REMEMBERING SRI GURU NANAK DEV JI

                             REMEMBERING SRI GURU NANAK DEV JI      

             

Born on 15^th April 1469 in a village called Rai Bhoi Ki Talvandi, Sri Guru Nanak Dev JI completed his spiritual journey to this world on 22^nd September 1539.  His last resting place was Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartar Pur.  Both Talvandi and Kartar Pur are now parts of present day Punjab of Pakistan.

 On the 550^th birthday (12^th November 2019) of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji it is imperative to recall his universal and eternal teachings and place them before the people at large.

In his message on this sacred occasion Capt. Amarinder Singh. Chief Minister of Punjab, said: “As we celebrate the 550^th Prakash Purab of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, it is our humble endeavour to disseminate the ideology of Baba Nanak across the world.  It is my strong belief that Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s philosophy is the key to the creation of a harmonious society based on the ethos of Tolerance, Peace, Communal Harmony, Women Empowerment and Protecction of Natural Resources.”

According to World Punjabi Organisation, Nanak Shah Fakir was Hindu Ka Guru, Musalman Ka Pir. He preached oneness of God, humility, simplicity, humanity, integrity, truthfulness and secularism. His ideology stood for dispelling of rituals, imbibing of moral values, working hard, sharing earnings, trusting God, respecting women, practicing humanity and compassion and preserving environment.

In his book Guru Nanak Bani (Published by National Book Trust, India),  Bhai Jodh Singh,  says Guru Nanak Devji emphasized equal opportunities, equal access  to sources and resources, equal participation in decision making, equal rights, egalitarianism, equitability and social justice for the marginal, disadvantaged, deprived and exploited ones because he believes in :One God”.

History says that in 1475, during his stay in Sultanpur, Guru Nanak Dev Ji went to a nearby river every morning in order to bathe and meditate. One fine day, he went to the river as usual but did not return for three days.  It is believed that he went deep inside the forest and stayed there for three days. When he returned, he looked like a man possessed and did not utter a word. When he finally spoke, he said, “There is no Hindu and no Musalman.” These words were the starting point of his teachings which culminated in the formation of Sikhism, the fifth great religion of the world.

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji did not believe in idol worship, casteism, the discrimination between the high and the low. The rituals of the priestly class, the life of inaction and mere contemplation did not appeal to him.  He did not recommend monasticism for leading a spiritual life and himself lived a householder’s life and performed the duties thereof. He however did recommend the repeated chanting of the name of God to have direct access to Him. He asked his followers to be completely free from lust, rage, greed, attachment and conceit.  Exploitation and fraud also had no place in his code of ethics. He saw human salvation in community service, especially to the needy and the distressed.  The idea of the community kitchen (Langar) where people of all sects and religions, the rich and the poor, the mighty and the weak, men and women, sit on the same mats in perfect discipline and share the same food is unique in Sikhism. Food here is not only a means of physical survival, but a symbol of equality and by extension a message for the mind of the eater to liberate Itself from egotistic rubbish of the world.

Finally, here is a synoptic description of God, The True One, as envisioned by Sri Nanak Dev Ji:

 “The True One was in the beginning, the True One was in the primal age,

The True One is now also, O Nanak; the True One also shall be.

By His order bodies are produced; His order cannot be described.

By His order souls are infused into them; by His order greatness is obtained.

By His order men are high or low; by His order they obtain pre-ordained pain or pleasure

By His order some obtain their reward; by His order others must wander in transmigration.

All are subject to His order; none is exempt from it.

He who understands God’s order, O Nanak, is never guilty of egoism.”

God, according to Guru Nanak Dev Ji, is not isolated from his creation. As his contemporary saint poet Kabir Das also says:

“O servant where dost thou seek Me:

Lo, I am beside thee.

I am neither in  temple nor in mosque; I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash;

Neither am I rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation.  

If thou are a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.

Kabir says, ‘O Sadhu God is the breath of all breath.’

             It may not be wrong to suggest that Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) wrote the following song in his Gitanjali under the inspiration of the teachings of both Kabir Das and Guru Nanak Dev Ji:

“Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom doest thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust.  Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow”

                        As post script, let me add that Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji had firsthand knowledge of people, their places, practices and performances.  He had travelled on foot as far as Sri Lanka, the terrains of the Himalayas, Mecca and most parts of the Middle East. A born mystic poet of a very high order, 976 hymns out of the 5894 incorporated in The Sri Guru Granth Sahib, were composed by him.  He used the language which could be easily understood by one and all. For evidence, just look at the Mool Mantra of Japji Sahib which reads like this: Ek Onkar, Om Sat Naam, Kartaa Purakh, Nirbhau, Nirvair, Akaal Moorat, Ajuni, Saibangh, and Gurparsaad.  Its English version would be as follows: The One, the Reality, Of Name ever True and Eternal, The Prime Doer, the Creator, Fearless, Without Enmity, Of Eternal Form, Without Birth, Uncaused, Self-existent and Self-illuminating, Known by the Grace of the Enlightened  Teacher.        

