Essays on Sikhism by Claudia Kaur

THE VOICE OF GOD

God is revealed to us at AGGS. And we, who are reflections of

God, we who are part of God, are therefore, revealed to
ourselves. This theme is picked up in a variety of ways by Sikhi
tradition and its contemporary interpreters.

We often use sensory metaphors to convey moments of

understanding, apprehension and connection. For instance, people
remark: "I see what you're saying" or "I can hear your
exhaustion" or "That speech really touched me" or "It was the
sweet smell of success" or "The finish line was so close, I could
taste it." The people "saw" God's voice in the same way--they
experienced the presence and the truth of that Voice with all of
themselves. When God spoke to them, they could see and taste,
hear and smell and feel God's truth. They knew God with all that
they were.

Personal revelations come to us in the same mysterious way. In

moments of Truth, we experience ourselves simultaneously
receiving a gift from outside and discovering something that
always has been part of us. The Truth of

God's revelation is experienced like the Truth of falling in love,

like the Truth of a breakthrough moment in therapy, like the Truth
of figuring out what we're meant to do with our lives. All are gifts
received from outside which have, paradoxically, been waiting to
be discovered within us all along. The people recognize their
Truths in God's Voice and had "no need to 'believe' the Hukam
because they saw the voices." They already recognized their Truth
in God's Voice.

With the Ten Gurus , the voice of Akal Purakh came to bear the
voice of God within them. We who believe that revelation is not a
onetime event, but an ongoing process, must, with fear and
trembling, with deep humility and "holy audacity," allow our
voices too to become bearers of that voice. The sound of
Waheguru is a 'great voice that never ceased.' Today it needs us
to be its trumpet.
Finding the correct combination of humility and "holy audacity"
necessary to become God's trumpets may be the central task and
the most difficult challenge of religious living. But how desperately
the world (and God?) need us to make the attempt to let God's
music sing through us. May such moments of revelation be our
gift from life and to life.

Claudia Gaspar Soares Martins