sexy_singh

Unofficially, i've still got a few left but they are chipped off the block - that happens when you play a cats eye against the Emperor (peace be upon her). sukhi is blamessless! no mess no blame - and certainly less lame! my friend, my data data driven aerial headed walking toaster friend, a thread is made of many points! but a point is not made of any threads! put the points together side by side to make the thread. so why ask for a point - when there are only points. that is the thread

or the person who decides his own destiny

Incredible. It never occured to me the reason you seem cool is because you ARE cool! But now that you mention it, that makes perfect cents. With so many cents i could buy any number of sukhi-is-cool merchandise. Infact, let me be first one to suggest a new line of sukhi breakfast cereals. Focus your incredible intellect and probing vision into wrapping the finest box of crunchy flakes studded with sparkling sprinkles of your greatness. Like a pack of hyenas chewing the carcass of unworthy takes - these giddars need to realise the potency of your reign - oh queen of Bees. I say hit them (or men?) sukhi one more time - many times! You, warning the laughing heretics is a noble gesture but i say smite them without warning! Give modesty to the worms my gracious princess and do away with the PR - find your true icey cold - totally cool nature and make the world a less warmer place! I for one welcome the new divine laundromat overlord!

sukhi is so cool

i think instead of being offended, i was turned on by it ... does this mean i should hand in my sikh badge now?

have a read of this http://www.sikhcoalition.org/Sikhism3.asp

anyway, going back to the topic .. another reason for growing kesh is because it intimidates ppl .. well until you open your mouth if ppl are intimidated by you, you have power over them .. thats often useful .. but like all powers it must be harnessed for good effect

ok, when is that? and add me too sexy_sngh@yahoo.com in how many days

i think that you guys are reading too much into it. isnt it just a message of moderation? i mean if you are gonna take it to mean something practically. otherwise, i think there is a different meaning to it as it occurs in gurbani but i know too little to say more.

Ya, know.. i concur with amrit being super everything and all. but from personal experience, i wasnt well prepared at all. easily the best thing i've done - but its a big thing to handle .. and almost everyone that i talked to said, oh just go ahead, its easy .. take the step forward etc. so thats where im coming from. i refuse to tell anyone, that they should take it .. and if someone comes to me and asks, "should i?" .. i wont do what the guy who i asked did and say "look you already live your life a certain way (so called religious life .. no drug habbits, dont go around starting fights or stealing .. dont shave, dont cut my hair, etc etc) .. then taking amrit, is just more of the same" it wasnt more of the same, it was some strange "spiritual" thing which i wont describe here. but needless to say, if someone asks me, i'll tell them "dude, just bloody do your research .. find out if its for you"... and certainly the last thing i'd do is tell anyone they'll be more acceptable if they take it. because thats all for the wrong reasons. in hindisight while it was something i wanted to do. the so-called sangat around me didnt give me any honest harsh real world lessons .. they just said oh go do iit, and after that ... they might have considered me an equal, but i felt at least a little cheated by them. oh and i also noticed, they stopped paying attention to me afterwards .. maybe because i was already converted. but obviously that doesnt apply to all of them.. anyway, there is a million different ppl out there who act differently, im just describing one little story.

how many conferences does it take to arrange a sikh

actually .. at my amrit sanchar, i remember being told that if i "converted" (read got them to take amrit) 5 people(im not sure if it was 5) then all my mistakes would be wiped out or.. some such thing.. it seemed like an odd thign to say. well, there you go. reality is stranger than fiction!

Sorry i wont be voting for this because i dont believe darbar sahib is a "wonder of the world" for any aesthetic reason. The artictecture is nothing special, and for the most part there is a lot of tacky material usage in the buildings. I wouldnt even put it in the top 1000 let alone top 7. No offence. Its a great place for sikhs, for obvious reasons. But thats about it. I think. Im pissed off at us sikhs because we make it seem like such an awesome thing, but really, it isnt, at least in terms of construction. If we really wanted to make it wicked, we could.

