Guru Granth Sahib – on the head, inside the heart

Guru Granth Sahib – on the head, inside the heart
by Nanak Singh Nishter


This year we have enjoyed the Guru Maniyo Granth –Tercentenary Celebrations of Gurta Gaddi Divas of Guru Granth Sahib. all over the world and intend to continue to celebrate for the coming year. It is important to ask ourselves what we have done and what we have achieved, but for the present I will restrict to saying what we should do. We the Sikhs sincerely believe that Guru Granth Sahib is the only multilingual and multi-religious Scripture of the world, and is the greatest blessing the Sikh Gurus have bestowed to the human race. We find our hearts filled with gratitude to Guru Sahib for bestowing upon us this unique gift of having a living Guru (spiritual as well temporal mentor) with us for all the time at every place.

In fact teacher is not the proper substitute word for the Guru. A teacher teaches something about a subject.Whereas the Guru is not only a teacher but he shapes and moulds the whole life of a person. A Sikh is a person whose life undergoes a metamorphosis in accordance with the teachings of the Guru. Perhaps, the nearest translation may be as Bhai Sahib Sirdar Kapur Singh puts it, World-Teacher. During Guru Nanak.s sojourn to the Himalayas, the Sadhus living there asked him, Who is your Guru? Guru Nanak Sahib replied Shabad (word, gyan, knowledge, wisdom) is my Guru. Thus Shabad is the Guru of all the Gurus and also of the Sikhs. The Sikh Gurus have introduced to the world this new concept of .Guru In Shabad., and a succession system of Gurus to carry on the mission for the past, present and future ages, which can never become obsolete. His nine successors carried on the mission in person. The tenth Guru Sahib conferred the Guruship in 1708 to the Holy Scripture Guru Granth Sahib for ending Guruship in consonance with the philosophy of .Guru in Shabad..

Let us honestly search from the depth of our inner hearts, where should be the place of Guru Granth Sahib in our life? Is the Guru an object of worship? Is it meant for conferring boons? Is it meant for providing livelihood to one and for minting money to another individual or institutions? Is it meant for delivering knowledge for leading life and after life? What is the message we are conveying to our coming generation and the people of other faiths? One incident of the late nineteenth century about a British Resident Officer stationed at Hyderabad, the capital city of a princely state of the Nizam comes to mind. A huge British Army under his
command was stationed in a cantonment area of Secunderabad. He wanted to go through the Scriptures of different Religions, and asked to bring them. In no time, all the individual priests brought their respective Scriptures. One fine morning he heard noises of fire shots and sound of musical instruments. When asked about the matter, he was told the Sikhs are bringing their holy book. He came down the steps to receive the Scripture with respect and said, .The community which respects their Scripture in such a manner, can never be vanquished..

His prediction cannot be denied, but let us fairly introspect, how far we are acquainted with its contents? All the other Scriptures are read by the people of that religion to follow the instructions and to abide by the guide lines. They are read, translated, propagated, preached, and the contents are practised individually by them. The Bible has been translated into a thousand languages and billions of copies are freely distributed through out world.

Let us change our attitude of worshipping the Guru and develop the aptitude of learning from the Guru, which is the sole purpose of conferring Guruship. In this way we can become true Gursikh otherwise we are no less than impostors. If we cannot inspire others, let us make a beginning with our own family and friends. Let us boldly confess that our Scripture Guru Granth Sahib is unfortunately the most unread Scripture of the world. The Sikhs generally do not read, nor allow access to any non Sikhs on the pretext of reverence. Often it is read and recited by the professionals engaged and paid for their wages. When a Sikh is born, professionals read it for the benefits to be conferred to the new born. When a Sikh marries, again professionals read it for the benefits to be conferred to the couple for a happy married life. When a Sikh dies, again the professionals read it for the peace of the departed soul. Another category of professionals are paid for reciting the verses in melodious tunes for pleasing and mesmerising the Sikh audience.

What prevents a Sikh to read it for himself? Why he does not read, understand and others? What is the relation of a Sikh with his Guru? These are the questions which require deep introspection and explanation. Leave aside non-Sikh scholars, who do not have any access to the Script and the Scripture. Unfortunately, most of the Sikh scholars while writing about Guru Granth Sahib, reproduce the writings of others in their own words, instead of going through the original text by themselves or applying their mind for verification about the authenticity of their version.

In the year 2004, this fact was revealed in a confession in a news papers article by Khuswant Singh who was in the year 1999 awarded the title of Nishan-i-Khalsa by the Sikh Panth at the Khalsa Tercentenary celebrations at Anand Pur Sahib. He said, .Having spent the best part of my life working on Sikh history and translating selected passages of the Gurbani, I felt I owed it to myself to read the Granth Sahib from cover to cover.. I was astonished by his statement. What does one make of the interpretation of Sikh philosophy and ideology done by the learned author without reading the original Scripture?

