513.The Man in Blue – Sikhi II

Sikhí is a Dharmic tradition, which means that we do not follow an elaborate system of dogmas (things you have to believe in) but we are to follow guidelines that indicate the way we should live our life in order to get nearer to God.

Just believing in One God and One Humanity is not good enough, we should actively practice these beliefs. And when in doubt how to apply these teachings we can look at the clear examples set by our Gurus.

Many Sikhs will say that our dharm is superior to others because of the equality taught and practiced by Guru, and then arrange their children’s marriages according to caste ! Looking down on people with dark skin is common in India and so is treating women as second class citizens, but these are not Sikh practices.

Simran, meditation, thinking about God. Always keeping God in mind should lead to better behaviour towards fellow human beings and towards creation in general. Just sitting in certain postures and endlessly repeating a ‘mantr’ without practising ‘seeing God in all and everything’ is useless.

Repeating words that highlight aspects of God (Vahiguru, Nirankar, Mukandé) or which are generic words pointing to God (Allah, Prabhu, Har) is good practice if it leads to seeing God in all. I personally prefer reading or listening to Gurbaní as a way of thinking about God, but what works for me might not work for you.

The yogi Sikhs devised the brilliant slogan : ‘If you don’t see God in all, you won’t see God at all.‘

Seva, selfless service to all goes together with seeing God in all. Sharing food, money and time with others is good for those you help and good for you. You will only profit from seva if you do it quietly, not seeking publicity for your good deeds. It should also not be done as a way to ‘buy’ favours from God.

Standing up against injustice and oppression as taught by tenth guru is also a form of seva. When we campaign for our right to wear the turban in Belgium we should also include the rights of other communities who equally suffer from bans on the wearing of head cover or the wearing of religious symbols.

Nám, books have been written about the exact meaning of ‘Nám’ in Gurmat, but if you read God for ‘Nám’ you are not far wrong. I tend to think of ‘Nám’ as representing the Godly principle or the Godly essence, while a friend of mine sees it as God’s constitution for her/his creation.

Saint John in the New Testament of the Bible writes : In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The biblical notion of ‘Word’ is similar to Nám.

The three first descriptions of God in the Guru Granth Sahib, Ik Ongkar (One Almighty, Omnipresent), Satnám (True Nám), Karta Purkh (Creator Being) represent God who is present in all and the cause of all.

512.The Man in Blue – Sikhi I

In the following articles I will not write anything new or amazing. I will only try to explain some basic notions of Sikhí in a more systematic manner than before.

One God. Guru Granth Sahib starts with the figure 1 followed by a word representing God. There are many words describing aspects of the One God, both in the south Asian spiritual traditions and outside it. God is the Father, the Mother and the Son, God is the Creator and the Destroyer, God is the Omnipresent and the All-Powerful. All these descriptions, all these ‘names’ are part of the One.

There is no Sikh God, no Hindu God, no Muslim God, no Jewish God and no Christian God, there is only One God.

God is All, All is God. God is present in all and everything. This is wonderfully illustrated in rág dhanásrí mahalá 1 árthí, which is on page 13 of the Guru Granth Sahib as part of Sohila, and in its rág on page 663.

Thousands are Your eyes, and yet You have no eyes. Thousands are Your forms, and yet You have not even one form.

Thousands are Your lotus feet, and yet You have no feet. Without a nose, thousands are Your noses. I am enchanted with Your play ! ||2||

God has no eyes, no form, no feet and no nose, but God is all forms and hence has all the eyes, all the forms, all the feet and all the noses.

One Humanity. One humanity regardless of gender, caste, nationality, skin colour, creed. All humanity is part of the same human family, all are the children of the One Father/Mother.

I think I would be within the spirit of the Guru Granth Sahib to go even further and say that the Universe is One, that the Universe is the physical and spiritual expression of the One God. The physical Universe comes from God, and all the souls come from God who is the ‘All-Soul’.

Even from the point of view of physics this makes sense as all beings and all matter are made of the same basic particles.

God is always near to us, God is always within us, but we are often blind and do not see Her or Him. When we follow the ethical way of life as will be explained in these articles, we will feel closer to God, and closer to Creation. When we lose the ‘I’ and become part of ‘Us’, part of Him or Her, we have achieved Liberation.

I will regularly refer to higher spiritual states, of which I have experienced the initial stages only, but I must emphasise that we all have to start from the first relatively simple steps of moving towards being a good human being. These first steps will also have the reward of increased contentment and true happiness. We will soon learn to be happy with a simple life.

