Spiritual Masters of the World's Religions

5. Sikh Spiritual Masters

127 5 Sikh Spiritual Masters Mary Pat Fisher Introduction Although the central focus of Sikh faith is the One God—understood as formless, nameless, without any particular religion, pervading everywhere—the lineage of Gurūs is the definitive feature of Sikh history and spirituality. There were a total of ten extraordinarily enlightened and powerful Gurūs, providing a continuing heritage of visionary wisdom, compassionate and uplifting guidance, courageous revelation of truth, and union with God. The functions of these ten spiritual masters are still alive today, in the unique presence of the Gurū embodied in the holy scripture known as Gurū Granth Sāhib. Sikhs are by definition oriented toward their Gurūs, for the word sikh means “disciple” or “student.” But this is no academic orientation . Rather, it is an intimate spiritual relationship of deep love, faith, and reverence, as poetically described by Puran Singh: 128 Mary Pat Fisher The title “Sikh,” “The Disciple,” was first given to us by Guru Nanak. We were mere corpses; he poured life into us. We were thus created anew by His love of us. He made us alive with our out-drawn love of Him and left us free. He freed us from the hatred of caste, colour and creed. He made us look straight at the sky towards the Infinite; he made us look upon the sun and the moon and stars as our kith and kin. He did knit us with the universe and he wove the design of the Infinite into the texture of our soul. He gave us then the universal music to sing; birds and animals to be our confidants, woods and rivers and hills to sing with us. This world that sat like a nightmare on us was thrown away: the new world was laid open before our eyes in His Vision. The veil was almost torn asunder and this spiritual universe of love was opened to our vision. And we were elevated from the valleys of darkness on to the sunlit heights. Peasants became poets by His touch. The enslaved womanhood was freed from its bondage of the soul. . . . This is the plain history. Our history is of the soul; all its events are of the soul. All truth for us is personal. We have not to prove it, we have to stand witness to it in our soul. By the title “Sikh,” he linked us with Himself forever. And we cannot tear ourselves away from Him. It would be misery for us if we turn our backs on Him.1 History of the Gurūs First in the series of Sikh Gurūs was the great mystic Gurū Nānak (1469–ca. 1539). He appeared in human form during very difficult times, in which Hindus were being brutally oppressed and massacred by misguided Muslim rulers. As a child in a Hindu family, Nānak was often lost in contemplation of the Divine. His sister Nānakī reportedly heard heavenly music surrounding him when he sat in prayer.2 But he did not accept Brahmin ritualism. When a large ceremony was arranged in his childhood for him to be traditionally invested with the sacred thread, Nānak refused to wear it, explaining that he only wanted that sacred thread of praising God—the thread that would never wear out, never get dirty, never be lost. His preferred companions were the Hindu and Muslim ascetics who lived in the surrounding forest. Many days went by without his eating anything. 129 Sikh Spiritual Masters Many were the nights that he spent in deep meditation, with tears of vairag (detachment from the world) and great longing for God alone. When a doctor was called to cure him, young Nānak explained his condition by singing: Firstly I feel the pain of separation from God And another pain is of the hunger for His meditation. . . . O ignorant physician, minister thou not any medicine to me. . . . The pain persists and the body’s suffering continues. Such a medicine produces no effect on me, O brother. (Gurū Granth Sāhib, 1256)3 At last, however, when he was about thirty years old, Nānak apparently met the One for whom he had been longing. According to stories told about his life, he had gone down to the river for his morning bath, but then did not reappear until three days later despite desperate attempts to locate him. When N...