased closeness and familiarity with the Sabad now fills you with deep feeling so that you now refer to it as Naam. Just as the name of your child is not just a word to you, when you hear his/her name it triggers the love you feel for them.

Sabad is therefore most precious, for it opens the door to The One; continual beechar on Sabad makes it Naam, for we are now filled with deep feeling for The One.

- Jitinder Singh

Vahiguru Jee Ka Khalsa
Vahiguru Jee Kee Fateh !

Jitinder ji,

Guru Fateh.

Let me start by saying that you have an interesting user's name what we call in the Hip Hop music that you are a good Dawg- of Ik Ong Kaar, as most of us try to be.

Allow me to pitch in on the verses you have mentioned above. I agree with you that it is important and a must rather to distinguish between Shabad and Naam and you have given a great Shabad to discuss about it.

First a bit of back ground about Tirath, Pilgrimages.

As a student of Gurbani you must be aware that Pilgrimages are the cornerstone of two main religions of that time which were prevalent in India and still are Hinduism and Islam.

As a matter of fact Pilgrimage is also as important in other 2 Semitic religions including Islam that are Judaism and Christianity, especially in Catholicism. For the Catholics, visiting Rome is a kind of must.

All Jews from all around the world have the desire to go to Jerusalem in Israel and visit the Wailing Wall and leave a prayer there hoping that their God would read it and hence, fulfill what they asked for in a piece of paper.

Hindus have multiple places to go and "wash" their sins. Muslims must go at least once in their lifetime to Mecca for the same and stone the "Devil".

So, these mechanical rituals were created by the honchos of these dogmatic religions which are based on subjective truths like Hell and Heaven for only one purpose and that purpose is to have a feel good aura about oneself when one becomes a mechanical pilgrim to these places.

In other words, a great recipe for Me-ism. Nothing more.

Guru Nanak taught us that feeling good is OK, but it is a waste of time if one does not generate good actions after feeling good in a kinetic manner so that goodness can be generated within and then shared with others- which is the cornerstone of Sikhi.

So, pilgrimage is a personal experience that all the pilgrims go through. Some claim more miracles than the others on these voyages of theirs.

Now let us get back to the verses you have posted.

qIriQ nwvx jwau qIrQu nwmu hY ]
theerathh naavan jaao theerathh naam hai ||
Why should I bathe at sacred shrines of pilgrimage? The Naam, the Name of the Lord, is the sacred shrine of pilgrimage.

Naam is the experience that I go through, Guru Sahib is saying.

Now the question arises, how can one have this experience of Naam?

The next verse explains it beautifully how this experience of Naam is attained.

qIrQu sbd bIcwru AMqir igAwnu hY ]
theerathh sabadh beechaar a(n)thar giaan hai ||
My sacred shrine of pilgrimage is spiritual wisdom within, and contemplation on the Word of the Shabad.

Only by doing Shabad Vichaar one can cultivate the wisdom about IK Ong Kaar within.

So, how do we do Shabad Vichaar to attain the experience of Naam which is the true pilgrimage?

By breeding goodness with in.

What is the modus operandi for that?

By understanding Gurbani and putting its tools into practice we can breed goodness within and then we as Sikhs morph into the flowers of the garden of Ik Ong kaar which emit their scent in all directions sans bias.

This person becomes the true pilgrim and experiences the pilgrimage 24-7.

Give me a few days and then I will be able to share with you the whole Shabad the way it comes to me from the within.

Regards

Tejwant Singh

arshi · #11 (**permalink**) 07-Oct-2009, 01:12 AM

Jitinder ji (Kookar Guru da) wrote:

“Guru knows that human words are crude implements for conveying spiritual matters, yet Guru wrote in poetic form and set this to beautiful raags so that the mood/tone/timbre/feeling would be understood. And Guru takes extreme care to be precise with the words through the use of laga-matraan (grammar using Gurmukhi notations - siharee etc.).”
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/sikh-sikhi-sikhism/26952-sabad-and-naam-word-and-name.html

Indeed.

This issue came up on a thread on another site. Some conclusions that were drawn were that the Sikh Gurus chose not to write in prose since the rigidity of prose would not have done full justice to the ideas they wished to express. The verse form lends to both ambiguity and flexibility to allow the reader, to extract the meaning to match his or her understanding. This is why we must always translate with great caution and at the same time keep an open mind that there may be another equally good or better interpretation or there may be more than one plausible translation.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26952

However, the bottom line is that the interpretation must be spiritually positive, i.e. without a deliberate distortion to suit one’s personal life style or agenda.

Rajinder Singh ‘Arshi’

Tejwant Singh · #12 (**permalink**) 07-Oct-2009, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arshi

Jitinder ji (Kookar Guru da) wrote:

“Guru knows that human words are crude implements for conveying spiritual matters, yet Guru wrote in poetic form and set this to beautiful raags so that the mood/tone/timbre/feeling would be understood. And Guru takes extreme care to be precise with the words through the use of laga-matraan (grammar using Gurmukhi notations - siharee etc.).”

Indeed.

This issue came up on a thread on another site. Some conclusions that were drawn were that the Sikh Gurus chose not to write in prose since the rigidity of prose would not have done full justice to the ideas they wished to express. The verse form lends to both ambiguity and flexibility to allow the reader, to extract the meaning to match his or her understanding. This is why we must always translate with great caution and at the same time keep an open mind that there may be another equally good or better interpretation or there may be more than one plausible translation.

However, the bottom line is that the interpretation must be spiritually positive, i.e. without a deliberate distortion to suit one’s personal life style or agenda.

Rajinder Singh ‘Arshi’

Arshi ji,

Guru fateh.

Allow me to add to what you mentioned above. Sikhi has a universal message and our visionary Gurus knew how to share that with the humanity.

All other religions stopped in time except Sikhi because they are based on Subjective Truths whereas Sikhi is based on the Objective Reality. The first pauri of Jap shows us that.

Our visionary Gurus did not want our thought process to stop in the past but to evolve itself with the evolution of humanity.

This is more the reason in my opinion not to write the prose to this beautiful visionary poetry- the road map of humanity -which they could have easily done.

Gurbani is like a prism. Each one of us sees it from our own angle and the more we delve into Gurbani, with time, the better we are exposed to different angles of the same prism which make our understanding of the same Shabad deeper and wider with time and perseverance.

One can also put it in this way that Gurbani is like a perfect camera which has both lenses in one. The zoom and the wide one.

This is the reason that our understanding of Gurbani will grow with our own evolution. The only stamp it has on it is the stamp of TIMELESSNESS.

Regards

Tejwant Singh

Narayanjot Kaur · #13 (**permalink**) 07-Oct-2009, 01:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tejwant Singh

This is the reason that understanding of Gurbani will grow with our own evolution. The only stamp it has on it is the stamp of TIMELESSNESS.

Regards

Tejwant Singh

Exactly