Three Traditions, One Roar: On Sikhi, Rastafarians and the Nathas
- Raj Palsingh
- Jun 10
- 13 min read
Updated: Jun 11
Three Traditions, One Roar.
Recently Julian Marley, Bob Marley's son, toured Thailand. As a Bob Marley fan in my twenties, I went along mostly because I knew he would play some of his father's music. There is something special about hearing those songs performed by a son carrying forward the work of his father.
Julian played Exodus and Positive Vibration among many of his own songs. Throughout the evening I found myself hearing familiar words repeated again and again: Babylon, Zion, I and I.
Words I hadn't spent much time thinking about in years.
Driving home after the concert, I put on Redemption Song. It just felt different this time.
Not that I had suddenly discovered something hidden in Bob Marley's lyrics. Over the last few years I have spent a great deal of time reading the Nath yogis and revisiting the teachings of Guru Nanak. As I listened, I found myself hearing familiar themes. Not identical teachings. Not shared theology. But something that felt strangely recognizable.
The call to free oneself from mental slavery reminded me of Gurbani's constant challenge to move beyond the limitations of the "I" story. The fearlessness in Marley's music reminded me of the Panj Pyare stepping forward in Anandpur Sahib with their heads on the line. I thought of the Nath yogis leaving behind social expectations and refusing to build their lives around the approval of others.
The same melody appearing in different places, played in different keys.
That observation sent me down a rabbit hole of researching and reading about Rastafarianism and the symbols woven throughout its music and philosophy.
Before going further, an important clarification. This is not an attempt to argue that all traditions are saying the same thing. They are not. Rastafarianism holds Haile Selassie I as the returned Messiah, a position that sits worlds apart from either the Sikh Gurus or the Nath yogis.
The Nath tradition is a lineage of yogis working with the body, breath, and kundalini, drawing from streams of Shaivism, Vajrayana Buddhism, Tantra, and Bhakti traditions that would be unfamiliar to many Rastas.
Likewise, the Khalsa emerged from a very specific historical reality. Guru Gobind Singh's creation of the Khalsa cannot be separated from the persecution, martyrdom, and political circumstances facing the Sikh community in seventeenth-century India.
Flattening these differences in the name of spiritual unity would be both lazy and disrespectful.
What interests me is something else. Sometimes a musician hears a melody from another culture and recognizes something familiar. The songs are different. The instruments are different. The histories are different.
Yet somehow the notes know each other.
Play with me here.
The Symbol of the Lion, Explained.
One of the first symbols that caught my attention was the lion.
At Julian Marley's concert the Lion of Judah appeared on flags, on stage backdrops, and on merchandise throughout the venue. When you actually look, you find it everywhere in Rastafarian culture. In reggae album artwork. Painted on walls where they live. Woven through lyrics of reggae music. Hanging in homes and community spaces.
The symbol traces back to the biblical Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but within Rastafari it carries a particular meaning. The lion represents a dignity that cannot be granted by an empire and therefore cannot be taken away by one. It is a symbol of sovereignty, not bestowed from the outside, but remembered from within. The lion already knows what it is.
I grew up with stories about becoming the Lion from within the Sikh tradition.
In 1699, at Anandpur Sahib, Guru Gobind Rai gathered the Sikh community and asked for a volunteer willing to offer their head. One man stepped forward. Then another. Then another. Five in total, they would become known as the "Panj Pyare" or the "Five Beloved Ones".
Each entered a tent with the Guru while the congregation waited outside. Each time Guru Gobind emerged carrying a bloodied sword before calling for another volunteer. To the crowd, it must have appeared that something terrible was happening.
Instead, the five emerged unharmed. Guru called them the Khalsa, the Pure Ones, and then did something extraordinary. He bowed before them and requested initiation from the very people he had just initiated, when they initiated him, he took the name Gobind Singh, and then the rest of the Sikhs took that same inititaion. From that day forward, members of the Khalsa would carry the name Singh, or Lion.
It is tempting to interpret this simply as a story about bravery, but I think it points to something deeper. The lion is not merely courageous. The lion knows what it serves. The Panj Pyare stepped forward because there are moments when truth becomes more important than self-preservation.
