On Being and Becoming a Sikh

For over twenty years it has been gnawing at me.  Some of us were sitting around discussing for the umpteenth time the politics of our  Gurdwara in New York.  One of us--bright, young, ambitious, highly educated, better read on Sikhism than most of us but unfortunately not a recognisable Sikh--blurted out, "I am just as good a Sikh as any of you, if not better.  I have read more about it than perhaps all of you put together."  The boast rankled me.  Quick as a whip, I lashed out:
"Any Sikh who claims to be a good Sikh is not."  It sounded apt and clever.  It certainly hit the mark.  Everybody laughed except the poor target.  It has been twenty years but he never spoke with me again.  Many times I have thought about that day and what it means to be a Sikh.

A farmer dies and his farm goes to his child.  A tradesman can leave his shop and a businessman his business, to his progeny.  The shop and the profession continue.  One can confer an inheritance of millions, even a legacy of generations of Sikh history to one's family.  One may bestow truckloads, tons of books and libraries of literature on Sikhism.  But can one award the spirit of Sikhism to one's children?

There are families which have for generations treasured hand-written letters and documents by Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh or others close to the Gurus.  There are many who claim to be descended from one Guru or another who travel around India from village to village collecting donations from gullible Sikhs who feel honoured by the touch of the son of a son of a son of a son of a Guru.  Can that make them good Sikhs? 

Isn't it best, as Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said, to be less anxious about who your grandfather was and more concerned with what his grandson is up to?  If the sons of Guru Gobind Singh were brimming with the spirit of Sikhism, it was not because they were the sons of a Guru.  Other sons of other Gurus have found no place in our hearts or in our history.  Where others had failed, the sons of the tenth Guru had assimilated the lessons of Sikhism.  They had earned Sikhism, not inherited it.  The sons of Guru Gobind Singh are remembered every day in our prayers not because they were sons of a Guru but because they had worked their way into the marrow of our collective consciousness.  Many other sons of other Gurus were quickly forgotten and merited unmarked graves.

It is true that you cannot take the material things of life with you; you can bequeath them to your descendants, friends or a worthier cause.  If you don't, the government might steal a chunk.  But it is also true that you cannot donate to anybody else the spirit of Sikhism that you have integrated within yourself.  One cannot inherit Sikhism for that is not how Sikhs are made.  One can be born in a Sikh household.  One can acquire the Sikh uniform.  One can even learn the protocol, formality and etiquette of the religion.  All that does not make a Sikh.  The rituals that one masters remain exactly that--rituals; the uniform, a disguise or an empty shell.  Only the individual prayer and the Guru's grace may transform them into sacraments, and the best prayer is honest self-effort.

By teaching, by example and through the Guru Granth, the Gurus have shown the student Sikh how best to direct his individual efforts.  But each person has to discover the path by and for himself.  This voyage of discovery is an inner journey and a lovely one which every pilgrim must undertake on his own.  The lives of the Gurus and the teachings of the Guru Granth provide a map only.  The map has to be read and the path chalked by each traveller himself.  And for the pilgrim who sets foot on the seemingly lonely path honestly and boldly, the Guru promises to show the way and provide the finest company.

It is no coincidence that the religion is called Sikhism and the followers Sikhs--literally, students.  It is a constant reminder that the Sikh, to be true to his label, cannot afford to be anything but a student all his life.  He or she remains a student of the way of life as enunciated by the Gurus.  Quite simply then, the emphasis shifts from being a Sikh to the developmental direction of becoming one.  And the continuous, ongoing, life-long, active process of metamorphosis--internal change--becomes the focus.

One also becomes aware that Sikhism is not now a static or dormant discipline nor was it ever.  For the two hundred years from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh, it remained in a state of continuous flux and development.  Now three hundred years after Guru Gobind Singh, Sikhism continues to grow and wrestle with new issues that engage it--from ecology, peace and disarmament, gender and racial discrimination to the population explosion, reproductive rights and AIDS are matters that affect us all.  Not that Sikhism ever does or should take clear, unvarying positions on many of these matters, but it provides the Sikh a highly developed, structured sense of ethics so that individually or collectively, he can make responsible choices in all things.  Sikhism acknowledges that many of the judgements that we make today on these and other issues might change in time and with individual circumstances and greater social or scientific awareness.

What does it mean to be a good Sikh?  An excellent student is one who has never yet failed an examination.  But that record of success speaks only of the past, the future is yet to be.  Even the best student will falter, and fail a test, sometimes.  The glory lies not in never falling but in rising every time one falls.  It is a never ending process.  There are many stages in all aspects of one's development--be it physical, mental, psychological, spiritual or even financial.  Life shows many milestones in its path; they are like the rites of passage.  In one's professional growth, a diploma is hardly the end of learning and growing.  In reality it marks only the beginning of a life-long career, a commitment in which one continues to develop as one practices the profession over the years.  A true professional can ill afford to be anything but a student all his life.

By this reasoning, even the rite of confirmation in the Sikh religion (Amrit) becomes a rite of passage, an important rung in that ladder and a stage in the developmental process of becoming a Sikh.  For a confirmed (Amritdhari) Sikh to become haughty or smug of his status or self-satisfied and vain of his dedication would be unbecoming.  He has reached a recognisable, enviable and honourable rung on the ladder, but the ladder is tall and its end nowhere in sight.  While we can commend him for his efforts and progress, a little feeling for the path yet untravelled would be more seemly on his part.  A sense of gratitude to God from whom all things flow coupled with a little humility is necessary, for anyone might slip.

In essence, every Sikh is a convert to the religion, being born into it merely gives one a head start on the rules and the layout of the track, if one chooses; it does not automatically make one into a winner.  Being a Sikh is often only an accident of birth; the developmental process of becoming a Sikh is indeed much more significant.  Sikhs are not born but made.

from Sikhs and Sikhism by I J Singh  (New York, USA)