Course XXVII - Teaching 24: The Military Sikhs

Before dawn of Renaissance in Europe, a millenary India, cradle of the oldest religions and of the pure Aryan race, had declined in an alarming way.
Buddhism, that pure religion that centuries ago awakened the consciousness in India to the source of eternity, had been banished by fire and sword to the rest of Asia. Also there was a decline as to fervor and return to Vedic religion and pure Manu’s laws, which had been a Hindu Counter-Reformation produced by Buddhism. Great Rajas had abandoned the spiritual field to be carried away by the surge of the world, and when the Crescent invaded Indian soil, did not find opposition.
Hindus granted everything to Mahommedans and as a grace they were authorized to live in their own soil and to follow the religion of their ancestors.
In the course of time, deeper and deeper hatred and rancor crystallized in India, always because of religious questions, between Allah’s followers and those of the holy Ganges.
They needed a religion to appease these two tendencies, to harmonize both creeds and to try a union of so contrary ideals.
In 1469, a child is born of Brahmana family, who had to be founder of Sikhs. His name was Nanak, and at the age of nine already felt that his mission was to harmonize all of religions in India.
If the One God of Mahommedans was the true, Hindus worshiped His attires in manifold forms. Unity nothing took away from diversity of form.
Nanak abandoned the holy Brahmans’ cord and went to wilderness for meditation; after this, now a man, he preached a creed of union between Mahommedans and Hindus, but inadvertently a new religion emerged: that of Sikhs.
He died in 1537, left uncountable disciples, and his words had been written and transmitted on texts that are considered holy.
But this religion is really characteristic by its military organization. Every Sikh is a soldier of God, and has to lend his arm and his sword to defend his faith and those lands assigned to him by God. Govinda, tenth Sikh Master, born in 1675 and dead in 1708, imparted them this military tenet.
This religion reached its highest splendor in that time, with cities and kingdoms, and fighting fiercely to defend their heritage.
Later they were totally defeated, but, though they lost their domains, remained faithful to their creed up to our days. At present, in India there are millions that profess the religion of Sikhs.
A distinctive trait of this religion is its initiatic structure that is very similar to those of Knights of the Holy Order of Fire, and of ancient Christian Knightly Orders.
Certainly several Initiates of Fire lived with them. Also they had similar symbols and images to those of the above mentioned Orders; their initiatic structure is composed of five grades instead of seven. They begin by an oath, and have a mystical feast a High Master, and an entirely secret and esoteric Initiation.