A book with a title like The World According to Sikhi is certainly attention catching. “According to” has a ring of Delphic authority; employing the term “Sikhi” instead of the conventional Sikhism to denote Sikh belief and practice just adds to the interest. I can quite picture my good friend I.J. Singh as the Oracle at North Bellmore!

Of course Dr Singh has no such pretensions. But the choice of the title is not altogether surprising. He is something of a gadfly, always challenging the status quo, but without the sting; offering his viewpoint without being prescriptive or offensive. Why, he asks, should we settle for the hackneyed and limiting term “Sikhism” to describe the Sikh way of life when the Punjabi “Sikhi” is more inclusive and descriptive? He certainly has my nod. The World According to Sikhi also marks a milestone in Dr Singh’s personal quest. Since the publication of his first book, Sikhs and Sikhism: A View with a Bias, in 1994, he has been sketching a map of his spiritual journey into the “mysteries and reality of Sikhism”. The visible bias of an “ordinary Sikh” in the first book gave way to a sense of pilgrimage in The Sikh Way: A Pilgrims Progress. In the subsequent Being and Becoming a Sikh, one could discern that the pilgrimage was not to a specific location but was really a spiritual quest, where the journey was the destination. With this book, Dr Singh returns to a theme that is at once perennial and modern.

Spiritual journeys are never ending, and rarely progress in a straight line. They are more like meanderings; or rather, like a downward spiral into the core of one’s being that bring us back to the same spot again and again only to reveal a deeper shade and meaning of the Truth that is always present. At some level, the Truth is already homogenized in us, much like butter in milk and flint in wood; the implicit knowledge of our connection to the Universe around is embedded in us; it takes constant “churning” to bring it forth.

Not surprisingly, the 25 essays in The World According to Sikhi are variations on a single theme, namely, Sikhism or Sikhi (depending on your preference) and how its music plays in our lives. Following his own recommendation in the essay “The Journey and the Destination”, Dr Singh re-examines the basic tenets of Sikhi in light of contemporary issues and how they impinge upon our lives. As he examines the Sikh landscape for answers, we find ourselves returning to the same spot, only to see things anew.

The message of Sikhi is enshrined in the Guru Granth Sahib. The opening essay, entitled, ‘Guru Granth Sahib: Major Currents in Sikh Scripture’ does indeed touch on many different strands of Sikh thought and belief that would each be worthy of a separate essay, if not a book: the notion of a “heightened” concept of the “Word” in Sikhi that encompasses not just the spoken or written word but also the unspoken word, “Anahad” to which a Sikh aspires; the concept of Hukam and Nadar as key concepts that a Sikh must understand, assimilate and live in accordance with.

The message of the Guru will come alive only if a Sikh “reads it and heeds” what is read. The Guru Granth Sahib is “not just another Scripture or book that can be stashed on a shelf but the living presence of the Guru”. The Guru speaks to a Sikh through the Word. Since the spiritual journey of a Sikh involves a life long apprenticeship to the Guru (the Word or Sabad), it follows that an authentic Sikh life must necessarily revolve around the Guru Granth Sahib.

But to discover the Guru in the Guru Granth Sahib requires certain habits of the mind that include a “love for reading and the habit of introspection that cannot possibly be cultivated without books and without the company of stimulating minds.” Unfortunately, the habit of reading is not much in evidence amongst Sikhs. Dr. Singh laments that “rare is a Sikh home adorned with a respectable library of books, beyond sales catalogues, soap opera digests and transitory pulp fiction. Rarer yet is a Gurdwara library that is user friendly and where one could soak in the enduring contributions of Sikh thought.”

Our reading habits - or lack thereof – trouble Dr Singh enough to cause him to dwell on this subject in at least four different essays. In ‘The Shelf Life of a Book’he argues that Sikhs are a people of the Book and “if we are to live by the ideas in a book – Guru Granth – how, then, can we be resistant to books that are the repository of the Gurus’ ideas and teachings?”

I could not concur more: reading is absolutely critical; more so in our TV dominated image culture. When we read, we develop our concentration, imagination, thinking, ability to “play with ideas” and above all, the capacity for dealing with the nuances of meaning and use of language: in short, a rich inner life. All of these qualities are essential if a Sikh is to understand and absorb the meaning of the universal and timeless ideas expressed by the Gurus in poetry.