511.The Man in Blue – I am a Sikh

The ‘I’ mentioned underneath is not Harjinder Singh – man in blue. The ‘I’ represents Guru’s teachings, which I am trying to follow in my daily life.

I am human, I make mistakes, but in spite of my foolishness I receive many blessings.

I am not a gora (white) Sikh or a kala (black) Sikh
-    I am a Sikh

I am not a mazbi Sikh, a jat Sikh or a ramgharia Sikh
-    I am a Sikh

I am not a doaba Sikh or a malwa Sikh
-    I am a Sikh

I am not an AKJ Sikh or a Taksali Sikh
-    I am a Sikh

My Guru is the Guru Granth Sahib, not the Námdhari satguru, not the yogi who called himself the leader of the Sikhs in the western hemisphere, not the Soho Road (Birmingham) spiritual leader of the Sikhs in the UK, nor any other self-appointed holy man, pardhan or jathedar
-    I am a Sikh

I try to see God in all, regardless of race, faith, nationality or caste/social class
-    I am a Sikh

I am an initiated (amritdhari) Sikh, but I do not look down on those who are not
-    I am a Sikh

I wear a turban and keep the 5 Ks, but I do not look down on those who do not
-    I am a Sikh

I do not drink alcohol, do not smoke tobacco, do not use recreational drugs
-    I am a Sikh

I do not eat meat, fish, poultry or eggs, but do not condemn those who do
-    I am a Sikh

I wear ‘bana’, traditional clothes associated with Guru Gobind Singh’s Khalsa, but I know that I will be judged on my behaviour, not on my clothes
-    I am a Sikh

I do not cut my hair or shave, I wear a kirpan, kachhera, kara and kangha, but do not think that those who do not are bad people
-    I am a Sikh

510.The Man in Blue – Twelve on death row in Panjab

Recently I posted an article from the Tribune (Chandigarh) on my blog that highlighted the fact that a lot of noise was made about Balwant Singh Rajoana, but that apart from him there are eleven more prisoners in similar situations.

“The convicts sentenced to death and languishing in the [Panjab] jails are Vikram Singh, Jasbir Singh, Balwant Singh Rajoana, Mohinder Singh, Suraj Ahluwalia, Resham Singh, Gurnayab Singh, Kulbir Singh, Gurmukh Singh, Saleem, Judge Singh and Gurwail Singh. While some were given the sentence in 2005 and 2006, others were awarded the penalty in 2007, 2011 and 2012.”
From an article by Aman Sood, Tribune News Service, April 3.

This list does not include Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, as he is not in a Panjabi jail.

What is needed is that groups concerned with Human Rights in Panjab come together, investigate these cases and decide on a strategy.

Whatever these convicts have been up to, whatever their crimes, nobody deserves to be condemned to death and then live for years between hope of life and fear of death. And I hope that most Sikhs will agree with me that the death penalty should be abolished altogether.

I think that we should make an inventory of those that are still in prison as a result of (alleged) crimes committed during the period from the late seventies till the early nineties, some of whom might never have been convicted of any crime.

It was good that we were present in Leuven (near Brussel) when Kamal Nath addressed a conference there. But also in this type of situations we run from incident to incident, there is no strategy.

We have been told that the Indian central government has passed an amendment of the Anand Marriage Act which would allow Sikhs to marry without having to register under the Hindu Marriage Act.

In most European countries Sikhs have no problem marrying according to the Anand Karaj ceremony as set out in the Sikh Rehat Maryada, while registering their marriage under a neutral general act.

This is not a feasible option in India as long as article 25 of the constitution throws Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and Sikhs together on one messy heap !

We have to constantly hammer this point, not by denying the common roots of the four Dharmic religions, but by insisting that within that context all four have their own particular tradition.

Let us all stop saying that spiritual verses of Muslims and Hindus are included in the Guru Granth Sahib, but be specific and say that verses of Sufi Muslims and Bhakti Hindus are to be found in our Eternal Guru. That might also do away with this strange idea that Guru’s Sikhí is a cocktail of Islam and Hinduism.

509.The Man in Blue – Big decisions !

Life ain’t easy ! Those that know me and those of you who read column 503 and 504, know that I want to go back to Southall.

Although Belgian Limburg is not a bad part of the world, and although I love the walking and cycling, I do miss the big sangat and the many Gurdwaré of London. I miss the big city atmosphere and all the buses, trams, undergrounds and trains. I miss meeting with people of many cultures and religions, I miss working together with people of all different backgrounds.

And in this first generation community you do not have the diversity of sangat that you have amongst the well-established Sikhs in the UK.

