INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

Local Sikhs will say that the Guru “shows the way to God”, “removes obstacles on
the devotional path” and “inspires people to get closer to God”.
As the previous sections illustrated, local Sikhs believe divine knowledge was
revealed to the human Gurus, who mediated these messages to the world through
utterances (gurbani) that are perpetually manifest in the corpus of Guru Granth Sahib.
When the Sikh scripture was invested the authority of a Guru, the text assumed
the two-folded role of transmitting divine messages and providing spiritual guidance
to humanity through the teaching it enshrines. The scripture is considered to
contain knowledge of God and provide the Guru’s teaching or precept (gurmat) that
will illuminate the path towards salvation. “Gurbani comes from God and through
gurbani you will find God,” a male interlocutor said. There is no clear separation
between the teacher and the teaching, since the Guru Granth Sahib, like its predecessors,
embodies the knowledge it mediates.
The knowledge referred to in these discourses is not necessarily insights
achieved through the intellectual exercise of logical reasoning, but much grander
ontological and aesthetical experiences of God, within oneself and in all created
beings. Especially in Guru Nanak’s compositions “the unspoken speech” (akath
katha) often stands for divine knowledge and experiences that internally reveal to the
one who has reached a final spiritual stage and will be graced liberation. 288 This
inexpressible speech ‒ a mystical knowledge that descends directly from a divine
source and dwells in the mind of the enlightened ‒ is beyond human categorizations
and can only be converted to language by those who have been granted permission
to speak by God. In this sense divine knowledge signifies a direct communication
with the transcendent divine in the human interior.
My interlocutors made a somewhat clear distinction between two categories of
knowledge relevant to Sikh worship: viddaya denotes knowledge pursued from
worldly studies and practices, and gian signifies internal and spiritual knowledge of
the divine. When lay Sikhs or professional performers in the gurdwara learn meditation
techniques and the art of reciting gurbani, singing kirtan, and expounding the
scripture, they pursue education and knowledge in the former category. To read
books, listen to stories, go on pilgrimage and the like, are similarly intellectual and
bodily practices to gain cognitive knowledge about the Sikh tradition, history and
teaching. Gian, on the other hand, stands for more esoteric knowledge which emanates
from God and the divine kindness bestowed to humans. Although the individual
Sikh may learn the devotional methods and continually engage in worship,
only those who have been blessed with spiritual knowledge will understand the
relations between God, the individual self, and the creation. To be well-educated in
the scripture is thus a different thing from having understanding of the spiritual
truths within its pages. As religious Sikhs would argue, all the Sikh Gurus possessed
the latter kind of knowledge and were authorized to speak to the world. Gurbani is
therefore full with true knowledge of God and instructions on the way to reach God.
288
See e.g. GGS: 1032, 1093, 1291.
139
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008