Sikhs for the most part, though, have taken the easy way out. In ‘Religion sans Clergy,’
Dr Singh reminds us that Guru Nanak freed us from the suffocating monopoly of the Brahmin and implored us to connect to the divinity within by being self-reliant; instead, we have taken a broad jump into the arms of a new breed of Brahmins: Gurdwara Granthis and so-called Sikh theologians. We have abrogated our right to interpret Sikh teachings for ourselves. We accept whatever is prescribed to us by a group of people who cannot even remotely begin to comprehend our lives – especially in the West. For them, Sikhi is just a vocation, a means of livelihood.

This dependence on a clergy to be our “intermediaries, arbiters and interpreters of Sikhi” only serves to distance us from the crux of Sikh teaching. Little wonder, then, that the cultural beliefs and habits of thePunjab(orIndia, for that matter) continue to inform and color much of our understanding of Sikhi. This has special import for Sikhs living outside ofIndia, particularly in the West. We only have to witness the goings-on in most of our Gurudwaras to realize how Sikhs continue to keep “close to their hearts their timeless feudal roots”.

Dr Singh touches on a wide variety of issues to illustrate this point: in ‘Cobwebs of the Mind’,he points to the elaborate ritual and superstition that has come to surround the Guru Granth; ‘The Nature of Dialogue’ blames much of the intergenerational gaps to our sense of hierarchy and its accompanying vertical mode of communication; our approach to ‘Same Sex Unions’ is one of complete denial. In ‘The Many Ways of Mating’, he exposes our hypocrisy when it comes to interfaith marriage and outright caste consciousness in selecting marriage partners.

Yet, Sikhi is a do-it-yourself religion. There is simply no mandate for an ordained clergy. The onus is squarely on the individual Sikh to continually explore and re-examine the basic tenets of the faith “in the language and the context of the times in which we live.” What is needed is “not years of schooling or clergy for its interpretation, but an open mind and a willing heart”.

The path of Sikhi is, at bottom, a personal odyssey of self discovery that requires a fundamental shift in focus: from being a believer to a seeker of Truth. It requires stepping out of the margins of acquired belief (from being a Sikh by birth) to becoming a Sikh by choice. An authentic Sikh life is the arena where this drama is played out, where belief and faith, head and heart are pulled into an integrated whole.

But as a Sikh ascends the “inner” mountain, the anchor of “Sangat” or right company is necessary; not only to prevent a free fall but also to act as a catalyst that quickens the personal transformation through common purpose, prayer and dialogue. ‘The Company to Keep’ touches on the importance of the right company. The Guru Granth assures us that God and Guru are to be found in Sangatbut the right one.

The last essay is captioned Festina Lente, a Latin phrase that is usually translated as “make haste slowly”. Interestingly, the paradoxical quality of this term is exemplified by the word Sehaj in Gurbani. Sehaj is used to point to a desired approach or attitude of a “centered mind focused on the task at hand”; it also signifies the ultimate state of spiritual equipoise. Sehaj, is a by product of living in Hukam and Nadar, two fundamental concepts in Sikh teaching that are not easy to explain or grasp.

Hukam (loosely translated as “order” or “edict”)requires that we live and rejoice in the Will of God even if it cannot be fully comprehended. What this means is that we come to terms with our inherent limitations as humans while continuing to live boldly and purposefully, exercising whatever free will we have.Nadar (grace) is a logical concomitant to living in Hukam. Nadar is a blessing that gives us an awareness of the ‘universal connectivity” that binds us all together. A life lived in Hukam and filled with Nadar is a life of Sehaj.

These essays are not to be read with a view to getting final answers or prescriptions and possession of the Truth. This book - like Dr Singh’s previous ones - is a kind of spiritual or philosophical sing-along for those who are also engaged in their own spiritual quest and are ready to ask uncomfortable questions and explore uncharted territory.

Questing is to question and questions are the measure of a man. As you ask, so you become. It is not important that we find answers to perennial questions; it is important that we keep the questions alive. The value of Dr Singh’s writings is precisely that he keeps the questions alive.

The book’s primary audience appears to be the Sikh Diaspora and that limits its usefulness and influence. It would also be helpful if Sikh sources are cited with greater frequency in support of the views presented. Finally, the need for an English rendition of the Guru Granth as well as a commentary as a source of reference for non-Punjabi speaking Sikhs is sorely needed. This is a major undertaking but one for which we need people like I.J. Singh to initiate with other like minded and able Sikhs. This could be a lasting legacy for the next generation of Diaspora Sikhs and a good example of Sikhs working together.

*E-mail: rtaneja@insight.rr.com

Ravinder Singh Taneja
Westerville,Ohio
August 10, 2006