Following the martyrdom of Gurū Arjan in 1606, Gurū Hargobind ascended to the throne of Gurū Nanak, famously donning the swords of mīrī and pīrī at his coronation. The twin swords respectively symbolize temporal and spiritual sovereignty. Employing a sword to represent each indicates their shared nature as forms of sovereignty, while the fact of there being two distinct swords underscores the irreducible necessity of each aspect. Without temporal power, spiritual authority cannot defend itself or the helpless from tyranny. Absent sovereignty within, worldly sovereignty is short-lived and of little benefit while it lasts.
Maintaining spiritual integrity is a challenge in every age. The ideologies, advertisements, misinformation, and propaganda circulating in the public sphere—further exacerbated by the recrudescence of armed conflict in Europe—seek to manipulate our emotions and choices without regard for our personal or political wellbeing. Especially when forces in our culture fan the flames of tribalism, reclaiming our mental independence is a moral imperative. As GurSikhs, the riches of our history and the living wisdom of Sabad-Gurū equip us with ample inspiration and guidance for confronting threats to our spiritual sovereignty.
Underlying the sākhī-s from the life of Gurū Nanak is an uncompromising rejection of hypocrisy, discrimination, superstition, and idolatry. We deform our nature any time we fail to be honest with ourselves and the world or to see other humans as individuals. Serving any master save the One fragments the self. Gurū Nanak teaches us to live reflectively. It is as much a GurSikh’s responsibility to critically examine his or her own soul as it is to examine the operation of societal institutions. Our hopes, fears, desires, and actions reveal our apprehension of reality. Honestly assessing the limitations of our present condition is requisite for realizing the wondrous state of the Gurū-s’ witness.
The poverty of contemporary Sikh discourse exposes a corresponding lack of intellectual sovereignty among its participants. Tired invective and a lack of measure are prevalent within the general society; what benefit is the glorious nuance of our forebears if we do not profit from their example? Having all but lost the substantive essence of the Gurū-s’ teaching collectively, we too easily fall prey to the corrosive relativism besetting the west. Peace does not arise from abandoning the conviction that absolute truth exists, but from affording those one disagrees with freedom of conscience as we all labor to improve our imperfect understandings.
One who endeavors to cultivate intellectual sovereignty must assume humility before life’s wondrous multiplicity. Boredom is a moral failure since all experiences are seeds for spiritual insight. The task of the intellect is to discern order in the dizzying variety of existence. While each human must begin this quest anew, we may profit from the theoretical accomplishments of our predecessors. Works of genuine philosophers are to be given priority over the commentaries of even their most learned students. The positions of the genuine philosophers constitute the trans-generational horizon of thought. Garnished crumbs from the philosophers’ table are traded in the marketplace of ideas.
Granting that contemporary writers are often more accessible, might not our ease in reading them be inversely proportional to their potential value? Our contemporaries share our prejudices after all. The most lucid are undoubtedly helpful as we strive to familiarize ourselves with the contemporary discursive landscape and think through the entailments of the regnant positions. Yet few experiences are as potentially illuminating as encountering the ideas of a thinker of the first quality arguing from highly unfamiliar premises. The rational faculty is strengthened by the slow and painstaking activity of reconstructing the mental edifice of a great mind.
Achieving genuine perplexity is no mean feat. The sort of earned perplexity I have in mind requires tenacity and careful thought. Distilled confusion entails reflective awareness of a contradiction, which in turn requires elucidation of the contradictory premises. The solution is the resolution of a puzzle. In the midst of confusion, the correct answer brings order. If one understands an answer, one can see why it fits, why it must be so. An answer that is not correct is not fully an answer. It may be an answer in form, but not in substance.
Intellectual sovereignty requires understanding the world at the level of first principles. These need not be—they scarcely could be—wholly of one’s own invention. What is necessary in building upon the accomplishments of a great tradition is a fully clarified understanding of all the ideas one borrows and their grounding. On the basis of these, the aim is to construct explanatory theories about oneself and the world that account for the past and accurately predict future events. Besides religious and philosophical texts, historical and literary works furnish invaluable data for refining our interpretation of reality.
In its truest sense, intellectual sovereignty transcends the building of predictive models. Genuine intellectual sovereignty entails the recognition of divine sovereignty, thus attaining to pīrī, the essence of spiritual sovereignty. Alienated from the One’s loving embrace, we humans are remarkably bad at choosing what is good for us. Without adequate knowledge of goodness, whatever power we may acquire over the natural world is at best ambiguous, since we do not know if we benefit or harm ourselves by its exercise. Worldly power grows tyrannical absent inner sovereignty. It is by walking in the will of our Master alone that we attain self-mastery.
Sabad-Gurū cultivates self-reflection within the GurSikh. Many Sabad-s directly address the mind. Singing the Gurū’s holy word, there emerges sufficient respite from the inner cacophony to assess the soul’s condition. Identifying a treacherous chasm between our state and the extraordinary peace of the Gurū-s’ song, we come to perceive our excruciating separation from our Maker. Though our insatiable longing is for the Creator, we seek comfort in created things in our folly. By the Gurū’s grace, we learn to lovingly contemplate the One—who in reality is ever with us—and in singing of the divine virtues, we are exalted to participation in the divine nature.
Spiritual sovereignty demands independence from the world’s folly, not loneliness. Reject untruth wherever it appears, and so assent to truth wherever one may find it. Count oneself fortunate if one finds any fellow seekers on the path to the One. Beseech the saintly to sing of their journey in the oasis of such company. Extend charity to oneself and others alike, renouncing the pride of castigating yesterday’s ignorance. Would one so harshly berate a younger sibling? Gratitude is due for the grace of dawning wisdom. Finally, understand that while there is no more serious task, it always helps to maintain a sense of humor regarding the human condition.
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Nihal Singh