Two weeks ago in the Gurdwara, after the Sunday divan, I was called into the room where committee members and some others active in the community sat together. They promised me to support me financially if that was needed to keep me one more year in Sint-Truiden. This came not just from committee members but also from ordinary members of the sangat.

I am in a difficult position. I badly want to go back to the UK (see above), but here I helped start various projects in education that are not easy to leave.

I recently discovered that the two UK organisations that have been my main sources of income over the ten years that I lived in West London do have work for me, but no money to pay me. Although I think that in the UK I will be able to earn some money to top up my pension (I’ll be 65 on the 6th of May), there is the added problem of currency conversion.

I will receive three bits of pension, and two of these are in Euros. With Spain causing new unrest and the conversion rate between sterling and the Euro already down to about 80 pence this will add to the uncertainty.

Sorry to bore you with my personal financial affairs, but these are important issues. I am sure that there are many people who have lived both in the UK and in the Euro-zone and who face similar problems.

And trusting in God does not mean that one should not look at all sides of a question like the above. To cut a long story short, I have decided to stay here one more year till June 2013.

My Dutch pension will just about cover my expenses here, and if I can earn some more money doing tuition and by charging for some of the things that I have done  for free so far, I might be able to recoup part of the 8000 Euros that I spent here the last two year.

Please UK friends and relatives come and visit us here in Belgian Limburg. Eurostar still offers tickets to any Belgian station, and although the Brussels area is famous for its overcrowded motorways, driving from Calais to Sint-Truiden is not too bad.

And next year is going to be exiting as we might be able to lift the ban on the wearing of patka, turban and híjáb in secondary schools this country !

508.The Man in Blue – Stephen Dedalus and I

The Irish writer James Joyce (1882–1941) is world famous because of a book that few people have read and understood : Ulysses. It describes a day in the life of Dublin through the wanderings and musings of a number of main actors.

In Ulysses actual events are followed by things that happen in the minds of the characters without this being made clear. The many quotes in foreign languages, including Latin and Greek further complicate matters. Because I know Dublin well it was easier for me to separate reality from fantasy.

James Joyce also wrote Finnegan’s wake, which like Ulysses is a difficult book, but his collection of short stories Dubliners is a much easier read. The book I recently reread, A Portrait of the Artist as a young man, is more challenging than Dubliners but if you have the annotated version it should be manageable for most.

A Portrait of the Artist as a young man shows what a brilliant writer Joyce is. His mastery of the English language is amazing and so is his ability to take you with him on his journeys through Dublin and through life.

The young man in the book is Stephen Dedalus and through the life of Stephen Joyce describes how he became the man whose main subject was Dublin, but who spent most of his adult life outside Ireland.

There is a particular section in the book that appealed to me more this time than it did during my first read of the book, many years ago. It is when Stephen goes to a Jesuit secondary school. The Jesuits are a Roman Catholic order with a long record of intellectual excellence.

Stephen has gone through a period where he lost the proper Roman Catholic way and visited prostitutes. The school organises
a retreat and the book gives long sections of the sermon by the Jesuit priest who leads the retreat.

The sermon is powerful, explaining exactly what happens to you, according to the Roman Catholic understanding, when you
leave the narrow path. Mostly Sikhs and Roman Catholics agree on what are sins and what not, but the Roman Catholics ‘know’ in full detail what God will do to you when you commit certain sins and do not confess your sins and change your ways.

I do not believe in a hell where the lost souls burn eternally or a ‘purgatory’ where others souls go to undergo punishment before being allowed into heaven.

But both the sermon and Stephen’s reaction to it did work on my soul. But because Stephen was struggling with who he was and where he came from, I got a vision of a Harjinder Singh who was totally liberated from useless habits, who was not bound to the culture he comes from, in short who is liberated in this life.

Do not worry, I am not suffering from delusions. I am still very much a human being who, as is our nature, makes many mistakes. But I am a Sikh, a learner, and do make progress, although it is often ‘two steps forward and one step backward’.

507.Guru’s concept of marriage

In this column I am going to disagree with many of my fellow Sikhs, because their conservative Panjabi instincts prevent them understanding Guru’s enlightened vision.

Somebody wrote some time ago that God is male, as Purkh (as in Akál Purkh) comes from Purusha, which means man. Going by the dictionary this correct, but following this logic would mean that God is a male human being.

Guru teaches that God is my Mother and Father, but that also does not mean that God is a male or female human. Creator Being is a sensible interpretation of Akál Purkh. This ‘Purkh’ is many facetted and has both female and male aspects.

