Vismaad: Choose to Wonder

"Wondrous is sound, wondrous is ancient wisdom. Wondrous are the creatures, wondrous are their varieties. Wondrous are the forms, wondrous are the colours. Wondrous are the beings who wander around unclothed. Wondrous is the wind, wondrous is the water. Wondrous is the fire, which works wonders. Wondrous is the earth, wondrous the sources of creation. Wondrous are the tastes we seek and seize. Wondrous is union, wondrous is separation. Wondrous is hunger, wondrous is satisfaction. Wondrous is divine praise, wondrous is divine adoration. Wondrous is the wilderness, wondrous is the right path. Wondrous is closeness, wondrous is distance. Wondrous to face the divine, ever-present now. Beholding these wonders, I am wonderstruck. O Nanak, those who understand this are blessed."

Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Asa di Var, 463:18 – 464:4 by Guru Nanak, translated by Valarie Kaur

Listen to a beautiful recording of a recitation of this prayer in Punjabi here

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18: 1 – 4 

What do Jesus' words that we need to become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven mean to you? They speak to me to the need to redevelop our sense of wonder. Children have an inbuilt sense of wonder. Everything is new and marvellous to a small child – butterflies, flowers, snow, clouds, frogs... A few days ago, I was in the vivarium at the Manchester Museum. A small child was peering intently into one of the frog tanks, and began chatting to me, telling me which colour frogs he could see. “I see a red one!” “I see a green one!” “I see a black one with yellow spots!” Then he grew bolder and said, putting his fingers round his eyes like a pair of specs, “I have these visi-things that I put on and I can see the bones underneath!” His Dad laughed and told me he'd been happily staring into the same frog tank for ages. “He just loves it here,” he said, “he thinks it's all wonderful.” And so it is.

Perhaps we might feel that as we get older and more cynical about the world, we begin to lose our childlike sense of wonder. But the good news is that regarding the world and each other with wonder is a choice that we can make, again and again. Wonder changes us for the better, expanding our hearts and minds, sparking curiosity and imagination. When we are curious about other people, we listen to their stories and imagine the reality of their lives, which leads us to empathy, compassion, and love.

We often hear the words awe and wonder used together, particularly to refer to experiences when we perceive our tininess in an infinite universe. Awe is an emotional response to perceiving something so vast that it transcends our current frame of reference. In the wake of awe, we experience wonder or reflective curiosity, which leads us to reshape our existing understanding of the world in order to make sense of our experience. Researchers from the University of California studied the effect of feelings of awe and wonder on emotional health and social connections. They found that experiencing awe and wonder increased the inclinations to care for, share with and assist other people.  A 2019 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that experiencing awe led to decreased self-importance and materialism, and increased humility, connectedness, satisfaction and wellbeing.

The Irish philosopher John Moriarty describes his experiences of wonder in his book, Invoking Ireland, “It was mostly when I’d be out hunting that it would happen to me. Even if it was only a hare for my supper I was hunting, it could happen to me. I’d be walking along by a river maybe and an animal light that would never be morning would dawn in me and for as long as it lasted I would know what animals know. I swear to God, I would know what bushes know and I might as well give up then because, no matter how hungry I was, I couldn’t level a gun at anything. It was like waking up to the wonder of things. And wonder is danger to how we normally are. It can bring down minds. Eyes and minds. And to say that it can bring down ways of seeing and knowing a world is to say that it can bring down worlds. It was wonder that brought down my first eyes and mind. It brought down my first world.” 

This idea of wonder as an extraordinary knowing that allows us to penetrate life's mystery and changes our perception of the world is encapsulated in the Punjabi word, Vismaad. The Sikh musician and blogger Shivpreet Singh describes vismaad as, “a state of being that goes beyond the limitations of ego and encompasses a deep appreciation for the mysteries of life.” Ego, writes Singh, is the antithesis of vismaad, since it acts as a hindrance to the experience of wonder. Ego-centric people falsely believe that they possess complete knowledge, which eliminates the mystery and curiosity that accompanies vismaad. In contrast, those who have attained spiritual enlightenment, embody the highest form of vismaad,  possessing the ability to perceive the divine within all things. As Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, said, "Wondrous to face the divine, ever-present now. Beholding these wonders, I am wonderstruck. O Nanak, those who understand this are blessed.”

This ability to see all things as wondrous is echoed in the words of Rabbi and civil rights activist, Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote, “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

In her book See No Stranger the Sikh anti-racist activist and founder of the Revolutionary Love project, Valarie Kaur, speaks of wonder as the wellspring for love. The title of her book comes from one of Guru Nanak's compositions in the Guru Granth Sahib, in which he says, “I see no enemy. I see no stranger. All of us belong to each other... The One pervades all.” 

Kaur writes, “Seeing no stranger begins in wonder. It is to look upon the face of anyone and choose to say: You are a part of me I do not yet know. Wonder is the wellspring for love… It is easy to wonder about the internal life of the people closest to us. It is harder to wonder about people who seem like strangers or outsiders. But when we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of who we see as part of us... Wonder is where love begins, but the failure to wonder is the beginning of violence. Once people stop wondering about others, once they no longer see others as part of them, they disable their instinct for empathy. And once they lose empathy, they can do anything to them, or allow anything to be done to them. Entire institutions built to preserve the interests of one group of people over another depend on this failure of imagination.”

“Never lose a holy curiosity,” said Albert Einstein. So let us keep wondering about the world. Let us keep wondering about everyone we meet. For when we keep wondering, we open the door of our heart to curiosity, imagination, empathy, compassion, and love. May it be so.

Guru Nanak, with followers Mardana and Bala, by W. Kapur Singh