After seeing The Pianist, Kapil exclaimed "Why would these oppresed ones really believe in God during those times? Where was God at that time? Do these people really didn't believe in God? I am ashamed of being human!"
This was not the first time I heard these questions. I have myself questioned my faith and logic I don't know how many times. But Khalil rightly says "Faith is an oasis which cannot be reached by the caravan of reasoning".
The same day, I received a mail from a friend of mine in Malaysia who is an ardent follower of Sikhism. A few excerpts of the mail......I would like to share here -
" Its a very rare that a religious leader of one faith has laid down his life
for that of another religion. Principle, practices and rituals of Sikhs are
totally different than those of the Hindu religion, but even so Sikh
believed in the FREEDOM of people being able to practice whatever religion
was their choice.
Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji gave his life for the existence of TRUTH and JUSTICE.
The Martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji showed people that fear must not be
allowed to come between man and his love for freedom, justice and
God.....
Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji scarified his life but had not bowed against any
tyranny.
[Give up your head, but forsake not those whom you have undertaken to
protect. Says Tegh Bahadur, sacrifice your life, but relinquish not your faith]
Sawed alive and boiled alive and those who made sacrifices in the service
of the centres of the Sikh religion the Gurdwaras but never wavered in
their faith and remained steadfast in the cause of Sikhism to the last hair
of their body and to their last breath,
O, revered members of the Khalsa order, concentrate your minds on the
glorious deeds of those, and utter, glory to Waheguru."
I thought over the words in the mail again and again for Religion and God is the domains I really love to explore to their intriguing depths.
In my article http://msaini.blogspot.com/2006/09/is-it-possible-to-live-without.html sometime back, I had organized a few thoughts of mine which always cropped up now and then. But this mail helped me arrange my thoughts together once again.
300 years back when Guru Gobind Singh ji laid the foundation of Sikhism, he believed that Religion is a very powerful means to unite people for a cause.
But I strongly believe that in time this line of philosophy has been utilized more for notorious reasons than for any good. This has sent people commenting that “Religion is the Opium of the Masses today"
As I have said and as people also believe that Guru Gobind Singh ji lay the foundation of Sikhism as a religion– This is actually wrong. I am sure, that a person of his stature and vision would not have wanted this because he knew and had seen that what had happened to the religions. And this is the only reason that he said that from every house the eldest son would serve the Guru and his People.
Moreover, in my previous article I have said - "None of the people who are “Supposed” to have started a religion wrote down their analysis (which people term as preaching today); they merely shared it with others verbally. These analyses were merely based on empirical study and the validation was always in progress during their lifetime."
The last sentence of the previous paragraph falls under this category. Guru Gobind Singh ji always wanted humanity to follow the "Culture" of "Truth, Justice and Sacrifice". He never asked everyone to become a SIKH.
These tenets are stressed and re-stressed again and again in every Vaq of Guru Granth Sahib.
This holds true not only for the 10th Guru, rather all the Gurus propagated the same thing. So when we say that "Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji gave his life for the existence of TRUTH and JUSTICE", it is a perfect statement but when we say that "Its a very rare that a religious leader of one faith has laid down his life for that of another religion", we definitely missed on the teachings of the Gurus.
I still believe Sikhism to be a culture.....and not a religion. At times when it becomes difficult for me to find a guiding path in the Hindu philosophy (which is because, the continuous exposure of this philosophy to interpreters over more than thousand years has diluted it badly making it difficult to differentiate between the truth and the interpretation of truth), I turn to the Sikh culture to find my way.
Thank God that I am still born at a relatively earlier stages of a wonderful culture which is in a process of becoming a full fledged religion to be played with and exploited by the majority very soon.
Glimpses of this transformation you can see right now in the political struggle at the Takhts and pure commercialization of devotion (please visit Huzoor Sahib to see it).
I was very pleased to see one of the Temples going to the basic tenants of Hinduism - Faith and truth; and shunning off the wrapper of religion from itself in Hyderabad. Chilkur Balaji Temple, 35 kms from Hyderabad would be a good place to understand what I have tried to express.
Manish Saini