Somebody wrote that marriage is the most important Sikh institution. This article is not concerned with the Rehat Maryada, but with God’s word as found in the Guru Granth, the Guru that brings light in our spiritual darkness. Marriage in the Guru Granth is not an institution.

In our eternal Guru God is the Groom of all human beings. Marriage to this Groom is a spiritual bond, and playing on the couch with God is a metaphor for having spiritual intercourse with God. All humans, male and female, are God’s brides.

The beautiful Shabads that we call the Lavans and that are sung and recited during the Anand Karaj ceremony are NOT about the marriage of two humans, but about the spiritual union with God as described above.

The essence of this marriage is neither sexuality nor procreation, but getting closer and closer to the God-Groom. Each verse represents a step in this process. This nearness to the God-Groom results in anand, bliss.

This is what we share with a Sufi like Farid, a Bhagat like Ravidas and with medieval European mystics like Julian of Norwich, Hadewijch or Meister Eckhart.

Even where Guru writes about the human marriage he writes about being two bodies and one soul. Otherwise we are warned not to get attached to wife and children, as you cannot take them with you to the next life.

I see no reason to narrow down the spiritual idea of marriage to something that can only happen between a male and a female, as this is not based on Gurmat.

On the practical side I think that the state should not get involved in marrying people. There should be a model or models for long term relationships between people, regulating things like joint ownership, inheritance etc. The spiritual side cannot be institutionalised; it is not the state’s business.

What God thinks of homosexuality ? I do not think that God thinks or has opinions, ‘God is’, She/He is not human. But I would expect that Dharm Raj will look at the whole picture without being obsessed with sexuality as social conservatives are. Some Sikhs who are against homosexuality would condone honour-killings…

506.The Man in Blue – Sants, Deras, Sant Samaj

I am against institutionalised Sants, Deras and abhor the dominant position of the Sant Samaj on the decision making process of those in Amritsar who claim to be our leaders.

Institutionalised Sant Babas : Of course there are sants, people who are more holy than most, who have come very close to God. These sants might be free of maya and might have overcome the cycle of birth and death in this life.

As the Guru writes in Sukhmani Sahib, these sants are characterised by utter humility. They do not have to wear white clothes, they should not own big buildings adorned with marble and gold and have no need to travel in chauffeur-driven luxury motorcars.

I met wonderful humble people in Panjab, whom the scholars in Chandigarh would call ignorant villagers, in whom the light of God was clearly visible. I have not met too many Sants, but the ones I have met have a tendency to be rude, to have no loving bond with the Shabad, the word of God, and who direct you to themselves instead of to God.

Apart from the fact that these self appointed holy men have souls that are often not as white as their spotlessly clean white garments suggest, they are also in direct contradiction to Guru’s ‘Guru Granth – Guru Panth’.

Both the world wide Panth and local Gurdwaras and Sikh organisations should be run by ‘sarbat khalsa’ style open forums, not by Jathedars, authoritarian Pardhans or ‘men in white’. Sants, real ones, would be part of the Sarbat Khalsa and would have a natural authority, but not an institutional one.

Deras : There should be no deras owned by individuals, only Gurdwaras run by the sangat under the guidance of the Guru Granth Sahib. See above.

Sant Samaj: In a democracy people are free to set up their own organisations and as such I have nothing to say against this trade-union of self appointed holy men. But even the Badal controlled SGPC should know better than to give this organisation a voice in the running of the Panth.

Our leaders in Amritsar : According to the Sikh Rehat Maryada a Sikh is she/he who believes in One God and who follows the teachings of our Gurus. Guru Gobind Singh ordained us to follow Guru Granth and Guru Panth acting under its guidance.

Neither the SGPC nor the DSGMC are even near to being Guru Granth – Guru Panth.

Panj Piaré made up of SGPC employees are very far removed from Guru’s Panj Piaré. Jathedars making decisions without any say of the Guru Panth, political style elections where votes are bought by drink and drugs and where voters are judged by who their parents were or the length of their hair, it is all a mockery in the light of the teaching of the Guru Granth. Sádh Sangat, take your direction only from our eternal Guru, which shines God’s Light in our spiritual darkness.

505.The Man in Blue – Sant-Sipahis ?

During the morchas to liberate the historical Gurdwaras from the mahants, the old Khalsa spirit was still alive. Whether the demonstrators were beaten up or arrested, or even if some of them were killed, the Sikhs remained in chardikala. They controlled their anger and continued with their campaign.

During the late seventies and the eighties there were organisations that claimed to be Guru’s Sant-Sipahis. They were soldiers all right, but many were not motivated to achieve justice for all and they were often ruled by anger.