.                                                                                       -------G. R. KANWAL                                                                                                                      12^th November 2019

NEW AGE PATRIOTS

NEW AGE PATRIOTS

It is shocking that most of the  new age patriots do not believe in what  Ralph Waldo Emerson , the American essayist and poet (1803-1882) , said in his poem “A Nation’s Strength” some lines of which read as follows:   

                                    Not gold but only men can make

                                    A people great and strong;

                                    Men who for truth and honour’s sake

                                    Stand fast and suffer long

                                    Brave men who work while others sleep,

                                    Who dare while others fly…

                                    They build a nation’s pillars deep

                                    And lift them to the sky.

            Admirably enough, old age patriots like Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel,  Maulana Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose and thousands of writers, journalists, teachers, lawyers, doctors, students,  businessmen and ordinary people in towns and villages practically believed in selfless service and sacrifice for the freedom of India from the British rule. They underwent sufferings of prison life and quite a large number of them kissed the gallows with patriotic slogans on their lips.

                 Most of these patriots were party loyalists.  No material temptation made them turncoats. They remained wedded to their ideologies which centred round the common aim of liberating the motherland from the shackles of a long period of slavery.  

                  It is unfortunate that a number of new age patriots have started considering patriotism a sort of lucrative profession or a most profitable commercial venture.  They are now hungry for power and pelf and have no love for selfless service to the nation.  Money rather than morality is the major part of their political faith.  A good number of them are like commodities on sale.  They don’t even hesitate to abandon their political affiliation and offer their support to the highest bidder of other ideologies. This is a shocking phenomenon and reminds one of the golden age of old patriots who voluntarily left their hearth and home just for the sake of the freedom of their beloved motherland.

            Finally, here are a few quotations for the enlightenment of the new age patriots with the hope that they will not only read them but also imbibe their true spirit In their patriotism which needs a revolutionary change.

                        Roman poet, Virgil (70-19 B.C): The noblest motive is the public good.

English dramatist William Shakespeare (1564-616): Be just and fear not; let all the ends thou aimest at, be thy country’s, thy God’ss and truth’s.

American orator and statesman Daniel Webster(1782-1852) : Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.  And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever.

                                                           --------G. R. KANWAL          

                                                                                                                                                                  

THE FIRST WEALTH IS HEALTH

THE FIRST WEALTH IS HEALTH

The first wealth is health.  This is what the leaders of the world have forgotten.  They have also forgotten the difference between two temporal blessings – health and money.  Today money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed.  Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.  The result is polluted air, polluted water, junk food, crowded roads and lots of diseases some of which defy treatment.

            Festivities like Deepawali have become a curse.  They spoil the quality of YHE air to such an extent that people complain of persistent cough, chest congestion, breathing problems and irritation in the eyes.  Children have to miss schools, young people their brisk walking and jogging and the elderly their outdoor activities.  Hospitals get thronged with patients but with very little hope of quick relief recovery. Quite a few of them breathe their last.

            And all this is due to the negligence of the world leaders who succeed in occupying their highest positions by selling new dreams rather than telling them about the solving of already existing problems. Their followers get duped by the emotive and sentimental speeches they make hear with a sense of national pride. The spell of these speeches is always  transitory but it does succeed in achieving its purpose and the human life on this planet continues to remain  miserable with every apprehension of becoming more miserable.   

            God knows how long innocent human beings  will have to inhale poisonous air and drink polluted water and cut short their lives.

            One thing is obvious the  purity of this world is not the same as it was when God gave it to  man.  An English poet, perhaps William Cowper,  said: “God made the country and man made the town.”  The word country here stands for unspoiled natural phenomena.     

            Instead of further dwelling on this vital problem of public health, I would like to conclude by quoting the following lines from  William Wordsworth’s ‘Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’:

“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The Earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it has been of yore;--

Turn wheresoe’er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.  

………….The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where’er I go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

                                                            --------G. R. KANWAL                                                 

             

TUKARAM, THE SAINT POET OF MAHARASHTRA

TUKARAM, THE SAINT POET OF MAHARASHTRA

      (A BRIEF INTRODUCTION)

Tukaram, the saint poet of Maharashtra, lived in the 17^th century. He came from a poor peasant family. He was born in the little village of Dehu, sixteen miles north-west of Poona, probably in the year 1608 A.D. He by caste a Sudra. His father was a petty corn dealer. Unlike fatalists, he does not blame external forces for his infirmities and misfortunes.    In one of his songs addressed to God, he says: ‘O though great One,’ ‘Thy majesty is beyond all description.  How shall I hymn thee? Let Thy grace protect us.’ ‘My enemies are not in the world outside.  It is the passions within me that bring dangers and difficulties.  Who but Thou can save us from their attacks?”

