Christianity The Man Who Never Died

The Sikh statesman Dr Gopal Singh wrote an extended poem, The Man Who Never Died, which won the approval of the Pope as speaking of Christ in a way that Christians had failed to do in two thousand years.
The first Sikh to undertake the task of translating the Sri Guru Granth Sahib into English was Dr. Gopal Singh Dardi of Amritsar. He translated the scripture into English prose. The translations were accurate but did not attempt to capture the melodic elements in the original hymns. He had undoubted ability to handle the task. He presented his translations to the Pope. It is also claimed that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Later he was asked by Indira Gandhi to stand as a member of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliment) and then as governor of Goa and Nagaland.

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Dr. Gopal Singh, [FONT=HAPHN K+ Garamond,Garamond][FONT=HAPHN K+ Garamond,Garamond]The Man Who Never Died[/FONT][/FONT]:11 [FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond]Dr. Gopal Singh (1917-1990) was a Sikh scholar, poet and critic. He was the first to translate the [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond]Sri Guru Granth Sahib[FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond], the Sikh [/FONT]

[FONT=Garamond,Garamond]Scripture, into English. His long poem, [/FONT]

[FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond]The Man Who Never Died [/FONT][/FONT]is a meditation on the NT portrait of the life of Jesus and his teaching. He casts his story of Jesus as the bringer of salvation into a Sikh conceptual framework, while keeping a clear connection to biblical texts. He also interprets words and deeds of Jesus with examples from the natural world, setting it into a cosmic context. ​

Singh sets the theme on the opening page: ​

<DIR><DIR><DIR><DIR>[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond][FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]This is the story of the Man [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]Who never died: [/FONT]

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]and who proclaimed [/FONT]
[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]that he who’s born [/FONT]
[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]must be re-born; [/FONT]
[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]and he who’s dead [/FONT]
[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]must rise from the state of death. [/FONT]
[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]For it is not in the nature of man to die, [/FONT]
[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]but to live from no-time to no-time (p. 1). [/FONT]​

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]

[FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond]Jesus birth among the animals in the stable established "the identity of man with all life and with no-life." His birth went unnoticed in a land where God’s people Israel lived, worshipped and suffered in their history, no one noticed or knew who he was, except "a single wonderstruck star" and "three stray Wisemen of the East,… Even though the whole universe reverberated / with the song of the Angels of Light" (p. 10). [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]​

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]

​

</DIR></DIR></DIR></DIR>The poem is filled with wonderful paradoxes. God permeates everything and God’s Grace surrounds us, even though we do not know it. In contrast to human beings, "who go to the man who has, / God goes to the man who hasn’t" and is always "at thy beck and call, the more / when you need Him most and own Him least" (p. 36). People demand his death, because otherwise he will "‘destroy all the ancient values of man. / the kings… The poor shall lose their misery and the harlots their ill repute" (p.61). "Destiny destroys us in two ways: / by refusing our wants / or / by fulfilling them! / But he who wills as God Wills / escapes both!" (p. 67)

People want his death to make themselves safe from his claim. Others see his death as tragic, for people fail to see that God comes only through pain and that "‘Salvation is possible only in a tragic world’" (p. 65). When people thought he was finished, he rose from the dead and said to believers, "Nothing dies in the realm of God … ​

<DIR><DIR><DIR><DIR>[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond][FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]Only the past dies or the present [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]but the future lives forever. [/FONT]​

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]​

</DIR></DIR></DIR></DIR><DIR><DIR><DIR><DIR>And I’m the future of man. [/FONT]

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]To me, being and non-being were always one. [/FONT]​

[FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]​

</DIR></DIR></DIR></DIR>I always was and never was! (p. 69). [/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

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Vouthon said:

There is a fantastic and deeply considerate Sikhi interpretation of Christ written by Dr Gopal Singh (1917-1990) called, "The Man Who Never Died".





It an epic poem about the figure of Jesus Christ from a Sikh point of view.

Read:






[FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]
[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

Moved from Introducing Myself. spnadmin

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Archived_member15 said:

Re: Introducing Myself

There is a fantastic and deeply considerate Sikhi interpretation of Christ written by Dr Gopal Singh (1917-1990) called, "The Man Who Never Died".





It an epic poem about the figure of Jesus Christ from a Sikh point of view.

Read:






[FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=Garamond,Garamond][FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond][FONT=HAPFP N+ A Garamond,Garamond]
[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

Moved from Introducing Myself. spnadmin

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