Imagining a World Beyond Racism

How Bhagat Namdev can help us change our perspective

For two and half years, I had the honor of leading the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program. I had the chance to work with amazing people, and I learned so much. It was a really special experience.

One of the joys of the job has been watching some of my personal passions come to fruition. An example of that happened over this summer, in the waning weeks of my time in that role — and it felt like such a great way to go out.

In June, we gathered at the Aspen Institute headquarters in Washington, DC, to launch a new volume on religion and racism. It features essays from some of the most inspiring leaders working on these issues, and I was so honored to be invited to contribute an essay for it and to speak about it at the launch event.

My essay—“All Is Divine: A Sikh Perspective on Non-Discrimination”—was a reflection on a shabad by Bhagat Namdev, one that I’ve known and sung for much of my life. In fact, my brothers all learned this shabad on the vaja as teenagers, and my youngest brother Raj led it at my wedding about 15 years ago.

I loved the tune of the shabad that we knew, and I liked the ideas contained within it. But I only really delved into its meaning these past few years and have found it to be a guiding light. I’m going to share my essay in full, with the blessings of my friends and colleagues at the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program. I’ll also encourage you all to read the other essays in the book, each of which offers fresh insights and inspiration for how we can build a new world together.

ALL IS DIVINE: A SIKH PERSPECTIVE ON NON-DISCRIMINATION

If racism wasn’t so damaging, and if it didn’t cause us so much pain, I might look at it from a distance and laugh. What sense does any of this make? How could color and pigmentation indicate human value?

I understand how racism has developed and adapted historically. I also understand how people used race and racism to ascertain power for their own purposes. As illogical as it might feel, these are logics that we can follow.

What I wonder, though, is what our world would look like if we did not take racism for granted. How would someone who was not socialized in a racist culture understand the diversity of humanity all around them? I ask these questions in service of a larger question: How might we reimagine and redesign our society in a way that helps us realize the founding ideals of the United States of America, such as liberty and justice for all?

We are steeped in our cultural milieu, which means it can be he hard to imagine ways of thinking beyond it. I have found that sometimes, when I am too close to something, the best way to innovative is to try and step outside of it. This is why, in my aim to develop a new vision for the US, I turn to the religious tradition that informs my worldview, Sikhi, which I would describe as anti-racist, anti-sexist, and perhaps most generally, anti-hierarchy. At a time when we struggle to deal with the differences among us and all around us, Sikhi offers a model for creating a more open, inclusive and loving culture.

The Sikh philosophical system is built on the idea of oneness and connection. The first term in the Sikh scripture is ik oankar, which refers to the oneness of all creation. As Bhagat Kabir writes, if all humans come from the same light, how can we call someone good or bad?[1]

Bhagat Kabir’s reflection is a commentary on judgment. It is not our role to judge people or place value on their lives. His reflection is also a reminder of our shared divinity. All people are equally divine.

Bhagat Namdev has a beautiful composition that echoes Bhagat Kabir’s: “Sabh gobind hai sabh gobind hai gobind bin nahi koi (All is divine, all is divine, there is nothing without divinity).”[2]

These quotations demonstrate such a different way of looking at the world from what we know typically. We worry about discerning the good from the bad and judging people as good or evil. This discernment often depends on how we see ourselves: those who are more like us deserve of our respect, and those who are different from us do not. What if we approached human diversity like Bhagat Namdev, understanding that the starting point is our shared divinity? Would that not change how we treat everything and everyone around us?

This idea can be easy in theory, but it can be hard to imagine what it looks like practically. This is why I appreciate that Bhagat Namdev follows his idea with a metaphor to help us envision what divinity looks like: “Like a single thread that holds together hundreds and thousands of beads; that is how divinity is woven into the creation.”[3]

The image has helped me see human diversity in a new light. While we all have distinct identities from one another, and while we are each beads with our own unique characteristics, we are bound together by the same divine string. This is what ties us all together.

Bhagat Namdev then offers us another metaphor for envisioning the diverse forms of our world: “The waves, the foam, and the bubbles; none of these are distinct from the water itself.”[4] Through this example, we can imagine ourselves to each be different manifestations of water. We each have our own discrete forms, but we are also challenged to recognize that ultimately we are all part of something greater than ourselves.

This way of looking at ourselves and the diversity around us feels sharply different from how we think about these questions in the United States today. Here, we see ourselves as independent from one another, but we do not see ourselves as interconnected with one another.  I believe that the Sikh philosophy on oneness offers us a way forward, particularly at a time when we are struggling to change the paradigm but having difficulty with imagining a new one.