i agree with narsingha. that was a beautiful response. bless you. sikh_fauge i have to say i admire your attitude. You arent in a hurry to do something just to fit in. You are slowly considering your way and all the while asking sensible questions. The word that comes to mind is 'sehaj'. I wish you the best of luck. Sukhi wicked post. I came to this forum expecting AKJ style narrow mindeness and instead have found tolerance and considerate debate. ps. Narsingha, i dont know why you call Guruji Nihang but i wish you wouldnt because it makes me feel left out. I used to admire Nihangs greatly and i have nothing against them. I just feel Guruji is all of ours, and no particular group should seem closer than others. Against, if im out of line, i respectfully apologise and retract my statement.

exactly sikh fauje, in the end, thats what has sealed the argument for me. I thought it would be fun to have a fling .. just as a backup thing to keep me from putting too much expectation into marriage. the mere possibility of having that choice if we dont click. but now , listening to you guys, especially pheena and dynamical, im convinced i have some sort of duty to my wife. in fact, what really brought that home was the fact the girls i talked to (my mate and sukhi ... i assume sukhi is a girl?) really cared that a husband would be loyal and wouldnt have affairs. I mean naturally i expect the same of my wife. but you'd think its totally different for girls - from their perspective. just the fact that it means so much to them, and to be honest, as important as sex is to me, it isnt all *that* much important. so amazingly enough, i think i've learned something really valuable out of all this wishing to be a terrible-power-abusing-sex-driven-person. I've learnt that while the whole feminism thing is easy to do on your sleeve .. and its easy to call people out and feel just a bit more superior in your smugness .. its another thing to understand what MATTERS to females - and try to make sure, I myself dont trample those things. paradoxically, to get there, i had to argue for cheating on my wife. and even though i didnt really think it was cheating (maybe its a guy thing - "its just sex"), your responses are enough to convince me that it IS cheating. pheena, you know, one would think the sort of posts you make, that they'd really get to me, and i'd take them as judgements on my character. but the way you expressed exactly what you though, and still remain humble - that was wicked. i actually went back and read through the whole thread .. and your replies .. they are spot on. thanks for the advice a lot of the time i felt like i was playing devils advocate. but i think thats necessary sometimes, because often in our discussion forums - the average guy is not keen on highlighting his far-from-perfect ways .. but its important that it is done, because there are a lot of people in that group and a lot of issues and problems are related to them. so when i find my wife, im gonna treat her as an equal. and thats not an empty rhetorical thing like narsingha mentioned. it will be something real, because i understand what is at stake and that im responsible for the state of our relationship - how happy and positive it is. i really wanna more know about the way feminity and masculinity works in gurbani - it sounds like a rich and meaningful thing to study. and finally, the discussion has allowed me to see another important concept. humanity is frought with inequalities. like we read in japji sahib, some are made high, some low. the ones who are higher must be responsible for their use of power .. and how they go about it ... and those are lower must fight and take heart in their position. they are the underdogs. its much easier to become content when you dont have a superiority complex to deal with. you just have to convince yourself that you ARENT inferior. then the hard part is doing your bit to remove harmful effects of inequality. everyone has to face the challenges of power.

i just read what you wrote and it sounds ok by my conscious. actually i have some reservations, but thats probably out of the ideal thing you mention. let me explain. so you cut your beard. well the first thing that means is i hold you to a lower standard. no that doesnt mean i think any less of you. it just means if you had ur beard, id ask, "is he worthy?". the reason is, if ur a k-singh i expect you to be cool. i expect you to be a lot of things before i'll accept you. if ur slightly elitist, then that'll turn me off. if u are weak, i'll be turned off. etc. if ur honest and down to earth, then i'll be impressed. if you are on a reformist trip, then i'll want to know if ur doing it for the right reasons. that sort of thing. the reason i have these standards is because i wish to meet them myself. so straight away, i have no problem with the way you look. but yeah, one thing that never ceases to impress me is good conduct in a person AND/OR passion for sikhi, regardless of what sort of "stage" they are on - for the lack of a better term. i know ppl like jassa dont like it when others say it. but a good heart is important. alright, so say you are an ok person, and you cut ur beard .. at least by this one sikh, ur still worthy of love and respect. hope this helps!

