INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

and female devotees - the leader sings a line which a group of women or men repeat
in chorus. At the end of the program all will chant the name Vahiguru and let the
tunes and rhymes of the instruments fade away to immerse participants in repetition
and remembrance of the divine name. Like all Sikh ceremonies the meditative repetition
is broken with the Sikh salutation and Khalsa ovation which marks the end of the
program.
3.3. KATHA ‒ EXPOUNDING THE TEACHING
Guru Ramdas once said to one of his disciples: ‘If you want to receive
darshan of the real Guru then you should go through the pothi [book]
which is placed over there on a palanquin. If you do matha tekna 100
times, or go around the pothi 500 times, you will not benefit from it.
You have to read the pothi and try to understand it. Only then will you
get darshan of the true Guru and God.
The story was told by a middle-aged ragi-performer in Gurubagh Gurdwara. He used
to do shorter oral expositions of gurbani as a part of his musical performance in the
daily morning and evening liturgy. The point he aimed to communicate in the course
of our conversation was that one should distinguish between ritualized veneration to
the scriptural body of Guru Granth Sahib and its interior which stores knowledge
and teaching of God. It is not enough to pay respect to Guru Granth Sahib and recite
gurbani but one should try to understand and implement the teachings in one’s own
life. As he concluded, the real difference between empty and meaningless ritualism
and true devotional practices does not lie in the actual performance of rituals to the
Guru Granth Sahib, but in the ways by which disciples devote themselves and engage
with the semantic inner of the scripture. Some people will just imitate the ritual
behaviour of others “like blind sheep”, he said, while others perform the same acts
with true devotion and for the purpose of pursuing knowledge and guidance of the
Guru.
For religious Sikhs the Guru Granth Sahib appears like a seamless and cohesive
world of meanings. The sacred scripture is a collection of the Gurus’ teaching and
praises which should be interpreted and reflected upon. Local Sikhs make acquaintance
with the interior teaching of Guru Granth Sahib through daily recitations and
emphasize that reciting without grasping the teaching within the texts is a valueless
enterprise. Oral reproductions of gurbani, however, are often executed in a too rapid
and formalized way to impart knowledge to listeners who are not already familiar
with the scripture. People learn how to recite and enounce gurbani words, while locutionary
meanings of the scripture pose quite a different challenge. The linguistic and
allegorical wealth of the Guru Granth Sahib invites interpretations and commentaries,
but common people will sometimes find the language and content of the text hard
300
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008