ਸਿਮਰਨਸਿਮਰਨ

Before the gurdwara fills, before work and traffic and telephones start, a Sikh sits quietly and repeats one word: Waheguru, Waheguru. Nothing is asked for and nothing is performed for an audience. The repetition is the remembrance itself, and its name is simran, the daily discipline by which Sikhs keep the Divine Name present in the mind through everything else the day will bring.

What is simran?

Simran is the remembrance of God through the repetition of the Name, called Naam. The word comes from the Sanskrit smarana, remembrance, and the related verb simar means to meditate. In Gurmukhi the word is used as a verb as much as a noun: to do simran is to remember, deliberately and repeatedly, until remembrance becomes a habit of the mind rather than an appointment in the day. The Name Sikhs repeat most is Waheguru, Wonderful Lord, though the Guru Granth Sahib Ji praises God by many names drawn from both Hindu and Muslim devotion, and simran is not tied to one word alone.

One traditional reading of the word explains its purpose. Si-mar can be heard as to die over: in simran the ego dies, little by little, and as it dies the ultimate truth, sach, becomes visible. Sikh teaching is clear that God is realised through individual devotion, without priests or intermediaries, and simran is the most direct form of that devotion: a person, the Name, and attention.

What does the Guru Granth Sahib Ji say about simran?

The scripture returns to simran again and again as the way a person is purified and attains mukti, liberation. On page 202 of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji the line runs: Simar simar sukh paa-i-aa. Meditating, meditating in remembrance, I have found peace. The teaching that follows it in Sikh understanding is demanding: merit comes not from repeating words mechanically but from repeating, comprehending and living by the sacred word every day, so that the truth it names is progressively revealed to the person who seeks it in earnest.

Guru Ram Das Ji, in Sarang ki Var on page 1242, describes the Name itself: Naam, the incorruptible, is beyond our comprehending, and at the same time it is our constant companion and preserves all creation, so truth will disclose itself and let us perceive it in our hearts. Simran is how that companionship is kept. The Name is not understood once and filed away; it is returned to, the way one returns to a person one lives with.

How is simran done?

The classic picture is simple: a person sitting cross-legged, meditating, uttering or chanting the Name. The repetition may be spoken aloud, whispered or carried silently in the mind, and Sikhs do it alone and in groups. Early morning, the ambrosial hours Sikhs call Amrit Vela, is the preferred time, when the mind is rested and the world is quiet, although the tradition is careful to add that no one time is more sacred than another. Simran is also done outside formal meditation: while working, walking or travelling, the Name is repeated under the breath, so that remembrance runs underneath ordinary life rather than replacing it.

Many Sikhs count the repetitions on a mala, a string of beads, or keep the rhythm with the breath. Neither the beads nor the posture is the point. The point is attention returning, each time it wanders, to the Name and to what the Name stands for: the qualities of the Divine, truth, compassion, fearlessness and love, held in the mind until they begin to shape the person holding them.

The levels of Naam Simran

Sikh teachers describe simran working at more than one level, and count all of them legitimate. The first is naam japna, the repetition of the Name itself, an old and honoured practice by which the devotee internalises the meaning of the word being uttered. The second is corporate: the discipline is also practised together, as devotees gather in satsang, the company of the holy, and sing hymns of praise in kirtan, where remembrance is carried by music and by other voices when one's own attention fails.

The third level is meditation in the deep sense: not mechanical repetition and not singing alone, but contemplation of the divine mystery of the Name, the nature of the Divine and the virtues the disciple is to adopt. The three are connected in the older vocabulary of surati and smriti: surati is listening, concentration, hearing the teaching of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji with full attention, and smriti is consciousness, keeping what has been heard retained in awareness. Simran joins the two. Hear the word, repeat the word, and keep the word, until the word is no longer only heard but lived. It sits inside the daily prayers too: the ਨਿਤਨੇਮ banis are full of the call to remember, and ਜਪੁਜੀ ਸਾਹਿਬ itself opens the day with remembrance.

What is the difference between simran, kirtan and path?

The three are often mentioned together and are easy to confuse. Path is the reading or recitation of scripture: the words of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji followed in order, as in the morning banis. ਕੀਰਤਨ is those hymns sung, to melody and instruments, usually by a jatha for a congregation. Simran is neither reading nor performing. It repeats a single Name, most often Waheguru, or dwells on a single line, with no audience and no text to finish. A morning can contain all three: path from a gutka, simran in the quiet before it, and kirtan later at the gurdwara, and each does different work on the same mind.

What does simran change?

The tradition's answer is about the ego. Repeating the Name, the teaching runs, gives a person the humility to accept Hukam, the Divine order of things, and loosens attachment to what cannot be kept. The person who wishes to benefit from this human life and attain a higher spiritual state must, according to the Gurus, undergo the discipline of Naam Simran: constant awareness of the Name. Its fruit is described in the scripture's own terms: purification, peace, and in the end mukti, freedom from the round of birth and death. Its everyday fruit is quieter and easier to test: a mind trained to return to the Name is a mind that returns more slowly to anger, pride and fear.