The same image appears again in the Nath tradition, though in a very different form.
Here the lion is not found in history but in practice. Simhasana, Lion Pose, asks the practitioner to extend the tongue, widen the eyes, and forcefully release the breath. To someone encountering the posture for the first time it can look almost comical. Yet beneath it sits a profound insight.
The Nath yogis understood that much of human suffering comes from constriction. We spend our lives shrinking ourselves into shapes that are acceptable to family, society, profession, and culture. We swallow our words. We suppress our instincts. We learn to perform smaller versions of ourselves.
The lion pose reverses that process. For a brief moment the mask is dropped and from there something honest emerges. You roar through the breath, unapologetically, letting go of any constriction and letting yourself express freely while allowing excess prana to flow away from the body, allowing new life force in.
Three traditions. Three lions. Not the same symbol. Not the same history. Yet all three seem fascinated by the possibility that a human being can live from courage rather than fear.
I and I / Ik Onkar / Shivo'ham. The One Looking Through Many Eyes.
Another phrase that deepened my curiosity appears frequently in Rastafarianism, something called "I and I".
At first glance, it sounds like a linguistic quirk. Yet the more I looked into it, the more I realized that an entire worldview is contained within those three words. Rather than speaking in terms of "I and you" or even "we," the phrase points toward the presence of Jah in all beings. Beneath our different personalities, histories, cultures, and circumstances lies a deeper unity. The individual self is real, but it is not the whole story.
Reading about I and I, I found myself thinking of Guru Nanak.
The opening words of the Guru Granth Sahib are Ik Onkar, often translated as "One Creator" or "One Reality." While the phrase is simple, its implications are profound. Guru Nanak is not describing one god among many possible gods. He is pointing toward an underlying reality from which nothing is truly separate. The spiritual journey in Sikhi is not about travelling somewhere else or becoming something new. Rather, it is about recognizing what has always been true.
One line from Gurbani captures this beautifully:
"Tu Tu Karta Tu Hua, Mujh Mein Raha Na Hoon."
"Repeating 'You, You,' I became You. Nothing of the separate 'I' remained."
What strikes me about this verse is how naturally it dissolves the boundary between self and Divine. The spiritual path is not presented as a movement toward God, but as the gradual disappearance of the illusion that there was ever a separation to begin with.
The Nath yogis express a similar insight through the phrase Shivo'ham, "I am Shiva." This is often misunderstood by those encountering it for the first time. The statement is not an identification with a mythological figure sitting somewhere beyond the clouds. Rather, it points toward Shiva as pure consciousness itself, the awareness present beneath every thought, emotion, role, and identity.
For the Nath yogi, the work of practice gradually reveals that the awareness looking through one's own eyes is not fundamentally separate from the awareness that animates all life. The forms differ. Personalities differ. Stories differ. Yet the consciousness beneath them remains strangely difficult to divide.
Rastafarianism, Sikhi, and the Nath tradition don't teach exactly the same thing. Their histories, practices, and their understandings of the Divine emerge from distinct cultural and spiritual worlds. Yet standing beside one another, they seem to be circling around a similar question. What if the boundaries we take most seriously are not the deepest truth about who we are?
Perhaps this is one reason songs like One Love continue to resonate with so many people. Not because they offer a sentimental vision of universal harmony, but because they touch upon soPerhaps this is one reason songs like One Love continue to resonate with so many people. Not because they offer a sentimental vision of universal harmony, but because they touch upon something that many spiritual traditions have pointed toward in their own ways: the possibility that beneath our differences there exists a unity that is occasionally glimpsed through prayer, meditation, music, contemplation, or grace.
Once such a possibility has been glimpsed, even briefly, it becomes difficult to forget entirely.
mething that many spiritual traditions have pointed toward in their own ways: the possibility that beneath our differences there exists a unity that is occasionally glimpsed through prayer, meditation, music, contemplation, or grace.
Once such a possibility has been glimpsed, even briefly, it becomes difficult to forget entirely.
Uncut Hair: When The Body Is The Statement
One thing I've always noticed across Rastafarians, Yogis, and Sikhs points to a similarity that is less philosophical and much more visible.
It was hair.
