When Kalava goes to consult a skythinker:
"Below a great arch, two postulants in blue robes slanted their staffs across the way and called: 'In the name of the Mystery, stop, make reverence, and declare yourself!'" (p. 111)
Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, said something like, "Neither the Veda nor the Koran knows the mystery."
The two blue-robed postulants are right. There is mystery, the unknown, and it underlies everything that we do. We, the readers of Genesis, know that, on the Earth inhabited by these postulants, there is a planetary intelligence and that there are also comparable intelligences among the stars. Kalava and his people believe that there are gods and they are essentially correct but they know nothing of the nature of such beings. And we know very little about the encompassing universe: the Mystery.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I believe God revealed to mankind the Way to discover the answer to this Mystery first by His revelation of Himself in the OT--culminating with the Incarnation of His Son, as revealed thru the NT and the Tradition of the Catholic Church.
Ad astra! Sean
Actually, if you read the early Sikh writings, it's an astonishingly civilized set of beliefs -- the Sikh omnipotent deity doesn't have a gender, for example, and may be referred to by either, and the early Sikh teachers taught that both caste and gender were human distinctions of no bearing on an individual's worth.
Hence their practice of having feasts at which everyone was welcome, regardless of background -- very radical in an Indian context.
Essentially it's a stripped-down ethical-monotheistic form of Hinduism with some Muslim borrowings.
It didn't -stay- strictly that way, of course, human beings being what they are, but it's very impressive.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I am not surprised. My vague, incomplete understanding is that the Sikh religion took its origins from Hindus embarassed by the childish polytheism of Hinduism.
Ad astra! Sean
It's also obvious that the first Sikh leaders were genuine scholars.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Good! They would be the kind of people most likely to become dissatisfied with Hinduism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Hinduism is the 700 pound green alien amoeba of religions -- it will cheerfully absorb anything. Sort of an all-tastes buffet.
Sikhism -nearly- got reabsorbed in the 18th-19th centuries, but managed not to. Possibly because the British 'cultivated' them after they absorbed the Punjab.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I think I can grasp that, with some difficulty over how Hinduism can contain both monotheists and polytheists.
One disturbing page in your THE PESHAWAR LANCERS mentions an Anglican conference or synod discussing whether the Anglicans should be absorbed into Hinduism. Had I been an Anglican I hope I would absolutely oppose such an apostasy!
I remember the Catholic crown prince of France-Outre-Mer politely but firmly rejecting such notions.
Now that the British Raj is gone I am wondering how long the Sikhs will resist being reabsorbed into Hinduism?
Ad astra! Sean
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