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Ive added my Harvard essay on “The World of Illusion ” for my  World Religions Class

“The World of Illusion” Essay By Gregory Armando Peralta

In this essay, we take a close look at the first verse of the illustrious poem, “The World of Illusion,” composed by Ravi Das.  It is found in the Sikh bible, known as the Adi Guru Granth Sahib.  Ravi Das is also known by the spiritual titles “Sant” and  “Shri” Ravi Das.  The title Sant, meaning “saint” in Sanskrit, is a derivative from the Sanskrit sat, or “truth;” Shri or Sri is a term used in the East  used as a prefix to the names of men and women who are considered great or holy, Those who derive their guidance from the divine. When used as a title for Avatar or Saints, Śrī is sometimes translated into English as Lord.  Ji is appended to a name as a term of endearment to one who is most beloved, so among the Sikhs, Ravi Das is often referred to as Guru Ravi Das Ji.  Gu in Sanskrit is darkness and ru is light; hence Guru is used to describe a person, or conceptually, a manifestation of divine light wisdom that dispels ignorance, i.e. gu, darkness, and Ru together are perceived by devotees energetically as having the capacity to transfigure and bring hence fourth from darkness into full enlightenment.  In Sikhism in particular, the Guru was regarded as the embodiment of Divine Light.  The Prakrit word sikh is related to the Sanskrit word shishya, or disciple.  Sihks see themselves as disciples of the divine and the one god by way of their guru who intercedes, dispelling ignorance and bringing them into the light.
Ravi Das was a shoemaker that came from an extremely low caste, but grew in recognition to be considered a Hindu saint and social reformer during the medieval period, 14t-15th C. in India.  Ravi Das was a devout worshipper of Lord Rama, and the founder of the Rai-dasis Hindu sect.  Rama (Ramayana in Sanskrit) is an avatar (Sanskrit avatarati, literally, meaning human embodiment of Vishnu who is considered in Hinduism as the Supreme Godhead creator. Lord Rama was considered to be seventh of ten incarnations of Vishnu. There are other incarnations but these ten most prominent avatara are considered most important in helping the evolution of human consciousness to reach communion with the Divine.
There are forty-one verses composed by Ravi Das in this Adi Guru Granth Sahib, one of which is the revered, “The World of Illusion.”  This saint song is used in readings within Sikh liturgy on specific occasions as well as general reading of scripture.  These Sikh liturgical services commence on a daily basis at 3:45 am with readings of divinely inspired scripture.  The Adi Guru Granth Sahib is considered a living entity and treated as such, being transported in a ceremonial parade by adoring faithful devotees from the original home of Guru Gobind Singh directly into the Golden Temple, located in the city of Amritsar in the Punjab region of northern India.  According to Sikh theology, by Guru Gobind Singh’s wishes and his divine authority, his consciousness and that of all proceeding Sikh gurus Including Guru Ravi Das Ji and whose consciousness were transferred directly into this Adi Guru Granth Sahib, which is considered a living entity.
The saint song begins,
“There is but one God.  He is obtained by the True Guru’s grace.
When there was egoism in me, Thou wert not with me.
Now that Thou are there, there is no egoism,
As huge waves are raised by the wind in the great ocean, but is only water in water,
O Lord of wealth, what should I say about this delusion?
What we deem a thing to be; in reality it is not like that. (Fisher, 77)

The initiating statement, “There is but one God.  He is obtained by the True Guru’s grace,” is an expression of Sikh theology.  Their concept of the divine is that of one God Creator and the devotee who can only reach His grace through intercession of the “guru,” as stated in the commencement of the Sikh Mool mantra, which is also the opening verse of the Guru Granth Sahib:
There is but one God. Truth by name, the creator, all-pervading spirit, without fear, without enmity. Whose existence is unaffected by time, who does not take birth, self-existent, who is to be realized through his grace. (Singh, 1)

In this concept, the Godhead is the sole creator and sole refuge for the devotee Through the devotee’s complete submission to the divine through the guidance and grace of his guru (guide or enlightener) as intercessionary, the devotee can obtain direct contact and appropriate guidance to obtain communion with the godhead.
From a Hindu perspective, the following definition applies:

According to Swami Vivekanand, “Onkar is the most holy word of the Vedas”. A symbolic word meaning the Supreme Being, the Ocean of Knowledge and Bliss Absolute”. (Raja Yoga)
Another definition of the word is given in the Mandukopanishad: “That which was, is and will be, is all Onkar. And that which triple time transcends is Onkar too. (Verse 1)
The figure ‘one’ appended to Onkar does not merely signify God’s unity as against trinity, but also affirms His being a personality and not merely a Shunya or void. “Transcendent (O-an) – Immanent (-kar)”, suggests Kapur Singh (“Ek Onkar”)

The statement, “when there was egoism in me,” refers to the devotee’s full identification with his concept of the “self,” to the notion of being fully present and in control as a separate experiencing “personality.”  The devotee manifests his “self” as the center of this subjective perception as a separate self.
Thou wert not with me
Now that Thou are there, there is no egoism,
As huge waves are raised by the wind in the great ocean
but are only water in water…
…is a metaphor for the same likeness we experience when we are submerged within this reality we experience subjectively, as is within water all becomes the same with no separation or distinction of the grand illusion that becomes the delusion and measure by which we distinguish our reality based on our perception via our outer world.  The day-to-day identification with the outer, unstable experience represents itself as problematic to the devotee.
O Lord of wealth, what should I say about this delusion?
When we deem a thing to be, in reality it is not like that.

In this statement, the devotee cries out lost and almost in desperation, overcome by the indistinguishably chaotic experience within which he is immersed. Through this chaos, the delusion and uncertainty of the subjective ego experience is realized, allowing him to use this as a catalyst for his personal liberation later on in the verse.
The nature of the relationship of the devotee with the divine in this verse is that the devotee fully identifies with his self and separate from the greater divine by recognition and full identification with the ego.  This separation disconnects him from fully experiencing liberation and reality as it truly is.  In contrast, later, with the devotee’s submersion and surrender to the divine through the guru’s intercession, the devotee receives liberation by identifying the separate self, and by that observance, detaches and allows himself to become one with the divine. In a mirror image of the ocean metaphor, which described the indistinguishability of all being, the devotee completely submerses himself, surrendering his ego in the ocean of the divine, and completely losing his sense of individuality.  This brings him into this ultimate state of oneness in that same ocean of Divine consciousness., thereby attaining liberation.
This act of complete surrender to the divine through the guru is itself its own reward for the devotee, allowing him to experience liberation and his own inner living atman (Sanskrit, inner dwelling God) in that state of samadhi, or full immersion into the divine.
“Now that Thou art there, there is no egoism”: Again this realization completely dissolves the ego, relieves the devotee of the burden by lifting the burden of that self and shifting the subjective experiencer’s perception from his state as a subjective experience to that of the observer of the experience.
For the devotee the divine is experienced as a very intimate personal God, by way of the intersession of the Guru. Through bhakti and surrender, the presence and realization of a living and manifest atman is experienced.
This view is in conjunction with my own belief in the core concept of releasing the ego and surrendering the self to allow the divine universal consciousness we perceive to become a fully present experience in our own inner guru.
I believe the teachings of Hinduism and Sikhism do exemplify my definition of religion because the devotee has multiple ways to connect and tune in to a higher consciousness by giving him practices, and particularly in the Sikh religion, a liturgical structure, to step in and immerse himself in that consciousness.

Bibliography.
Datta, Amaresh. “Arjan Dev Guru.” Encyclopedia of Indian literature, vol. 1. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi 1987 p.228.
Feuerstein, Georg, & Wilber, Ken. The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy, and Practice.  Prescott, AZ: Hohm Press, 2000.
Fisher, Mary Pat, & Lee W. Bailey, ed.  An Anthology of Living Religions, 2nd.ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall, 2008.
Fisher, Mary Pat.  Living Religions, 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2008.
Kaur, Takhar, Opinderjit. Sikh identity: an exploration of groups among Sikhs.  Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005.
Shapiro, Michael C. “The Guru Granth Sahib; Canon, Meaning and Authority.” The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 122, 2002.
Singh, Gopal. Guru-Granth Sahib Vol.1. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1965.

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