The importance of hair within Rastafarianism is difficult to miss. Dreadlocks have become one of the most recognizable symbols of the tradition and are often traced back to the Nazarite vow found in the Hebrew Bible, where hair was left uncut as a sign of dedication to God. Over time, particularly within the context of colonial Jamaica, the symbolism deepened. Natural hair became more than a spiritual practice. It became a rejection of imposed standards and an affirmation of identity.
The locks are not merely a hairstyle. They carried a message. A person wearing them was making a statement about who they served and where they located their sense of worth.
This reflection took me directly to Sikhi. For Sikhs, uncut hair is one of the most visible aspects of the tradition. Yet for those unfamiliar with Sikh history, it is easy to misunderstand. Kesh is often viewed from the outside as a cultural custom or an external marker of religious identity. While it certainly functions as both of those things, it points toward something deeper.
The Khalsa was never intended to disappear into the crowd.
The form given by Guru Gobind Singh was meant to be visible. It carried with it the willingness to stand openly in the world as a Sikh, even when doing so carried risk. Throughout Sikh history there have been periods where maintaining that visible identity came at a tremendous cost, martyrdom and even genocide. Kesh became not only an article of faith but also a daily reminder of commitment.
As late as 1984, the visible identity of Sikhs made the entire community a target, paying the price for the actions of a few, through directed pogroms run by senior officials within the government of India at the time. Today, Sikhs still wear that outer image with pride and fearlessness, and in less than thirty years from those pogroms of 1984, all of India celebrated a Sikh Prime Minister, representing less than 2% of the population.
The Nath yogis approached the body differently, yet arrived at a surprisingly similar place.
The image of the Nath ascetic is often marked by matted hair, ash-covered skin, and the large earrings associated with the Kanphata yogis. These outward signs communicate belonging to a particular lineage and way of life. They also serve as reminders that spiritual practice is not something separate from the body.
What fascinated me was not that these traditions shared identical practices. They clearly do not.
Rather, all three seem to reject the idea that spirituality is purely an internal affair. In modern culture there is often an assumption that beliefs matter while outward forms are secondary. These traditions seem to challenge that assumption. The body itself becomes part of the practice.
Before a word is spoken, before a philosophy is explained, before a prayer is recited, the body is already telling a story.
In many ways, that outward look is the first text we publish.
Babylon, Maya, and Haumai
As I continued reading about Rastafarianism, I found myself returning again and again to the idea of Babylon.
As a younger man listening to reggae, I understood Babylon mostly in political terms. Babylon was the system. The government. The machinery of oppression. The institutions that benefited from keeping people disconnected from their dignity and power.
There is certainly truth in that understanding.
Yet the more I read, the more I encountered another dimension to the idea. Babylon was not only something external. It was also something internal. It described a way of seeing the world and a way of seeing oneself. Babylon represented the forces that encourage forgetting. Forgetting who you are, forgetting your relationship with Jah, forgetting that your worth and value does not come from the approval of the system surrounding you.
At that point I began thinking about Maya.
Maya is one of those words that often loses something in translation. It is frequently rendered as "illusion," but that translation can create the impression that the world itself is unreal. The yogic traditions generally mean something more subtle. Maya points toward the tendency to mistake appearances for reality and to become so absorbed in the surface of things that we lose sight of what lies underneath.
The Nath yogis approached this problem practically. Rather than engaging only in philosophical speculation, they developed methods that worked through the body, breath, and mind. The purpose was not simply to discuss truth but to experience it directly through discernment and actions connected to the heart.
The same pattern appears again in Gurbani through the idea of Haumai.
Haumai is often translated as ego, though even that translation can be misleading. It refers not simply to pride, but to the experience of separateness itself. It is the belief that we stand apart from the Divine, acting independently and existing as isolated individuals. When Guru Nanak speaks about the human condition, he returns repeatedly to this problem. The issue is not that reality is absent. The issue is that we fail to recognize it because we look at reality through our story and then we make it 'all about me'.
Reading about Babylon, I could not help hearing echoes of both Maya and Haumai. Not because they are identical concepts, but because all three seem concerned with the ways human beings become disconnected from what is most essential.
