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The Golden Temple of Amritsar: A Tangible, Palpable Holiness

by ROSALIA SCALIA

 

 

 

Built on a hill, one must climb a steep stone staircase to visit the Vatican in Rome - the heartbeat of the Roman Catholic Church.

Lower than the surrounding area, one must trod down a steep marble staircase to reach the Harmandar Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, in Amritsar, Punjab - the heartbeat of Sikhism.

Both places considered divine, both constructed for the glory and honor of God, the Vatican and the Golden Temple sit near water, the Vatican on the west bank of the Tiber River and the Golden Temple, in the centre of a pool said to have healing
powers.

Three years ago on a family trip to Italy, my father and I visit the Vatican together. Born in Italy, my father has visited the Vatican many times and forewarns me about the ever present crush of people, saying that the only way through is forward.

The Sistine Chapel and Michaelangelo’s “Pieta” rank high on my list of things to see at the Vatican, home to the world’s greatest collection of religious and renaissance art. I sign us up for a guided tour at $58 per person, the cost prompting my dad to mutter about the colossal waste of money.

The Sistine Chapel intrigues me for another reason: one summer during college, my friends Billy and Dave decided to visit Italy and the Vatican. Nothing about their postcards proved memorable, until Dave’s final note bearing a lightning bolt: “Inside the Sistine Chapel,” Dave wrote, he heard “the call” and from that moment, he must change his life and become a priest.

A product of Catholic schools, I knew about “the call,” the vows of celibacy, poverty and service that accompanied it, and prayed I’d never hear it. When Dave returned, he gave away his prized possessions, quit college, and vanished into the seminary. I didn’t see or hear from him again until my sister christened one of her sons, and my brother-in-law’s favorite priest - none other than Father Dave - performed the rite.

Climbing the stairs up the hill into the Vatican, I don’t expect to hear a call, but I do expect a spiritual shock and awe. Instead, the opposite happens, and the thin threads of respect I hold for organized Catholicism shred and snap. Around me, the great sea of people paying $58 per person per tour meant that the Vatican daily was raking in major dough. I guestimate the daily take and ask my dad, “Who’s the richest man in the world? And it’s not Bill Gates!”

Signs of wealth, power, corruption and greed overwhelm any sense of holiness, and it baffles me that Dave heard “the call” over the chachink of the cash register. Holding my $58 ticket, I think of Galileo, murdered by the Church for having the audacity to say that the earth revolves around the sun. I think of the mortal sins of the sexual child abuse scandals and the ensuing cover ups; the continued exclusion of women from the priesthood and a myriad of other issues that rankle and while admiring the work of Raphael, Leonardo di Vinci, the Fra Angelicos, the Titians, and Michaelangelo, I vow to continue tossing the annual Lenten Appeal letters in the trash.

The Church has amassed far more wealth than I, much of it tax free, and it will be a rainy day in hell before I donate one penny to it.

Recently, I visit the Golden Temple.

Having been described as “the Vatican for the Sikhs,” I’m curious but harbor no expectations other than it being a famous landmark, a must-see for any tourist to India.

After we check-in our shoes at the appropriate facility at the entrance, my friend Dr. Taranjit Singh and I enter for free.

Immediately, I’m astonished that no costly guided tours are required or peddled. We wash our feet in the shallow water pools at the entrance and trod barefooted down the marble steps into the gurdwara complex. Knowing my clumsiness, I hold tightly onto the brass hand rail and move carefully for fear of falling, and follow Taran, who knows how clumsy I am enough to count the stairs.

Safely at the bottom, I finally look up to see the sun glinting off the shrine's golden plated walls. Compared to St. Peter’s it is tiny, but oh what a gorgeous gem of a building, splendid in its glory, breath-taking in its simplicity and elegance.

Despite the crush of visitors from all over the world, despite the fact I’m neither Sikh nor Indian, the complex exudes a welcoming atmosphere, calming us all with its deep quietude and peacefulness; I sense a tangible holiness that I feel nowhere else, not even at the Vatican.

