How Shall the Truth Be Known?
The Teaching
By bathing at holy places of pilgrimage — shall the Truth be known? No. By silence — shall the Truth be known? No, not even this. By hunger — shall the Truth be known? No, not even by this. For the hunger of the world will not leave you.
Neither by wealth nor by cleverness nor by great learning shall we meet the Beloved. How then to break down the wall of illusion between us and Truth?
O Nanak, it is written: One meets God only by His grace, His Hukam — His divine will. And how is this grace received? By surrender. By the stilling of the self. By letting the Beloved be the doer and releasing our claim to be the doer ourselves.
Commentary
The Japji opens with the same paradox as every great mystical teaching: all the techniques you think will get you to truth will not work. Not pilgrimage, not silence, not asceticism, not scholarship. Because all techniques are performed by the ego, and the ego cannot use itself as an instrument to transcend itself.
This is the Gita’s charama sloka in Punjabi dress: abandon all dharmas, surrender. This is the Taoist ‘subtract daily’ taken to its logical conclusion. This is what the Beatitudes point toward in ‘poor in spirit.’
Hukam, divine grace, divine order, is the breakthrough. It cannot be earned, only received. The practice is not achieving but opening. The Sufi term tawakkul means exactly this: complete trust that allows the ego to release its grip.
Themes
Connections 10
Travelled
Hinduism reached Sikhism by 1469 CE. Sikhism arose in Punjab among Hindus and Muslims. The Guru Granth includes the bhakti poets Kabir and Namdev.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Sikhism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Sikhism while these teachings took shape. Contact came under British rule in the 19th century.
Travelled
Sufism reached Sikhism by 1469 CE. The Guru Granth includes the verses of the Sufi Sheikh Farid.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Sikhism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Sikhism while these teachings took shape. Contact came under British rule in the 19th century.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Sikhism while these teachings took shape. Contact came under British rule in the 19th century.
Unsure
No documented reading of Sikhism by Alan Watts.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Buddhism and Sikhism while these teachings took shape. Buddhism had largely vanished from Punjab by Guru Nanak’s time.