The language changes from one tradition to another. The historical circumstances certainly change. Yet each tradition seems to recognize that much of human suffering begins with a kind of forgetfulness.
The Rasta remembers Jah.
The Sikh remembers Naam.
The Nath yogi recognizes the Atman and Brahman in all.
Different practices emerge from those traditions and different philosophies support them, yet all seem to begin with the same intuition: that liberation is not necessarily the acquisition of something new, but the recovery of something that was never truly lost.
Zion, Sachkhand, and Jivan Mukti
As I reached the end of this little exploration, I found myself thinking less about lions, hair, and even theology, and more about where each of these traditions ultimately points its practitioners. Somewhere in the background, the song Iron, Lion, Zion felt like an appropriate bridge for this last section.
Zion is a word that may refer to Ethiopia, a spiritual homeland, a future hope, or a state of alignment with Jah. It carries historical, political, and spiritual meaning all at once. Yet beneath those different interpretations lies a common movement away from Babylon and toward something more authentic, truthful, and deeply rooted.
The Sikh Gurus speak of Sachkhand, the Realm of Truth.
For many Sikhs, Sachkhand is associated with the final realm described in Japji Sahib. Yet Guru Nanak's teachings continually point toward the possibility that Sachkhand is not merely a destination to reach. Truth is something that can be lived, experienced, and embodied here and now. The Sikh ideal is not withdrawal from the world, but participation in it while remaining connected to Naam.
The Nath yogis speak of Jivan Mukti, liberation while still alive.
Honestly, this always struck me as one of the most beautiful ideas within the yogic traditions. Liberation is not postponed until some future existence. It is not dependent upon leaving the body behind. The possibility exists that a person may move through ordinary life while resting in an awareness that is no longer bound by fear, attachment, or mistaken identity.
These concepts emerge from different traditions and carry meanings unique to each lineage. I would hesitate to draw too straight a line between them.
Yet I cannot help noticing that all three seem concerned with a similar human longing.
What would it mean to be truly free?
Not merely free to do whatever we want. Not merely free from political or social constraints. Maybe being free is just being free from the constant pressure of becoming something other than what or who we are.
The lion appeared repeatedly throughout this article, and perhaps this is why.
The lion became a symbol not because it is stronger than every other animal, but because it represents a certain kind of fearlessness. It does not spend its life asking permission to exist. It does not organize its identity around the opinions of the jungle.
In different ways, the Khalsa, the Nath yogi, and the Rastafarian all seem to be engaged in a similar act of remembrance. Each tradition asks its practitioners to move beyond fear, beyond conformity, and beyond the stories that keep them small. Details, practices, and philosophies may differ, but each seems to encourage a return to something original, pure, and unshaken beneath the noise of the world.
Maybe this is why these three traditions remind me of each other. Not because they say the exact same thing, or that they even want to lead to the same destination, but rather that each seems to recognize that the human being is capable of something far more than the identities and limitations of reactive conditioning.
The Nath yogis expressed this in their own way. One teaching attributed to Gorakhnath reminds the practitioner to seek within the body for that which they search for elsewhere. Patanjali points toward the same recognition in the Yoga Sutras: "The treasure is not distant. It is already and always present."
The Guru Granth Sahib says this in two places:
"Man tū jot sarūp hai, āpnā mūl pachhān."
"O mind, you are the embodiment of the Divine Light; recognize the root of your own being."
And elsewhere:
"Sabh meh jot, jot hai soi."
"The same Divine Light shines in all."
Then there are the words of Bob Marley, the words that started this whole reflection, still resonating with millions, if not billions, decades after they were first recorded:
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. Have no fear for Atomic Energy, 'cause none of them can stop the Time."
We are responsible for our own liberation. We do our own work to free ourselves, whether or not it occurs, we stand free from conditioning and into the space of love and the heart.
Three traditions. Three very different histories. Three unique systems pointing toward liberating the self from the things that bind.
The Nath yogi seeks it through practice.
The Sikh through Naam.
The Rasta through remembrance of Jah and resistance to Babylon.
Different songs, perhaps. But if we listen carefully, we may hear familiar notes.
Alakh Niranjan Jah Bless WaheGuru Ji Ka Khalsa WaheGuru Ji Ki Fateh
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