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a requested clarification about Gurmat


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I’ve been asked to comment on the following statement by a prachaarak of AKJ background. Since it is an important clarification I thought I’d make it into a general post. The author is a well read and intelligent person for whom I have great respect. But on this topic I do feel he is somewhat out of his depth, as some glaring errors demonstrate. The full discussion can be seen at;

http://www.tapoban.o...p?1,4508,page=1

From the Nirmala perspective the following statement contains premises that are incorrect. In fact nearly every statement is questionable;

" As long as we don't associate Gurmat with Advaita Vedanta, I am fine with it. Gurmat is unique and nothing in the world comes even near it. To describe Gurmat through the lenses of Vedant or any other worldly philosophy is what I am against. Gurmat can be described through Gurbani, Bhai Gurdaas jee's Baani, Bhai Nandlal jee's baani and by Gursikhs who have lived Gurmat all their lives. Where does Vedant come in picture when talking about Gurmat? The root of Vedant is Vedas and these Vedas have been rejected by Guru Sahib in Gurbani, then what to talk about Vedant?"

The relationship between Gurmat and the Vedas is certainly not as simple as the author makes out. Nowhere in Gurbani are the Vedas ‘rejected’. Indirect knowledge is considered redundant without the Satiguru, but never ‘rejected’. The knowledge within the Vedas is never questioned, only the capacity for individuals to understand its meaning;

Pandit parray vakhannay veda, anatar vastu n jannay bheda

The pandit reads and recites the Vedas but does not know the inner meaning

The quotation doesn’t state the pandit is reading falsehood. The issue here is whether or not Gurmat is nastik or aastik. In common parlance this is used to describe ‘athiests’. This is not the real meaning of the term. Naastik means those who reject the Vedas and aastika are those who uphold it. Therefore Buddhists, Jains, Charvaaks and others are said to be naastik because they reject the message of the Vedas. Sant Gurbachan Singh Bhaindranwale like all Nirmalay maintains that Gurmat is aastika. The teachings conform to the mahavakya (great statements of non-duality) found in the Upanishads within the Vedas. At the same time, Gurmat is svatantar, meaning that it is independent. It is not an explicit form of Vedanta in which its claim to orthodoxy is rooted in its Vedic origins. Traditionally post-Vedantic orthodoxy requires the samprdaya to produce a detailed commentary on the Braham Surtas of Badrayana drawing upon the Upanishads. This is the distinguishing line. For Gurmat the Satiguru is the supreme authority and Gurbani meets the category of ‘unspoken’ revealed knowledge. Since this knowledge is eternal truth, it does not disagree with the mahavakyas. Nowhere in Gurbani is the attribution of Ishvar to the Vedas questioned. It is also worth noting that Gurmat is not the only tradition that has this kind of relationship. The Sri Bhagvata Purana so cherished by vaishnavs, especially gaudiya vaishnavs, takes a similar position at points about the inadequacy of the Vedas to reveal the highest truth, only the saint can assist the bhakta. Yet they are undoubtedly aastika as a tradition.

Returning to the statement above, the author’s second misunderstanding is to contrarily argue that ‘Gurmat can be explained through Gurbani’ which implies that Nirmalay describe Gurmat through some other unrelated conceptual language. The truth is that his statement is a bit like saying that you cannot explain English through English. If the Guru says ‘atma’ you need to know what He is talking about. The fact that the above author in an earlier post mistakes jeev for atma is testimony to the danger of not understanding the conceptual language of Gurbani (rather than Advaita Vedanta). This lack of knowledge is very dangerous. Nowhere does the Satiguru say ‘Jeev is Ishvar’, it is written that Atma and Parmatma are one and the same. Jeev means the ontological condition of being an individuated living being. Ishvar is the supreme being in the theological sense. This is apparent duality. The quotation he cites as evidence for the eternal nature of Jeev is considered by many Nirmalay as one of the more insightful advaita quotations in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. In fact Sadhu Gurdit Singh bases a sizeable portion of his text Sri Gurmat Sidhantsar to exploring that quotation. Lets have a look at it;

1) Pratam parmatma ka roop which is correctly interpreted to refer to Atma

2) It is then explained that Atma is not affected by time, does not die, does not experience pain, was there at the beginning of time, is within each and every heart, has neither mother or father - these are identical qualities as Parmatma, they can only apply to Braham, and then if there were still any doubt it is written ‘teen guna ek shakti upaya, mahamaya ta kee hai shaaeiaa’ â€" from His shakti the veiling or ‘shadowing’ effect of the three guna mahamaya exists.

3) If we maintain this is still talking about a jeev, this is a jeev that now possesses the same qualities as Braham!

4) The author then states that the man of the Atma is Atma roop. This demonstrates a serious lack of understanding. Atma has just been shown to have nothing attached to it beyond an inherent shakti. The man is made of the treh guna (this is stated in Rag Asa), hence the very idea of turiya. If Braham was accessible to the man, there would be no mention of turiya â€" by definition the transcending of the antakaran. The man is by its nature insentient until it is illumined by Atma. Atma is nirgun, as has been explained above, it is pure consciousness.

