Bisam bisam bisam hee bhaee hai: The Wonders of Wonder

Inderjit N. Kaur

Ka this article, I reflect on the role of wonder in our everyday ethics. Drawing insights from Gurbani about the wonder of wonders, wāheguru, and the wonders of wonder for wāheguru, and supplementing this with scholarly inputs from cognitive sciences, I discuss how wonder for wāheguru can help us improve our everyday ethics.

The Wonder of wonders – Wāheguru

In Sikhi, the very word for the divine, wāheguru, builds on an expression of wonder – wāh (wow)! Wāh-é-guru translates, in terms of Persian preposition usage, to, the wāh of gurus, i.e., the most wondrous of gurus.

While the word wāheguru/wāhguru is itself used in only a few sabad (by Bhatt Gayand, SGGS: 1402-1404), numerous sabad use the word wāh-o, expressing the feelings of wonder and awe, bismād/vismād, for the divine. In fact, another word used in gurbāni for the divine is bisman (awe-inspiring):

ਬਿਸਮਨ ਬਿਸਮ ਭਏ ਬਿਸਮਾਦ ॥ Awe-struck by the awe of the awesome (divine). (SGGS: 285)

Gurbāni further supports this with an extensive exegesis on wāheguru’s awesome attributes. The Mool Mantar which is the opening verse of the Guru Granth Sahib, and repeated many times in it, is a string of nine awe-inspiring attributes of wāheguru – oneness, from which all is manifest, truth by name, creative principle, fearless, without enmity, timeless, incondensable, uncaused.

Thus, wāheguru is conceived as a composite of vastness and morality. Many sabad elaborate on this theme. Wāheguru is an ocean of moral virtues (guni gahīr), and benevolent (meherbān), as well as all-knowing (antarjāmi), all-pervading (sarabvyāpi), incomparable (anoop), and imperishable (avināsi). Wāheguru is also too vast to be known in entirety. Wāheguru is infinite (bé-ant), immeasurable (atol), unfathomable (agādh) incomprehensible (agam-agochar) and indescribable (kahan na jāee). These terms permeate the speech of devotees as well.

The wonders of wonder for wāheguru

Notably, gurbāni also endows these feelings for wāheguru with the flavor (svād) of love (rang), attraction (man mohyo), adoration (bal-bal jāee), and enrapture (ote-pote). Moved by such emotions the self can become devoid of ego (ahnbudh), fear of death (jam ki phāsi) and vices (bikār), and capable of virtuous acts (sach karni).

With immersion in sabad, vismād becomes an experience of the heart from an encounter (darsan) with wāheguru’s overwhelming greatness and moral capacities. The recognition of divine capacities is received with awe. Awe then becomes a moral response. Its psychological contours become those of moral contours.

These ideas are well encapsulated in the following sabad (SGGS: 1301):

ਕਾਨੜਾ ਮਹਲਾ ੫ ਘਰੁ ੪

Kānṛā mėhlā 5 gẖar 4

Kaanraa, Fifth Mehl, Fourth House:

ੴ ਸਬਿਗੁਰ ਪ੍ਰਸਾਬਦ ॥

Ik oaʼnkār saṯgur parsāḏ.

One universal creative principle. By the grace of the true guru:

ਨਾਰਾਇਨ ਨਰਪ੍ਬਿ ਨਮਸਕਾਰੈ ॥

Nārāen narpaṯ namaskārai.

The one who holds reverence for the Supreme.

ਐਸੇ ਗੁਰ ਕਉ ਿਬਲ ਿਬਲ ਜਾਈਐ ਆਬਪ੍ ਮਕੁ ਿੁ ਮੋਬਹ ਿਾਰੈ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

Aisé gur kao bal bal jāīai āp mukaṯ mohi ṯārai. ||1|| rahāo.

I am a sacrifice, a sacrifice to such a guru; liberated, and liberates me as well. ||1||Pause||

ਕਵਨਕਵਨਕਵਨਗਨੁ ਕਹੀਐਅੰਿੁਨਹੀਕਛੁਪ੍ਾਰੈ॥

Kavan kavan kavan gun kahīai anṯ nahī kacẖẖ pārai.

Which, which, which virtues to chant; no end to them.

ਲਾਖ ਲਾਖ ਲਾਖ ਕਈ ਕੋਰੈ ਕੋ ਹੈ ਐਸੋ ਿੀਚਾਰੈ ॥੧॥

Lākẖ lākẖ lākẖ kaī korai ko hai aiso bīcẖārai. ||1||

Hundreds and hundreds of thousands, millions of virtues, but few who contemplate them. ||1||

ਬਿਸਮਬਿਸਮਬਿਸਮਹੀਭਈਹੈਲਾਲਗਲੁ ਾਲਰੰਗਾਰੈ॥

Bisam bisam bisam hī bẖaī hai lāl gulāl rangārai.