Like Ramanuja, Madhavacharya, Ram Das, he, too, was influenced by the great tide of vigour that emanated from Shankacharya and swept round India by south, west, and north in a spiral curve.

Following the mystics both in the East and the West, Tukraram describes God as the Bridegroom.  He sings: ‘As the chaste wife longs only to see her Lord, such am I to Vitthala (a Hindu deity worshipped in Maharashtra).

Tukaram worshipped Krishna and his spouse Rukmini. He followed the Maharashtra school of bakti, headed by Jnaneshvara, Namdev and Eknath. The bakti of these saint poets had for its symbol the pure and ser3ene love of the husband and wife, not the temptations of love of Krishna and Radha.

As a poet, Tukaram occupies a unique place in the galaxy of the saints of Maharashtra. According to J.Nelson Fraser and K.B.Marthe, the translators of his poems into English “In the accomplishment of character, intelligence and composition he is second to none among the MARATHA WRITERS.  He is the greatest of mystics who have brought about a high degree of reconciliation between worldly and spiritual.”

Tukaram composed hundreds of poems touching ‘the various phases of Man’s life, his aspirations, his longings to achieve liberation --- the supreme goal of his life.”

Tukaram’s humility is unparallel. He writes: “I am a man of low degree ---- why should I be proud? It is you that people honour in me, O Narayana. What pleasure or pain can I find in that? Honour and dishonor spring from the qualities of men.  I am like a rag that men set on their heads to honour it, because it once held a golden coin. People honour me, but I am not what they honour; what reason is there to delight in so feeble a creature.”

He shows the same humility about his status as a poet: ‘Some one may say of me’, “You are a poet, but my speech is not my own.  It is not my own contrivance that is at work. the pervader of the world set me speaking.  Weak as I am, what power have I to disarm? What I say is what Govinda prompts.  I am appointed to sit and measure out, but I am nothing, the authority of master is all. Tuka says, I am a faithful henchman, I bear the seal of my master’s name.”

And finally this is what he says about the arrogance in other poets:” The company of great poets would contaminate me; they foully abuse their gifts. Those who delight in pride are blind and deaf; their faces shall e blackened with shame at last.  Red lac may be put next to gold, but their properties continue what they were.  Men fall into confusion, says Tuka, because they do not know the difference betwe4ebn a servant and a master.”

     

                                                                        ----------            G. R. KANWAL    

                       

A PSALM OF LIFE

                                        A PSALM OF LIFE

A PSALM OF LIFE is one of ten best poems written by American writer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).  It is sub-titled “What THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.’

Written more than 180 years ago in 1838, the poem has an immortal message for all people, especially the youth.   Didactic in tone, it is vigorously motivational.  It shows the romantic attitude of the poet towards the shortness of human life which can be used , like great men before us, to do sublime  deeds  which future  generations may like to emulate.  There is an evidently existential element in the poem. The poem wants the readers to forget the past, shun idleness, seize the current moment, act immediately and find themselves farther than ever before. He does not want them to trust the uncertain future however pleasant it may appear to be.  His clarion call is to keep on acting in the living present.  He has   also a word of rejection against the religious pessimists who preach that man is mortal; he is merely a handful of dust and ultimately returns to dust after spending a short time on this earth.   According to him, life is not a sheer dream; its soul is real and the grave is not its final goal. Here, the poet reminds us of the words of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita when he says: that the world is a battle field where an individual has to fight like a brave hero and leave behind him fadeless footprints on the sands of time which coming generations may feel inspired to follow. This is the type of dynamics which the heart of the young man in the subtitle of the poem wants to hear from the psalmist. Unfortunately most of the Christian psalmists as well as the preachers of other faiths and religions deliver uninspiring messages from their pulpits. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is different.  He is a new age motivator and inspirer for a full-spirited active life each moment of the day of a very short life where each individual has a lot of work to do. 

            The poem reads as follows:

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

“Life is but an empty dream!”

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not it goal;

“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and no sorrow

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each tomorrow

Find us further than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts though stout and brave,

Still like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!

 Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, ---in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o’erhead.

Lives of great me all remind us

We can our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labour and to wait.

