Sukhi

we should probably differentiate the kinds of contraception available too then.

in that case were ALL (non monaey sikhs) wasting our time, on this forum and others is what your saying here, i disagree with you here as you do not know what may cause that little bit of spark in a sikhs head to become a gursikh which is where we all should be heading, anything in between is a waste.

this is what was one of the points i made in my first post on this thread for this exact reason above, people taking ours advice, opinions, reasons as someone forcing religous issues upon them, i certainly feel this is not the case here and defo not in my own posts.

Hardeep.

there's a big difference between coercion, ridicule and encouragement.

i saw very little encouragement, and more ridicule.

that's what i was commenting on.

i never pointed you out as having done that, but it was the general atmosphere of this thread towards the beginning.

my apologies for making you feel like you were being coercive and ridiculous.

Amrik, who's the "I" in those sentences?

This Shabad is by Guru Nanak Dev Ji in Raag Aasaa on Pannaa 473

mÚ 1 ]

BMif jMmIAY BMif inMmIAY BMif mMgxu vIAwhu ]

BMfhu hovY dosqI BMfhu clY rwhu ]

BMfu muAw BMfu BwlIAY BMif hovY bMDwnu ]

so ikau mMdw AwKIAY ijqu jMmih rwjwn ]

BMfhu hI BMfu aUpjY BMfY bwJu n koie ]

nwnk BMfY bwhrw eyko scw soie ]

ijqu muiK sdw swlwhIAY Bwgw rqI cwir ]

nwnk qy muK aUjly iqqu scY drbwir ]2]

ma 1 ||

bha(n)dd ja(n)meeai bha(n)dd ni(n)meeai bha(n)dd ma(n)gan veeaahu ||

bha(n)ddahu hovai dhosathee bha(n)ddahu chalai raahu ||

bha(n)dd muaa bha(n)dd bhaaleeai bha(n)dd hovai ba(n)dhhaan ||

so kio ma(n)dhaa aakheeai jith ja(n)mehi raajaan ||

bha(n)ddahu hee bha(n)dd oopajai bha(n)ddai baajh n koe ||

naanak bha(n)ddai baaharaa eaeko sachaa soe ||

jith mukh sadhaa saalaaheeai bhaagaa rathee chaar ||

naanak thae mukh oojalae thith sachai dharabaar ||2||

First Mehl:

From woman, man is born; within woman, man is conceived; to woman he is engaged and married.

Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations come.

When his woman dies, he seeks another woman; to woman he is bound.

So why call her bad? From her, kings are born.

From woman, woman is born; without woman, there would be no one at all.

O Nanak, only the True Lord is without a woman.

That mouth which praises the Lord continually is blessed and beautiful.

O Nanak, those faces shall be radiant in the Court of the True Lord. ||2||

Dalvir, the shabad seems to be about respecting women.

as for referring to all of humanity as brides/women and God as the husband/man, it's a metaphor for the love and devotion we should feel for God, not how to align our social relationships.

so i guess i don't know what you mean, dalvir and drummer boy.

because it's obvious what i said made no sense whatsoever.

Dalvir jee, i too respect you and your ideas and i'm not trying to change them. i'm merely making an attempt to discuss with you in an attempt to understand a controversial issue in more depth.

and if supporting basic human rights and believing in equality means that i support homosexuality, then i guess i do.

as for your conclusion, i can't say i agree with it until you give me the shabad and i see it for myself. besides, i'm not one for using gurbani tuks out of context.

this is in no way meant to be an attack on you Dalvir or your ideas. like i said before, i'm making and effort to understand.

okay, i understand that Dalvir.

but how are you going to say that IF it ends up being absolutely true beyond a shadow of doubt that homosexual people have those preferences due to their genes and tha's how nature created them?

you can't get more natural than being the way nature made you...

first of all, my condolences to you, cookiemonster.

there's a whole bunch of shabads you can do.

here's a couple off the top of my head:

jo aaya so chalsee...

pavan meh pavan samaya, jotee meh jot ral jaaya...

mere bhaiyo sahib simro, sabhna eho payaana...

i think i need to rephrase everything i wrote. lol... and i'll do it later. or not at all.

i'm not sure but i think AKJ is defo anti-contraception. mebbe someone else knows fo sho...?

i'm no Gurmukh, Neo. lol! not by a loooong shot! but i'll give it a try.

to start, i believe the shabad "man tu jot saroop hai, apna mool pachaan" is Guru Sahib explaining that our mind has an inherent seed of light hidden within. the only problem is that we don't understand or cannot find it because it's hidden. at least, that's what this line is saying. the rest of the shabad continues on this line, methinks.

as for whether Guru Sahib is referring to the filthy version of mind or the satchit anand saroop version, i think it's encouragement for the filthy mind to become the satchit anand saroop version. it's like Guru Sahib is basically saying that we've got the potential to be more than what we are, but we must first recognize/acknowledge this and move towards that goal.

the point in the end, methinks, is to go from having a mind filled with depravity and materialistic concerns to being filled with light... godhead, i think is the correct term.

moving on...

Soul is purest of pure. Our Soul is Atam/Akaal Roop..always in it's - Sat, Chit, Nirvakalap Anand Saroop.

