Touchdown
On one of my many trips to India, my brother and I accompanied a Sardar friend on his annual visit to the Golden Temple. Our trip began at dawn as we boarded a twin propellor Bombardier Q400, while the foggy morning breeze carried the smell of kerosene and Delhi smog across the tarmac. The flight from New Delhi to Amritsar was just an hour away, which gave me time to clear my head from the wedding we just attended. We planned for a half-day trip, so we landed light with no baggage and swiftly slipped out of the airport. From Amritsar airport to Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) is a cool 10 minute drive by car but we opted for transit by auto rickshaw, to get a raw and scenic taste of Punjab. While zipping around on tuk-tuk, we covered our heads with the customary orange cloth prior to reaching the temple gate. This felt reminiscent of the Muslim head shaving practice before beginning the Umrah or Hajj pilgrimage. My friend guided us towards one of four main gates—intended to architecturally symbolize Sikhism’s openness to people from all corners of the world and all religions. Before beginning the pilgrimage rites we had to remove our shoes and wash our feet by walking through the water filled dip at the entrance of the temple walls. There was a volunteer run shoe-check system, where visitors could remove their shoes before entering the Golden Temple enclosure—just like the Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca. The mission and vision of Sikhism can be paraphrased in a few key principles; tolerance, equality, protection of the oppressed, and a giving nature towards people from all walks of life. Sikhs operate the largest volunteer community kitchen in the world — the langar — serving an average of 100,000 free vegetarian meals a day to all visitors. We see this giving theme also represented in Islam during Iftar in Ramadan.
Sikhs—like Jews and Druze—are considered an ethnoreligious group but are often misidentified in the West, specifically in America. Sikhism and its religious traditions were founded by Guru Nanak in the late 15th century in Punjab, India. Worldwide, there are more than 25 million Sikhs, making Sikhism the 5th largest and youngest religion in the world. Sikhism—like the other major Monotheistic religions—is centered in the belief of one God and may include pantheism. Sikhism also incorporates teachings that are rooted in the Vedic traditions and Sufi Islamic mysticism. If we look deeper, there are many religious similarities with cultural and language differences only.
Cultural Connections
The Abrahamic religions, are sequential. If we were to translate them into university courses: Judaism would be 101, Christianity would be 201 and Islam would be 301, since they all reference the same geotagged prophecies, cryptic syntax and moral operating system. Sikhism has many cultural connections with Hinduism and Islam, as many of the Gurus grew up in Hindu and Muslim families—under Islamic geopolitical governance. The Mool Mantar (Main Mantra) has connections to the Islamic description of Allah and the Hindu notion of Brahman. If we follow these literal connecting paths further, and compare the holy texts, we find the same concepts of mind and matter being explained in linguistically different poetic aphorisms. Eventually one reaches the deeper understanding that monotheism—in all its different religions—holds to similar ethical teachings on how to live inside ones self in alignment with the greater universal One, while not losing touch with ones outside responsibility of living a temporal life.
All uncorrupted religions adhere to the underlying principal that spiritual harmony is located in the seat of the soul—which remains grounded throughout the pendulum swings of our internal and external world shifts. It is only up to us to tap into that energy and take our rightful soul seat. The problem herein angulates around the dependence on extreme interpretations of so-called religious authorities, to define religious experience and judge holy texts based on their subjective and limited understanding—which is almost always used for population and mind control. If we return to the core of all spiritual teachings we rediscover the esoteric meaning. This effort and inner-growth can only be ascertained alone, and is nullified if we try to transfer that responsibility to manmade hierarchical psuedo-religious complexes—in claustrophobic backrooms and mossy decaying chambers. All schools of thought are trying to capture the same ultimate reality but in different tongues and cultural metaphors. It is we who distort this message with our skin-deep perceived differences and division politics.
Many theologians through the ages have charted the ship of humanity on the path of intolerance and skewed understanding. Social media has (indirectly) allowed ad hoc clerics to take advantage of the digital age and literally use their follower power to spread BS fatwas and backward ideas.
“They’ll kidnap your understanding and stab up your wisdom.” — Pharrell Williams
“A 3D printing shop in Kuwait has reportedly been shut down by authorities following pressure from an Islamist cleric.
The shop, which specialises in producing figurines that bear a life-like resemblance to real people, was accused of creating “idols” by Sheikh Othman al-Khamis.
