Daily Fix
Frog in a Well
T. SHER SINGH
There’s an easy test to determine if your religious beliefs and practices are indeed serving your spiritual needs, or whether they’re merely helping you feel secure … in a strait-jacket sort of a way … and no more.
Here’s what you do.
Look around you. And see if you find yourself surrounded by a huge, encircling barricade -- a wall -- with no point of entry or exit, other than a hole of light high above you, where the bricks end and the sky takes over.
Have you dug yourself into a well? Or built one around you? Or jumped into one? Fallen in, maybe? All with the singular goal of insulating yourself from beliefs other than your own, and securing your beliefs from being contaminated by those of others?
It’s not a bad plan, if you ask me. It’ll certainly guard and protect you for a while, but then, to what purpose? … it doesn’t leave you with much of a life, does it?
It may be the way to go with other belief systems in the world, but to be honest, it ain’t the way of the Sikh. If Sikhi is the path you have chosen for your life’s journey, then I’m afraid you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere and are now merely going round and round, following your shadow.
Is this any better than those who choose to do completely the opposite? That is, those who, instead of seeking the security of a well, tear everything around them down until they are sitting in the middle of a spiritual moonscape. No rules for me, they say. I need no discipline. I march to my own drum-beat …
Well, that calls for another discussion on another day.
Today, I want to focus on the frog in the well. The ones who have a million little rules to cocoon them, and create a web around them as they go along, at a moment’s notice.
These frogs are everywhere.
You’ve seen them too, I’m sure. See if you recognize some of them:
They’re the ones who’ll tell you that you can’t say the ardaas in a public function because everybody around is wearing shoes.
They’re the ones who’ll tell you that you can’t display the khanda on your car because you’re not an amritdhari or you don’t even wear a turban.
You can’t do paatth, they say, because there’s no water around to wash your hands, or a piece of cloth to cover your head first.
One of them pointed at an image of a khanda and declared it was unacceptable! Why? Because the tip of the double-edged kirpan in the centre stopped a millimetre short of the quoit. “It should be touching, nay, overlapping the circle!”
Then, there are those who are walking censor-boards.
Bare arms and legs from wearing a skirt and a blouse will send them into tizzies. Why aren’t you wearing a salwar kameez?
I have actually been approached by a person who objected to a cartoon figure (of a super-hero) because her (the cartoon’s, that is) breasts were a little too ’fulsome’!
And there was the one who said a person can’t wear a kirpan on a belt. It has to have a gaatra!
Why is the unshorn hair open and flying in the breeze?
I could put together a book of such gems which would make a great addition, I’m sure, to your usual collection of toilet-side reading. I’m sure you can too.
The latest goodies in my collection come from a critique of a children’s book and its illustrations.
Why is Nanak as a young boy shown without a dastaar on his head?
Why is there a dog in the presence of the Guru?
Why are the women shown wearing ear-rings and other jewellery, asketh the oracle.
Why is a boy shown in a joorrah, without a head-covering?
[Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye! … I swear I’m not making these up!]
All of these questions have good answers, but they are ones that should be thought out, and sought out, by the critic -- before opening her mouth! -- if she deems herself to be intelligent enough to be posing these questions. Without doing her homework, this particular one went on a rampage resulting in the summary rejection of the book!
I know, I know. Indeed, most of such people are good men and women and they mean well.
All I have to say to them is: Get thee some prozac, and find something useful to do to occupy thy time … of which, obviously, thou hast too much.
Get thee a life!
March 27, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Sukhmani Kaur (Fremont, California, USA), March 27, 2013, 11:12 AM.
There's an idiot in our gurdwara who refuses to take langar from anyone who's not an amritdhari. Well, I'm a Khalsa ... and I've prayed to the Guru for a dispensation: I don't want to serve him either!
2: Prabhjot Kaur (Pennsylvania, USA), March 27, 2013, 1:23 PM.
The naive amongst are easily swayed by the fundamentalists that plague the majority communities that surround us, into thinking that being extreme and rigid in one's religious observances is the best way to express one's devotion and commitment to one's faith. It's an alluring and therefore all the more dangerous role model ... and it is in our face everywhere. We need to work hard to prevent such a hardening of the arteries among our own.
3: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), March 27, 2013, 3:59 PM.