I mention this to Taran who says, “How can this place not be holy when prayers are continuously sung since it’s been built? They coat the walls, the floor, everything.”

We walk the perimeter countless times, sometimes in silence, sometimes not. The prayer verses being sung appear in various languages on a jumbo-tron, and they’re comforting.

At the Vatican, decorative marble floors cover certain areas, but at the Golden Temple, myriad squares of patterned marble covers the floor of the entire complex. Because water from the sarovar collects on these marble floors, it’s impossible to walk the perimeter path at my customary breakneck speed without risking a fall. Some people do slip, and I realize I must slow my gait, walk methodically and carefully to avoid the same, and in doing so, the subtle artwork around me reveals itself, inherent in the copper cupolas, the symmetry of the architecture, the silver doors, but also in the diversity of the people, the multitude of colors and clothing styles, turbans and head coverings, of ethnicities, of kites first dancing atop, then sinking into the sarovar.

Inside the Golden Temple, precious stones are arranged into floral patterns in the shrine’s marble walls; art is visible in the verses of the Granth Sahib that decorate the inside and outside of the building, in the etched golden ceilings and the chandeliers that hang from them, and the art is anonymous, created by unknown craftsmen and artisans who will never achieve fame or fortune for the aesthetic delicacy of their work.

The granthis (caretakers) inside the Golden Temple sit under a jewel-studded canopy and read or sing from the Scripture - the Guru Granth Sahib - while devotees pray or sing along with them, and neither group pays attention to the unending river of visitors flowing in, around and out of the shrine, unaware that they too are part of the prayer.

At the hour of parkash in the ambrosial pre-dawn hours of the morning - the early morning procession during which the Guru Granth Sahib is transported from its “bed’ in the Akal Takht across the marble floored causeway connecting it to the Golden Temple - drums rumble and horns blow as the Scripture -the "Living Word" - slowly moves from one point to the other. It resembles the veneration of the Eucharist as it slowly makes it way around the church before it’s placed in the sacristy.

Afterward, Taran and I go to the langar hall, which is cavernous, where we sit on the floor shoulder to shoulder to share a tea and parshad - a kind of sacrament - with hundreds of other visitors.

With its army of servers, dish washers, food distributors, preparers, cleaners, and other employees and volunteers, the langar hall offers an astonishing example of communal breaking of the bread - a Sikh communion that feels familiar, except instead of bread and wine, it’s parshad, a small biscuit or wafer, and tea.

Taran tells me that the Golden Temple langar feeds upwards of 35,000 people for each meal every day, for free, and I choose to do something I refused to do at the Vatican: I drop a fistful of rupees into the donation box without a clue as to how much its worth in U.S. dollars because I still can’t decipher Indian money.

Walking the perimeter around the sarovar after the morning langar, I find myself wondering if it were possible to a be Catholic Sikh, or a Sikh Catholic as I don’t envision myself converting, regardless of how angry I feel about the Church’s failures. Then I consider that my work - 300-500-word articles about various parishes for seven or eight history books about Catholic archdioceses in the United States - paid for my trip to Italy but also taught me that the Church is like a string of pearls, individual parish churches supported by their congregations, glimmering with their own determinations and energies to serve God and others through various outreach efforts to feed the poor, visit the sick and shut in, to aid the elderly.

I think about how the intersection of money, politics, sex or gender - and God! - always leads to corruption and failure; no organized religions are perfect because man is not perfect.

Still, the tangible holiness of the Golden Temple is palpable. I don’t mention this to Taran, but later in the day when we return for a final visit before leaving Amritsar, he slips a karra onto my right wrist and somehow it feels as if it belongs there, though one 'K' out of five.

Doesn't really make a Sikh, but maybe a small way of being a slow adopter.

 

December 29, 2011

Conversation about this article

1: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), December 29, 2011, 10:44 AM.

