Hukam

Hukam, a word of Arabic origin meaning “command” or “order”, is in Sikh teaching the divine will or order that governs all things. The Japjī of Guru Nānak teaches that by the hukam all forms are created, by the hukam some are high and some low, and that all are within the hukam, none outside it.

The question the Japjī asks is how one can become true, and how the wall of falsehood can be broken; its answer is to walk in the hukam, in accord with the divine will. One who understands the hukam, the text says, no longer speaks in terms of ego. Haumai, self-centredness, is thus overcome not by escaping the world but by accepting and living within the divine order.

Hukam is not fatalism. The Sikh Gurus call for active, honest and courageous living; but they teach that it is to be done in submission to God’s will, which the devotee comes to accept as sweet.