This brief essay has nothing to do with John Bunyan’s wonderful classic The Pilgrim’s Progress. It has to do with the sorry void between some Sikh attitudes and Sikh practices. Since the word “Sikh” derivatively means a student, to my mind a Sikh cannot be anything but a pilgrim on the road of life — an endless journey. For a Sikh, the perpetual student on an endless journey of self-discovery, the journey is the destination. With that attitude, how should a Sikh pilgrim identify an end spot for an endless journey?

Most religions seem to recommend places of pilgrimage. Most encourage their devotees to go on pilgrimages. Some even make it a requirement. Good Muslims are mandated to visit Mecca at least once in a lifetime. Hindus, if they can afford it, routinely visit their many places of pilgrimage at least once a year. Most Hindu places are at the banks of rivers, such as the Ganges , that Hindus consider sacred. Considerable Hindu mythology is attached to such places. As I write this, Hindus numbering in the hundreds of thousands are gathered to celebrate a most auspicious event at their most auspicious place at the junction of three auspicious rivers, two of which are real and the third, mythological. A dip in the waters, Hindus believe, can be the most auspicious happening in their lives.

It is not surprising that religious authorities would recommend pilgrimages to holy places. It could be the most painless, even if not the easiest or most economical, way for people to be introduced to their own history and heritage. It might be a most effective way for people to integrate their culture and history into their lives and their bones. Visiting places associated with their ancestors or leaders is perhaps entertaining. Over time these simple objectives seem to have gotten lost or sidetracked. Magical attributes and qualities are now assigned to and associated with historical places. Why we need some magic in our lives is simple. The desperate qualities of our lives convince us that only a stroke of magic or a miracle can deliver us.

Places of pilgrimage become intertwined with expectations of remittance and forgiveness of sins and transgressions. Such places hold the hope of healing, of restoration of the mind, body and soul. People undertake fasts, walk miles barefoot and mortify their flesh in untold ways to reach their goal of the sight of the magical place. Even those who can barely crawl make it; relatives, friends or hired help carry some who cannot walk or crawl.

Whether they are associated with Hinduism or Roman Catholicism, many places have a natural spring or, as commonly seen in Hindu practice, a flowing river. A dip in the holy water (even if not so clean), the devotees are convinced, will cleanse and renew their mind, body and soul. There is magic in the idea of running water washing over you. Since the mind and soul are not so easily accessible, washing the body would suffice. I guess all people need their own Wailing Wall.

Of the over 250 Christian denominations, Roman Catholicism is perhaps the most deeply attracted and attached to places of pilgrimage, whether to the healing waters at Lourdes or the Stations of the Cross. Muslims recognize only one pilgrimage, that to Mecca , and they require it of the faithful. In keeping with the multiplicity of the Hindu pantheon, the Hindu view of pilgrimage strongly commends to its followers the virtues of yearly treks to a variety of places, each with its own promise of redemption and delivery in its own special way, in this world or the next.

Keep in mind that all holy places have caretakers, monks, clerics and others of the same ilk. They all need to justify their existence. They all need to feel needed. They all need to make a living. Out of the desperation of ordinary people is thus born a multibillion-dollar industry. This burgeoning business of religion reminds me of the essayist Alan Dunn who noted, “Everything one does enough of eventually generates its own interest and one then begins to believe in it.”

Men and women are social animals. The greatest influence on them for the greatest good or the wiliest evil is neither from any esoteric philosophy nor from the great minds or souls of any era, but from their peers and the culture created by them. There are fashions and fads in everything, whether it is clothing or drinking, ideas or treks up the holy mountain. Usually we mostly ape those around us.

In India the dominant culture, both in numbers and in mytho-logical history, is Hindu. During much of early Sikh history, Hindus were the downtrodden people of India . Sikhs took up their cause, not because they agreed with Hinduism but because Hinduism was under siege and the lot of the Hindu was no better than that of a slave. Sikhs saw an injustice and rallied to the defense of Hindus and their Hindu religion.