Rasalia ji, Harmandar Sahib never fails to touch anyone with its palpable aura and holiness the moment you enter the threshold. Your head bows down involuntarily with half-closed eyes in utter devotion, no matter what your creed is. That is the wonder of the Harmandar: "ditthay sabhay thaav nahee tudh jeyh-aa" [GGS:1362.16] "I have seen all places, O! none are like thee!"

2: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), December 29, 2011, 10:45 AM.

Rosalia, you are an honorary Sikh! Thank you for a truly objective and brutally honest account of what many Sikhs and non-Sikhs think and know about any 'institutionalized' religion.

3: Anit Randhawa (Malaysia), December 29, 2011, 1:01 PM.

Thank you for sharing this. I remember feeling the presence of God at the Vatican when I visited in 1997 as an undergraduate. Harmandar Sahib, to me, has more than the presence of God. The divinity is so welcoming! it envelopes all with a homecoming bear-hug no matter who you are or where you come from.

4: Gurinder Singh (Amritsar, Punjab), December 29, 2011, 6:41 PM.

The late Egyptian President, Gamel Abdel Nasser visited India in yje 1960s and made a visit to the Golden Yemple along with his staff. He partook of langar sitting on the floor. That time there was no building for langar - it was outdoors. He was so impressed that he emptied his pockets and donated everything for the langar.

5: Harjinder Sandhawalia (Lynnwood, California, U.S.A.), December 29, 2011, 11:35 PM.

Unique wonder of Waheguru! Gives you peace of mind.

6: Kanwal Prakash Singh (Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.), December 30, 2011, 8:42 AM.

Rosalia Scalia's "pilgrimage of spirit" to the "Vatican and St. Peter's of the Sikhs" is deeply personal, thought-provoking and very reverential. Such testimonies are a welcome reminder to the Sikhs that people outside the Sikh faith tradition find it spiritually moving and illuminating upon discovery and a personal spiritual encounter. We pray that may all who come in prayer and peace return home mightily enriched and blessed from their experience. Rosalia does not mention this but I am sure that she was fully aware of the history of this beautiful monument. The sanctity of this spiritual center for all humanity is enriched by not just the sacred music that fills the air but also by the message enshrined in the sacred hymns that has reverberated throughout the complex for centuries: the message of the sanctity of each faith, the dignity of each life, the inalienable right to justice and equality for all God's children, the unity and universality that threads through all creation, and our personal and collective commitment to serving and honoring our shared humanity. The fact that this place is sanctified by the sacrifices of thousands of daring souls who gave their all to defend the honor and dignity of this living edifice to God who is the "Mother and Father of all Creation: all faiths, cultures, communities, and tribes of humanity" adds the most powerful spiritual aura of the spirit to the Golden Temple complex. We witness an architectural jewel, reflecting a unique building style and embellishments, placed in a resplendent setting as a golden throne of the Almighty. That is what grips the soul of a faithful, a seeker of spiritual bliss, or a pilgrim on a site-seeing visit. The Golden Temple washes a little of its holiness upon all ... without distinction, blesses all who come, and leaves a living and lasting imprint that all glorious manifestations of His creation are united at the source: The One eternal and universal immaculate reality, Waheguru; and all are welcome to share, discover, and venerate this Truth.

7: Harbans Lal (Dallas, U.S.A.), December 30, 2011, 8:49 AM.

Welcome, fellow slow adopter.

8: Bhupinder Singh Ghai (New Delhi, India), December 31, 2011, 3:49 AM.

Dear Rosalia and Harbans Lal ji: So long as you are seeking the One, you are a Sikh, knowingly or unknowingly. It just does not matter, if you are Catholic/ Muslim/ Hindu/ Jew ... etc.

9: Dr K N Singh (Johor Baru, Malaysia), December 26, 2013, 6:13 PM.

Being in the Presence in a holy place strips us to our essence. Who are we? Why are we here? There is a God in each of us that is brought out in the Presence in all holy places. Our feelings are proportional to spiritual growth with the realization that it is the same God we see in the church or the Mosque. We mirror our feelings and see to the limits of our spritual growth. A visit to the Golden Temple enhances the growth in us with an unforgettable felling of the Presence.

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