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Our Ecological Roots:
Sikh Environment Day
BANDANA KAUR
Earlier this winter, seventy new medicinal plants were sown in the gardens of Naulakha Bagh in Kiratpur Sahib, Punjab, along the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains. As aged fingers reached down through the dirt to create space for young saplings, this group of Sikh elders revived a centuries old tradition of planting culturally important plants at historic Sikh sites.
In fact, it was on this ground that five centuries earlier, the Seventh Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Har Rai, established a wildlife sanctuary and planted flowers, medicinal herbs, and fruit-bearing trees. According to Sikh tradition, these efforts created a salubrious environment, attracting birds and animals to the town and turning it into an idyllic place to live.
Naulakha Bagh became famous for a wide variety of rare medicinal herbs. It is said that the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan sought medicine here from Guru Har Rai for curing his son, Dara Shikoh.
To honor the Sikh tradition of preserving 'Mata Dharat' (Mother Earth), Sikhs will host a week of celebrations for The Sikh Environment Day over the third week of March, which also corresponds to the New Year in the Nanakshahi calendar.
The environmental celebrations this year consist of a total of 1,500 grassroots projects by Sikhs across six continents to protect our planet: from tree plantings to sapling distributions, water conservation projects to solar energy installations, organic farming workshops to nature marches through streets and villages. All these celebrations are inspired by Sikh teachings that recognize the divine force as Nature.
Sacred Earth in the Sikh Tradition
Sikh tradition affirms the sanctity of the earth.
The teachings of the Sikh Gurus are contained in the Guru Granth Sahib, a compilation of the writings of the Sikh Gurus (1469-1708) and several other Bhagats (saint-mystic-poets) describing the universal presence of the Divine. Sikhs honor Guru Granth Sahib as their timeless and living guide and teacher.
As described in the Guru Granth Sahib, the ecological basis of Sikh tradition rests in the understanding that the Creator ('Qadir') and the Creation ('Qudrat') are One. The Divine permeates all life, and is inherent in the manifest creation around us, from the wind that blows across land and skies, to the water that flows through rivers and seas, to the forests and fields that humans rely on for food and shelter, as well as all the creatures of land and sea that depend on the earth for sustenance.
Our Gurus teach us that there is no duality between that
which makes a flower grow and the petals we are able to touch and sense
with our fingers.
They also refer to the earth as 'dharamsaal,' a spiritual sanctuary where union with the divine is attained. Guru Nanak describes
this in the morning recitation known as Japji, that amid the
rhythms of Creation, the changing seasons, air, water, and fire, the
Creator established the earth as the home for humans to realize their
divinity in this world.
These writings are also a rich compendium on the biodiversity of the land. Throughout Guru Granth Sahib, birds and trees especially are used to describe the metaphoric relationship between a disciple and the divine. Traditional birds like the peacock, flamingo, hawk, cuckoo, nightingale, crane, swan, owl, and the koyal, and trees like the banyan, pipal, and sandalwood of Punjab are used by the Gurus as metaphors, along with many other species. This diversity of life affirms the divine creative current through land, water, and sky.
This understanding of the universe is all embedded within the Khalsa ideal for Sikhs, a word that also signifies the 'sovereign' body of Sikhs who make a commitment to protecting the most marginalized among us, a strong call to environmental justice.
The Path Before Us
The challenge that rests before us is tremendous and weighs heavy on human wellbeing and the survival of our planet. With reports surfacing daily on the severity of the ecological crisis before us, can a spiritual tradition that is centuries old really stand the test of our planetary systems today?
Take the ecological crisis currently facing the region of Punjab as an example, where 25 million of the world's Sikhs reside. Punjab was the testing ground of the Green Revolution, which sought to increase food production for the subcontinent in the 1960s, but not without the serious erosion of the region's ecological base. This once thriving alluvial plain, home to croplands interspersed with grasslands, forests, wetlands, and rivers, now has fallen extremely low in national environmental rankings. Due to unchecked demand on resources, the region claims some of the highest damage to soil and water systems, severe biodiversity losses, and pollution from industrial units that spew named carcinogens into waterways.
The EcoSikh movement was born of the vision of the Sikh Gurus' message and is indeed relevant for our time: that we need a a harmonious relationship between our planet and human life. This collective Sikh effort for the environment not only represents the spiritual foundation to protect our environment, but also the power of 30 million working together.
It is the power of Sikhs from all over the world affirming their connection with the planet.
It is the power of Sikhs to work with scientists, policy makers, and business owners and remind us all of the inherent value of Nature.
It is the power of Sikh elders sharing knowledge that sustained
earth's systems for generations, and young people in choosing to honor
it.
It is the power of the Sikh Gurus that reminds us that living a spiritually exalted life means caring deeply about Creation.
In other words, the mainstream environmental dialogue is strengthened by voices of spiritual traditions that not only represent sizable populations but also inspire us to a deeper environmental sensibility and action. This is why the Sikh Environment Day is not just about what happens today, but it is about our future, about living powerfully in the present so that others may do so in the future as well.
It is on this day, the 545th Nanakshahi New Year, that EcoSikh wishes all a happy Environment Day. May all remain spiritually exalted, and always in service of the Universal, Creative force that sustains this earth.
[Courtesy: Huffington Post. Edited for sikhchic.com]
March 16, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Ajit Singh Batra (Pennsville, New Jersey, USA..), March 17, 2013, 2:12 PM.
Bhagat Pipa [GGS:695]: "jo brahmanday so-ee pinday". That is, "What is within the body also resides in the universe". The body itself belongs is made up of 'matter', but the soul/spirit ius God. Similarly, the universe which is our visible world has the same soul/spirit. Just as we human beings take care of our bodies so long as life exists, we are also supposed to control the objects in the universe which tend to destroy the environment of the universe. To achieve this control, we need to work closely with scientists who understand the goings-on more fully.