Guru Nanak

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

One creator God, whose name is Truth, reached through grace

Un Dieu personnelIl le dit expressément

The Mul Mantar that opens the Japji sums up Guru Nanak’s theology: one God, whose name is Truth, creator, without fear or enmity, timeless in form, unborn, self-existent, reached through the grace of the guru. This God creates, orders the world through his hukam (will or command), grants his gracious glance (nadar) and receives the love of those who remember him. Nanak calls him formless (nirankar) and rejects incarnation or confinement in images, but he does not conceive him as a cold principle: the soul seeks him as the bride seeks the bridegroom. The divine is both transcendent and present in the whole creation, which Nanak describes as a great cosmic worship in which the sun and moon are the lamps.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

The soul is light of the Light, led astray by ego (haumai)

Une âme créée et immortelleIl le dit expressément

Guru Nanak sees in every being a light (jot) that proceeds from the divine Light: in his Arti he sings that one and the same light shines in all, and that it is God’s. What darkens that light is haumai, the ‘I-I’, the ego that thinks itself separate and appropriates what it receives; living from it is to live as a manmukh, turned towards one’s own mind. Whoever follows the guru’s word becomes gurmukh and recognises the divine order (hukam) in all things. In the Barah Maha the soul appears as a bride who, month after month, yearns for her husband and longs for union. The true self is therefore not the ego, but neither does it simply dissolve: it is a soul seeking to merge with its source, like water into water.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

Ego separates from God; pain can be a medicine

La séparation d'avec DieuIl le dit expressément

For Guru Nanak the root of suffering is haumai, the ego that thinks itself self-sufficient and forgets the Name. Whoever lives this way, as a manmukh, is caught in lust, anger, greed, attachment and pride, and turns on the wheel of births and deaths. The Asa di Var contains a characteristic reversal: suffering can be the medicine and pleasure the disease, because in comfort human beings forget God. Pain, then, is not only punishment: it can break the ego’s self-sufficiency and return the soul to the divine order (hukam). The way out is not to flee the world but to remember the Name and accept God’s will within ordinary life.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

Karma gives the body; grace opens the door of liberation

Renaissance selon le karmaIl le dit expressément

Guru Nanak accepts the Indian framework of rebirth: the soul passes from one body to another according to its actions, and ego keeps it bound to the wheel of births and deaths. In the fourth stanza of the Japji he states his decisive nuance: through karma one obtains the garment, that is, the body; through the glance of grace, the door of liberation. Leaving the cycle is not earned by merit or ritual but received from God, and whoever remembers the Name merges with Him. In his funeral hymns (Alahanian) he recalls that death is universal and comes by divine order, and warns that it should not be called an evil if one knew how to die: dying to the ego and living in the remembrance of God.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

By the grace of God and guru, through remembering the Name

Par la grâce et l'amourIl le dit expressément

The Mul Mantar ends by saying that God is reached through the grace of the guru (gur prasad), and the Japji specifies that karma gives the body, but the door of liberation opens through the glance of grace (nadar). Guru Nanak does not deny effort: he asks for remembrance of the Name (nam simran), truthful living and submission to the divine order (hukam). But he rejects the idea that rites, ablutions or forced silence suffice; one of the first verses of the Japji says that washing a hundred thousand times does not make one pure. Liberation (mukti) is not escape from the world but merging with God already in this life, as a gurmukh. Grace precedes and crowns the path.

Faut-il un maître ?

Without the guru there is no path, but the guru is the Word

IndispensableIl le dit expressément

For Guru Nanak the guru is indispensable: the Mul Mantar ends by saying that God is reached through the guru’s grace, and his hymns repeat that without the guru no one crosses the ocean of the world. But the guru is not, first and foremost, a person. In the Sidh Gosht, his dialogue with the yogis, Nanak replies that his guru is the Word (shabad) and the consciousness that listens to it, its disciple. The true guru is God’s voice made audible in the hymn; a human teacher is guru insofar as he transmits it. This conception explains why, after the tenth guru, authority passed to the scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, and to the assembled community (sangat).

Le monde est-il réel ?

True are your worlds: creation is real and God’s work

Une création bonne et réelleIl le dit expressément

Guru Nanak strongly affirms the reality of creation. In the Asa di Var he sings that God’s worlds and universes are true, true his forms and works; the world is not an appearance but the dwelling of the True One, who sustains it through his order (hukam). In his Arti he describes the whole cosmos as a ceremony of worship: the sky is the tray, the sun and moon are the lamps and the stars the pearls. What is false is not the world but attachment to it and forgetting its Creator. Hence he rejects the yogis’ renunciation and proposes living in the world as in a sacred place, fulfilling its duties truthfully.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

The soul-bride who, month after month, yearns for her Lord

Le désir ardent et l'unionIl le dit expressément

Guru Nanak expresses love of God through the image of the bride longing for her husband. In the Barah Maha, composed in raga Tukhari, he goes through the twelve months of the year via the feelings of the separated soul: rain, heat or cold intensify her yearning, until union comes through the Lord’s grace. That love (bhau, prem) is cultivated by remembering the Name and shows itself in conduct: Nanak asks for humility, truthfulness and service. The institutions born of his teaching, the assembled community (sangat) and the common kitchen open to all (langar), translate that love of God into practical equality between castes and sexes. Love seeks union and proves itself in shared life.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

All lies within the divine order, and each reaps what they sow

Le destin et la responsabilitéIl le dit expressément

Guru Nanak sets out two claims that seem opposed. The first is hukam, the divine order or will: in the second stanza of the Japji he says that by it forms are created, greatness or lowliness, pain or joy are received, and no one stands outside it. The second is responsibility: in stanza twenty he states that each one sows and each one eats what was sown. Human beings cannot leave the hukam, but they can recognise it or resist it; whoever understands it, the Japji says, stops speaking from ego. Freedom consists in walking according to the order that is written with us, as one of his recorded verses says.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

Remember the Name with every breath, in daily life

L'amitié avec DieuIl le dit expressément

The practice Guru Nanak proposes is remembrance of God’s Name (nam simran), repeated and sung, both alone and in the assembled community. It is not a technique for reaching extraordinary states but a way of keeping the Beloved present amid daily life. In the first stanza of the Japji he warns that neither repeated washing purifies nor forced silence gives inner silence; what transforms is a living relationship with God. In the Sidh Gosht he argues with yogis who practise austerities and bodily techniques and sets the Word (shabad) against them as the means. For Nanak to pray is to be in love with the Lord and live according to his order, remembering him with every breath.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

Thinking a hundred thousand times does not think Him: He is known by grace

L'ultime est au-delà du mentalIl le dit expressément

The first stanza of the Japji sets out the mind’s limit through a series of negations: by thinking He is not reached, though one think a hundred thousand times; by keeping silent silence is not attained; by sating oneself hunger is not stilled; and a thousand clevernesses go with no one at the end. For Guru Nanak the True One lies beyond calculation and speculation and is revealed only through the divine order and grace. This does not lead him to despise understanding: his hymns are reflective, argue with yogis, Brahmins and mullahs, and ask one to understand (bujh) the hukam. But decisive knowledge is not a reasoning but recognition of the Word the guru transmits.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

Pure amid impurity: honest work, sharing and community

S'engager dans le mondeIl le dit expressément

Guru Nanak rejects the yogis’ renunciation: in one of his hymns he says that yoga lies not in the patched cloak, the staff or the ashes, but in remaining pure amid impurity. He himself, after his travels, settled at Kartarpur as a farmer and founded a community. Sikh tradition sums up his teaching in three precepts: remember the Name, earn one’s living honestly and share with others. His engagement with the world also had a critical dimension: in the Asa di Var he defends the dignity of woman, from whom kings are born, and in the hymns of Babur he denounces the violence of the Mughal invasion and asks God whether he felt no pain.