Human nature and the human condition — Sikhism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 1, 1.2 (Sikhism). Assessed on AO1 (knowledge and understanding) and AO2 (analysis and evaluation), weighted equally. Incandio is aligned to this specification. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's indicative content — the point numbers are given so you can check every unit against your own copy.

1 · Understand it

Two words do most of the work in this unit, and almost everybody meets them as labels for two kinds of person. They are not. They describe which way a mind is facing, and the same Sikh can be one of them at breakfast and the other by the evening. Get that right and the whole account changes shape.

What it means

The specification names three components: the body, the man and the soul. The body is good and is not to be punished or starved into submission; Sikh teaching rejects extreme austerity as a route to God. The soul is held to be a spark of the divine light, present in every person regardless of birth, caste or gender.

The man — pronounced roughly as mun — is the mind or inner self, and it is where everything happens. It is not simply the intellect: in the Guru Granth Sahib it covers will and feeling as well as thought. The man can be turned towards the Guru and God, or it can be turned in on itself, and that direction is what a life is made of.

Those two directions have names. A person whose mind is turned towards the Guru is gurmukh; a person whose mind is turned towards itself is manmukh. The crucial point, and the one most answers miss, is that these are not two types of human being. They are two orientations available to the same person on the same day, which is why Sikh practice is a daily discipline of turning rather than a single decisive moment.

This is also where the tradition's account of equality is grounded. If the divine light is in every person, then worth is not merely equal, it is identical — the same thing is present in everyone, so birth and status cannot alter it. That claim underlies the shared meal in the gurdwara and the equality of the congregation.

Why believers hold it

The reasoning is tight, and it starts from the light. If the divine light is already present in every human being, then the human problem cannot be that something is missing or that some essential part was lost. Nothing has to be supplied. What is wrong has to be a matter of direction, and that is exactly what the word manmukh says: turned towards the self.

A diagnosis of misdirection produces a different remedy from a diagnosis of corruption. Nobody has to be rescued from a defect they were born with; a mind facing the wrong way can be turned round, and remembrance of God is the practice for turning it. That is why Sikhism has no doctrine of inherited sin and no conversion moment that settles matters once and for all.

The strongest objection is that saying the light is in everyone does not by itself produce equal treatment, and that Sikh communities have not always been free of caste practice. The honest reply concedes the record and points out that the institutions were built specifically to counteract it — the shared meal exists precisely so that people who would not otherwise sit together do.

A second objection is that there is no soul at all, since everything observable about a person depends on the brain. Sikh teaching does not identify the spark of light with the personality, so evidence that memory and temperament are brain-dependent does not reach the claim being made. Whether the claim can be supported at all is a separate argument, and worth having.

Where it comes from

• The Guru Granth Sahib — The Mul Mantar, opening of the Guru Granth Sahib (Japji Sahib) (translated)

  Ik Onkar — There is one God, the eternal truth, the creator, without fear, without hatred.

  The opening statement of Sikh belief: one God, eternal, creator, beyond fear and enmity, self-existent, known by grace.

  What it is doing here: Establishes the one God whose light the soul is held to be a spark of, which is what keeps the Sikh account distinct from a straightforward identity of self and God.

• The Guru Granth Sahib — Guru Granth Sahib, Asa ki Var (attributed to Guru Nanak) (translated)

  From woman is man born; why call her inferior?

  A direct scriptural argument against the inferiority of women, made in the sixteenth century.

  What it is doing here: Turns the abstract claim about the divine light into a specific sixteenth-century argument against treating women as inferior, which is the sharpest available test of whether the doctrine does any work.

• Sikh teaching — Nam Japna, Kirat Karni, Vand Chhakna — taught by Guru Nanak (translated)

  Remember God, work honestly, share with others.

  The three duties of a Sikh, held together: devotion, honest labour and sharing. Sikhism rejects withdrawal from the world.

  What it is doing here: Supplies the daily practice through which the mind is turned, so the gurmukh direction is something a person does rather than something they are.

Where it bites

It shows in the daily practice of remembrance, which is a discipline of putting the mind back where it belongs rather than an attempt to feel something; in the rejection of fasting and bodily austerity as spiritual techniques; in the shared meal where everyone sits at the same level and eats the same food; and in the treatment of the body as something to be kept fit for service rather than mortified. Naming one of these is what separates a developed answer from a list of terms, and the six-mark grid rewards exactly that.

It also changes what a Sikh says about somebody behaving badly. Because the categories are directions rather than types, nobody is written off — a direction can always be changed, and the tradition's language about wrongdoers reflects that.

What people get wrong

People think: The Sikh soul is the same idea as the Hindu account in which the self is identical with God.

Actually: Sikh teaching holds the soul to be a spark of the divine light while keeping a distinction between the person and God. That difference is one of the clearest doctrinal separations from Hindu non-dualism, and blurring it is the fastest route to describing a religion the specification does not examine.

People think: Gurmukh and manmukh are two kinds of people.

