IB World Religions 1.4.4. How Do We Get There? Grace, Nam Japna and Sewa Notes

1.4.4. How Do We Get There? Grace, Nam Japna and Sewa

Grace and the gurmukh

1. Sikhs answer this question by pointing first at God rather than at human achievement. They call the goal mukti (liberation from rebirth and union with God), given through nadar (God's grace), also called gurprasad.
2. The Mool Mantar, the opening statement of the Guru Granth Sahib, describes God as one, true, without fear and without hatred, then closes with the single word gurprasad: this God is known by grace.
3. Grace does not make effort pointless in Sikh teaching. Sikhs describe discipline as what makes a person able to receive what God gives freely, never as a price that obliges God to give it.
4. The person who lives that way is called gurmukh (God-centred, turned towards the Guru), in place of manmukh (turned towards one's own ego). Becoming gurmukh is the whole practical content of the Sikh path.
5. Sikhs hold that the entire path is walked inside ordinary life. Guru Nanak married, farmed and raised a family while teaching, and Sikh tradition treats that as the pattern rather than the exception.

Nam japna and daily prayer

1. Nam japna (continual meditation on God's Name) is the practice Sikhs place at the centre of religious life. The wider term nam simran covers remembrance of God's whole being, in speech, in song and in silence.
2. The Name is not restricted to one word. Sikhs most often repeat Waheguru (Wonderful Lord), and treat the repetition as a way of holding attention on God through ordinary activity.
3. Daily prayer follows a set rule called nitnem: Japji Sahib at amrit vela, the last watch of the night before dawn, then Rehras at dusk and Kirtan Sohila before sleep.
4. The congregational form is kirtan, the singing of scriptural hymns (shabads) to instruments in the gurdwara. Sikhs treat sung remembrance as the normal public shape of the practice.
5. Sikhs describe the effect in moral terms. Constant remembrance is said to wear down haumai (ego-centredness) until the jot (divine light) already within a person is recognised.

The Guru Granth Sahib

1. Sikhs receive the Gurus' teaching through the Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru, installed the scripture as the permanent Guru in 1708 rather than appointing another human successor.
2. Sikhs therefore call it Guru and speak of the shabad guru, the Word as Guru. Authority rests in the teaching the volume carries, not in its paper and binding.
3. It collects bani (God's Word as uttered) from six of the Sikh Gurus, together with hymns by Hindu and Muslim saints such as Kabir and Sheikh Farid. Sikhs read that inclusion as part of the teaching.
4. Because it is treated as a living Guru it is installed on a raised platform under a canopy, fanned with a chaur, and put to rest at night in a room of its own.
5. Any building where the Guru Granth Sahib is installed is a gurdwara (the Guru's door). Gurdwaras therefore exist in houses and hospital rooms as well as in large purpose-built halls.
6. Sikhs ask it for direction through hukam, opening the volume at random and reading the hymn at the top of the left page as guidance. The same practice supplies the first letter of a child's name.

Kirat karna and vand chakna

1. Sikh tradition remembers Guru Nanak as summing up the life he taught in three duties: nam japna, kirat karna (earning an honest living) and vand chakna (sharing what one earns).
2. Kirat karna rules out income taken by dishonesty, exploitation or gambling, and equally rules out living off charity as a religious beggar.
3. That second exclusion is deliberate. Guru Nanak spent his last years farming at Kartarpur, and Sikh teaching treats the household life as the normal setting for spiritual discipline.
4. Vand chakna turns honest earnings outward. Many Sikhs give dasvandh, a tenth of their income, to the Panth and to people in need.
5. The story Sikhs tell to fix the point is Guru Nanak's meal with Bhai Lalo, a poor carpenter, taken in preference to the feast laid on by the wealthy Malik Bhago. Honest work funds sharing, and sharing checks the greed that work encourages.

Sewa across the Panth

1. Sewa (also spelled seva) is service given freely to anyone, without payment and without expecting return. Sikhs treat it as worship in active form.
2. Tradition distinguishes three kinds: tan (with the body), man (with the mind) and dhan (with wealth). Sweeping a gurdwara floor and funding a hospital both count.
3. Its clearest institutional form is langar, the free kitchen attached to every gurdwara, where food is cooked, served and eaten by whoever arrives. Everyone sits together on the floor, which is itself the teaching about rank.
4. Sikh teaching insists that sewa is owed regardless of birth or gender. Women and men share the same duties of cooking, cleaning, singing kirtan and reading the scripture in the gurdwara.
5. The Panth (the worldwide Sikh community) is not uniform in how this life is taken up. Amritdhari Sikhs have received amrit sanskar, initiation into the Khalsa, and keep the full code of conduct, while sahajdhari Sikhs follow the Gurus' teaching without initiation, and groups such as the Namdharis continue a line of living human Gurus that most Sikhs do not accept.
6. Contemporary sewa reaches beyond the gurdwara. Sikh organisations such as Khalsa Aid serve langar at earthquake sites and refugee camps, which Sikhs present as the same duty carried outside their own community.