Nostra Aetate - In Our Time

84 The GuruGranth Sahib Ji, the eternal Guru, comprises hymns of Guru Nanak and of five of the subsequent nine Gurus as well as those of Hindu and Muslim saints. This renders it a unique model of inter-faith sacred text. So every time I bow before the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, I bow down to the writings of the Muslims and I bow down to the writings of the Hindus as well as the writings of the Sikh Gurus without any problem. The example of Guru Nanak and of our inter-faith scripture teaches Sikhs two important elements of the Dharam that compels Sikhs to embrace interreligious dialogue which is not an option but a vital necessity. The fifth Guru, Guru Arjun Dev Ji had the founda- tion stone of the most sacred Sikh shrine, Sri Harimandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, laid by aMuslim saint, Mian Mir. Here is a Sikh Guru asking a Muslim saint to lay the foundation. It doesn’t happen these days. Gurudwara is place of worship for the Sikhs. Guru is a word that has been adopted in English – Gu is dark- ness, Ru is light. Somebody capable of taking you from darkness into light is a Guru. These days this is often misused. For instance, you hear of somebody being a “gambling guru” when, for us, gambling is a taboo. In contemporary parlance we can have gambling gurus and fashion gurus but, for us, Guru is a very sacred term. We have God Almighty and then we have Sat Guru (mean- ing the True Guru) and then we have Guru followed by nature. This, in essence comprises a spiritual hierarchy. In 1605, when the fifth Guru, Guru Arjun Dev Ji was being tortured, he stated that he did not harbour hate for those who were torturing him. In fact, nobody was alien to him including his enemy. He accepted his torture as the will of God. The ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji made the supreme sacrifice in 1675, giving his life to protect the freedom of religious belief and the practice of a faith other than his own. He was beheaded in Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi. The messages to be gleaned from these supreme sacrifices is that we should not just better and elevate ourselves, but that we should support and help all of BROADENING INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND COLLABORAT ION FOR OUR T IME Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh meeting His Holiness Pope Francis at the Inter-faith Audience held in The Square of St. Peter’s Basilica at the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate