Annie Besant 
Sikhism [PDF ebook] 
A Convention Lecture

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Sikhism. It is a movement, then, primarily of devotion. In its philosophy it is Hindu, but as a movement it is reformatory in its nature, striving against the formalism of the time, against the ceremonialism of the time, in order to find the life which lay below the form, the essence of the truth that had inspired the ceremonies. In the time of Guru Nanak, as too often in the history of the world, a great religion had grown more and more formal and men were starving on the husk of the grain rather than eating the grain itself. Guru Nanak sought to find the grain, and in so doing threw aside, to a large extent, the husk; he strove to lead men to see the reality of religion, the life of religion, -the essence of religion, and to see that life and essence in love to God and the Guru, in love to men as children of the one God. You may almost sum up in that phrase the very essence of Sikhism. We shall find presently in his life how he tried to draw together the warring elements around him. We shall see presently in his life how it was one song of praise and love to God, how he was ever seeking the Supreme and, having found Him, strove to teach his fellows how they too, by devotion, might reach the same knowledge. That is the thought that I would have in your minds in the study of Sikhism, and I shall show you presently how that is carried out by the teachings in the Sikh Scriptures.