The Tale Of Nand Singh:
The Sri Gur Pur Prakash, a collectivist anthology of ancient manuscripts inherited by the descendants of the second Guru, documents the tale of devout Sikh Nand Singh. In circa 1699 Nand Singh’s parents bring him to the Anandpur court petitioning the tenth Guru to intervene in their familial dispute and make Nand Singh see sense. The Guru inquires what the issue is and is informed that their only son Nand Singh wants to become an ascetic and renounce the world.
The Guru orders Nand Singh to explain his choice. The youth hesitatingly replies that due to his birth in a Sikh household and his undergoing of the Khalsa initiation, he has submerged himself in the words of the Guru Granth and observed the world around him. Because Gurbani elucidates that the family does not accompany one after death and the householder struggles for their daily bread, he has decided to avoid the householder’s life.
The Guru laughs and then advises the entire congregation to listen to his discourse. Nand Singh is correct about the householder’s struggles and indeed, the world can be bifurcated between the realms of the ascetic and the householder. The ascetic is a beggar, the householder a worker. But while the ascetic feigns responsibility in the name of righteousness, the householder’s responsibilities for themselves and their offspring are true righteousness.
Ascetics shun the existent world for the next that they have no ability to substantiate to themselves or others. The householders impart moral values to their offspring and besides feeding themselves, feed others within society. The householder matrix is a facsimile of the Creator having been designed so by the latter. It produces the upholders of morality and righteousness sharing in the responsibility of their Maker in furthering Creation.
The Guru summarises his discourse with the tale of an ascetic and a householder. Both are traveling companions and are compelled to seek shelter within a brothel for the night. The ascetic in his religious robes is venerated as a living God by the prostitutes and their clients who listen to his religious sermons before indulging in their indecency drowning as they are within their baseness. The householder is dismissively directed to the sleeping quarters.
As the night deepens, the householder remembers his wife and remains faithful to her by ignoring the indecency around him. The ascetic having sexually starved himself in the name of false religiosity silently creeps out of his room and goes to savour the worshipful whores. At daybreak, the ascetic is found nude having forfeited his dignity and sullied his reputation by his own hand. The householder, meanwhile, goes on his way having earned honor for his self-restraint.
The illogical sexual abstinence of the ascetic witnessed him finally succumb to his own base desires corrupting his reputation as his whole spiritual adherence was false. The householder having fathered children was conversant with sex and its implications. Whilst for the ascetic it was but an act, for the householder it was a responsibility. The Creator had the greatest responsibility, the householder the second greatest. The true ascetic was the householder rejecting temptation.
Nand Singh bowed to the Guru signalling that he understood the Guru’s words. He was further commanded by the Guru to learn to properly read and comprehend Gurbani within context and not while being influenced by any externalities. He apologised to his parents for causing them grief as they too desired the continuity of their bloodline through him. Saluting the Guru, he journeyed into posterity with his tale recorded in the Sri Gur Pur Prakash.
Asceticism:
The development of asceticism was the culmination of a prolonged clash between reason and revelation. The ancient world, in all its glory, resolutely grappled with the issue of pleasure with many eminent philosophers and sophists proposing that the seeking of pleasure in moderation was not a sin but a divine privilege. The sage Epicurus would describe his ideal state, ataraxia, as an enlightened pursuit of pleasure within limit; a pleasure accompanied by responsibility.
“When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.”
-Epicurus.
This sentiment was echoed by the Stoic Seneca who identified reason with discipline,
“If, however, you seek pleasures of all kinds in all directions, you must know that you are as far short of wisdom as you are short of joy. Joy is the goal which you desire to reach, but you are wandering from the path if you expect to reach your goal while you are in the midst of riches and official titles-in other words, if you seek joy in the midst of cares, these objects for which you strive so eagerly, as if they would give you happiness and pleasure, are merely causes of grief. None but the brave, the just, the self-restrained, can rejoice.”
-Seneca, Discourses to Nero.
The Epicurean and Seneca’s Stoic schools of thought unanimously furnish that mortals must reconcile themselves to the eventuality of suffering while limiting their desire for pleasures to avoid unnecessary suffering. There is unavoidable suffering that can be dispelled when one relinquishes their ignorance and then there is excessive suffering invited via the pursuit of ambition but done so unethically. This last form of suffering should be avoid through discipline.
The Revelatory Paradigm:
The ancient world furnished the pursuit of pleasure within reason. Pleasure was the absence of evil and not hedonism as hedonism necessitates uninvited suffering. But the distinction between what can be called necessary suffering and unnecessary suffering is as vague as the dissimilarity between the strong and the weak. The strong weather life’s burdens and travails on their own terms knowing that there is no next world but this and man is the maker of his own liberation.
The weak are unable to weather their own burdens. That is why the more enterprising among them invented the revelatory God, the fount of strength for the weak who themselves are too apathetic to fight their own battles. But their inability to actually make this world better witnesses them rely on the hollow notions of the weak inheriting this world not in this life but the next. Their God pledges to comfort and reconcile them in the hereafter but not in the now.
It is no great coincidence that the notion of a God supernaturally providing solely for the weak was born with the Jews during their Egyptian internment. The inability of the Romans to preserve their culture and religion of strength witnessed the widespread promulgation of Christianity among their slaves when it failed to spread in Palestine. But the mighty defender that is this God only aids in a Quid pro quo relationship and his payment is sacrifice.
And what is this sacrifice? For eternal joy in the hereafter, its adherents are required to undergo self-imposed suffering to cleanse themselves of some original sin (Abrahamic faiths) or past Karmic transgressions (Sanataanism). The harsher the suffering in the here and now, the glorious the reward in the after. And how best to increase this reward other than to suffer for it now? The greater the suffering, the greater the reward and only an ascetic can undergo such pain.
The Christ’s Suffering:
A discussion on asceticism will not be complete without referencing Christianity, the harbinger of western asceticism. While asceticism is an universal phenomena, the Christian mode of asceticism is particularly sadistic. Bereft of reason and relying on revelation, Saint Gregory the self-declared Wonderworker argues:
“Whence come famines and tornadoes and hailstorms, our present warning blow? Whence pestilences, diseases, earthquakes, tidal waves, and fearful things in the heavens? And how is the creation, once ordered for the enjoyment of men, their common and equal delight, changed for the punishment of the ungodly… What is our calamity, and what its cause? Is it a test of virtue or a touchstone of wickedness?”
-Saint Gregory.
The Christ supposedly died for the sins of his believers for three consecutive days. The ludicrousness of the entire myth would be laughable if not for the fact it has fooled millions into believing that they too will be resurrected like their self-proclaimed Lord and liberator. The reformist Martin Luther clarifies,
“Christ by his suffering not only saved us from the devil, death, and sin, but also that his suffering is an example, which we are to follow in our suffering…We should suffer after Christ, that we may be conformed to him.”
-Martin Luther.
The Christian ascetics outperformed the Sanataan ascetics in their self-mortification specifically flagellating the sexual organs to express disdain for the householder’s sinful and temptation filled life. After all, the raising of a family necessitates sex, engaged in with the organs. The rise of this practice coincided with the outbreak of the plague in Europe. Rather, than focus on discovering a cure the Christian powers concentrated on whipping their backs and genitals.
The west, as aforementioned, was not free from asceticism either with practices often seemingly overlapping despite the variances in belief.
Beyond Asceticism:
Saint Paul emphasizes that true Christians mortify themselves, similarly the subcontinental Sufis and Santaan ascetics developed their own mortification practices. A literary analysis of all global ascetic traditions shows that they consider the human body a lock confining their spirits. By self-torture, they aim to liberate the spirit from this lock. Simeon Stylites, the Christian, climbed upon a flat tower with a rope tied around his waist and stayed for 37 years.
“His body became infected because of the weight and roughness of the rope, which was cutting him to the bone. It buried itself into his flesh, and soon became apparent. For one day the brothers went out and caught him…They came back in and told the abbot…“and there is a most horrible stink coming from his body which is more than anyone can bear. Maggots fall off him as he walks along. His bed is full off maggots.”
-Antonius, The Life of Saint Simeon Stylites.
Among the subcontinental Sufis, the tradition of chillah-i-makus took root whose most prominent practitioner was the notable Farid Ganjshakar. To obtain spiritual ecstasy, Ganjshakar and his associates would hang themselves upside down in wells for forty days and nights chanting terms thought to have esoteric powers. Besides rejecting the familial life and its obligations, these ascetics also violated their divinely-blessed bodies mistakenly believing they would obtain liberation.
As the history of asceticism and its various philosophies elaborate, any form of pleasure is a sin as pleasure distracts from the divine. Pleasures accompanied by obligations and responsibilities are denigrated as hedonism to conceal the ascetic’s own inability to confront life’s challenges and overcome them by themselves. Bodily torture prevents the continued mental torture of providing for oneself and others. At its most basic level, even self-hygiene must be renounced.
The Sikh Stance:
The ancient hagiographies cite that Guru Nanak instructed his Sikhs to retain unshorn hair and keep a comb within them. They were to twice daily comb their hairs and retie their turbans. The same injunction was immortalised by Guru Gobind Singh in 1698 when he made it mandatory for the Khalsa to continue this tradition uninterrupted for all time to come. The comb signified hygiene symbolising the Khalsa’s commitment to self-cleanliness and its anti-ascetic stance.
What of pleasure though? Is the Khalsa to renounce pleasure altogether similar to the ascetic or moderate its pursuit while avoiding hedonism akin to the ancients?
