Gems of Gurbani

Art of Living – 5

With indoctrination of religious values most suitable to the religious heads who have assumed power and sway over people and economic and social domination by the ruling class the growth of individual values suffer and society tends to lose the analytical power. Instead the individuals develop a sheep mentality and they behave and act as all others. The best example of this is the behavior of people during riots. The 1984 genocide of Sikhs in India is the best example when people simply followed the conspiracy instigated by Rajiv Gandhi and other congress men to eliminate Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of the country. Most rioters never even once gave second thought that something could be wrong on the other end and that these very Sikh’s Guru had laid his life to save the Hindu religion and its elimination from this country. Same kind riots were again repeated in Gujrat.The political and religious heads play with the psyche of the people by dominating with doctrines, ideology and muscle power. This is a downfall of civic and social values in a Society. These types of game plans are prominent in Indian sub continent only where people get instigated in the name of religion or idol worshipping because they have lost the inner strength of an analytical mind and un learned the art of living as per the guidance or will of the Creator. It is Guru Nanak who fully understood the meaning of art of living and wanted the whole universe to understand its value and develop the inner strength and we can turn again and again to Gurbani and the truth keeps revealing itself. During the end of his journey on this earth he wanted to practically live the values that The Creator had enlightened in him and also he understood that his enlightenment needs more time to spread on this earth. The need of values and their ingraining as human nature was necessary so that the powers vested in the single religious or political head gets diffused forever. The human beings are social animals and like to live in groups so the development of families, societies and nations have taken place. Every society and nation has developed certain value system so that the life becomes harmonious for its members. The problem arises when the vested interests manipulate values and rules and instead of a dynamic society we get a society ridden with rigidity and static values. As a result we can see most religions have created rigid boundaries and the members are expected to behave in a particular manner as fixed by their rule books. Guru Nanak was born in a time when two major religions had created very stressful situations for the humanity and his enlightenment paved the way to definitely liberate people from this kind of situation. Guru Nanak’s vision encompasses not only The Supreme Creator but cosmos, man, nature and society or the universe in totality. Guru Nanak believed in the divine lineage of human being thus he was hopeful of the potential of man developing into a perfect human being who would listen to the Supreme Being for guidance he called him Gurmukh, the fifth Guru called him Brahm Gyani and the tenth Master as Khalsa. For attaining this perfect human being status man needs to understand and posses many attributes of character. First of all man should not cause any hindrance in the Will of the Almighty and understand and recognize the Will of Lord. Man cannot have an aimless life so the purpose of life should be understood. Man needs to understand that God has bestowed him with highest intelligence that needs to be best utilized for the benefit of mankind, nature and his immediate environment. As his understanding of these matters establishes he starts growing into becoming a perfect human being (Gurmukh). The following characteristic traits should become part of his growth process and they are: 1. He should become truthful( Sachiar),2. Tolerent( sehansheel) , 3. Surrender his ego( haumai), 4.Fearless( Nirbhay), 5.Highest degree of optimism(Chardi Kala).

To continue…….