hmm i dunno man .. that seems like a fairly standard usage of the word father-mother, ie parent ... do you have any other references im asking because someone told me that Waheguru is described as the "ultimate man" somewhere .. and that us humans are all sorta female .. the person also used a biological argument about hormones and stuff saying no one is born 100% male- its just some are more female than others. i dont know much about it so im looking into a deeper. oh and pheena, i think your argument sounds reasonable. if they'd explictly set out rights that women should have then that might have been used against other rights of women in the future. im talking about denying feminine sexuality in our culture. dont u think it happens? i mean on one hand its the dress ..and on another the strong attitudes against male-female relationships outside of family relation. dont these attitudes serve to control or limit the female sexuality? on a less serious note, i replaced the woman in my dreams with waheguru and now i dont know what to do.. thanks a lot beast!

beast, ok, actually can you point me to these feminine references.. im curious. sukhi, well its true isnt it? the little tart with the mini skirt has more power over guys than not. its also good in a way that our older women dress conservatively. you dont wanna see some big auntys legs for example..

beast. interesting point. why do you think? sukhi nah joan doesnt count, she was just rehashing someone elses stuff. ps. i agree that while sikhi never took rights away from women like other religions, i dont know if it actually *gave* rights to them either

sukhi i think we are stuck in a violent agreement and im not diplomatic enough to understand our way through it. i just wonder, dont u look at religion and realise that it never considered woman to be an equal. Its as if god himself wished it that way. Muhammad, budda, jesus, moses, the gurus .. all men .. why doesnt god ever send a female prophet. with respect to the sikh guru granth sahib, are any of the writings from a female saint or poet? religion is so shockingly slanted towards men. you mention the positive qualities admired of women. but has religion ever truly granted woman the place of equal. whos religious discourse have u have u heard .. that came from a womans mouth or pen? the fact is, religion exists for one primary purpose and that is to control people to make societies. when we are making these societies its usually useful to have those who have little power and get them to do our bidding. women take that role. no one has really challenged that - no religious figure anyway. us sikhs forget that religion is made for teh common man, to overcome his stupidity and ignorance and make him do essentially good -- for the good of all. but instead us sikhs claim religion is for the elite spiritual and all of this stuff. it isnt for those enlightened ppl. religion isnt. maybe faith is. but they are seperate things. the sikh gurus must have known this, and if they wished for the masses to follow on the path of sex equality they would have taken steps to ensure the people at least widely knew what was "right" and "wrong". however this didnt happen. i really dont know how to make this any more clear, the way i see it. but at least im getting one thing across and that is sikhism has way too much overhyped PR - especially about sex equality .. and this is undeserved. yes, teh early sikhs didnt grudgingly commit nasty crimes against the wmoen. they even campaigned for removing some of these. they rescued women and did all these cool things that we admire them for. im not disputing that. we deny sexuality, and we deny feminine sexuality. one of the few ways women can have power. we give the women fixed roles of mothers and house keepers. and we rejoice because our faith gave us equality. but i dont think that was the case.