Actually: They describe which way a mind is facing at a given time, and the same person alternates between them. Treating them as fixed classes turns a dynamic account of the human condition into a sorting system, and it loses the reason Sikh practice is repeated daily rather than settled once.

People think: Sikhism teaches that the body is an obstacle to be overcome.

Actually: The body is good, follows from a good creation, and is not to be mortified. Sikh teaching rejects extreme asceticism as a route to God, which is why the tradition has no fasting discipline of the kind found elsewhere and why physical fitness for service is valued rather than suspected.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Name all three components the specification asks for — body, mind and soul — and say what each one does.
• Make clear that the two orientations are directions rather than categories of person, since that is the level-four point.
• Use the divine light to explain equality rather than asserting that Sikhs believe in equality.
• Concede that practice has not always matched teaching, then produce the institutions built to close that gap.
• Never describe the Sikh soul as identical with God in the non-dualist sense; the tradition keeps a distinction.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

The specification names three components: the body, the man and atman. Man — pronounced roughly as 'mun' — is the mind or inner self, and it is the battleground: it can be turned towards God or towards itself. Atman is the soul, held to be a spark of the divine light. The human problem in Sikhism is therefore direction rather than corruption.

Key terminology

Incandio's mark schemes credit the religion's own vocabulary; spelling variants are accepted, a vague paraphrase is not.

Man (also mann, mind)

The mind or inner self; the faculty that can be turned towards God or towards the self.

Atman (also atma)

The soul; in Sikh teaching a spark of the divine light present in every person.

Jyot (also jot)

Light; the divine light held to be within every person regardless of birth or status.

Gurmukh (also gurmukhi (as adjective))

One whose man is turned towards the Guru and God.

Manmukh

One whose man is turned towards itself; self-centred rather than God-centred.

What Sikhism teaches

• shared — Every person contains the divine light, which is the basis of Sikh teaching about equality.
• shared — A human being is body, man and atman, and it is the man that decides the direction of a life.
• shared — A person is gurmukh when the mind is turned towards the Guru and manmukh when turned towards itself; the same person can be either.
• shared — The body is good and is not to be mortified; Sikh teaching rejects extreme asceticism as a route to God.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that if the divine light is already in every person, then the human problem cannot be that something is missing. It has to be that the mind is facing the wrong way — which is exactly what manmukh means. That diagnosis makes the remedy reorientation rather than rescue, and it explains why Sikh practice is a daily discipline of remembrance rather than a single moment of conversion.

Sources of authority

• The Guru Granth Sahib — The Mul Mantar, opening of the Guru Granth Sahib (Japji Sahib) (translated)

  Ik Onkar — There is one God, the eternal truth, the creator, without fear, without hatred.

  The opening statement of Sikh belief: one God, eternal, creator, beyond fear and enmity, self-existent, known by grace.

  How to use it: It is the first thing in the scripture and the summary of the whole of it, which is why Sikh answers about God can be grounded in one place.

  What it does not settle: Uncontested among Sikhs, so it distinguishes no group from another.

• Sikh teaching — Hukam, karma and mukti; taught throughout the Guru Granth Sahib (translated)

  Hukam — God's will and order; mukti — liberation through God's grace.

  Everything happens within God's hukam; actions have consequences (karma) and rebirth continues until liberation, which comes by grace and by remembering God.

  How to use it: Holding hukam and human responsibility together is the Sikh answer to determinism, and it is different from both the Christian and the Hindu answer.

  What it does not settle: Mukti is not identical to moksha or nibbana, and treating the three as interchangeable is exactly the kind of confusion the reports penalise.

• Sikh teaching — Nam Japna, Kirat Karni, Vand Chhakna — taught by Guru Nanak (translated)

  Remember God, work honestly, share with others.

  The three duties of a Sikh, held together: devotion, honest labour and sharing. Sikhism rejects withdrawal from the world.

  How to use it: Because honest work and sharing are religious duties rather than by-products of faith, Sikh answers on wealth, poverty and family are not about charity but about obligation.

  What it does not settle: It states the duties, not how much or to whom.

• The Guru Granth Sahib — Guru Granth Sahib, Asa ki Var (attributed to Guru Nanak) (translated)

  From woman is man born; why call her inferior?

  A direct scriptural argument against the inferiority of women, made in the sixteenth century.

  How to use it: It is unusual on this specification in being an explicit scriptural argument FOR equality, rather than a principle from which equality is inferred — which makes it strong evidence.

  What it does not settle: Scriptural teaching and social practice have not always matched, and an honest answer says so — the specification's own wording asks about 'the extent to which they are practised in religious communities'.

Different interpretations

• Atman read as identical with God, as in Advaita, and read as a spark of a God who remains distinct; Sikh teaching leans to the second, which is one of the clearest differences from Hindu non-dualism.
• The man read as the mind and read as the whole inner person including will and emotion; the second is closer to the usage in the Guru Granth Sahib.
• Gurmukh and manmukh read as two types of person and read as two directions the same person alternates between; the second is how the tradition uses them.