At the end of the composition, Bhagat Namdev gives us practical advice that we can each apply in our own lives. I’ve taken it to heart and have tried to embody it, and it has transformed me. I think this idea can help transform our American narrative, too. “Namdev states: Look at the divine creation and reflect on it in your heart. In each and every heart, deep within us, it is purely divine.”[5]

I take two practices from this couplet to share with you. First, to learn to look at the creation and to see it as divine. This is easy in certain contexts, especially when we are close to natural beauty: a forest, an ocean, a mountain. We look at the beauty of our world and marvel at divinity. It is more difficult for me to recognize divinity in the more mundane aspects of our world. This is the challenge that Bhagat Namdev puts before us. Can we learn to see the divinity in everything we see? We can learn to do this through daily practice, perhaps beginning with aspects of the world that already feel sacred, and then moving to those that feel more profane.

The second practice has to do with the second part of the couplet. If divinity is within each and every heart, can we learn to see the divine in everyone we meet? This is easier to do with certain people in our lives, and harder with others. We can begin with people we already love and admire, where it is easier to see and feel their divinity. But we cannot stop there. The teaching is that divinity is within everyone, and it is our responsibility to learn how to see that.

If we are truly interested in transforming ourselves and transforming our shared narrative, we have to challenge ourselves to see divinity in all people, even when difficult, and even when they do not see ours. An incremental approach has been most effective for me, and even then it can be hard sometimes with certain people whose ideas or behaviors I find abhorrent. In those cases, I try to remind myself what I teach my kids: “People are not bad or evil. Their behaviors might be, but people are ultimately good.” Separating the person from the behavior helps me to still see people as deserving of my dignity and protects me from falling into a supremacist mindset.

Bhagat Namdev lays out the promise of this approach in his composition as well. He writes, “In the one and many, the divine is pervading. Wherever I look, that’s all I see.”[6]

Think for a moment about how differently we would experience the world if we had this perspective. We look at the diversity all around us, and instead of feeling threatened or fearful, we feel happy and joyful. This is a lens of oneness, where everything and everyone is enmeshed within divinity. We could have that same perspective, too.

It is a beautiful vision and one that we could all learn from. It starts with a simple shift in our thinking, followed by an intuitive shift in our behaviors — and these together will lead to a shift in our shared culture. As we endeavor to remake our world as one where all people have an equal opportunity for joy and happiness, I encourage us to see Bhagat Namdev’s wisdom as a powerful starting point.

Sabh gobind hai sabh gobind hai gobind bin nahi koi

All is divine, all is divine, there’s nothing without divinity.

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[1] ਅਵਲਿ ਅਲਹ ਨੂਰੁ ਉਪਾਇਆ ਕੁਦਰਤਿ ਕੇ ਸਭ ਬੰਦੇ ॥ [Translation my own]. Rag Prabhati, p. 1349, Guru Granth Sahib

[2] ਸਭੁ ਗੋਬਿੰਦੁ ਹੈ ਸਭੁ ਗੋਬਿੰਦੁ ਹੈ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਬਿਨੁ ਨਹੀ ਕੋਈ ॥ [Translation my own]. Rag Asa, p. 485, Guru Granth Sahib

[3] ਸੂਤੁ ਏਕੁ ਮਣਿ ਸਤ ਸਹੰਸ ਜੈਸੇ ਓਤਿ ਪੋਤਿ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਸੋਈ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥ [Translation my own]. Ibid.

[4] ਜਲ ਤਰੰਗ ਅਰੁ ਫੇਨ ਬੁਦਬੁਦਾ ਜਲ ਤੇ ਭਿੰਨ ਨ ਹੋਈ ॥ [Translation my own]. Ibid.

[5] ਕਹਤ ਨਾਮਦੇਉ ਹਰਿ ਕੀ ਰਚਨਾ ਦੇਖਹੁ ਰਿਦੈ ਬੀਚਾਰੀ ॥ ਘਟ ਘਟ ਅੰਤਰਿ ਸਰਬ ਨਿਰੰਤਰਿ ਕੇਵਲ ਏਕ ਮੁਰਾਰੀ ॥੪॥੧॥

[Translation my own]. Ibid.

[6] ਏਕ ਅਨੇਕ ਬਿਆਪਕ ਪੂਰਕ ਜਤ ਦੇਖਉ ਤਤ ਸੋਈ ॥ [Translation my own]. Ibid.