I dont buy it. Every panjabi (sikh) knows if you drink alcohol you are not being a good sikh. Ditto for the various nashe out there. But also note that drinking is quite widespread, perhaps even at epidemic levels. So according to you, if it was simply a matter of majority rule, no one would bloody care if drinking was allowed or not. But wait. They do know it. As anecdotal evidence i offer my own story. Here in the west im routinely offered alcohol, even by people who should know better. Over there? No one even jokes about it. Its such taboo. Look, i dont think females are inferior, whatever that means. They just arent men. And as far as i can see, no one has ever proposed giving women the same amount of power as men. It bloody never happened. We had a few strong kaurs who earned respect through courage and so forth, and we admire them for that. But how do you jump from admiring a person from a group to generalising those admired qualities to the whole group. What really gets to me is the myth that sikhism the religion, has, built-in, the notion of male-female equality. It simply doesnt. And who pushes this argument? Those who'd like to see it that way. But really, almost everyone knows this is reaching and grappling with truth. So in the end, we fool ourselves, into thinking yes, our religion has this equality, but the problem is with "culture" or "the people". That sort of attitude pisses me off. If the damn religion had an unambigious stance on equality we wouldnt use these weak easy-blame answers that lack substance. I recognise it as a weak response because i've seen it used to many times, on so many topics. In fact, any problem with the sikh community is almost ALWAYS answered with "its culture". So how can you even go about solving things if our way of identifying cause is so rigid and uncritical? We simply cant make any progress. Stop blaming the damn culture. Are you telling me that this same culture of male domination wasnt present when the founders lived? It was bloody the same. If the founders had a problem with it, then surely they didnt care enough to address it, modulo a few obvious inhumane breaches of rights that anyone with a half sense of fairness would have agreed with. When you ask, why should men have power. I answer, i dont know. Its just the way its been in the past, and as far as i can tell, the gurus didnt have a problem with it (if that matters to you or me). About this imbalance, do i have a problem with it? Yes. I do. Do sikhs have a problem with it? It seems no, they dont. So lets leave utopian-forum-world and deal with the real world. The whole equality thing is fast becoming a political correctness buzzword. we all sit there agreeing on the stuff that is agreeable and then go back to our lives filled with inequities, then blaming culture, or whatever (i think its in vogue to blame human nature too) and achieve nothing. If we sat down and correctly identified the truth we might actually have a chance of achieving that equality. But whatever. Im tired of this religion rife with self appreciation and shockingly trivial solutions to problems, that amount literally to shifting blame to "culture".

sukhi sukhi, please try to understand what im saying .. otherwise there is no point having any discussion at all. I have alread conceeded that those who wrote history might have been biased towards men. Thats certainly conceivable. I have also agreed that the gurus told us "all humans are equal" and such. Also realise that i do not think women are lesser beings. So your whole post accusing me of trying to justify my prejudices falls short of the mark. Thats fine, i dont hold anything against you, but if we are gonna reach any sort of understanding you have to give up the notion that im a bigot and not capable of saying anything meaningful apart from that motivated by bigotry. Secondly, yes, the gurus didnt see any differences between people. Yes they promoted universal equality. But does that mean they didnt go into special cases - to discuss problematic, present social views. Didnt they come down heavy on the brahminical view of society - that was a specific thing to address. They took that view and turned it upside down, completely. But did they take the equally important issue of female rights to same extent? Im arguing that they did not take female empowerment far enough. To do so properly would have been the best and indeed only way to elevate female rights. You cant simply preach and hope people listen. You have to do more. But to do both is important. Tyranny of the masses isnt what my point is about. Im not saying its ok to do something because everyone else does. Im saying why is there no notion of female equality as practiced in sikh households everywhere. It simply doesnt exist. Why? I attribute directly to the lack of emphasis on it by the founders. Extra points to you sukhi for invoking goodwins law though. So abandon the idea i hate women and give a real response.

OK. fair point. my careless phrasing lets me down again. Sure there are cases of female empowerment - you list some of the examples and history has noted a fair number of them. i agree they exist and its pleasing. however, that is not what i meant by female empowerment. To me, the existence of such cases does not say the same thing as male=female power. all it says is that there were *some* women, in history who was qualified enough, through their own actions, or perhaps at the graciousness of someone powerful to justify their enpowerment. it doesnt say that women in general are the same as men in a sikh society. the fact that we are citing individual notable examples shows that its an irregular thing in our society for a women to have the same status as a man. its not normal. if the intention of the foundres was to create a society with men and women being completely equal then surely they'd have said so, at least. i think while the gurus were on a higher plane of thought and thus easily able to accomodate tolerance into their own world views .. it still remains to be shown that they explictly demanded male-female equality of the society they were creating. i havent clicked on those links because quite frankly im not excited about the prospect of reading through sikh big upping ecstatic propanda right now. ive done enough of that already in my studies of sikhi. that stuff doesnt mean anything to me now. i am ONLY INTERESTED IN THE TRUTH. how things REALLY are. not how we WISH they were, so that we can sit back and bask in our completely modern up to date superior religion. i think sikhi has gaps, and im not afraid to say so. That doesnt mean i dont think its a wicked religion, it truly is .. and i cant find another one to replace it with nor do i want to. but im aware of its limitaitons and it doesnt help the issue to confuse our own expectations with that of the faith. lets just be honest with ourselves. male female equality isnt called for explicitly by sikhi. sure you can read into the teachings and look at the universality stuff .. about everyone being the same. thats all good. i like that stuff. i expect it from my guru, and i expect it from any other religious exponent whether jesus or mohhamad. but its one thing to say all men are equal - an agreeable sort of thing, and another to say but ESPECIALLY the other half - women; are equal to men. u might think im trying to justify my world view .. that i dont like women having power and thats why i write what i write. maybe u might rightfully think that, but honestly .. ur wrong. i used to support female empowerment ... because it sounded like a good thing and i thought my gurus did too. but then i realised no, if they really did wish it, we'd have more to show for it than the male dominiated societies we've had for centuriies since them. beast, good post. which famous writing re u referring to .. can u please share with us all.

