Being a Simple Sikh 12/09/2010Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all
[...] And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
- Kahlil Gibran, in ‘The Prophet’.
Over the past few weeks I have found myself in several conversations about Sikhi, the cumulative effect of which being a great deal of uncertainty and ‘lost-ness’. Although I wouldn’t count myself among those who soak up the opinions of others like a sponge, I often feel like I know so little about Sikhi that perhaps my practice or beliefs are lacking in some way; that maybe I should read a lot more about this, thoroughly research that, or find out more about what such-and-such a person says.
When it comes in small doses, such interactions are motivating and even fun, inspiring you to develop your own viewpoints, or strengthen your own convictions. But when you hear too much and you don’t have the pre-requisite knowledge to exercise your discernment, things can become overwhelming and frustrating. What we thought we knew can be cast into doubt, and in the light of new information we can, for a time, feel uneasy with the beliefs we’ve held up until that moment. And the more that conflicting information and opinions pour in from multiple different sources, the more we can’t even sit down, knowing that the ideas comfortably seated somewhere in our consciousness are now getting aggravated and arguing noisily amongst themselves. We can feel disoriented and confused that what we previously thought may no longer be something we can happily stand by or voice with confidence. In fact, there comes a time when you want to leave the room shouting- I’M GOING AWAY NOW- TO THINK!!!!
The dialogues I have heard over recent weeks have been similarly overwhelming, and if I have learnt anything, it is that peoples’ experiences of spiritual connection, or at least the way they express it, is often very different to my own. At camp, Sikhi was presented as something that should be played by the rules- and it was implicit that as long as people did that, they might alleviate their bad karma enough to have a chance of ‘salvation’. It seemed to me that fear and shame were two emotions played upon to rouse people in the audience to stop cutting your hair, to not eat meat, etc. At another camp I was told about, a radically different perspective of Sikhi was put forward. You don’t need kes to be a Sikh, Amrit Sanchar isn’t necessary, the five Ks aren’t symbolic but are solely practical things to be used in physical conflicts etc etc.
In the middle of one such conversation,whenI was feeling rather dazzled and disoriented by everything, I felt a small and quiet yearning inside me that pulled me back:
I just want to be a simple Sikh. I realised that although conversations about spiritual controversies or matters of conflicting opinion can be good, they can also immunise you against the very fact that you are alive, you are breathing, and are part of a precious miracle: life. The
only life we have. And in the millions of moments I have that add together to constitute my lifetime, do I want to spend those moments feeling I should read more, do more, research more, talk more? On my last breath I highly doubt I’ll be thinking
‘I wish I’d read just one more book to experience Sikhi more fully, more deeply…‘, it would more likely be
‘I wish I’d spent more time sitting in silence and remembering Waheguru, knowing Him more fully, more deeply…’Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=32212
For me, the essence of being a simple Sikh is not knowing whether you are right or wrong about something, and not caring either. It is enough to try to live your life with integrity and love, and remember who gave you the precious opportunity to do that in the first place. Much of what we perceive to be our religion is actually just a human, worldly construct, and whilst there may be merit in what other people say, think, or tell you, it is not Truth (which is why we have a Guru to turn to!)
I firmly believe that an hour spent in quiet meditation just
‘knowing‘ Waheguru brings more self-realisation than any number of hours spent talking about Him. We all have our own connection to Akal Purakh, we just have to shut up for a second and feel it!
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