Nānak says: He is always contained (in all).”—(Translation, p. 400.)
Notwithstanding this conception that the Supreme One comprehends both spirit and matter, and therefore is what is; He is nevertheless spoken of as in some way different from the creatures He has formed, and has been endowed with moral and intellectual qualities. Thus we find in the Ādi Granth—
“Whose body the universe is, He is not in it, the Creator is not in it.
Who is putting (the things) together, He is always aloof (from them), in what can He be said (to be contained)?”
(Translation, p. 474.)
The soul of man is held to be a ray of light from the Light Divine; and it necessarily follows that, in its natural state, the soul of man is sinless. The impurity, which is only too apparent in man, is accounted for by the operation of what is called Māyā, or Delusion; and it is this Māyā which deludes creatures into egotism and duality, that is, into self-consciousness or conceit, and into the idea that there can be existence apart from the Divine. This delusion prevents the pure soul from freeing itself from matter, and hence the spirit passes from one combination of matter to another, in a long chain of births and deaths, until the delusion is removed, and the entrammelled ray returns to the Divine Light whence it originally emanated. The belief in metempsychosis is thus seen to be the necessary complement of pantheism; and it is essential to the creed of a Hindū, a Buddhist, and a Ṣūfī.
In Sikhism, as in Buddhism, the prime object of attainment is not Paradise, but the total cessation of individual existence. The method by which this release from transmigration is to be accomplished is by the perfect recognition of identity with the Supreme. When the soul fully realizes what is summed up in the formula so ham, “I am that,” i.e. “I am one with that which was, and is, and will be,” then emancipation from the bondage of existence is secured. This is declared by Nānak himself in the Ādi Granth in these words:—
“Should one know his own self as the so ham, he believes in the esoteric mystery.
Should the disciple (Gur-mukhi) know his own self, what more can he do, or cause to be done?”—(I. O. MS. 2484, fol. 53.)
The principles of early Sikhism given above are obviously too recondite for acceptance among masses of men; accordingly we find that the pantheistic idea of Absolute Substance became gradually changed into the more readily apprehended notion of a self-conscious Supreme Being, the Creator and Governor of the universe. Here Dr. Trumpp himself admits the influence of Muḥammadanism, when he says: “It is not improbable that the Islām had a great share in working silently these changes, which are directly opposed to the teaching of the Gurus.”—(Introduction to Translation of the Ādi Granth, p. cxii.) The teaching of Nānak was, however, very practical. His followers are daily reminded in the Jap-Jī that, “Without the practice of virtue there can be no worship.”