In Gurmat, for as long as the Atma is affected by microcosmic ignorance (agyan) then it can never be Ishvar. Only Ishvar can be Ishvar. Yet what underpins both is Atma, non different from Parmatma (as so many shabads maintain).

Thirdly, I maintain that there is a difference between Advaita and Advaita Vedanta. Advaita is non-duality, a philosophical position about being and divinity. Advaita Vedanta is the particular tradition descending from Adi Sankaracharya. As soon as you accept that Atma is nothing other than Parmatma (satchitanand as is written in Jaap Sahib), and that Maya possesses three gunas (which constitutes everything including the antahkaran), then you are taking an Advaita position. It is not uncommon to find scholars referring to the medieval bhakti traditions as Advaita devotional traditions. That is what Gurmat is. The irony is the alternative position presented by the above author may well avoid Advaita but to uphold that; a) jeev an eternal reality cool.gif a sargun form of mukti as eternal residence in a heaven of sorts c) a realm in which Parmatma exists d) although separated somehow from the eternal witnessing jeev e) all attained through bhakti and naam - is word for word the vaishnavism of the Hare Krishnas. What makes Sikhi distinctive is its nirgun credentials. Nirgun, without guna, without defining characteristic and Sarguna meaning with any guna or defining characteristic, deen dyal, patit pavan, nirbhau, etc. Anyone who has studied tatashta lakshana and svarupa lakshana will understand the difference here. Nirguna is accepted across the board through the centuries to be the Braham of truth-consciousness-bliss. Jaap Sahib describes Parmatma in the same terms. There is no division of Parmatma into threefold division with different parts veiled from the jeev atma, as some vaishnav schools do. He is Ek. The author has failed to recognise that metaphors contextualise the non-dual statements making our updesh very ‘chintya’ (conceivable) and far from the troubled philosophy of the gaudiya vaishnav tradition. At various points in Gurbani the Satiguru has explained that a) the Atma by its nature is untouched by the experiences of the individual cool.gif Maya constitutes everything including time and space, our mind and body c) transcending the three gunas is mukti/turiya. Turiya is EXPLICITLY contrasted with the other three states of consciousness. Turiya BY DEFINITION is the ‘annihilation’ or ‘loss of identity’ the author above finds repugnant.

The last statement the author makes is worth picking up on. The fact is that for the last 300 years up to this day, the Sant Mandali of Sikhi has drawn upon Advaita to describe their experiences and their understanding of Gurmat. They didn’t all necessarily study it, but they did recognise its truthfulness. Apart from possibly Nanaksar and those post singh sabha types influenced by their Semitic schooling, I can’t think of anyone who has rejected the traditional understanding of nirguna as has been given above. We have in the panth many many texts (literally thousands) dating from the 18th and 19th Centuries which uphold this stance, this use of terminology. So what does his statement mean? It either means that not one single brahmgyani existed between 1699 and the initiation of Bhai Randhir Singh which corrected everyone OR that all these brahmgyanis chose not to speak out against this incorrect version of Gurmat for all this time! Both are ridiculous and unfounded. With regards to Bhai Gurdas Ji, I feel the author has not studied his Kabit Svayay in which many very interesting quotations are found describing the Advaita position, explicitly describing the dissolution of ‘seer’ and ‘seen’ (duality).

Nb - My second translation and commentary which is now finished goes into all of this in great detail.

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yes a second book, a translation and commentary on Bhai Adhan Shah Sevapanthi's Bibeksar from 1748 which goes into a lot of this. Its a difficult, long but very rewarding read. I'll be publishing it in the UK so I should be able to distribute it a bit better.

Posting on tapoban, no need. They have their own views which they are unwilling to question as the discussion has demonstrated. This response is for those of you who were unclear by the end of the discussion.

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Why cannot guru sahib directly tell us what he means when he says atma? Just because we cannot comprehend whether or not Guru Sahib has actually already explained it does not mean it is not there. Furthermore who are we to decide that the explanation of the terms used in Gurbani in the Vedas is what Guru Sahib meant? The presence of the same words does not mean that the meaning is the same. When we are 'reading' Gurbani, we will understand exactly enough as Guru Sahib wishes us to at that point in time. I have a Guru who knows exactly what I do and don't understand, and I trust him enough that I won't need anything else than him for that.

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Silence - think about it - one doesn't learn reading, writing, Gurmukhi, kirtan, Gurbani terminology, Indian dharma history, shastar vidya etc by magic.

These things are taught and preserved by Vidvaans, and we are blessed to have so much complimentary and explanatory knowledge in our Panth which dates back to the era of the original Khalsa. You should try listening to reason rather than neophyte fanaticsm/ignorance - we are blessed to have the likes of tSingh in our midst - who shares so much traditional vidya (and more importantly the sources of this vidya) which most of the mainstream Panth is totally unaware of - since the reformist marginalisation of the Nirmala Sampryada - which preserves/holds all these amazing old texts.