The Guru is supposed to be consulted for finding solutions for individual and collective problems. While we recite Gurbani text every day, we do not practice the teachings in our living. We fall prey to some who are bent upon converting Gurbani into a Mantra. We no longer seek guidance from it. We no longer ask the Guru to tell what should be our beliefs, morals and actions, nor how we should lead our lives. We do not want to find out what is true and what is false. We do not want to follow the commandment of Guru Nanak Sahib that, .Truth is high, but the truthful behaviour is still higher. -page 62 - Guru Granth Sahib. We are not even aware that it is meant for knowing and practising the Do.s and Don’ts, to assimilate our self with God (Jeevan Mukat) during our present life only.Instead of watching or blaming others for not doing anything, let us all do some soul searching. We learn foreign and indigenous languages and hold one after another worldly qualifications. Sadly, we do we read our Scripture Guru in the simple colloquial Communicative spoken languages of our country. We also traditionally fall in line with others for performing Akhand Path in Gurdwaras or at residences. Even well read intellectuals do not read. What use is such intellect? If you do not read for yourself, then how do you expect your children to read it? Can parents escape responsibility for lack of religious training of their children?

Recent discoveries in Child Psychology have determined that the years 3 to 5 as most significant in the intellectual and emotional development of a child. This is the age group of most efficient speed learning. Some innovative entrepreneurs have devised very good pre-school programs for this age group. The benefits of these advanced methods are available to children of enlightened parents. This is the race to gain a head start. This race for temporal gains exerts so much pressure that it results in tension and misery.

At the age of 4 years, 4 months and 4 days, it is compulsory for every Muslim to start reading of Quran; this ritual is called .Bismillah Khwani.(taking the name of Allah). It is mandatory to teach Quran in every Mosque. A large number of ladies and gents voluntarily teach Quran even if they live one room accommodation. In every marriage a volume of Quran is the first and foremost thing to be given. Let me share a personal experience. I am an Urdu speaking Deccani Sikh of Hyderabad. I got a Punjabi speaking daughter-in-law, when she spoke in Hindi to her infant child, I told her to always speak with him in Punjabi only, also telling her that the child will learn the other languages from interaction with society. Now the boy is hardly 4 years old, but conveniently speaks Punjabi, Telugu (local language), Hindi and English.

I am a staunch believer that Guru Granth Sahib is meant to read and not just to be respected. Its not reading is disrespecting and reading is offering true obeisance. During my seven and a half months imprisonment on trumpedup charges, I continued my practice of doing Sehaj Path of Guru Granth Sahib in 2 volumes and completed 6 readings. Due to the ample time at my disposal, I studied Quran in Arabic and Bhagwat Geeta in Telugu.

I always advocate doing the Sehaj Path in volumes in a simple way, if you do not have the Prakash of Guru Sahib. This is the easy way and perhaps the best way. One of my acquaintances - Satnam Kaur, running a grocery shop has completed one path and is continuing the second one, and she reads while doing her business. So many others have realized that the Guru Sahib is meant for reading and they started reading it in 2 volumes and observing the change in their lives. Our Gurdwaras are no more the Dwar of the Guru (gate way of the Guru). They have been converted into organizations, planning day and night how to boost the image of a few leaders .religious and political, how to make more money by attracting crowds by pomp and show, organising publicized spectacular entertaining events, thus converting the Sikhs into blind worshippers. Sikh religious activities are being reduced to eating, meeting, enjoyment and not for learning. Let us frankly confess that what we are doing for publicity, pleasure and fun can never be described as a Dharam. On the other hand we should know, learn and practice the real Dharam in our life by regularly consulting and following our Scripture Guru.

Let us change our attitude of worshipping the Guru and develop the aptitude of learning from the Guru, which is the sole purpose of conferring Guruship. In this way we can become true Gursikh otherwise we are no less than impostors. If we cannot inspire others, let us make a beginning with our own family and friends. Most of us put a lame excuse for not reading Gurbani, saying that we can not understand. This is an electronic age; you know its comforts and usefulness. Every now and then some or other inventions are coming in to the market and you opt for it without knowing how to operate it. Take a very common example of mobile phones. You do not say, after knowing the usage of the hand set, I will purchase it. First you purchase, without knowing how to operate it? When you start operating the set, you come across the functions one by one and by using and practicing. This usage and repeated functioning makes you acquainted with your set well enough for common usage. We are not aware of the worth of our Scripture Guru, so we neglect to read it. Once we realize the usefulness of the Guru in our life, we will be attracted to avail the benefits. Instead of keeping distance of respect, with the Scripture Guru Sahib, come closer to owe it and love it. Make a beginning by beginning to read it. You will admire the achievements you get from its reading.

The simple way is to read it loud to be heard by your ears. Do not read a verse in one breath. To understand the verse, read it in with two, three or four pauses. As we memorise spelling of any word, we memorise it in bits of syllables. This habit will make you realise that Gurbani is not Greek and Latin; you will soon be acquainted with much of the vocabulary.We have held the Guru Sahib over the head for a sufficiently long period and confined it to an arena of worship. We could not derive any benefits from its contents, just because we never reflect upon the basic purpose for which it has been made so sacred? This can only be possible if we make it a practice of reading it daily and reflecting up on it. Gurbani should penetrate our whole life. The most befitting aspect of the tercentenary celebrations of Gurta Gaddi Divas 2008 is to let the Guru abide in our mind, heart and behavior making us to transform from Munmukh (self-centred) to Gurmukh (Gurucentred). Let us pledge to motivate and educate our present and coming generations to regularly read Guru Granth Sahib and make it a part and parcel of our life. This literacy of Gurbani movement must be taken to all homes.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh