I recently
watched the Punjabi movie Shareek. Basically it’s about a family that destroys
themselves fighting over rights to land. It’s probably one of the saddest
movies I have seen in a long time, because it is only too real and speaks to
the problems of ego, pride, jealousy, anger, greed, and seeking revenge. It not
only showed the pain caused by revenge, but also how unnecessary it all
was.
Having been born
and raised in Canada, I barely have a basic understanding of the importance of
land to the culture in Punjab. From what I’ve read, according to the book
“Punjab Society: Perspectives and Challenges”, land is important to people
because it serves basic needs/security, emotional satisfaction, identification,
and most importantly people indicated that it was a symbol of prestige (1). I think
another reason land is important to Punjabi culture is that it has been passed
on through the generations and is a part of collective memories and our
heritage. The problem is that, as stated above, it has predominantly become a
“symbol of prestige” and therefore a driving force for dividing people and
claiming superiority. This goes to the extent of leading to destruction of
relationships and even murder. Suddenly land becomes more important than life
itself, even though the purpose of our life was actually to connect mind to
God, not collect as much land as possible. How can we say we truly understood
Sikhi if a piece of earth is more important than life itself?
This problem of
pride also exists here in Canadian society, in a different form. Here, there is
pride over how big your house is, what kind of job you have, what kind of car
you drive, clothes you wear, and even how “religious” you appear to others. Just
like in India, here people still fight over who their children should marry
based on how much “power” or “status” it will give their family instead of what
really matters. Somehow this even becomes a motive to kill for, which is
totally against Sikhi. Image and reputation is all an illusion in the first place
but it’s too hard for some people to see when they are wrapped up in ego.
Pride is obviously
one of the five dhoots (kaam, krodh, lob, moh, ahankaar). As Sikhi wiki
describes, “Pride makes human beings believe that they are
more important than others. It makes them treat others badly and unequally,
leading to injustice. Pride makes human beings take personal credit
for the successes, good qualities, wealth and talents they have. It
makes them forget that God is responsible for these things and leads them away
from reunion. Pride leads to Haumai because it makes people believe that they are the most important
thing in life and leads to self-centredness” (2). I couldn’t have said it better myself. If we were to take even a portion of what
we dedicate toward pursuits of pride, into dedicating ourselves to our true
purpose in life we would be living in heaven on earth. Guru Arjan Dev Ji says “O pride the cause of our coming and
going in the world, O soul of sin, thou estranges friends, confirms enmities
and makes men spread out the net of illusion far and wide, and tires men by
keeping ever on the round, and making them experience now pleasure, now pain.
And men walk through the utter wilderness of doubt: thou afflicts men with
incurable maladies” (3). Even in the Zafarnama, the famous letter from Guru
Gobind Singh Ji to Aurangzeb, he is not vengeful and spreading hatred towards
Aurangzeb, but rather speaking against his actions and telling him to change
(quote zafarnama). Guru Ji even talks about the good qualities of Aurangzeb but
goes on to say that he has to answer to God for his actions. “Aurangzeb is the
king of kings. He is the lord of the world and has all the riches. But he is
far from the teachings of his religion” (4). Even after Guru Ji lost his sons
and parents at the hands of Aurangzeb, he shows there isn’t space for vengeful
and hateful thinking in Sikhi. Out of all the lines in the Zafarnama, the most
are actually spent towards praise of God showing again how Guru Ji has taught
us to focus on our true purpose.
I would encourage
everyone, to just think about how your pride is prevalent in your daily life
and is interfering in your relationship with God and ways for you to move beyond
it, such as doing sewa and spending time with people who encourage you to focus
on spiritual pursuits not material ones. We should focus on developing our honesty,
humility, work ethic, compassion and respect for others; on developing
relationships and connections rather than divisions and separations. There’s
nothing wrong with being proud of who you are and where you come from but when
our pride interferes in our relationship to God, our family and our friends, it
becomes a problem that needs to be addressed.
References
1 Gill, Manmohan Singh. Punjab Society: Perspectives and Challenges. New Delhi: Concept Pub., 2003.
E-book. Page 118.
4 http://www.zafarnama.com/Download/zafarnama.pdf
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