SGGS Confeence 2017

1. HUKAM
WHAT IT IS & WHAT IT AIN’T?
I.J. SINGH
ijsingh99@gmail.com
2017

2. HUKAM A defining expression in Sikhi & in pretty much all religions?
Hukam by Hew McLeod, in Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, v 2, Punjabi
University, 1996.
Hukam Arabic for Order or Command. In English, Order has two
connotations: Directive or edict, also systematic organization, as opposed
to random disorder.
Hukam in Sikhi embraces both concepts

3. DEFINITION
In popular usage, Hukam implies micromanagement by
the Creator – that nothing happens without divine, precise
control over all creation.

4. SOME QUESTIONS
Is the Creator a micromanager?
What is my responsibility?
Is anything my doing at all?
Responsibility for wrongs that I may commit or contemplate?
Wouldn’t a micromanaging Creator become a free-pass-out-of-jail card?
Is our relationship with the Creator a bartering system – entirely
transactional? Can we negotiate?

5. HOW SIKHI DEFINES HUKUM?
Ideas of Hukum: Page 1: How is Truth to be attained – veil of
falsehood torn asunder (“Kiv sachiara hoyiyae kiv koorae thutae
paal”)
Guru Nanak’s Response: By walking the Way of Hukam
(“Hukum rajai chalnaa Nanak likhyaa naal.”).
2nd Pauri of Japji Sahib for attributes
Hukmae under sabh ko,; baahar hukm na koye

6. SOME FEATURES OF HUKUM & CREATION
All existence is the visible expression of Hukam.
Nothing exists outside Hukam.
Laws of cause and effect are an aspect of Hukam.
The Creator in his fullness is beyond human comprehension, so too, is
Hukam that cannot be fully elaborated.
Thus, Hukam gathers into a single principle all of the Creator’s
activity.

7. THE ISSUE OF FREE WILL
“As you sow so shall you reap (“aapay beej aapay hee
khaahu” Guru Granth p. 4.
Live well and joyfully by your own honest efforts
(“Uddam karendia(n) jio too” Guru Granth p. 522.
Resolve your own affairs/needs by your own efforts
(“aapan hathee aapnaa aapay hee kaaj savareeyae.”
Guru Granth p. 473.

8. THE ADVICE
Rue not the results, nor lose the self in pride and pelf.
To live another day through defeat or triumph.
The goal: to make honest choices. Accept cheerfully what life
offers.
Engage with the present to experience Hukam.

9. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT?
Punjabi and related Indic languages: Same word for both tomorrow (the
future) and yesterday (the past) – kull.
An imaginary past or pining for an unknown rosier future; the present
is lost between these enduring passions. Our existence between utopia
and dystopia.
How to redirect the mind? In Thailand, Buddhist monks meditate on
human corpses to come to terms with the transitory nature of puny, but
not pointless, existence, of life.

10. THE PROCESS
Paradigm shifts only when we accept that what will be will be
Whatever happens is never in the realm of the impossible.
Parse possible & probable. So why worry when anything
happens (Guru Granth: “Chinta ta ki keejiyae jo anhoni hoye”
p. 1426).

11. PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE REDEFINED
We are creatures of one single breath only -- “Hum aadmi hae(n) ik
dami…. (Guru Granth p. 660)
Only the breath we are in defines the present; that alone is life.
The breath that preceded it is already in the past; the breath yet to
be taken is the future, never certain, never guaranteed.
Hukam” or divine will that pervades Sikh teaching means exactly
that — living fully and productively in the moment.
Our existence remains limited to the one breath in the present
moment of time

12. AADMI?
Admi for a human in Punjabi:
1. Dum means breath
2. Aa stands for for an invitation “to come.” Also for the
first primal number, One
Admi speaks of a creature of one breath — the singular reality
of a single breath.
Are the Biblical “Adam and the Punjabi Admi related terms that
come to us from shared linguistic and philosophic antecedents?

13. THE WAY? I
Briefly Hukam asks us to stop worrying and start living. Lemon
Realignment of our lives -- alive to the reality of the moment that
stands between life and death.
Developing a relationship of deep trust with the unknown, the
unseen.

14. THE WAY II
Walking in Hukam frees us of guilt, misplaced hubris and pride.
Every moment then is a new dawn – the start of a new day.
Effectively clears the slate for the future – the next moment – to
write anew.
In short, the directive of Hukam becomes living life fully,
honestly, and productively -- to live in the present, to live fully in
the moment.
Hence the promise of constant renewal in life -- new birth.

15. BUT PEOPLE WILL BE PEOPLE
Thoreau bewailed human existence -- lives of quiet desperation.
Accept the Creator’s Hukam? Easier said than done.
A confession of helplessness?
Willing acceptance of what is? Like swallowing a bitter pill, when no
alternative exists.
We cavil; God’s will! My lottery ticket didn’t pan out.
An underlying thought tortures: My neighbor won the lottery, I didn’t?
God knows, as I do, that my neighbor is a no-good jerk.
God knows as I do that I am a good person. I regularly attend gurduara
and say my requisite prayers, I feed the homeless, so on and so forth. …
ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

16. AN EASY WAY OUT?
--Lean on an imaginative string of past lives, cyclical births
and so on and on… 8.4 mil
--the Creator’s mysterious ways of transferring
responsibility to unknown others.
--Hindu mythology certainly helps, doesn’t it? As does
literal interpretation of such references in the Guru
Granth.

17. RATIONAL PERSPECTIVE I
1. The Creator created the systems in which life exists and
evolves. (A version of intelligent design!)
2. Considerable free will to rewrite our own narrative. Brain. We
live and die as per the laws that govern us on Earth. We are
shaped by a complex interaction of our genes and environment –
nature and nurture.
3. Despite the pretenders who read the past and foresee the
future, life remains a mystery; a box, fuller than Pandora’s,
delivers pain, suffering, even death -- also heavenly delights.
Uninvited come the many defeats, as do life’s triumphs. Like
manna from heaven, best not seen as entitlements or earned.

18. RATIONAL PERSPECTIVE II
1. Hukum: a state of mind. It determines how we engage with “the slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune” -- Shakespeare
2.An ancient prayer: “O God grant me the courage to change the things
that I can, the serenity to accept what I cannot change and the wisdom to
know the difference.” The third clause is crucial.
3.Sabni chhalla maariyan karta karay so hoey (Guru Granth p. 469).
Making peace with the inevitable.
4. Which battles to fight and from which battles to walk away with
grace. This, the most difficult to see as a governing commandment of
life, is a major determinant of our sanity and survival. It is the wisdom
of Hukam that sets the trajectory of our lives.

19. RATIONAL PERPECTIVE III
1.To live with equanimity: Accept the unexpected turns that life offers
-- pain and pleasure, success and defeat -- and see them as two robes in
the wardrobe that each of us wears interchangeably (“Sukh dukh doey
dar kaparay pehrey aaye manukh” p. 149).
2.Much in life is beyond our design; accept it with good grace as the
essential reality -- whatever pleases (the Creator) is the good deed (“Jo
tudh bhavae saayi bhali kaar” p. 3).
3.As a popular adage goes: Que sera sera.
4. Cultivate positive lives without obsessing its downturns. Realistic,
hopeful and positive stance to life.

20. POST SCRIPT
Two citations:
1. The Guru Granth (p. 922) pointedly challenges us with
“Eh sareera meriya iss jug meh aye ke kya tudh karam
kamaaya,” (What footprints will you leave in the sands of
time?).
2. (p. 1102) “Pahila marn kabool kar jeevan ki chhudd
aas,” (Accept first the reality of death and abandon all hope
of endless life). Shenanigans.
How then to leave the world? An iota better would be plenty!