Just weeks ago, our local gurdwara initiated what I consider a fantastic project, but one that landed me in a bit of soup.

Most people come to the gurdwara, attend the service with varying degrees of mindfulness, enjoy the langar along with the almost mandatory social hour that follows, and then amble on back to whatever else excites them in life.

The idea of this program was to engage the congregation in a little thought about the fundamentals of the religion and the way of life it espouses.

So, at the initiative of the Sikh Women Association based at the gurdwara, sangat members were invited to submit a brief question about Sikhism.  The topic could be anything that interested them, as long it was connected to Sikhi.

The organizers of the project would then pick one question per week and assign it to a willing member of the congregation.  This member would pursue the necessary research, prepare a ten minute response, and present it orally to the sangat at the subsequent service, usually a few days later.

When I drew the short straw, my assignment was to parse rites and rituals  -  particularly those that are usually dismissed as empty rituals by some, and deified or sanctified by others.  And then, I knew, tempers would run high.

How was I going to walk the fine line between a meaningful rite or tradition and one that is not?   Religions speak of a reality that our senses cannot fully perceive and our intellects cannot always fathom.  How then to analyze what to many was an expression of their immeasurable devotion?

Sikhism too, like other religions, has over the centuries developed practices, rites and rituals.  For many of these, there may have been good reason then but, over time, many have lost that connection to reason or life.

Most religions and faiths are instilled via obedience and fear  -  the hallmarks of a feudal society, in which critical analysis is diminished, if not dismissed, as a distraction.  I needed a set of criteria to separate what may be meaningful from what may not be.  I needed a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.  And not offend the believer in the process.  Yet, I also believe that fear and unquestioning obedience are not the hallmarks of Sikh teachings, though they are often encountered in actual practice.

In the balance were many Sikh practices, some perhaps dating back centuries.

Take one example: the marble of the Golden Temple at Amritsar is washed with milk.  Why?  Because no other Sikh temple or shrine is more intimately connected to Sikh history and religion.  No other marker comes even close to defining Sikh psyche. Milk is certainly more expensive than water, and in the larger Hindu culture of India, idols and temples are often washed in milk. 

On the other hand, I wondered: would the milk not serve a nobler purpose in feeding babies, and wouldn't the marble be cleaner if we used an appropriate detergent?

In Hindu belief, after death, the soul wanders in space until it is assigned a home at the end of one full year.  Therefore, Hindus believe it essential that special religious services for the departed soul be held before the year ends, preferably in the eleventh month.  This practice is commonly seen in Sikh homes as well, even though by no stretch of the imagination can one derive justification for it in Sikh belief.

Another widely practiced rite that is not easy to miss: at sundown, in the room housing the Guru Granth, lights are routinely switched on and, if it is summer, the air conditioning also, even though no human being is in the room.  The scarves (rumallas) in which Guru Granth is wrapped are lighter during summer, becoming progressively heavier and more substantial as winter approaches. 

What we have effectively done is then to transfer our very human needs to a Granth which, though our Living Guru, is composed of words and consists of bani.  Perhaps we are forgetting that the Guru in this Granth comes alive when we open the book to engage the Word that is the Guru.

I am aware that some devout Sikhs would take umbrage at my view here.  They look at the words that we recite at every religious service: "Guru Granth ji manyo(n) pargat guraa(n) ki deh..." 

I have heard erudite preachers point to the literal meaning of the line as, "Believe in the Guru Granth that is the body of the Gurus".  I think they miss the meaning entirely.  The word "deh" here signifies not literally human bodies like yours and mine that need warmth in winter and cold in the summer, but that the Guru Granth is the embodiment of the Gurus, and the Guru is the Word.

Have you ever noticed the mechanical rite when Sikhs bring a rumalla to offer at the gurdwara?  The officiant often, for a moment, spreads out the scarf on top of the one that is already in place.  Imagine when there are a few such offerings; they all go on  -  one atop the other, until there are half a dozen of them.  And, I wonder!  If on a birthday, you present your child with half a dozen shirts, would he or she be expected to model them all  -  not one at a time, but by wearing all six, one on top of the other? 

But self-flagellation in such matters is unnecessary.  We are not the only ones doing such things.  Roman Catholics believe that, at Communion, the host retains its appearance of bread and wine, but undergoes a transformation into the blood and flesh of Jesus.  They even have a doctrine to describe this transubstantiation.  

This all sounds so confusing, but it need not be. By some very cogent examples, Guru Nanak laid out the basics of how to reason our way out of this paper bag.

There is no life without some ritual.  After all, ritual is the formal practice of a rite.  And "rite" is defined as a ceremonial or prescribed act.  Then, what is a meaningless ritual and what is not? 

Even presenting a gift to your significant other every year on his or her birthday could be a rite with much meaning or become a ritual without much thought to it.  Think of the idea of sponsoring a langar or an akhand paath. Keep in mind that the common meaning of the word "ritual" has now evolved into an act without much thought and purpose.

A parable from his life shows Guru Nanak wading in a river full of Hindu pilgrims and splashing water to the west, while others were spattering it to the east. When questioned, he explained the futility of hoping to quench the thirst of their long dead ancestors in this manner.

When Guru Nanak told Hindus that to wear a sacred thread (janeu) without understanding it was an empty ritual: "Dya Kapaah santokh soot ..." (loosely translated as "Out of the cotton of compassion, spin the thread of contentment"), he was pointing out to us what is empty ritual and what is not. 

And then, in a series of hymns directed to Muslims, worded: "Mehar maseet sidak musla huck halaal Koran ...", he asked them to let compassion be the mosque, faith the prayer mat, piety the fast, submission to God's will the rosary, and so on.

Thus, Guru Nanak clearly delineated between a practice that has meaning and a rite that has been reduced to a meaningless ritual.

Arguably, sometimes there is a meaning behind a practice; but sometimes, it is lost with time.  Many of these rituals are not holy writ, but are cobwebs of our minds. So, it is not always easy to tell the difference between a meaningful practice and one that is not.

Sikhi is a relationship of love, not fear.  Yet, we often do what we do because we think of God as we think of our parents, teachers or bosses.  Since we need to please our earthly masters, we transfer the same attitude to the God within us.  We then end up acting out of fear or obligation, rarely out of thought or love. I assure you, if we think of God not as an earthly ogre, or someone capricious like we ourselves often are, lightning is not going to strike us; we will not be automatically consigned to hell. 

Since it is not always easy to know what to do from Guru Nanak's teachings, I suggest two criteria or tests:  (a) Intent, and (b) substance or meaning. 

In other words, why am I doing something and what do I hope to receive.  And, secondly, to look at what is done to see honestly what is achieved.

So now, whether we are washing marble with milk, feeding holy men before a year is up after a death in the family, or sponsoring an akhand paath that no one listens to, we can and should subject the acts to the two questions/ tests that I proposed.

Some might complain that my approach diminishes their devotion.  That is certainly not my intent.  For anything you are about to do, keep in mind the two conditions I laid out. No granthi, not even the Guru himself, can tell us exactly what to us is honest practice and what is empty ritual.  Only we have the answer.

The Guru lays out a method: "Aklee(n) sahib seveeye, aklee(n) payeeye maan".  Simply, it tells us not to leave our critical faculties outside the door!