Your reaction at the insult of Mother India is understandable and many of us share it. But we should be clear that these so-called khalistanis have nothing to do with Sikhi and the great gurus. They are forces of falsehood playing in the hands of anti Bharat forces. They want Hindus and Sikhs to fight but fortunately there is enough sanity on both sides and too much of inner closeness between Sikhism and Hinduism for this division to succeed. Outwardly it is clearly the same old game staged by our erstwhile neighbours and their sympathising Western powers trying to hurt India. But this is never going to work out. We have to be careful not to be caught in their web of hate.
More impersonally, what we are witnessing in the Sikh religion is something similar to what started in Christianity and Islam a few centuries back. It is the invariable fate of sects, cults and religions that when the founder departs the movement finds it difficult to sustain itself unless realised beings continue to arise and give a fresh impetus to the teaching. After all a religious movement cannot survive long if its spirit is not given a new body and there are no new souls come in to carry something of the original fire. When the spirit of the religion departs then all kinds of asuric forces rush in to occupy its throne which is like an empty glistening shell. The three characteristic sign of these forces of falsehood occupying what once was a seat for some divine being is the entry of politics and money into it turning it into a business venture or a means to control masses of humanity. Initially it seems to succeed because the entry of these two forces of falsehood swells the number but the spirit gets diluted in inverse proportion to the numbers. Finally the spirit departs completely and the movement collapses under its own weight. Before collapsing the bubble shines like a dying star so to say. Sri Aurobindo observes.
‘For the way that humanity deals with an ideal is to be satisfied with it as an aspiration which is for the most part left only as an aspiration, accepted only as a partial influence. The ideal is not allowed to mould the whole life, but only more or less to colour it; it is often used even as a cover and a plea for things that are diametrically opposed to its real spirit. Institutions are created which are supposed, but too lightly supposed to embody that spirit and the fact that the ideal is held, the fact that men live under its institutions is treated as sufficient. The holding of an ideal becomes almost an excuse for not living according to the ideal; the existence of its institutions is sufficient to abrogate the need of insisting on the spirit that made the institutions. But spirituality is in its very nature a thing subjective and not mechanical; it is nothing if it is not lived inwardly and if the outward life does not flow out of this inward living. Symbols, types, conventions, ideas are not sufficient. A spiritual symbol is only a meaningless ticket, unless the thing symbolised is realised in the spirit. A spiritual convention may lose or expel its spirit and become a falsehood. A spiritual type may be a temporary mould into which spiritual living may flow, but it is also a limitation and may become a prison in which it fossilises and perishes. A spiritual idea is a power, but only when it is both inwardly and outwardly creative.’
In fact a religion becomes a mass movement through propaganda, popularising stories of miracles while subordinating the spiritual growth so as to attract the average unthinking man. In the absence of truly realised persons it tries to exercise control through the book and the sword, rewarding the faithful while punishing and threatening those who do not subscribe to its rigid doctrines. To expand its bases it actively engages in conversion which then becomes a vote bank of unthinking masses swaying democracies. Either by force as in theocracies or by swaying votes in democracies religions try to keep their hold on the masses for maintaining power. They succeed because the average person is more interested in sharing the power and wealth rather than in God or realising the profound truths contained within it. The outer success of a religious movement thereby becomes the very cause of its inner failure.
This is what happened to and is happening to all major religions of the world in different degrees. If Hinduism escaped it, it is only because of the multiplicity of approaches keeping the channels open for the deeper spiritual life for those who wanted to, through the living tradition of guru and the inclusivity of number of Scriptures. In short the Yoga was never lost through which the truths could be realised. The outer body also kept sufficient plasticity to accommodate change and evolve with time. Christianity lost the yoga long back and much of humanity in the Christian world chose to evolve along the lines of rational scientific way of life. Islam lost the yoga as the sufis died and with little scope of evolution and change is collapsing fast. The fate of Sikhism is hanging in the balance. Being born on the Indian soil and drawing its breath from the Sanatana Dharma it has kept the yoga so far through some sects and cults. Hopefully a natural corrective will take place through an internal change, a turning of Sikhs towards the original teaching of the gurus and staying away from politics and money, the two greatest corrupting influences. If it does not it will go the Islam way wherein the world at large is beginning to look at the religion more for its nuisance value than any other.
As for us we must remember what the Mother said that the Age of Religions is over. Our focus therefore should be on the ongoing spiritual evolution. The more we do that, the more this dated past will be left behind, drop out and collapse as an inevitable evolutionary fallout. At a practical level the Time Spirit will create instruments to push back these forces of falsehood that rise in full swing before dying.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