Of course the period from the Nirankari killings (1978) to the murder of Beant Singh (1995) was very tough and challenging and there was much to be angry about. But the Khalsa principles are not just there to be followed during good times, 10th Guru devised the Khalsa just to face such challenges.

We all know that during the period from1978 to 1995 some of the abuses were committed by RAW controlled ex Naxalites and other agent provocateurs. But if we compare this period with the morchas of the early 20th century there is a huge difference. In the eighties and nineties many so-called Khalsa answered indiscriminate violence with indiscriminate violence of their own.

Indira Gandhi was looking for an excuse to attack the Sikhs, and the Sikhs provided that excuse. Akali Phula Singh, Baba Deep Singh and other true Sant-Sipahis got their strength from God, the strength that enabled them to fight against injustice without anger taking over. The true Sant-Sipahi controls the ‘five thieves’ and stands up for justice for people of all background. The true Sant-Sipahi has the God-given strength to be a winner even if she/he loses her/his life.

We can use our kirpans in self-defence but the aim of the Sant-Sipahi is to serve all. Also during peaceful campaigns, like our struggle against the ban on wearing turbans in schools in Belgium, we must have the wider view.

During the debate in the Flemish parliament about religious head-cover in schools a Belgian Singhani spoke on behalf of the Sikhs. She was asked what her reaction would be if Sikhs were allowed to wear turbans in schools while the híjáb would remain banned. She answered that she would feel very uncomfortable with such an arrangement, and showed that she was a Sikh of the Guru.

When I was part of the UK Sikh community from 2000 to 2010 what struck me was that many Sikhs were angry. They were angry with other Sikhs, angry with Hindus, angry with Muslims, angry with Christians and angry with the Indian government.

Sikhs are strong when they stick to our principles of seeing God in all, of coming up for the rights of all. Group egoism is as bad as individual egoism. Guru Sahib said : I will serve that Khalsa that serves all.

I am also an ordinary human being who struggles to control the ‘five thieves’. But we must all recognise that in order to be Guru’s Khalsa we must seriously try to win this struggle.

504.The Man in Blue – Cycling in Belgian Limburg

The area of Belgian Limburg south of Hasselt – Genk is in many ways a cyclist paradise. On the down side is the lack of decent cycle paths along the main roads. The N80 from Sint-Truiden to Hannuit, which brings you to Gingelom, has no cycle path of any kind once you leave Bevingen just south of Sint-Truiden.

There is an alternative route but that crosses the N80 at a very dangerous point where foolish cyclists like me risk their lives. This alternative cycle route is also not signposted. For these luxuries you must go to the Netherlands.

If you have to cycle along the main roads you have to share the roads with cars, tractors and lorries. Where there are cycle paths they tend to be narrow and right next to the main road. Because of that you will road debris like sharp bits of stone, glass and metal on the path, waiting to puncture your tyres.

Limburg has a network of narrow country roads, which are there to serve the farmers going to their land, but these roads are also wonderful for cyclists. The area is not as flat as Panjab or the west of the Netherlands and not as hilly as the south of Netherlands Limburg or the Belgian Ardennes.

Limburg has some 2000 km of sign-posted routes for touristic purposes. Throughout the province are numbered nodes or junctions which are connected by country roads, reserved cycle routes and even cobblestone and dirt roads. You can buy a booklet and map from the local tourist services. With these you can put together your trip, making your tour as easy or as challenging as you like.

The map shows distances in km between the ‘junctions’ and also the gradients of the hills. The routes do cross main roads and go through villages and towns, but they are safe enough, unless you are an idiot like your ‘man-in-blue’ who believes that walkers and cyclists have the right of way over cars and lorries.

I can easily manage 30 – 40 km for a morning or an afternoon cycle, but I also have been out on longer trips to the east of Sint-Truiden where there are more castles and fortified farms, more hills and more bits of woodland.

I have been cycling regularly throughout this winter. It was mild for most of the last months, but it did rain regularly. In spite of that I got soaked only once. In the short period of cold and snow I found myself in a minor blizzard and I took a tumble when I hit an obstacle hidden by the snow.

It is of course wonderful to go out on a warm sunny day, but I equally like to cycle when it is rainy and windy, or when the roads are covered in snow and ice. Me against the elements, go slow against the wind uphill and fly with wind downhill.

The dark clouds, the sun peeping through between them, the rainbow (no pots of gold, sorry birds using their skills not to be blown off course and you there on your bike feeling part of God’s play. The bad weather, the wind, the rain, snow, hail stones remind you that you are just a tiny speck of dust in the universe. Why do not more people understand that going by tin can is an inferior way to travel ?