Sorry about the font. I quoted the post before me and it repeated the font.
Thanks for listening. I am truly a bit confused, but somewhat Socratic as well. For myself mostly.
If you don't ask questions and understand what confuses you -- well you won't learn. So good.
I was born and raised in Christianity which is suddenly seeming very linear! And so I am used to thinking of the Trinitarian concept of God as three but all in One. First of all, I don't know the terminology here and so I'm at a disadvantage, but I am truly trying to understand this concept of Guru and God as one, but also not as one because God is only One.
Guru means the Light that dispels Darkness. The jyote is the light. The Darkness is ignorance coming from our experience of being psychologically stuck in Maya - mistaking our perceptions as truth, our mistaking our ignorance for knowledge of the truth. The closest you can come to this in Christianity would be found in the writings of Christian mystics - you might want to look at the book "The Cloud of Unknowing."
The Satgur is beyond time and beyond material experience, and beyond number if you will, so the idea of 3 in 1 doesn't really translate.
I'm also starting to see that a person could read the Sikh scriptures for their entire life and still be as challenged as I feel right now. And to tell the truth, that's exciting to me because I have been in a box for a long time.
Probably -- but there are people who claim to have total comprehension and that always amazes me.
The idea of the one light being passed down through 10 Gurus is also very strange to me. It's all a new way of thinking.
In Christianity there is the very different idea of disciplic succession. Say, from Jesus to the apostles to later evangelists, or to a patriarch or the pope in Rome -- all learning at the feet of those who came before them. The transmission of the jyote is not like that at all. The 10 Guru's were individuals who were able to move their minds and hearts and souls out from under all the layers of materiality and imperfection, all the layers of Maya, to a pure discovery of God within themselves, within all of Creation. This realization is the jyote. Why these 10 and not another 10? Because the first recognized the jyote in the second, and the second in the third, and the third in the fourth, and the fourth in the fifth, and so on. Finally we get to Sri Guru Gobind Singh ji who ends by saying find the jyote in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Some say he was beginning to see signs among the sangat that looked like a return to worship of gurus in human form, idolatry, pagan ideas. Who knows? The idea is that we all have this jyote, but most are not aware.
One thing I've noticed about religions that claim to be monotheisms is that none seem to be. Christianity claims monotheism and yet they worship what they call a triune God with Jesus and the Holy Spirit as parts of God. Islam claims to be the only true monotheism and yet a person cannot become a Muslim without declaring allegiance to God AND Mohammad and very rarely are prayers sent up to God only. Thus Mohammad is worshipped as well, even though Muslims will deny this.
I don't know what to say.
That is the main reason I am trying to understand the concept of Guru and God being one. Because I am wondering if Sikhism is similar to the other religions that claim to be monotheistic and yet seem to have other entities equal or part of God.
Not entities equal to or part of God as a kind of mathematical equation or relationship. More like this: Creation is part of the infinite and timeless One who pervades his creation. He cannot be measured. "One" is immeasurable. It is unity.
I don't mean to offend anybody with this question. I hope you can see how this would appear to me?
No one is offended when someone is sincere.
It seems as though, once again, I have found a monotheistic religion that declares one God but has also joined a human being with God as part of God.
Again, thank you for hearing me.