Sikhs have remained, from their inception, a very small minority in a Hindu society. Hindu and Sikh history remains intricately intertwined, primarily because of the circumstances in which Sikhism arose and evolved. Most of the early converts to Sikhism came from a Hindu background; many still do. It is good to remember a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek observation by John Kenneth Galbraith that everything that reaches India , even industry, gets Hinduized in the process. This has happened not only to McDonald’s and KFC, but also to all major religions in India . For instance, Christianity and Islam in India are not practiced as they are elsewhere. Sikhism, too, has absorbed significantly of Hindu worldview and attitudes, even though some are directly contradictory to the very clear teachings of the Gurus.

Sikhs, small in number and of recent history, have done what I would expect of most people. If Hindus had hundreds, nay thousands, of holy places of pilgrimage, Sikhs were certainly not going to be left behind. So we have invented quite a few places of our own and imbued them with magic, even though to do so we had to ignore the clear writings of the Gurus themselves.

We started by making our historical gurdwaras into places of pilgrimage. Then we needed to discover and anoint our one place of pilgrimage that outranked all the others. That honor was bestowed on the Golden Temple at Amritsar . We labeled it our Vatican , the Mecca of the Sikhs. Such thinking is and was not entirely without reason. The history of the Golden Temple encapsulates the history of the Sikh nation in many ways. The importance of this place to the Sikh psyche cannot be overestimated. Each slab of marble, each brick or piece of mortar tells a tale of martyrdom and sacrifice. History permeates the edifice. But we forget that it is only as history that the Golden Temple is paramount. It is not that a glimpse or touch of the bricks, marble or gold would banish all ills, defeat our enemies or cure any worries. It is not that a dip in its pool will help us win the lottery of life. We often forget that the last four Gurus never even visited the Golden Temple . There is no Mecca that a Sikh must visit in his lifetime. There is no Sikh Vatican from where a pope may speak ex cathedra and issue edicts that are binding upon the faithful.

Still, visiting historical gurdwaras that have rapidly become our places of pilgrimage is like traveling down the byways and highways of history. A trip to such gurdwaras undertaken with some introspection can place us squarely in the midst of our rich and glorious heritage. But to see them as places of pilgrimage clearly runs counter to the message of Sikhism.

There is a gurdwara built by Guru Amar Das that has 84 steps leading to an underground spring. He had it constructed to provide a reliable supply of water to the local villagers. This was important, for in those times droughts were common. If the rains were late, the people suffered. But now we have added legends to it to promote it as a place of pilgrimage. One legend claims that if, at every step, you recite Japji, the morning prayer of the Sikhs, you are promised salvation.

Such a covenant, I submit, would not be consistent with the lucid teachings of the Sikh Gurus. Gurbani clearly recommends that a pilgrim immerse himself in the pool of remembrance of God to wash away his sins. At several places, gurbani instructs that the only pilgrimage is the awareness of the Infinite within each of us. There is no place of pilgrimage outside of us. The journey to the Infinite within is the only pilgrimage that can cure all ills; it is the only panacea.

Among the many geographical places of pilgrimage that Sikhs seem to have discovered or invented, none is currently more eye-catching or popular than the one in Hemkunt. It is a beautiful gurdwara in a most attractive, scenic location in the Himalayas , about 15,000 feet above sea level. Thousands and thousands of devotees make yearly treks to it. It is also close to Badri Nath and a temple to Laxman, two important Hindu centers of pilgrimage. How Hemkunt came to capture Sikh imagination and consciousness makes a compelling story.

When Guru Gobind Singh prepared a final version of the Guru Granth, the sacred scripture of the Sikhs, he did not include any of his own writings in it, although he was a prolific writer and poet himself. Most of his own voluminous writings were lost in the subsequent years when Sikhs were literally fighting for survival. The exigencies and imperatives of survival were such that they were unable to preserve the writings of Guru Gobind Singh. Later his compositions were collected and assembled as best as they could be, but the authenticity of the collection remained in doubt. Even today, 300 years later, this anthology, popularly known as Dasam Granth, is still the subject of scholarly debate on which compositions or parts thereof are authentically Guru Gobind Singh’s and which are perhaps attributable to some other poet of that time.