Let's substitute this frog well with a solitary confinement cell. The place: Nagpur jail in April, 1930. The inmate: Bhai Randhir Singh ji. The dingy cell had just enough room to sit. There was a rope attached to a bell in case the occupant needed to answer nature's call. Just outside the cell was another tiny open space heavily barred. This hot summer morning the inmate was in this suite holding the bars, in deep meditation. Unknown to him there was a visiting padre from England, accompanied by the Inspector General and other minions. They dared not disturb the prisoner as he was in deep meditation, oblivious of his surroundings. After waiting for about 15 minutes, somebody shook Bhai Sahib who then slowly opened his eyes. He saw the padre and asked "Why are you waiting outside, come in, be my guest!" The padre saw this unique political prisoner and commented on his radiant face and asked: "How are you?" "Good ... and in chardi kalaa, with the Guru's grace. The accompanying Superintendent told the padre that the prisoner could speak in English. This is how the interview went: "How long have you been in this cell?" "You can check my history ticket." After checking the ticket, the padre learnt that the prisoner had arrived in 1922 and had been there for 8 years. "Do they allow you out for a walk or some exercise?" "No, I have just stayed here all along." The padre questioned the superintendent who said these were the instructions of the British/Punjab Govt. for his solitary, rigorous confinement. "Do you get to read a newspaper or any book?" "None whatsoever. They have taken away even our prayer books." "Do you stay alone in this cell?" "Never am I alone." At once the superintendent remarked that his was a solitary confinement and no one was allowed to share his cell. At this Bhai Sahib remarked that they were telling a lie. The padre was rather confounded. "Who shall I believe?" Bhai Sahib said: "As a Guru's Sikh I never tell a lie." "Can you please solve this mystery, who is right, who is wrong?" At this Bhai Sahib closed his eyes and burst into a shabad. "Guru meray sang sada hai naaley" - "My Guru is with me at all times." His answer mesmerized the whole group. It took a while for the padre to find his tongue. "The mystery is solved. Could I experience this and spend some time in this cell?" At this Bhai Sahib laughed and said "Padre ji, you won't be able to spend even 10 minutes in this cell." But the padre insisted that he would like to experience that for himself. "All right, if you so wish, but remember, there is a string attached to the bell, just pull the string to let you out." The padre was reluctantly (by the jailers) allowed to go into the cell and sure enough, within a couple of minutes, the bell started to ring furiously to let out the howling priest. He exclaimed to Bhai Sahib: "Your Guru may be with you in that cell, but my Christ was certainly not there."
4: Manjit Kaur (Frederick, Maryland, USA), March 27, 2013, 4:19 PM.
Insecure - "in a strait-jacket sort of a way" - is sadly where these people are stuck. They fall in the trap of judgment all too soon and never get to see the beautiful sky. We must all watch out for these monsters.
5: R Singh (Canada), March 28, 2013, 4:13 PM.
Let's look under the surface: religion sometimes becomes an escape from the arena of real life, for those who find it daunting. By creating a niche for themselves, they do not want anyone encroaching on what they consider is their area of expertise. More complicated they make things, the more they can stake their claims to excellence. My problem is not with them, but with those who keep asking to be judged and clobbered by them, and scurry off to complain instead of standing their ground. I am sure we have enough imparted by our Gurus to successfully allay the claims of the sticklers to dogmatic adherences as the only way to Sikhi.
6: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), March 30, 2013, 12:02 AM.
In January, I took a bouquet of cream roses to the gurdwara and placed it at the "feet" of the Guru. Later, in the langar hall, a woman approached me and said to me in Punjabi: "You should not have presented the Guru with those flowers because they have thorns and the thorns hurt the Guru!"
7: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), March 30, 2013, 6:52 AM.
The talibans described in #1 & #6 have done much great harm and continue to break the china. They're really fit for the padded cells. The brand of religion propagated by the Adan Shahis, the Seva Panthis, etc., had no equal. Now, sadly, we hardly hear of the first born being made a Sikh among sehajdharis. We have isolated the Ravidasees and the Kabir Panthis. Even among the talibans, the Guru's Amrit has been 'modified' and they have their own brand and franchise.
8: Bibek Singh (Chandigarh, Punjab), March 30, 2013, 1:45 PM.
Nice article with real life examples. We can easily find such close-minded people in our local gurdwaras. One of the ways of handling such situations is by asking them - "Which line of Guru Granth Sahib supports your argument?"
9: Purinder Singh (Ludhiana, Punjab), March 30, 2013, 9:59 PM.
"Those who do not yet understand the law of Love cannot and should not wear the Master's knot of the sacred tresses and those who do should wear it as a token of spiritual isolation from the heard. So did Guru Gobind Singh command. And obedience to Him is life. There is no life outside that great Love." [The Garden Of Simran, Prof. Puran Singh, 'Spirit Born People']. Of what use is that progress of man which does not make of him a brother to man and nature? Infinite sensitiveness of human or divine sympathy is life. But all our existing systems of ethics and religions and societies tend to make stones of us.