Keep up the great work tSingh Ji, I really look forward to reading your forthcomnig work on Bhai Adhan Shah Sevapanthi's Bibeksar.

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Thanks for that it contained much valuable information.

concerning the accepted defintion of nirgun - sargun and annihilation of the individual, how can the annihilation of the individual be considered turiya? As the other author said, would this not be the equivalent of suicide. Cannot turiya be conceived of as a state of individuality untainted by the three gunas? A state where the hero has defeated ignorance. To be sure it would be an 'otherworldly' individuality. To make turiya a state where an individual is annihilated then what is the point of sadhana, is it sadhana for self-destruction if so there are surely other simpler ways. This coincides with sargun-nirgun. Is sargun paramatma not just qualities such as mercy etc. but, as in the 36 tattvas of KS, pure consciousness or shiva. This pure consciousness can be called vaheguru or other names. nirgun, encompasses the 36 tattvas and cannot be spoken of or approached, it is the unknowable mystery of mysteries.

The other author speaks of some sort of 'heaven' this may not be far off the mark, as gurbani does speak of a karam khand, as individuals we can approach paramatma through our sadhana, depending on the purity we have achived and the degree of knowledge we have obtained we may find a place 'close' to paramatma, to be a 'grace' or 'mercy' for individuals trapped in ignorance.

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In essence turiya is not just a state but vyapak chaitainta = atma/paratma/nirgun parbhram giving chaitan to jagrath, supan, sukhopat/rajo tamo sato...for ease of understanding turiya is explained as chauti avastha.

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I think the crux of people's misunderstanding lies on the point about annhilation of the individual. I take this to mean the end of existence as an individual, similar to the water (atma) in a glass (which is the individuality or ego being left behind) emptied into the ocean (parmatma). as we see in Bachittar Natak where Guru ji is speaking to Akaal Purakh, the atma (no longer jeev at this point b/c the dhristhi no longer has duality) still is conscious, awake, and aware.

when dhrishti is corrected and duality flees I think then the existence as the individual is annhilated and continues as existence merged with parmatma, like water mixed in water.

As proof of this, we can see bhramgyanis, who continue to exist in separate human bodies (eg. baba isher singh ji, baba nand singh ji) and yet are one with God. Their individuality has been annhilated.

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correct me if i m wrong

- Intial post by kulbir singh relates to spiritual world not physical world. All the discussion in fact relates to spiritual world.

- Point of sri guru gobind singh ji speaking to akaal purkh where akaal purkh gave hakum to sri guru gobind singh ji to take sargun avtar as gobind rai. Guru Ji was given as deliverance in his previous earthly life as dushat daman avtar at hemkunt and even for the sake of argument even if we were to say say- deliverance occured in spiritual world/sach khand/puri as certain mindset believes, rules are different for avtars or choosen ones. There is no such thing as one divine rule in context of sachkhand, how could there be one divine law when surti/perceptions varies from one person to another or one bhramgyani to another. Gurbani supports meta reality. If people understand that gurbani supports meta reality, there wouldn't be 2 pages long and before 100 pages long discussion.

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I used the phrase annihilation to paraphrase the original author. It is an extreme and unfortunate term. Gurmat is not about destroying yourself, its about uncovering your essential identity. It is not the shunyavaadi buddhists emptiness. It is not the fluctuating consciousness of the madhayamika buddhists. It is the eternal, blissful, source of this infinite diversity and beauty. It does not lead to the nihlistic swamp that some monist philosophies end in, since Sikhi upholds a theological stance throughout, even for the jivanmukt. Turiya signifies the absence of limiting ignorance, not the absence of self.

Mithr ji, I shall be setting up a webpage to make both books available on line. If you are in India then I can pm you an address to write to to get a copy of the first book.

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In Gurmat, for as long as the Atma is affected by microcosmic ignorance (agyan) then it can never be Ishvar. Only Ishvar can be Ishvar. Yet what underpins both is Atma, non different from Parmatma (as so many shabads maintain).

Please can you explain what you mean in the above paragraph, specifically the last sentence... both what?

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Guv, Atma and Parmatma are two perspectives on the same thing. The effect Maya has when associated with consciousness can be categorised into macrocosmic and microcosmic. The macro is Ishvar, the micro is Jeev. The real essence of both is the same thing. There is a distinction between agyan (the ignorance experienced by the jeev) and the mahamaya that ishvar is untouched by and liberated from but conditioned by. Gurbani states 'there is You and nothing else', not that 'you are the greatest, we wish to be close to you'. The book goes into this in a lot more detail.

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Question - Can Gurmat be explain only, exclusively, only, with Gurbani?

Yes, it can - if you understand what Gurbani is saying. For this we need background knowledge e.g. if you use a dictionary to look up the meaning of a word from Gurbani, you are not following the dictionary - just using it to understand what your Guru is saying.

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I think that studying other scriptures is important for us to understand Gurbani in proper context. The Gurbani of SGGSJ and Dasam Granth make many references to events and personalities who are connected with the Hindu religion. I think that studying other scriptures is important to understand the context many tukhs are written in.

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