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  1. Politics
31 January 2007updated 27 Sep 2015 2:33am

Truth is his name

Who is to say who is right or wrong when only god is perfect?

By Harwinder Singh

If there is one thing that I hate doing, it is admitting when I am wrong. I am comfortable compiling my finances; I can visit the dentist without fear; doing the household laundry and other domestic chores can even be positively euphoric; but, admitting when I am wrong is something that I deplore and what is more, I just can’t seem to do it as often as I should.

As a teenager, I gained something of a reputation for endlessly questioning my friends, family and peers. I just couldn’t let go of a topic that I felt inclined to know about (which happened to be just about everything!) Relentlessly, I would hound somebody as to their opinion or experience.

This in itself was fairly harmless as I had always been taught that an inquisitive nature was the very essence of learning. However, it was the manner in which I would counteract during a conversation that led to my notoriety. To share your own opinions is tolerable, but I tended to declare my own thoughts as absolute fact.

I would take a stand on a point in question and unequivocally deride others (whom I now viewed as opponents) pressing them into submission. As if that wasn’t ghastly enough, I often found myself in a position where I needed to expand my argument further, but could not as I had already limited myself when making earlier assertions!

Admitting that perhaps I had gone too far or that I had hastily made statements was tantamount to admitting defeat and I just couldn’t admit that I was wrong. With age comes wisdom and over the years I have become a better conversationalist, but the agony in admitting I may have erred remains. I often wonder why this is. Is it as simple as the stubbornness of male-pride? Or is there some part of my personality that craves confrontation? I continue to ask these questions of myself, but have already found satisfaction from the philosophy of the Sikh way of life.

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Guru Nanak espoused that there is only One absolute: God. Sikhs do not think of God as a being or deity, rather we believe that God is the very fabric of all existence: The Guru said Truth is His Name. It follows that beyond this absolute, unique perfect Divinity, everything else is not without flaw. It is comforting to know that we are not perfect.

To truly believe and practice the principle that only God is perfect is humbling. It helps us to refrain from the idea that we cannot be wrong. And yet we find ourselves in that position every day because we spend our time looking at the rest of the world who like us are imperfect. If they are imperfect too, who is to say that I am wrong and they are right? Perhaps I am right and they are wrong! It is this type of thinking that I believe has led me to hate admitting when I am wrong, a belief that perhaps I could be right!

This is why the Sikh way of life emphasises the greater importance of practising an ideal. Guru Nanak declared that “Truth is the highest virtue, but higher still is Truthful living.” We recognise that we are imperfect, but when we are put to the test and should accept that we could or have been wrong we fail to follow through. Sikhs believe that everything exists at the whim of the single Creator & Destroyer. That entity alone is responsible for life and death, for war and peace. Sikh philosophy dictates that our energy is better focused on that entity and to not get caught up in the petty squabbles of the World. Guru Nanak said that in life we should be like the lotus flower, floating within the water but not becoming sullied by the murky depths: to live within the World and embrace it whole, to attempt to resolve society’s problems and enhance the spirit of its people. But we should not allow ourselves to become embroiled or overcome by the differences that exist. Truly, it is human to err, but I would like to take licence with the idiom and add that to admit when one is wrong is also divine.

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