However our antish karan (man, chit, budh) who is biggest problem of all making our shauksam sirar suffer by going through reincarnations, hellish expereinces.

Sikhi tell us to destroy our antish karan and rise above from it by first of all- doing sat sangat, sadh sangat, intiate yourself and then by using "Gurmantara" to reach your surat and then finally fully infusing that gurmantar into surat...this is called "Shabad Surat Marg".

in my opinion, i think the point isn't necessarily to kill your antish karan, but rather to redirect it. the best way i can explain it is that at the current moment, our mind's in control of what we do, and our mind by it's very nature is mercurial. it's all over the place, thinking about anything and everything and jumping from one thought to the next, not to mention the fact that it's mostly concerned with materialistic thoughts for the most part.

the point methinks is to take this control away from our mind and give it back to our soul.

part of the reason is because the mind may not always have pure intentions. if you think about it, the mind is generally concerned with material things. it's concerned with our survival as human animals.

but if control of our actions is given to a pure source, one that cannot be tainted (ie our soul) then it changes us. the soul can direct the mind to act in ways that are beneficial for not only us as animals, but also for the person spiritually and for humanity as a whole.

i think the best analogy i can use for it is that the mind sees things through a very narrow perspective. it can't see past all the petty little things that we're concerned with on a daily basis, whereas the soul, being "satchit" has true knowledge and can fulfil not only our daily needs, but can also ensure our safe return to our True Home.

think about it like this:

if you were going on a trip to england, would you rather have a pilot who has blurry vision flying your plane, or one who's got better than 20/20 vision?

now, according to everything i've said, including my interpretation of the gurbani tuk you gave to us, Neo, i'm starting to wonder if our soul isn't the same thing as our mind in satchit anand saroop version. (geezus, i almost make it sound like a computer...)

methinks the singh is saying that sex should be limited to procreation purposes.

i think contraception is fine. there's a lot of people who think that purposely trying to kill a new life is considered paap and whatnot, but if you don't even let the gametes fuse to create a living mass, then what's the issue?

besides, are you gonna tell me that a couple should get married and never have sex? what if they're young and aren't ready to have kids? does that mean they shouldn't have sex at all?

but then again, i think it depends on what other people think about sex in the first place. to each his/her own.

but in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with contraception.

Dalvir is there any reason apart from the fact that the akal takht jathedar discourages it for you to think it's an issue?

Casper tell us what the panel said and we'll tell you what we think.

yeeeeeup!

geezus krist, dun you get it?

it's like the holy trinity cept it's for me.

personally speaking, i preferred having 3 feminine titles, but lil ole Neo Nazi can't get that through his head.

lemme rephrase my question for you then:

based on the previous ideas of what "khalsa" should be doing, does "khalsa" exist? in what form? and depending on YOUR view of "khalsa" is it fulfilling it's destiny as the "protector of dharma"?

yay for doaba (for actually understanding the point)!

and one last thing:

you guys can say whatever you want about sacrifices and the value of keeping your hair and following the rehat and how much the rehat is precious to you and try and force someone to see the truth in your words.

but it won't work.

it won't work until the person actually wants to do all that of their own accord.

and until it means something to them personally, they'll never truly accept it.

so breathe in, breathe out, relax and be happy in the knowledge that the most you can do is say "hey, this here be's the rehat. either you follow it or you dun," and let it go.

there's no point in you trying to define/label another person.

and whether or not people who cut their hair are sikh or not i think is ultimately up to Guru Sahib.

so chilll with the "i'm a sikh!" and "no you're not!" business. whatcha gotta get all uptight for anyways? the truth is gonna be the truth is gonna be the truth no matter what anyone says.

as for what the truth really is, no one can say for sure cept Guru Sahib.

so let's just leave it at that... up to him/her/it/whatever...

aw sexysinghstah, you know it's gonna be okay. it's not the end of the world having to work with someone you dun exactly totally like. besides, you might end up learning something from him.

question: is the khalsa panth doing what is described above today?

tha's odd. i've always been able to do it with many people at the same time. i mean the minimum i tend to use msn with is 4 people: the other person, me, myself and i. and at times, some other personalities come and go through the chat too!

(kidding)

skype is pretty good. but it's hella annoying when you d/l the darn thing, build a profile and then all of a sudden hear that people can't add you cuz apparently you don't exist but then when you sign on you get a gazillion of those stupid reminder thingies to add people who said you don't exist when they originally added you.

ARGH!

*sighs*

but it's pretty good apart from that. i don't really see the difference between it and msn though. both have worked pretty well for me so far.

One is going on British Airways because one is posh.

(and tickets for Amritsar ran out for the dates I was going)

one is lying about something one has said but one shall not reveal what one knows about one's lack of veracity.

hmmm...

for an anthropology student, her research was quite shallow.

but it's interesting to see what she saw.

"religious pudding", "tables and chairs", "rich serve the poor"....

is it just me or has Sikhi begun to seem more Christianized than before?...

the egg contains the x chromosome and the sperm donates either another x or y. so if the two eggs did fuse together, the genotype would've been "xx" and the resulting child would've been female.

what if Jesus was a woman?