                                                                                    --------G. R. Kanwal

Meditation: Some Reflections

                                 Meditation: Some Reflections

          The dictionary meanings of meditation go as: contemplation, musing, pondering, considering, reflecting, deliberating, ruminating, brooding and concentrating.  It is also a synonym  of reveries, brown  study and thoughtfulness.

            The religious results of meditation are however different from its literal implications.

            Ac cording to Gandhiji whatever object a man meditates upon, he must assuredly sees God through it.  However, according to him God has no shape and no attributes. So why not meditate on Him? If that is impossible, let us meditate on OMKAR (The syllable OM), or on a figure imagined by ourselves.

            True meditation, says Gandhiji, consists in closing the eyes and ears of the mind  to all else except the object of one’s devotion.  Hence, the closing of eyes during prayer is an aid to such concentration. Man’s conception of God is naturally limited.  Each one has, therefore, to think of Him as best appears to him, provided that the conception is pure and uplifting.

            English Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-6) holds that meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation, so are prayers imperfect, ----meditation being the soul of prayer and intention of our spirit.

            Finally let us see how Lord Buddha  replied to a disciple when he said: “Teach me, O Lord, the meditations to which I must devote myself in order to let my mind enter into the paradise of the pure land.” The great Lord told the discipline:  There are five meditations.  The first meditation is the meditation of love in which you must so adjust your heat that you long for the weal and welfare of all beings, including the happiness of your enemies.    

          The second meditation is the meditation of pity, in which you think of all beings in distress, vividly  representing in your imagination their sorrows and anxieties so as to arouse a deep compassion for them in your soul.

          The third mediation is the meditation of joy in which you think of the well-being of others and rejoice with their rejoicings.

          The fourth mediation is the mediation on impurity, in which you consider the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of wrongs and evils.  How trivial is often the pleasure of the moment and how fatal are its consequences!

          The fifth meditation is the meditation on serenity, in which you rise above love and hate, tyranny and thralldom, wealth and want, and regard your own fate with impartial calmness and perfect tranquility.

                                                -------G. R. KANWAL

                  

Where Is The Light?

        Where Is The Light?

In his bouquet of songs called Gitanjali which won him Nobel Prize in 1913, Rabindranath Tagore ((1861-1941) asks: Light, oh where is the light?  And then answers: “Kindle it with the burning fire of desire! There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame, -------is such thy fate, my heat!

          Towards the end of this song, he says: The night is black as a black stone.  Let not the hours pass by in the dark.  Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.

          In poetry as well as in religion , light is stated to be a symbol of knowledge, reason, understanding, deep comprehension, discovery of inner reality , mental illumination, access to  the avenues of goodness, beauty and truth and in Buddhist doctrine, the source of the ultimate reality, which leads to  transcendence and ultimately to  Nirvana. Light of this type is equated with that of the SUN which acts as the avenger of evil forces and darkness.

In day to day life, light also symbolizes positive attitude and optimism. 

In the Bible, light is defined as goodness and righteousness, which are two essential qualities of a true son of God.

Our concern here is with the holy light, not the one which is produced by bulbs, lamps, candles and the burning of wood and charcoal. In his poem “Auguries of Innocence”, English poet William Blake (1757-1827) says:

He who doubts from what he sees/Will ne’er believe, do what you please. If the Sun and Moon should doubt,/They’d immediately go out…..

God appears, and God is Light, /To those poor souls who dwell in night; /But does a Human Form display/To those who dwell in realms of Day.

          Another English poet who had a mystical mindset says: “Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house, i.e. this world, begin to close upon the growing boy, but he beholds the light, and which it flows, he sees it in his joy; the youth, who daily farther from the east must travel, still is Nature’s Priest, and by the vision splendid is on his way attended; at length the Man perceives it die away, and fade into the light of common day.

          The light of the common day mentioned by Wordsworth is the material light of desires and appetites which gratify the body but causes stress to the soul because man gets extremely involved in the darkness of the world and gets removed from the light of God whom he has to confront after losing his existence here and now.

The light of the body is not continuous; it is interrupted by periods of darkness. Contrarily, the light of the soul is everlasting and once its lamp is lit b y any individual with an irreversible resolve, it does not fade but continues to increase and accumulate. Such an individual becomes a Buddha, an enlightened one. Redeemed from all worries and anxieties, doubts and apprehensions.

An American spiritualist, William Ellery Channing (1894-80), rightly says: Science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent; but these are all poor and worthless compared with the light which the sun pours freely, impartially, over hill and valley, which kindles daily the easer and western sky; and so the common lights of reason and conscience and love are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which celebrity to a few.

The ‘sun’ mentioned in this quotation is no different from the SUN mentioned as one of the symbols of light in Para 3 above.

                                                                   ----G. R. KANWAL