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Notes on religious werit (punya)
141 brilliant luminaries in the firmament of the medieval Indian Bhakti tradition, and in their teachings the value of good works, of altruistic ethics, has never been lost sight of.
All those deeds of the body, mind and speech which conduce to a being's constat mindfulness of the reality of God are meritorious from the standpoint of Gurumata or Sikhism. The ideal religious person, called guramukha is believed to be an embodiment of moral and religious virtues. He is called 'God-faced' or 'turned towards the Teacher', because he lives, moves, and has his being in the Timeless Person (akāla-purakha). In verse after verse of the Gurugrantha he is eulogized for his moral life and blameless behaviour towards his fellowbeings.
The 'religious person’ is not only a devotee or a sharer in divine glory' (bhagata), but also a “holy person' (punni), 'a doer of good works' (karamı), and 'a servant(dāsa) engaged in the service of God. 19 The Sikh Scripture refers to meritorious work as punna, sukrita, guna, bholz-kāra and nāmasimarana, 'merit', 'pious action', 'virtue', 'good deed', and 'the mindfulness of (God's) name 'respectively. 8° The message of the teachers of Sikh tradition is that faith in and love of one God creator must go along with morally good works of the body, mind and speech.
The foremost work of merit (punna), according to all the saints represented in the Sikh Scripture, is constant awareness of God. This is the root of all other merits; without this other good works are of little avail. According to Guru Nāpaka, a person gets little honour through pilgrimage, (tiratha), austerity (iapu), mercy (daiā), and liberal gifts (datudānu); it is the hearing, accepting, and meditating on the name of God which is the essence of religious life; therefore, let one drown oneself into the innermost sanctum (antargati tirathi).21 Without cultivating virtues there can be no devotion to God;29 and without devotion to God there can be no liberation as
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