Jesus through Sikh eyes

[Guest guest]

Jesus through Sikh eyes

 

My earliest memories are etched with the physical beauty of Jesus

Christ. His blond hair and blue eyes were so different from all the

people that I knew in India. I attended a convent school where we

recited " Our Father " during the morning assembly, and we took courses

on Moral Science. Most of all I loved going into the Convent where we

sang psalms and collected beautiful images of Christ, and of Our Lady

of Fatima, after whom my school was named.

 

At home of course it was a different matter. It was a Sikh household

in which the centre of life was the Guru Granth. The holy book is

regarded as the divine revelation and utmost respect is paid to it.

As children we'd help our parents dress the Book in silks and

brocades. It was put on a pedestal while we sat on the floor in

front. We recited its passionate poetry patterned on the raga system

of ancient India. At home we heard bout the life of the Ten Sikh

Gurus who did not look like Jesus Christ.

 

And yet life was not schizophrenic, for the two worlds with their

different languages, different histories, different images and

different styles of worship co-existed colourfully. Together they

became an essential part of my psyche. The " question " of identity

never came up: just as I knew my name, I knew I was a Sikh. But that

did not stop me from participating excitedly in the religious space

created by my Catholic teachers: it was mysterious and enchanting in

its own way. I can still feel the fervour with which I would

sing " The Lord is my shepherd nothing shall I fear " - in spite of my

desperately poor musical talents! But when I came to finish High

school in America, I saw Christ pervading the fabric of western

society and my own tradition extremely distant. As the only " brown "

student in an all " white " girls' school, I became more conscious

about my identity. I recall reading Walt Whitman's Passage to India,

and beginning my journey home. This American poet, who viewed himself

in the role of Christ, impelled me to explore my Sikh heritage.

Ironically then, the more I grew up in a Christian environment, the

more consciously Sikh I became with the result that Jesus of my

childhood imagination got blurry and lost. Growing up in postcolonial

Punjab, I did not think very deeply about the Sikh Gurus, and now

that I am living in this part of the world, I must admit that I

didn't think very seriously about Christ. So to look at Christ from a

Sikh perspective today is indeed an interesting and challenging

assignment. As I try to do so the figure of Jesus from the

multidimensional world of my childhood resurfaces - giving me much

joy and enrichment.

 

Who is Jesus Christ? I see him as a wonderful parallel with the

person of Nanak, the first Sikh Guru. There is no direct connection

between Christ and the Sikh Gurus. They do not intersect each other.

The two form separate and distinct temporal and spatial points in our

history, but when we look closely at them, they illuminate each

other. By looking at them as parallel phenomena, we not only learn

more about the founders of Christianity and Sikhism, but we also get

a better sense of ourselves, of our neighbours, and of the world we

live in. Both Christ and Nanak are remembered in almost identical

ways. Churches resound with hymns like " Christ is the light of the

world, " and Sikh Gurdwaras with " satgur nanak pragatia miti dhundh

jag chanan hoia -- as Nanak appeared, mist and darkness disappeared

into light. " The powerful and substanceless light used across

cultures and across centuries reveals the common patterns of our

human imagination.

 

Jesus and Nanak ushered a way of life that was illuminating and

liberating. It is interesting that both claimed they had no control

over their speech. Spontaneously, effortlessly, they revealed what

they were endowed with. According to the gospel of John: " I do not

speak of my own accord... what the Father has told me is what I

speak " And Guru Nanak, " haun bol na janda mai kahia sabhu hukmao jio -

I don't know how to speak, I utter what you command me. " In each

case, then, the Divine is the Voice.

 

Their message too bears a striking resemblance. Against ceremonial

rituals and orthodox formalities, both Jesus and Nanak directed their

followers to the human condition. For them cleanliness did not reside

in external codes and behavior; it was an inner attitude towards life

and living. Just as Christ denounced the superiority of all those who

walked about in long robes, Nanak denounced those who wore loincloths

and smeared themselves with ashes.

 

Most importantly, both Jesus and Nanak showed us the path of love. In

the Gospels Jesus says, " The greatest commandment of all is this -

love your God with all your soul, mind and strength, and love your

neighbour as yourself. " In the same vein, the Sikh Gurus applauded

love as the supreme virtue, " sunia mania, manu kita bhau. " Bhau or

love is passionate and takes lovers to those depths of richness and

fullness where there is freedom from all kinds of prejudices and

limitations. But we need to put their words in practice. Love for the

Divine would open and expand us towards our families and neighbours;

it would enable us to cast aside racism, sexism, and classism so

prevalent in our contemporary society. We need to remember their

message of love for all our " neighbours " - high and low, black and

white, men and women too. In fact Christ revealed himself first to

Mary. Throughout his ministry, he healed and helped women, and

reminds us of " mother's joy " that a human being has been born into

the world. The Mother is an important figure in Sikh scripture, for

the transcendent One is both father and mother, and Guru Nanak

repeatedly points to the womb in which we are first lodged. Mother's

body and joy, and the earth, our common matrix to which we all

equally belong, are celebrated throughout the sacred scripture of the

Sikhs. But of course, memory is selective and the patriarchs with

their access to the words of Christ and Nanak have remembered,

interpreted, and kept them for themselves. It is important that each

of us begins to see the Christian and Sikh scriptures from our own

eyes and experience their rich legacy.

 

So, who is Jesus Christ for me, a Sikh? In my mind he is an

enlightener, and though I may not see him as one of the Ten Sikh

Gurus, he is a distinct and vital parallel who continues to play a

very significant role in my life as a Sikh. In a way, I trace my

happiness and at-homeness in contemporary America because he opened

me up to another mode of spirituality at a very young age. He did not

take anything away from my being a Sikh. In fact, Jesus Christ

concretised the message of Guru Nanak: " Countless are the ways of

meditation, and countless are the avenues of love. " (Japji, 17).

Jesus has been a wonderful mirror who in his unique form and

vocabulary promoted my self-understanding. The image of Christ

imbedded in my childhood has made the verses of the Gurus alive for

me. I can see and feel what Guru Nanak meant: " Accept all humans as

your equals, and let them be your only sect " (Japji 28), or Guru

Gobind Singh: " manas ki jat sabhe eke paihcanbo - recognise the

single caste of humanity. " However, it also complicates the

situation. Coming from the pluralist tradition of Sikhism where the

holy book contains not only the verses of the Sikh Gurus but also of

Hindu and Muslim saints, and where the Ultimate is received in a

variety of perceptions and relationships, I do have problems with the

exclusivism of Jesus. The Sikh Gurus reiterate that Allah and Ram are

the same, so is the Muslim Mosque and the Hindu Temple. Emerging

historically and geographically between the eastern tradition of

Hinduism and the western faith of Islam, Sikhism whole-heartedly

accepts both eastern and western perceptions of the Divine, and their

various modes of worship. But when Christ alone is declared the Omega

Point, or Baptism the exclusive way to the Kingdom of God, then where

do I stand? As a Sikh I have no place.

 

Personally, I find it hard to understand how the God of Genesis

becomes the biological father of Christ in the Gospels. According to

Genesis, God creates the earth, animals, Adam and Eve - but he

remains distant and far away. How can this totally transcendent God

become the Father of Christ? How can he beget Jesus? Now Guru Nanak

is not viewed as an incarnation of the Divine; rather, he is an

enlightener whose inspired poetry becomes the embodiment of the

Transcendent One. I guess the issue of incarnation really troubles me

as a Sikh. Creation in Christianity is modelled on a distant artist,

more in the sense of a commander-in-chief, rather than on the

biological mother who actually bodies forth her offspring. The Virgin

Birth of Christ sends negative messages about our bodies, our world,

and of our selves. Now that I think of it, saying " Our Father " in a

language that was not my mother tongue did not make me any less

committed to Sikhism. But it has left an indelible paternal figure in

my imagination, which - in spite of all my Sikh and feminist mental

footnotes - still dominates. I sometimes wonder how my world would

have been shaped had I attended a Hindu school and visited goddess'

Kali's temple which was close to my home! In postcolonial Sikh

society it was safe and secure to go to Convent schools and even

attend Catholic services because it was all very " distant. " But the

Hindu tradition so close geographically, historically,

anthropologically, and psychologically, was all too dangerous and

threatening.

 

I find similar fears and phobias now circulating in our contemporary

western society. As our world is getting to be a smaller and smaller

place we are getting more and more afraid of losing our self, of

losing our " identity. " So instead of opening ourselves up and

appreciating others, we are becoming more narrow and insular. Our

tunnel vision makes us grope in darkness. How can we remain afraid

and threatened by each other's religions? It is not a matter of

simple tolerance, and it is not simply mastering facts and figures

about other religious traditions, and it is certainly not about

converting and conversions from one faith to another. As Jesus

resurfaces in my mind, I realise the beauty and power of his

personality for me, and I realise the urgency of breaking our narrow

mental walls. Just as he entered the imagination of us Sikhs in far

away India, Sikhs and others have to enter into the imagination of

people here in the West. We have to see the " light " that Jesus and

Nanak ushered in for us.

 

So many Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Africans, Middle-easterners have

made their homes here, but how little we know about each other's

spiritual worldviews! We may sit in the same classroom, work in the

same office, and fly in the same planes, but we remain segregated at

a fundamental level. During the first waves of migrations, the racial

policies pretty much forced into homogenising matters, and in recent

waves, sacred spaces and sacred times are confined to ethnic ghettos

and left to their individual communities. The result? We are

impoverished. We have lost out on the extremely rich arabesques of

images, languages, metaphysics, rituals, music, and poetry and many

other wonderful resources of our global society. Sadly, even after

century and a half, we are far from fulfilling Walt Whitman's

exhortation:

 

Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first?

The earth to be spann'd, connected by network

The races, neighbours, to marry and be given in marriage,

The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,

The lands to be welded together.

Walt Whitman, Passage to India!

 

We may have triumphed in producing physical and technological

networks, but we have failed in creating mental and spiritual links.

We need to " weld together " . We need to experience the fullness of

humanity and the transcendence of the Divine. Together, Christians,

Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Jains, men and women, we

should relish the plurality and diversity of our human culture. It is

more than a coincidence that Christians and Sikhs celebrate the birth

of their communities on the first day of spring - called Easter in

northern Europe and Baisakhi in India. Our joint celebration of the

annual renewal of life carries on the legacy of Jesus Christ and Guru

Nanak.

 

Nikki Singh, Jesus through Sikh eyes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/sikhism/people/jesus.shtml