Some weeks ago I was in Houston at a stimulating mixture of young and not so young Sikhs. During the obligatory Q and A, one young woman got to me with an obviously heartfelt outpouring that was less a question than a statement.

She demanded to know what could be done about the inter-generational conflict. She pointedly and rightly asserted that there was a communication abyss between her parents’ generation and her own – and she was not a starry-eyed teenager, but a young married woman. This was all the more wrenching since it came at a meeting where the gray beards were also well represented. In all honesty I must confess to being entirely gray-bearded myself.

My dilemma was obvious, how to address her very real concerns without offending either the young or the old.

The gap between the young and the old is an age-old problem. From the vantage point of youth, the old are too slow to change, too stubborn to learn new skills, too set in their ways, too preachy and hectoring in their demeanor. The old sit on their experience, and they seem to value little else. To them the young appear to be empty headed, with no direction, no aims and little sense of where they are in life or where they are headed. Youth, they often think, is wasted on the young. Being young is an intoxicating idea.

So I talked about the century old history of Sikhs in North America. Let’s not forget, I added that Asians (including Sikhs) had no right to land property or citizenship until 1946. Most of them were poorly educated, lacking in critical life skills, barely cognizant of their rich spiritual heritage. Their primary concerns were subsistence, survival and economic independence, which would increase the options for themselves and their progeny. Their insecurities bred in them a perennially defensive posture, grafted on to the well known passive-aggressive Indian psyche. So they worked hard and now their children are equal citizens in a technologically advanced society, where they too can strut in the corridors of power.

I counseled patience and some broadminded tolerance. I promised them that they too would have a similar inter-generational gap with their children. In my view, it was inevitable. (Remember Socrates and his travails.) But then I thought some more. True that a communication gap will always happen, shouldn’t we look at the nature of the dialogue in our society.

Let me take a very broad meaning of dialogue in which all communication becomes a form of it. Not all communication is necessarily of the spoken variety. But even the most contradictory communication, such as a dispute among friends, or its extreme form of war, preserves contact; it is silence that isolates. Even silence, though, speaks volumes.

Communication may use many tools, even war. Every human interaction then, no matter at what level or by what means, is by definition a dialogue. Without dialogue no communication, and no human activity is possible. The simplest kind is one where we juggle ideas in our own heads. Should I do this or that? Or why am I doing this and not something else? It is like talking to oneself, as long as we don’t lose the argument.

Dialogue it seems to me can be vertical or horizontal. Feudal societies and similarly constructed hierarchical business or governmental models depend upon vertical dialogue. All armies and most religions are prime examples of it, so are old feudal societies. In these there is a pyramidal authoritarian structure. It is a trickle down model of authority, much like the trickle down economic model that is often aggressively promoted by those who have the money. By the nature of its very special function, an army needs such a pyramidal structure; the religions and civic societies do not. Yet those who have it love it and will defend it to their death or that of their perceived foes. Do not forget that India, from where most Sikhs come, is a feudal society.

The place of the Roman Catholic pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra from the Chair of St. Peter is a prime example of such authority, as is the place of the Brahmin in the traditional Hindu society. Civic societies the world over are moving away from such a trickle down vertical system of governance. Religions perhaps remain the most tightly wedded to an authoritarian model and the most resistant to change.

When I look at how Sikhism is practiced and taught every day in our gurdwaras, I find little to differentiate it from the other religious systems in this matter, even though I believe such thinking greatly misinterprets and diminishes Sikh fundamentals. Not so long ago I was talking to a prominent Sikh writer and she assured me that the basics of Sikh belief were fear of God and obedience to Guru. She is right in the sense that if you go to any gurdwara, this is how Sikhism is brought home to the seeker.

How can this be right when the Gurus taught by dialogue and discussion, and they never threatened anyone by the fear of a cruel hereafter? And look at the nature of their discussion and debate. There was humor and gentleness to it. It was a horizontal dialogue, not a vertical one. In a horizontal dialogue each side listens to the other; an answer is not thrust down the throat of the seeker but the questioning mind derives the answer that satisfies it. In a vertical dialogue the questioner is like an empty bucket to be filled with knowledge. I suspect in this case the bucket also remains bottomless, never to be filled. In the Socratic method by which the Gurus taught, both the pupil and the preceptor join to create ideas and wisdom, much beyond the simple process of information transfer.

And I think that’s why we are Sikhs, in other words lifelong students of the meaning of life. In its fullest flowering, the message of Sikhism is seen in the egalitarian order of the Khalsa, with a novel model of self-governance that guaranteed empowerment of the powerless - transparency, accountability and elevation of the sangat of ordinary Sikhs to extraordinary status. These are the benefits of horizontal dialogue and democratic institutions cannot thrive without it.

But Sikhism took root and blossomed in a feudal society where the only communication was and is vertical. And Sikhism remains a very small minority everywhere. Even where Sikhism took birth in India, Sikhs are less than two percent of the teeming billion Indians. Is it surprising then that Sikhs created a somewhat schizoid existence for themselves? They embraced both the egalitarian message of Sikhism, which empowers ordinary people and also kept close to their hearts their timeless feudal roots.

So the young lady in Houston was right to feel frustrated, even though we might like to blame it on her youth that knows no patience.

I am reminded of Oscar Wilde, who said, "The old believe everything, the middle aged suspect everything, the young know nothing". But when are we old? Ogden Nash reminds us, "Middle age ends and senescence begins the day your descendents outnumber your friends. The young are passionate; passion is burnt out in the old. The old look with anger at the temerity of the young; youth looks with contempt on the timidity and cautiousness of the old."

Regard the youth with affection, even admiration, certainly a world of hope. Who knows this young person’s future will probably be better than our present. And wouldn’t that be great.

Some who are old in years have only existed, never lived. This is what the young are afraid of. Practice the horizontal dialogue of the Gurus. That’s the Sikh way.

Note: The author, Inder Jit Singh, is Professor of Anatomy at New York University. He is on the editorial advisory board of the periodical 'The Sikh Review,' Calcutta. He is also the author of three books - 'Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias,' 'The Sikhs Way: A Pilgrims Progress' and 'Being And Becoming A Sikh.'