The Kuwaiti Al-Qabas newspaper reported that the shop was closed on 16 September and the shelves cleared.
However, it did not indicate which authority approved the closure of the shop and no official statements have been made.
The incident has sparked a debate about idolatry on social media. The hashtag “idols in Kuwait” has been used more than 21,000 times to discuss the issue.
One Twitter user, used the hashtag to warn that “the danger posed by these idols is great.”
He continued: “Today these idols are mementos, but in years to come, people will seek blessings from them… and then they will be worshipped instead of God.” —Source: BBC
Aligned Spaces
Since prehistory, civilizations have always created holy sites rooted in all kinds of different creation myths, astronomical alignments and design aesthetics. One thing all these places of worship have in common is the energy of the space. To aesthetically astute minds, the spatially sensitive or creative types—that can draw inspiration by just walking through spaces—this spacial energy is obvious. To the mentally and emotionally tone-deaf, this spatial magnetism is invisible until they retune their sensory instruments.
Intuitive people do better in group related activities whether they are aware of it or not. They are said to possess the ability to ‘read the room’ or understand what is in another person’s mind—then respond appropriately. They can in other words, see intentions. Veteran negotiators and titans of business understand this language and leverage the volumes of literature written on it for personal (and corporate) gains. With this point taken in mind, we can say that it’s possible to polarize people’s intentions if we lay out some ground rules before entering certain spaces. In modern times, we do this every time we say, “don’t bring your work stress home with you.” This keeps curated comfort zones free from any kind of stress or negative vibes. In a macro sense, if thousands of people are in a space and are focused on a golden or black cube with a clear conscious, good intentions and clean bodies, it should in theory and practice be an uplifting affair. This hive single-mindedness is the collective religious experience that many report after going (or being taken) on a pilgrimage. If we recognize that people’s intentions create the energy of the space, we can hone this energy for a bigger purpose and cleanse more than our souls.
“What shall I say, O Muslims, I know not myself, I am neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor a Zoroastrian, nor a Muslim.” — Rumi
The Kaaba is the holiest shrine in Islam and where Muslims all over the world consciously and physically orient their direction while praying. Kaaba, in Arabic is derived from the root word ‘mukaab’ meaning ‘cubical’ or ‘cube’ and was built to mark the place where a hypothesized meteor was said to have struck, linking earth with the heavens. Al-Hajar Al-Aswad ‘the Black Stone’ is an Islamic relic and eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba. The Navel of the earth—as the Kaaba is known—is sealed with a 280KG golden door, made by chief artist Ahmad bin Ibrahim Badr. During the pre-Islamic polytheistic age, the Kaaba was home to 360 idols (later destroyed by prophet Muhammad in opposition to shirk) that represented regional pagan gods. These statuettes could have also stood-in as symbols of solar warship borrowed from neighboring Egypt, whose astronomers had a more sophisticated understanding of the earth’s cycles around the sun. Ramadan is observed by the Islamic lunar calendar, which is 10–11 days shorter than a solar year. To this day, the world is heavily influenced by astronomical symbolism. We find many sun, moon, crescent and star representations on national flags, such as the flags of: Argentina, Uruguay, China, Japan, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Nepal, Laos, and the Maldives.—Source: NASA Astrophysics Data Systems/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Staying Golden
“The gold in our jewelry and the uranium in our nuclear reactors are both remnants of the supernovas that occurred before our solar system was born.” — Stephen Hawking, A Briefer History of Time (2005)
Gold was considered sacred by many past civilizations and still upholds its prestigious legacy today, specifically as a universal store of value. From Egyptian pyramids to Indian temples, Saudi artisans and Swiss volts, gold is gold. An alchemist is a person with a deep understanding of metals’ chemical properties, and is mythologized to hold the secret to transform base metals into gold. Transformation is the process of changing matter into something else, ideally, something of more strength and value. People that are willing can also undergo transmutation, and change their inner consciousness to higher states of being. Those who are focused on their inner states are said to carry an illuminating shine or are considered bright or brilliant—in comparison to the untapped majority. Continuous mental reconfiguration can be energy taxing on both the mind and body but yields compound interest if one fully invests in the process. The alchemy metaphor is illusive, and if understood as literally turning copper into gold (which would be a highly profitable business model) would be missing the point entirely. Reaching the golden apex is a work-hardened struggle and staying golden is a full-time job.
“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” — Leo Tolstoy
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