in Sikhism living is far more important than any thought of beyond
This is very true brother Ambarsaria mundahug
In Christianity one sometimes encounters ascetic-minded people who are not focused on this world but rather on an afterlife born of their own imagination.
The Sikh emphasis on
living is very impotant in countering this kind of extreme asceticalism. A Christian such as myself can learn much from Sikhism in this respect. For Sikhs, I have learned, there is no division between the profane and sacred. Holiness is not a state in which one tries to flee from the world and its affairs, as is often the case in certain sects of Hinduism, Gnosticism and in Buddhism where the goal is to liberate oneself from an illusionary world. In such systems of thought the material and fleshly is very much demeaned and the Universe/Creation is sometimes seen as something that restrains or imprisons the spirit and must be fled from; at its most extreme in the gnostic model creation is seen as "evil". For Sikhs creation is permeated with the presence and reality of God, who is in all things without being contained by them or limited to them, indeed he both indwells all created things and at the same time transcends them. Creation is good in Sikhism, the world is good, reality is good. This transitory, material world is part of the Infinite God and shares his attributes, partakes of them, bears His trace in all things.
It is not tommorrow, not in some mythical, unknowable, uncertifiable afterlife or indeed in another lifetime that we experience the
Infinite One, the Beautiful, Our Glorious Beloved but rather it is in our '
everyday' or '
daily' lives.
Unlike some faiths, or should one say understanding by disciples of those faiths, Sikhism is not so much an 'Orthodoxy' (right/correct belief) as it is an '
Orthopraxy' (right/correct action). In Sikhi an existence lived according to truth, a truthful life, is accounted as being greater even than the grasping of Truth itself:
"...Higher than everything is Truth but higher still is True living..."
- Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji, p62
Sikhs thus find God and holiness in the midst of everyday life.
The Adi Granth encapsulated the Sikh attitude to holiness for me in these words:
"...Spiritual liberation is attained in the midst of laughing, playing, dressing up and eating..."
- Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji, p 522
Sikhism posits such a positive attitude to life and living. It reminds me of the Rabbinic teaching that the meaning of life is simply 'to
live'.
And it correlates much better with the actual teachings of the Lord Jesus, his Apostles, the Church Fathers, saints and teachings of the Catholic Church than any attempt to try and flee reality and demean life.
The above quote in fact reminds me of Jesus' life.
When describing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, religious leaders of Judea, Jesus explained how they found fault with John the Baptist's "ascetic" life by claiming he was demon possessed and then found fault also with Jesus' life which they saw as too "worldly":
"...For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!..."
- Jesus Christ (Luke 7:33-34 NRSV)
CS Lewis, the great Anglican theologian, commented:
"...
Our Lord Jesus pointed out the contrast between the hermit and ascetic John the Baptist, and Himself who drank wine and went to dinner parties and jostled with every kind of man..."
Jesus was thus viewed disdainfully by the religious leaders of his day as a "vagabond" who refused to follow the laws of ritual cleanliness, and for not separating the holy from the everyday.
"...His disciples said to him, 'When will the rest of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?'
He said to them, 'What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.'..."
- Jesus Christ
"...You examine the face of heaven and earth, but you have not come to know the one who is in your presence, and you do not know how to examine the present moment..."
- Jesus Christ
"Hearken to the word, understand knowledge, love life, and no one will persecute you, nor will anyone oppress you, other than you yourselves...I have remembered your tears and your grief and your sorrow. They are far from us...You are the Beloved; you are those who will become a cause of life for many. Beseech the Father. Yours is life! Rejoice and be glad as children of God...This is why I say this to you, that you may know yourselves. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like an ear of grain which sprouted in a field. And when it ripened, it scattered its fruit and, in turn, filled the field with ears of grain for another year. You also: be zealous to reap for yourselves an ear of life, that you may be filled with the Kingdom!"
- Jesus Christ
"...I came that they may have life, and have it to the full..."
- Jesus Christ