By I.J. Singh - Not so long ago was Ash Wednesday, when many Roman Catholics were seen with ashes on their foreheads. It marks the beginning of Lent – a period of 40 days to be devoted to fasting, prayer and reflection. Homilies at churches exhorted their followers towards these ends. But this year, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles put a challenging twist on it.

The cardinal took aim at H.R. 4437, a bill already passed by the House and currently under consideration by the Senate, that seeks to expand the definition of “alien smuggling.” This bill could be interpreted to include apparently harmless actions like offering a place to stay, allowing an illegal alien to work in a soup kitchen, run an errand for a friend or shovel snow from your driveway.

Cardinal Mahony said, “As his (Christ’s) disciples, we are called to attend to the last, littlest, lowest and least in society and in the Church.” If Congress makes it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, the cardinal continued, he would instruct the faithful to defy the law. To do otherwise, the Church would become an arm of the immigration police, even though for many illegal immigrants, Catholic charities remain the primary means of survival.

The point here is not that defiance of the law is a noble goal. It is that God is to be seen in creation, particularly in the poor, the tired, the sick and the homeless. They are the most in need of grace, care, compassion and help. If God works through creation, He/She would have to be sought through service to creation.

When we Sikhs claim that one of the philosophic pillars of Sikhism is sharing the rewards of life with fellow humans, it is rightly understood to mean feeding the homeless and assistance to those who most need it. It does not mean sharing with those who are your peers in worldly success by throwing a bash as mad or luxurious as the crowd you run with.

A chapter from the life of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, is instructive. A parable says that as a young man, he was given some money by his father and sent to profit from a suitable business with it. He came back with empty pockets, but considerable satisfaction that he had used the funds to buy sustenance for the needy. Similarly, 300 years ago when, during war a Sikh, Ghanayya, was seen treating the injured irrespective of the fact that some were adversaries, Sikh soldiers complained to Guru Gobind Singh that Ghanayya was aiding and abetting the enemy. Ghanayya responded that in an injured man he saw not an enemy but the face of the Guru. The Guru commended him. A line often attributed to Guru Gobind Singh declaims, “Garib kaa moo(n) Guru ki Golak.” Loosely translated, it says the treasury (riches) of the Guru lies in the feeding of the hungry. To paraphrase it, if you wish to contribute to the Guru’s exchequer, feed the hungry and help the needy.

When the sixth Guru, Hargobind, donned two swords at his investiture, one represented spirituality, the other stood for temporal responsibilities. This is how we define the doctrine of Meeri-Peeri. What it says to me is that humans need to remain cognizant of both aspects of their being. Stay faithful to your values and remain in touch with the spiritual awareness of the Infinite that pervades us all, and continually cultivate that universal connectivity through your temporal responsibilities. Spirituality is best demonstrated through and alongside secular, worldly concerns. The religious path is a way of life. That is why one of the three cardinal principles of Sikhi is sharing the rewards of life with our fellow humans. Accordingly, Guru Nanak teaches (vicch duniya sev kamayae taa(n) dargeh baisan paayae) that we attain a place in the house of the Lord through service in this world.

I know that religious preaching universally emphasizes spiritual discipline, but in the process, often the earthly reality of human beings gets diminished. The principle of Meeri-Peeri says that the two are equally important and inseparably intertwined.

Other religions, too, recognize the enmeshing of spirituality and social justice, as in Meeri-Peeri. The Jewish Star of David consists of two intersecting triangles – one pointing above to heaven, the other down to the earth below; it signifies “As above, as below.” I read similar meaning in the Christian “Lord’s Prayer” that says, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” Bishop Desmond Tutu’s campaign for racial justice in South Africa and Martin Luther King’s comparable struggle for it in the United States stem from the same ideas that define Meeri-Peeri.

Cardinal Mahony’s sermon was totally consistent with the Sikh view. Of course, life is never so simple. One only has to talk to an Indian taxi driver on the streets of New York or visit any gurdwara within the city to encounter many Sikhs who exist at the fringes of society, at the mercy of its regressive immigration laws. In facing matters of bare subsistence and survival, they cannot afford to explore the flexibility that a cumbersome law may provide. Gurdwaras historically have been havens of security for the insecure, refuges for the homeless, places to rest one’s weary bones and to feed the hungry.

Sikh teaching may be centuries old, but its principles are as current as today’s headlines. Can Sikhs feel or do any differently from what Cardinal Mahony suggests? But that course of action might open a legal quagmire that an immigrant community like Sikhs can ill-afford. What I would like to see are sermons and discussions in gurdwaras about such matters. Let’s connect the dots between our precept and our practice, between the doctrine and our lives. I would like to see our granthees and preachers take such matters head-on in their sermons, which often tend to be entirely unworldly.

A dichotomy between the spiritual and the temporal realms is false and can only create a schizoid sense of self.


Note: The author, Inder Jit Singh, is Professor of Anatomy at New York University. He is on the editorial advisory board of the periodical 'The Sikh Review,' Calcutta. I.J. Singh is also the author of three books - 'Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias,' 'The Sikhs Way: A Pilgrims Progress' and 'Being And Becoming A Sikh.' The author is also releasing a new book in Toronto within a few months.

Image courtesy www.indybay.org.