Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
272Extract 1: Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi, ‘Sikh Religious
Thought’ (1998)
Taken from: Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi, The Sikhs (Sussex Academic,
1998 ), Chapter 5, Sikh religious thought, pp.67-76.
Sikhism is st ric t ly monot heist ic. So firmly is t he oneness of God affirmed t hat it
is arguably monist ic. Ult imat e realit y is a unit y, God is one wit hout a sec ond.
Parmeshur/Parmeshwara (God) is essentially without qualities (nirguna).
Consequently, sat (truth) or akal (beyond time) or other negative terms, suc h as
ajuni (not bec oming), are among the least inadequate desc riptions. However,
Parmeshur or Sat is also personal, manifest and possesses qualities (saguna),
though God’s attributes are never physic al, even though anthropomorphis ms are
used in the Adi Granth’s poetry. In manifest form the qualities, Shabad (word),
Nam (personality or c harac ter), and Guru (enlightener) are c ommunic ative and
creative. God is the creator, from whom the universe emanates; its existence and
it s c ont inuing survival depend upon God’s will (hukam) whic h is all powerful.
Human beings are unique in this c reation sinc e they alone possess the ability
t o disc riminat e and ent er int o a voluntary relationship of love with God. In the
natural state humans see themselves as c reations of the Lord and disregard
evidenc e of their own finiteness whic h mortality and nature’s independenc e of
provide. They are characterized by self-relianc e (haumai) and at best see the world
inc luding t hemselves — erroneously — as dist inc t from God. T his dualit y leads t o
attac hment to temporal values, whic h is maya. The c onsequenc e is rebirth
(samsara) on the basis of previous actions (karma). There is only one way of
ac hieving liberat ion (mukt i) — by c onquering haumai, c easing to be worldly-minded
(man mukh) and bec oming God-c onsc ious and God-filled (gurmukh). This c an only
be done by being aware of the inner presenc e of God as Shabad, Guru and Nam
and by coming complet ely under t heir influenc e. T his in t urn is only possible
because God looks benignly and graciously (prasad, nadar) upon their efforts and
as Shabad, Guru and Nam, is self revealing and enlightens and liberates the
believer. Bec ause God is wit hin, rit uals are unnec essary but right c onduc t is
essential. The mark of the gurmukh is the life of service (seva) in the world as a
householder (grihasthi), not a sannyasin (renounc er), bec ause in the state of jivan
mukt i (liberat ion whilst st ill in t his c orporeal existence) they perceive themselves
and the world as part of the one reality to whic h they are now c onsc iously attac hed
and in whic h, at deat h, t hey will be c omplet ely merged.
...The concept of God
‘God is the one, the only one’, ‘the one without a sec ond’. These are the recurrent
observations of the six Gurus whose hymns are c ontained in the Adi Granth, and of
Guru Gobind Singh. As a result there has been some disc ussion among sc holars
whet her Sikhism is t o be desc ribed as monist ic or monot heist ic. It is c ert ainly
monistic in the sense that the types of quotation referred to above emphasize an
ult imat e unit y of suc h a kind t hat t he world derives from God int o whom it will be
reabsorbed.