Time to Break Eggshells
By Harbans Lal, Ph.D., D. Lit (Hons)
Some years ago I acquired the writings of Max Arthur Macauliffe (10 September 1841 – 15 March 1913), an English translator of Sikh scriptures and historian of early Sikhism. I was wonder struck to observe the title quotation the author chose to display on the opening pages of his work.
Macauliffe was born and educated in UK, and was working as a British high administrative official in India at time of his writings.
While in India, Macauliffe was fascinated with Sikhi, the path of Guru Nanak that he closely observed during his frequent visits to the central places of worship for the Sikhs. So much so, that his colleagues began to describe Macauliffe as a “turned Sikh”.
Macauliffe indeed was a turned Sehajdhari Sikh, meaning that he adopted Sikhi as his religion without being formally baptized. Sikhs recognized Macauliffe as their own and his portraits are still found on the walls of Sikh historic institutions along with other pioneering Sikh scholars in India.
Breaking of Eggshell
The quote Macauliffe chose to inscribe on the title pages of his volumes is from Guru Granth:
ਫੂਟੋ ਆਂਡਾ ਭਰਮ ਕਾ ਮਨਹਿ ਭਇਓ ਪਰਗਾਸੁ ॥ SGGS, p. 1002
Fūto āʼndā bẖaram kā manėh bẖaio pargās.
The eggshell (of misinterpretation doubt, continuous practice
of mistaken stereotypes and beliefs), has now been broken
and my mind has been enlightened and liberated.
Although Macauliffe described his attainment when he found the path of the guru through the verse above, what the verse also implied is that if an outside force breaks the eggshell around us, our life and entity will end.
However, if we break the suffocating shell under the true guidance of our Guru, new life will begin.
It may also bring to mind what Lord Buddha is quoted to have said several centuries ago:
Of those beings who live in ignorance,
shut up and confined, as it were, in an egg,
said Lord Buddha, I have first broken the
eggshell of ignorance and alone in the
universe obtained the most exalted,
universal Buddhahood. Buddha
The lesson is that chicks need to peck their own way out of their shells. Without the strength and readiness developed by their struggle, the chicks are left vulnerable. Then others will smash the eggshell resulting in irreparable injury or simply death. It’s hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would certainly be harder for it to learn to fly while still in the egg.
The truth is that we, as a group, seem to be becoming blind inside the eggshell of near vision in our practices and attitudes. We need to come out to be productive and realize our full potential. If we did not come out of the eggshell by our own efforts, someone else will break the shell around us and either we will be dead or roasted in a pan to become a food delight for someone else.
Therapeutic exit from the eggshell
There are two types of eggshell breakouts: a suicidal and a therapeutic, meaning one to kill and other to cure. Our Guru in the cited verse above prescribes the latter and warns against the former.
In our case today, the break will be suicidal if we wait until an outsider force cracks the eggshell around us. On the hand, the break can be therapeutic if we do it with our own efforts under the teachings of our SABD guru.
Our gurus in their lives gave many examples of stereotyped practices that we allowed in the rituals of our religion.
We are familiar with Guru Nanak going to the famous place of Hardwar. There, he saw people throwing water of the river Ganges toward the rising sun of East, meaning the places of their ancestors. He immediately began to throw water toward the West where lied his farmland. When questioned, he elaborated that the water thrown in ignorance under the influence of a blind faith would reach neither his farms, nor their ancestors or the Sun.
Similarly, on another occasion, Guru Nanak pointed out that God did not live in any one direction.
On and on we can continue to describe more examples of the Guru’s teachings against people misled by clergy remaining cocooned inside the shell.
Looking at our own religious practices today that we exercise in the darkness of the eggshell around us, there are many:
We continue to have the SABD guru read by proxy, and without listening to the Guru’s advice. We bring food in the gurdwara for guru’s bhog lage, meaning for SABD Guru to break the bread to sanctify it; we continue to change Guru Granth’s clothing to be suitable for winter or summer wearing. We continue to quarantine our women folks in the gurdwaras’ century halls and in “langar” halls. We continue to ban women from singing kirtan in Darbar Sahib Amritsar or touching the Gur Granth when the Granth Sahib is carried between Hari Mandir and Akal Takht, every night. Women may also not participate in the washing of the floors of Sri Harmandir Sahib. We continue to ban woman from reading and reciting the SABD verses during periods of menstruation.
Classifying pieces of external dress as article of faiths is common. Sticking to the language of a region to be the divine script is sternly enforced. Brahmanical beliefs in rituals practiced in the places of worship, inability to approve adequate seating for the aged and handicaps, are other examples.
Stereotypes are used also by self-appointed babas to enslave innocent Sikhs in villages. They promote treating SABD guru as a human body in every detail. They promote Akhand paaths without regards to any one able to grasp what our Guru was saying.
Politically, is that not the fact that we are at odds with every central administration in India, no matter it is one political party or the other that occupies the throne of the central government in India.
In conclusion, I could go on with more examples and have done so in previous writings.
The bottom line is that we need to peck our own way out of our shells.
With a few exceptions, we are becoming chicks in eggshells. We cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched instead of letting it go bad. Without the strengths developed within our struggles under the guidance of the SABD guru, we will be left vulnerable to our environment that is in the hands of others.
It is time to wake up to the call of our Guru expressed in the above cited verse employed by Macauliffe for his enlightenment.