ਬਦਫੈਲੀ ਗੈਬਾਨਾ ਖਸਮੁ ਨ ਜਾਣਈ ॥
ਸੋ ਕਹੀਐ ਦੇਵਾਨਾ ਆਪੁ ਨ ਪਛਾਣਈ ॥
ਕਲਹਿ ਬੁਰੀ ਸੰਸਾਰਿ ਵਾਦੇ ਖਪੀਐ ॥
ਵਿਣੁ ਨਾਵੈ ਵੇਕਾਰਿ ਭਰਮੇ ਪਚੀਐ ॥
ਰਾਹ ਦੋਵੈ ਇਕੁ ਜਾਣੈ ਸੋਈ ਸਿਝਸੀ ॥
“The ignorant rogue does not acknowledge his Maker. The fool is the one who does not recognise himself. Enmeshed in the world’s evil strife they suffer ceaselessly. Without the divine wisdom, the sinful wanderings are not destroyed. There are two paths, the one who acknowledges them as being one is truly liberated.”
-Guru Granth, 142.
The two paths in question are the worldly corporeal path and the incorporeal mystical path. The Khalsa is one who unites both. The worldly path of life with the mystical path of Gurmat (enlightenment); the pleasures of the world are not to be made the aim of life but nor are they to be forsaken though they have their own requirements. Consider the act of sex, necessary for procreation while providing pleasure. But addiction to sexual pleasure is noxious.
In the Sikh purview, there are certain pleasures in life that must be enjoyed for the mental and physical upkeep of the self. Yet becoming addicted to these pleasures proves counterproductive, blinding one to the ephemeralness of their life.
ਗੁਰ ਕਾ ਸਬਦੁ ਰਿਦ ਅੰਤਰਿ ਧਾਰੈ ॥
ਪੰਚ ਜਨਾ ਸਿਉ ਸੰਗੁ ਨਿਵਾਰੈ ॥
ਦਸ ਇੰਦ੍ਰੀ ਕਰਿ ਰਾਖੈ ਵਾਸਿ ॥
ਤਾ ਕੈ ਆਤਮੈ ਹੋਇ ਪਰਗਾਸੁ ॥੧॥
ਐਸੀ ਦ੍ਰਿੜਤਾ ਤਾ ਕੈ ਹੋਇ ॥
ਜਾ ਕਉ ਦਇਆ ਮਇਆ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਸੋਇ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
“Those who entrench the (Guru’s) divine words within themselves. They finish off the five foes from their Being and restrain their ten organs. It is within the souls of such Beings that the divine light illuminates. Only those (mortals) can persevere thus, on who their Maker showers mercy and pity.”
-Guru Granth, 236.
The Sikh is required to restrain their base self from overindulging in pleasure and weakening themselves. There is also an additional caveat here. Pleasure cannot be defined by the world. Let us consider the example of alcohol. While imbibement is seen as being a pleasure and arguments made for allowance under moderation, Gurbani emphatically advises:
ਸੁਆਦ ਲੁਭਤ ਇੰਦ੍ਰੀ ਰਸ ਪ੍ਰੇਰਿਓ ਮਦ ਰਸ ਲੈਤ ਬਿਕਾਰਿਓ ਰੇ ॥
“Individuals who thirst after the pleasures of the organs and (addictive) substances are evil.”
-Guru Granth, 333.
The world must not be allowed to define what is pleasure and the resultant hedonism as its definitions are subject to change at the whims of the imperfect masses. Rather it is the Hukam or the divine reality that should be the yardstick to to decide what is right or wrong. How does one integrate with this Hukam?
ਲਾਲੇ ਗੋਲੇ ਮਤਿ ਖਰੀ ਗੁਰ ਕੀ ਮਤਿ ਨੀਕੀ ॥
ਸਾਚੀ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਸੁਹਾਵਣੀ ਮਨਮੁਖ ਮਤਿ ਫੀਕੀ ॥
ਮਨੁ ਤਨੁ ਤੇਰਾ ਤੂ ਪ੍ਰਭੂ ਸਚੁ ਧੀਰਕ ਧੁਰ ਕੀ ॥੪॥
“The slave’s intellect is true for their Guru’s intellect is pure. The true consciousness is supreme while the base minded ones’ intellect is untrue. The mind and body belongs to your Master, the truth is my only consolation.”
-Guru Granth, 1010.
Conclusion:
Asceticism is not the path to true righteousness. Nor is it innately divine. True asceticism is against vice. There is no virtue in renouncing the world and the necessary pleasures of life. Just as the Guru forewarned young Nand Singh with the fable of the ascetic and the householder, similarly the ancient Greeks retained their own fables rooted in their belief that householders were less irascible having enjoyed the pleasures of life. Pleasure is to be sought in moderation.
This is the Householder’s path.
Does sikhism say that physical reality is an illusion
Great article