Hukam

[Sherdil]

Guru Nanak has answered the question in the Mool Mantar. I agree that a single word would not suffice in English. But neither would it suffice in Punjabi. That is why the mantar describes the oankaar in 12 words.

Basics of Sikhi did a video discussing Ik Oankar. I thought it was quite insightful.

Gurbani is perhaps the only religious text that begins with a number. "Ik" means one. There is no way to misconstrue that.

Oankaar is like the sound that made the Universe. Similar to Omkara.

I like to think of Ik Oankaar like the Big Bang. All of gurbani springs forth from Ik Oankaar, just like all of creation came from the Big Bang.

Even if you look at mool mantar visually, Ik Oankaar stands alone on the first line. Then the lines get longer and longer. Sort of like the Big Bang is the singularity from which the universe was born.

 

[spnadmin]

sherdil ji

Fine! With your forgiveness I need to say that Basics of Sikhi would not be a place I would use to seek information.

The explanation of the oankaar given as om kara regresses to vedic meanings. This happens often. And when taking single words and plugging a meaning into them, the revolutionary aspect of Guru Nanak's thinking is blurred. Thinking of all 14 words in the mantar, beginning with the number 1 to say "There is one" -- then a different idea of oankaar surfaces for me. Running much wider and deeper than the Big Bang (which is a construct of human mind and science). A time may come when the Big Bang theory is refuted. Ik Oankaar does not depend on science for its validity. Ik Oankaar is hosi bi sach - and not vulnerable to the limits of human thought.

I need to excuse myself now from the discussion. Always I promise I won't become involved, and then I do. I have said enough. Now to be quiet.

 

[spnadmin]

spnadmin note: Let's not digress into Ik Oankaar. The thread topic is "Hukam." Thank you

 

[Harry Haller]

Basics of Sikhi did a video discussing Ik Oankar. I thought it was quite insightful.

Gurbani is perhaps the only religious text that begins with a number. "Ik" means one. There is no way to misconstrue that.

Oankaar is like the sound that made the Universe. Similar to Omkara.

I like to think of Ik Oankaar like the Big Bang. All of gurbani springs forth from Ik Oankaar, just like all of creation came from the Big Bang.

Even if you look at mool mantar visually, Ik Oankaar stands alone on the first line. Then the lines get longer and longer. Sort of like the Big Bang is the singularity from which the universe was born.

In my view you are overcomplicating things, and attempting to justify that which needs no justification.

 

[Harry Haller]

Surrender need not mean "giving up" or adopting a fatalistic attitude

I agree, as this thread has progressed so has (I hope), my understanding, I feel a lot happier now that my actions are a surrender rather than trying to change what cannot be changed.

Perhaps a clear-cut example of hukam at work is the tornado. Under certain weather conditions and given a known set of landscape characteristics, tornadoes are more likely in some parts of the world, not others. They cause widespread devastation. How does one fight either a tornado or the personal destruction one endures afterward?

In my view, the surrender is not to the tornado, but to the acceptence of the consequences of the tornado, to accept that there will be much work to do, in dealing with the aftermath. One cannot stop a tornado, but one can assist with the personal destruction afterwards,

But struck by the ineluctable, we bow our heads and then pick ourselves up to begin again. We learn to learn to go on with life within the circle of something that is greater than our personal will.

absolutely agreed!

Many analogies for tornadoes are possible. Let me just give a somewhat humorous example. For many years an eccentric neighbor living just behind me would barbecue meat outdoors for a picnic on Memorial Day (a national holiday in the US coming at the end of May). More than half of the time it storms on Memorial Day in the mid-Atlantic region. He would be out there nevertheless. I would spy him from my kitchen window, stoking the red-hot coals and flipping the steaks, under an umbrella --- but also shrieking and waving his fists at the sky. We all have options within the reality of "stormy weather" on any day of the year. You could say he was a fighter. Now he has passed. That is my memory of him.

I am holding on to that image, it works on so very many levels