In one of the epics — Bacchitter Natak — included in the Dasam Granth, Guru Gobind Singh supposedly describes his earlier life prior to the one in which he was born as Gobind. If we accept this version, Guru Gobind Singh describes a geographical location in the Himalayas , without naming it, where he meditated as an ascetic and where God anointed him to come to earth as Gobind, inaugurate the nation of the Khalsa and lead his Sikhs on the path of righteousness. Some observers — an unnamed Englishman and later two Sikhs, Mohan Singh and Bhai Vir Singh — drew upon the descriptions in the Bacchitter Natak and identified Hemkunt as that place. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The devout Sikhs who pointed their finger at the location did not take into account that all of the writings in Bacchitter Natak were not necessarily authenticated. More importantly, these people overlooked some important lessons from earlier Sikh Gurus and elementary Sikh history. (Incidentally, there is no denying Bhai Vir Singh’s scholarship and contribution to Sikhism and its renaissance. It just goes to show that even the brightest, most enlightened people — those with the most impeccable credentials — can sometimes lose their bearings.)

Guru Angad, the second Guru of the Sikhs, was an ardent Hindu devi worshipper before he became a Sikh, as was the third Guru, Amar Das. Both used to undertake yearly pilgrimages to Hindu centers. But when they came into the Sikh fold and accepted Sikh teaching, they gave up the practice of pilgrimages. They never went on a pilgrimage again, nor did they ever recommend that any Sikh should undertake one. If any Guru went to a Hindu or Muslim place of worship, it was with only one idea, and that was to teach his message; never to join in a pilgrimage.

Even now, at no gurdwara, and never in any Sikh assembly, is it recommended that we revere the places to which Bhai Lehna (who later became Guru Angad) or Bhai Amar Das paid yearly visits of worship before they became Sikhs. Those places have no importance to Sikhs or Sikhism.

To my mind, the more powerful argument against the cultish pilgrimage to Hemkunt stems from this history. If every word in the Bacchitter Natak were true, I would submit, Hemkunt would still hold no importance. There is no more reason to make anything of any place or event associated with the supposedly previous life of Guru Gobind Singh than there is to nurture the places where Bhai Lehna and Bhai Amar Das went yearly before they embraced Sikhism. It is good to remember that Guru Gobind Singh never visited Hemkunt, the supposed site of his meditation during an earlier birth, nor did he recommend that any Sikh should. The clearest test of any practice lies in the Guru Granth; gurbani could not be any more explicit when it says that the only place of pilgrimage is remembrance of God.

In visiting a gurdwara — any gurdwara, whether it is the Golden Temple or Hemkunt — the motivation is all-important. It is one thing if one visits a gurdwara to imbibe the lessons of Sikhism, quite another matter altogether if the visit is to a place of pilgrimage. Some gurdwaras have been so successfully promoted as places of pilgrimage that they have become booming businesses that attract innumerable pilgrims from all faiths. It is not so easy to shut down or change the direction of a growing enterprise in which many ambitious, successful entrepreneurs have a stake.

Parenthetically, I note that not unrelated to our attitude (and need?) of pilgrimages is another fast-growing trend among Sikhs. From their periodic trips to the homeland I notice that many Sikhs bring parshad or bottles of water from the pool at the Golden Temple or other historical gurdwaras. Then they distribute these most reverently to their friends and family as if these were indeed specially blessed. Inherent in this practice is an assumption that this water and parshad are from a special gurdwara and, therefore, outrank in spiritual or therapeutic value what you might receive at the local gurdwara. This practice again appears to have no base in logic, reason or Sikh teaching, and may be an accretion from the Hindu influence around us.

The magic and mystery of the human mind are such that we often do not and cannot comprehend. The mind feels liberated after a dip in holy waters because that is the power of the mind, not of the water. The mind, as gurbani says, is the divine spark within the human. Sikhism exhorts humans to recognize and nurture this divine power. It needs not holy waters, but contemplation, prayer and grace.

The only pilgrimage is of the mind and the only place is the awareness of the Infinite within each of us. To find this place of pilgrimage we need to travel within us, not outside of us. To travel within is to travel the farthest. Such a pilgrimage is designed to build minds, mold character and develop integrity. As Bill Clinton, who finally understood the need for character and integrity, ruefully admitted when he left the presidency, “Character is a journey, not a destination.”