ok sukhi, leave aside the cheating stuff and please address the rest of my post about the lack of emphasis on female empowerment by the sikh gurus. thankyou. for example i look at any panj pyare i've seen and never have i seen a female in the assembly. its just tradition, yeh ok. but if thats the case how come no sikh ever changed it?

sukhi wrote first of all, its crucially important for me to mention that im delighted in making you laugh. you also made me laugh with your other post because it was so confronting. Whether the gurus thought men had power is very consequential to the debate. if they had wished to communicate this wasnt the case, wouldnt they have? furthermore, when i sat down and thought about this sex equality stuff i realised that something as obvious as power imbalance in the sexes could not have been missed by the gurus. so why did they choose NOT to do social commentary on it? If it wasnt a social issue then (im sure it was), wouldnt they have perceived it to be one in the future (very likely). As far as i've been made aware, they only commented on downright obvious breaches of human rights. Like female infanticide, killing widows, denying religious education and so on. my white friend once asked me, so whats so special about your religion? A bumbling idiot like me gets all excited and starts pointing out with great enthusiasm "our gurus promoted equality - sex and race ...", he stops me, "oh yea? how many of your gurus were female?", i respond, "uh, none.". i was silent. now im the first one to point out that the gurus didnt make every little decision in their life MEAN something - just to teach the masses a lesson. But lets think about this. We admire our gurus because at certain important times they did set examples. would it have been a "little" decision to have a female guru? Wouldnt that have been a HUGE HUGE HUGE thing for female rights - if that WAS their intention? 100% of the gurus were male. When it came to choosing life (and all that involves, dreams, hopes aspirations, almost everything human) over principle (defending the right to practice religion) didnt guru teg bahadur make that important decision and set us an example. so im forced to conlude that wasnt their intention and if it was, then they failed to act on it. i cant accept my guru failing to act, however i can accept that they fail out of trying. now this leads to an interestion question. Does sikhi evolve and should it? If we accept this hypothesis then maybe we should continue in the direction and spirit of what our founders wished for. Maybe it would be a good thing to have equality - i dont know .. it sounds good on paper. however to say they definitely asked of sikhs to have equality between sexes still needs to be shown. go ahead if u think u can. but i suggest you'll find yourself putting your own ideals in there and hoping, or confusing them to be that of the founders. Show me where they unequivocally state the equality of men and women and i'll believe you. however, in my cultuer, this sort of thing isnt obvious and it isnt present. I do agree to giving women a voice and other things .. i respect women and hold them in great esteem and will continue to do so. however i simpify cant accept the failure of my gurus to be obvious and unambigious in stating this equality - because while everyone knows you are a bad sikh if you drink, who knows if you are bad singh if you have power over your wife? i agree with this and its a good thought. so make this case for me and the thousands who think the way i do. or simply accept your gurus didnt care enough about your female empowerment enough to preach, even act on it. That doesnt mean sikhi is any less, it just means it lacks that teaching. maybe someone should fork sikhi and make a new politically-correct-sex-equality-version of sikhi .. and that'd be something you'd liek to follow. ps. my previous ideal of a partner was someone much liek you, an outspoken strong kaur with such a mindset .. however i've much given up on her as shes almost impossible to find.