Wonder-struck, wonder-struck, wonder-struck; dyed in the crimson color of my Beloved.

ਕਹੁਨਾਨਕਸੰਿਨਰਸੁਆਈਹੈਬਜਉਚਾਬਖਗੰਗਾਮਸੁ ਕਾਰੈ॥੨॥

Kaho Nānak sanṯan ras āī hai jio cẖākẖ gūngā muskārai. ||2||

SGGS Conference 2018 Inderjit N Kaur

Says Nanak, I obtain divine essence, like the virtuous; and like the mute, upon tasting, can only smile. ||2||

In the life of Sikhs, the response of awe for wāheguru is inculcated from early childhood. In addition to imbibing it from their elder’s attitudes, children also obtain it through a number of active means. The Mool Mantar often serves as a lullaby. Children learn to chant it and access its psychological power at times of emotional need. Numerous children’s books and comics tell marvelously inspiring tales of a loving, protecting, and benevolent wāheguru. Kīrtan events are family events with babies, children, youth and the elderly, all present together. Children are encouraged to perform at important occasions, and tolerance levels for competency are immensely generous. The purpose of inculcating the response of awe is to be moved to align one’s embodied capacities to wāheguru’s wisdom, gurmat.

The wonders of wonder, from scholarship in cognitive studies

The Sikh concepts of awe and ethical orientation find resonance in cognitive studies on awe and its implications for prosocial behavior. Recent research by scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown various benefits of wonder from spirituality, nature, and art. These include health benefits, specifically anti-inflammatory effects. Feelings of awe from spirituality, nature, and art promote healthier levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the body. Cytokines are proteins that signal the immune system to work harder. Sustained high levels of cytokines are associated with poorer health and such disorders as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and even Alzheimer’s disease and clinical depression. (For details, see http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/02/02/anti-inflammatory/ )

With respect to everyday ethics, the benefits specifically cited are less self-focus and more altruism.
(https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_awe_makes_us_generous)

Based on experiments conducted, these scholars argue that the experience of awe leads not only to a smaller sense of the self, but the content of self-concept changes too, so that one sees oneself less individualistically and more as part of a greater whole. These changes in the concept of self, promote more selfless, other-oriented behaviors.

Further, the experience of awe expands perceived time availability, i.e. people feel less pressed for time. This is due to the ability of awe to bring people into the present moment. There is also a feedback loop: when time feels expansive one is more inclined to engage with the experience of awe. Importantly, the expanded temporal effect of awe, induces feelings of reduced impatience, greater generosity such as increased willingness to volunteer time, higher preference for experiential as opposed to material goods, and greater satisfaction with life.

The following figure summarizes the arguments from the above mentioned scholarship.

Awe, sense of time, and ethics in cognitive studies

Sabad kīrtan and wonder

Guru Granth Sahib is clear on the importance and effectiveness of sabad kīrtan as a means to comprehending the divine. Music is known to be both an affective activity and one that induces an expanded sense of time. In sabad kīrtan, sabad and music combine to expand the sense of time and heighten the experience of awe.

Guru Granth Sahib also makes clear that our experience of time is subjective. As a sabad says, “ik gharhi na milte, ta kaljug hota” – a moment’s separation is like an era of vices. Thus, where moments of connection with wāheguru generate an experience of eternal time of virtuous possibilities, moments of separated time magnify into an era where vices prevail. But sabad also recommends, “kaljug mein kīrtan pardhāna” – in the era of vices, it is kīrtan that is supreme. For the time in kīrtan is the one that induces the experience of the divine; it is the time of sabad-attuned consciousness (surat dhun) which renders the time of divine wisdom (satguru mat vela, GGS: 943).

Thus, sabad kīrtan can both provoke the moral response of awe and is the context in which awe is cultivated, and its experience deepened. The following figure summarizes the interplay of awe, sense of time, and ethics possible in experiences of sabad kīrtan.

Awe, sense of time, and ethics in sabad kīrtan

Concluding remarks

Guru Granth Sahib urges us to inculcate wonder for the wonder of wonders, wāheguru, through repeated chanting of wāheguru’s virtues, and recommends sabad kīrtan as an effective means of comprehending wāheguru’s moral greatness. Repeated contemplation within an attitude of awe for divine moral virtues can help us move toward a sense of self that is a small part of a greater whole, and can thus liberate us from the shackles of haumai (egotism) and improve our everyday ethics.