It is a curious aspect of the human condition that a single object should delight one and distresses another. Consider two reasonably intelligent people seated in a modern laboratory well-equipped with all manner of measuring instruments, a plate of bitter gourd between them. With little difficulty, would they not secure ready agreement on such particulars as the dish’s weight and temperature? Were they permitted access to an online marketplace, might they not concur even on its local monetary value? Yet exchange their thermometers and smartphones for two spoons, asking them if the bitter gourd is good to eat, and vehement disagreement may well break out—notwithstanding their consensus on the dish’s physical and economic properties.
The prevalent epistemic regime precludes the outbreak of general consternation; surely even a grade school graduate could separate subjective from objective statements. An undergraduate might further distinguish facts grounded in observable reality from normative value judgements, perhaps relegating the latter to the status of idiosyncratic opinion. Yet as we progress from vegetables to sonatas—and from matters of taste to questions of state, let alone justice or ultimate meaning—differences in private judgement become increasingly salient to our social existence. For Aristotle, a shared understanding of the praiseworthy and blameworthy is so central as to be in no small measure constitutive of the political community. Despite the putative agnosticism of liberal democracies as to questions of the highest good, the perdurance of fierce contestation on such oldfangled fronts—and the discord this occasions—suggests the inescapable relevance of such questions to political life as such.
The reckless brutality of contemporary partisanship is at least partially a function of the dominant epistemic outlook. Abandoning the quest for order capable of inspiring rational assent, is it any surprise our politics descends into the predatory imposition of vying wills? And if the disease of one lopsided passion supplanting another is so advanced as to be visible in the body politic, might not this, in turn, betoken like crisis within the individual citizens? Notably, if across our particular maladies—whatever our self-diagnoses—we can agree that we are not well, this itself provides a common ground for tallying human judgements and testing various remedies. Honest reflection on one’s own condition thus furnishes a rich wellspring of data for taking stock of the sort of life one is living.
Significantly, flourishing no less than its privation may serve for the collation of private judgements. Human excellence of the kind Gurū Nanak and his successors epitomized blazed a path worthy of perennial emulation, whereby the realization of harmony within redounds to the attainment of harmony without. It is a hallmark of this remarkable state not only that no external circumstance may plunder one’s inner peace, but also that the enjoyment of such unassailable peace does not diminish one’s commitment to fighting for justice in this world. Indeed, actions taken from an inner refuge of unshakable fortitude are more likely to yield victory than those originating in vacillating dread and desire.
The lives and holy songs of the Gurū-s attest to the extraordinary moral freedom our interiority is capable of affording us. Contemplate how Gurū Arjan sang of the ‘sweetness’ of the One’s will as he was being martyred and how his great-grandson, Gurū Gobind Singh, penned his celebrated ‘Epistle of Victory’ affirming the One’s justice amidst unfathomable personal and strategic tribulations. It is noteworthy not only that such dauntlessness in adversity is distant from common experience, but also that it is the sort of uncommon difference that ennobles. Plato’s Socrates and the Gurū-s are here in accord; suffering injustice does not injure the soul. When we are blessed with the strength to affirm the One’s hukamu or will in loving gratitude, we are, indeed, best positioned to gain knowledge throughout all of life’s experiences.
Thus Bāṇī and GurSikh history enrich and elevate our sense of possibility, equipping us with the inner resources to navigate life with the grace and dignity befitting the divine potential in our nature. GurSikhī did not spread through the sword or missionary apologetics, but from the charismatic radiance of the Gurū-s’ realization. Gurbāṇī teaches in so many ways that perfect union with the perfect One is of all things the best and the sole criterion for our ultimate happiness. Though one may possess all the world’s external blessings, there can be no lasting satisfaction absent this blessing; so long as one belongs to the One, there is nothing to fear from external misfortune and fortune alike. The GurSikh is one who recognizes the Gurū-’s wondrous condition of Oneness as supremely choiceworthy and seeks to taste of this very state. All injunctions and prohibitions seek this wondrous end, habituating us by outer acts to cultivate inner dispositions or freeing us from the clutches of behaviors that give rise to counterproductive impulses.
While the GurSikh understands that nothing in all creation is capable of sating our ultimate yearning for the Creator, we are not to be insensible of the Creator’s wondrous handiwork. Dazzling as the wealth, fame, power, health, beauty, and intelligence we encounter in the world can be, one must not forget such qualities exist at the pleasure and through the power of the self-existent Creator. The presence or privation of such external goods—and even of particular virtues in oneself and others—creates both dangers and opportunities for the emergence of the further virtues of fortune and adversity, sparing one from temptations arising from the former and ennobling one amidst the latter. Humility, for instance, cannot exist absent the possession of some excellence. It is a saying ‘nevertheless,’ pointing beyond itself at what transcends it, thus adorning the initial excellence and averting fatal pride. Courage—on the other hand—cannot manifest where there is no reason for fear, as absent some frailty, there exists no occasion for mercy.
Each moment in this world presents an opportunity to become more or less oneself. It is a remarkable property of human consciousness that different minds should be able to respond so differently to the same stimuli, and of human cultures, that we may nonetheless gain adequate understanding of others so as to live together to our mutual benefit. It is worth reflecting upon what one’s bearing seeks in another, for the states one predicates create and foreclose openings for what another may seek in one. Our choices more generally reveal the possibilities latent in our common humanity, our respective understandings in each moment of what life is all about, and the sufficiency of these to realizing the soul’s criterion.
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Nihal Singh