Differences within Sikhism

Amritdhari and Sahajdhari Sikhs hold the same account of the person. The distinction between them concerns initiation and practice, not the nature of human beings.

The traditions broadly agree here. Saying so is a stronger answer than inventing a division.

Application to the issue

It shows in nam simran as a daily practice of turning the mind; in the rejection of fasting and bodily austerity as routes to God; in the Sikh insistence that the divine light is in everyone, which underlies langar and the equality of the sangat; and in the treatment of the body as something to be kept fit for service.

Arguments supporting

• The divine light in everyone is the strongest possible basis for equality. — It makes worth identical and independent of birth, caste or gender. (sikhism)
  Answered by: The Sikh record on caste and gender in practice has not always matched it, which is a criticism Sikhs make of themselves.
• Diagnosing the problem as direction rather than corruption makes it addressable. — A mind facing the wrong way can be turned, which is what nam simran is for. (shared)
  Answered by: People turn their minds and turn them back, so the diagnosis explains the difficulty less well than a doctrine of a divided nature.

Arguments challenging

• There is no soul; a person is a body and a brain. — Everything about a person that can be observed is brain-dependent. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Sikh teaching holds the atman is a spark of divine light rather than the personality, so brain-dependence of personality does not reach it.
• Saying the divine light is in everyone does not by itself produce equal treatment. — Sikh communities have not been free of caste practice. (non-religious)
  Answered by: That is a failure to live the teaching and Sikh institutions were built specifically to counteract it — langar exists for this reason.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Physicalists hold that a person is a body and a brain and that death ends them. They regard the divine light as unevidenced while often agreeing that a doctrine asserting identical worth in everyone is socially valuable — and would locate that value in its effects rather than in its truth.

Examinable throughout Paper 1. Nothing here earns a mark on Paper 2.

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether the human problem is something missing or something misdirected. Sikhism answers the second, and its whole practice follows from that.

Defensible conclusions

• The divine light in everyone is the most direct basis for equality among the six, because it makes worth identical rather than merely equal.
• Gurmukh and manmukh as directions rather than types is the more useful reading, because it makes the distinction available to everyone every day.
• Sikhism's rejection of bodily austerity follows from the goodness of creation, which connects this unit to the householder ideal throughout the specification.

Not defensible

• Describing Sikh atman as identical with God in the Advaita sense; Sikh teaching keeps a distinction.
• Describing Sikhism as a blend of Hindu and Muslim ideas — the examiners name this.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three Sikh beliefs about human nature. Short phrases only.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two developed. 'Sikhs believe the divine light is in every person (1) — so worth does not depend on birth, caste or gender (1).'
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain Sikh beliefs about human nature: the divine light, body, man and atman, and the gurmukh/manmukh distinction.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'Everyone has an immortal soul.' Sikhism's spark-of-light account is a distinct third position beside Hindu atman and Buddhist anatta.

Common mistakes

• Treating Sikh atman as identical to the Hindu Advaita account.
• Describing Sikhism as a mixture of two other religions.
• Confusing gurmukh and manmukh, or treating them as fixed types of people.

“Sikhism is a mixture of Hinduism and Islam.” — Sikhs hold that the faith is a distinct revelation given to Guru Nanak, not a synthesis. Describing it as a blend denies the tradition its own account of its origin.

Write instead: Sikhism began with Guru Nanak's revelation. It shares vocabulary with the traditions around it — karma, samsara, mukti — while teaching its own doctrine of one God, the ten Gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib. The traditional saying 'there is no Hindu, there is no Musalman' is often misread as endorsing a blend; it is better read as declaring that the labels do not decide standing before God.

“Resurrection means the soul is reborn into a new body.” — That is reincarnation or rebirth. Resurrection means this person, body and all, is raised — a linear view in which each person lives once and is then raised.

Write instead: Christianity, Islam and much of Judaism teach RESURRECTION: a single life, then death, then being raised bodily for judgement. Hinduism and Sikhism teach REBIRTH within samsara; Buddhism teaches rebirth without a permanent self. Buddhist rebirth is not reincarnation either, because anatta denies a fixed self that travels. Getting that third category right is a genuine top-band distinction. (Named in the 2021 examiner report for Paper 1.)

Grade 9 insight

Gurmukh and manmukh describe which way a mind is facing rather than what kind of person someone is — the same Sikh can be one in the morning and the other by evening. A Level 4 answer draws out the consequence: Sikhism's account of the human condition is dynamic rather than a classification, which is why its central practice is a repeated daily turning rather than a single decisive conversion. It also means nobody is written off, since a direction can always be changed.

Carry on through Sikhism

• Previous unit: 1.1 · The universe and the place of human beings
• Next unit: 1.3 · Selfishness, greed, ignorance and sin
• Human nature and the human condition in the other religions: Buddhism · Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Judaism
• Side by side: Death and life after death across the six religions — What happens after death?
• All of Sikhism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification