IB World Religions 1.4.3. Where Are We Going? Rebirth, Karma and the Sach Khand Notes

1.4.3. Where Are We Going? Rebirth, Karma and the Sach Khand

Karma and rebirth

1. Sikhs teach that a life does not simply end at death. Unless a person has been united with God, the jot, the divine light within them, passes into another living being and the round continues.
2. What shapes the next existence is karma, the moral weight of what a person has done. Sikhs hold that a favourable or unfavourable rebirth follows from the karma of the previous life.
3. Rebirth is not restricted to human form. The Guru Granth Sahib speaks of the soul wandering through countless forms of life, and human birth is the point at which the round can be broken.
4. Karma in Sikh teaching is not a machine running on its own. It operates inside hukam, God's order, so Sikhs do not treat it as an independent law standing over the creator.
5. Rebirth is not described as a punishment imposed by a judge. Sikhs present it as the continuation of a life that has not yet recognized the God within it.
6. Actions done under haumai, ego-centredness, are the ones that bind a person. Sikhs teach that the same deed done in remembrance of God does not attach in the same way, so intention decides the effect.

Hukam and human birth

1. Hukam is God's will and order, the command by which Sikhs hold that everything happens. Accepting hukam, rather than protesting against it, is part of the Sikh response to life and to death.
2. Human birth is described as the rare chance within the round. It is the form in which a being can hear the Guru's word, remember God and be liberated.
3. The teaching carries urgency without threat. The Gurus present human life as an opportunity to be used rather than as an examination that most people are expected to fail.
4. Effort is expected but does not secure the result. Sikhs hold that liberation comes through God's grace, called nadar or gurprasad, so no accumulation of merit can oblige God to grant it.
5. The two claims are held together rather than balanced against each other. A Sikh is expected to live well and to remember God while treating the outcome as God's to give.
6. This is why the Gurus rejected ritual bargaining for a better next life. Offerings and ceremonies performed to secure the passage of the dead were criticized as substitutes for remembering God.

Mukti and union with God

1. Mukti is liberation, meaning the end of rebirth and the union of the person with God. Sikhs describe the destination as union rather than as arrival at a place of reward.
2. The scripture describes it through images of merging. Light returning into light, and water poured into water, are the ways the Gurus speak of what becomes of the jot.
3. Union is not extinction. Sikhs reject the reading that mukti means nothingness, and speak instead of the light going back to the source it came from.
4. Liberation can be reached during life. A person who has conquered haumai while still alive is called jivan mukt, liberated while living, and carries on working and serving.
5. That is why Sikhs do not withdraw in order to be liberated. The jivan mukt is described as living inside family and community life, free of the vices rather than free of obligations.
6. There is no eternal hell in Sikh teaching. Separation from God is the loss the Gurus warn about, and the heavens and hells mentioned in the scripture are generally read as states rather than as final destinations.

The five khands

1. The Japji Sahib, the morning prayer that opens the Guru Granth Sahib, maps the way towards God in five khands, meaning realms or stages.
2. Dharam khand is the realm of duty. It is the stage at which a person accepts that actions have consequences and that life is to be lived according to what is right.
3. Gian khand is the realm of knowledge, where the scale of creation comes into view and the self shrinks accordingly. Saram khand is the realm of effort, where the mind and understanding are reshaped.
4. Karam khand is the realm of grace. Sikhs describe it as the condition of those in whom God's power is at work rather than as a reward for the stages already passed.
5. Sach khand is the realm of truth, where God is. Sikhs hold that a person may progress a long way by discipline, and that only grace admits anyone to this last realm, whether in life or at death.
6. Sikhs read the khands in more than one way. Many take them as stages of spiritual growth in this life, many describe them as realms beyond death, and the tradition has never fixed the question as doctrine.

Death and Sikh funerals

1. Sikhs treat death itself as hukam. Loud or prolonged mourning is discouraged, since the death is God's will and the jot is understood to be moving towards its source.
2. The body is washed and dressed, and an initiated Sikh is laid out in the five Ks. Cremation is the normal practice, and the ashes are usually placed in flowing water.
3. Kirtan Sohila, the night prayer, is recited at the cremation, and the community says the Ardas, the standing prayer that ends Sikh worship. The prayers ask for acceptance of God's will rather than for the alteration of it.
4. A complete reading of the Guru Granth Sahib often follows in the family home or the gurdwara. A continuous reading is an Akhand Path and one spread over several days is a sahaj path.
5. Sikhs do not raise monuments or gravestones over the dead. The Gurus prohibited the practice, and Sikhs explain the rule as keeping attention on God rather than on the person who has died.
6. The hope voiced at a Sikh funeral is union rather than reward. The prayers ask that the departed be merged with God in the sach khand and that the family live in acceptance of hukam.