kdsingh80

Some people think that living under Muslims or Britishers was quite bad for Hindu's , but these accounts do tell that at times , it was not religion but under good king or general that matter the most

I find this asthaan and dharti puja to be very worriying and a big reason why Sikhi has never spread outside Punjab.
When Guru Angad was expelled from Kartarpur (which had become a thriving Sikh hub at the time of Guru Nanak) what did he do? Did he spend his time trying to recapture Kartarpur or did he go else where (khadur sahib) and built up a new hub in the pattern of Kartarpur ? He did the last. All the Gurus did this - expelled from one city and then go and built up a new centre of parchaar. From the period Guru Hargobind to Guru Gobind Singh Harimandir Sahib was not even in the hands of the Gurus. The 6th and 7th Guru could easily have sent an army to get it back but they did'n.
Guru Gobind Singh did that in a broader context of consolidating Khalsa power.  What I think Sikhs need to do is to build up a new parallel power base of Sikhi (somewhere in the West where there is less political drama and opposition) and run Things from here. We can blind ourselves looking towards Akal Thakht or we can build up a new power base and get Things moving.

I am not saying that muslims never converted by force. Muslims applied multiple ways of finding new converts that include sufi, imposing taxes and in very extreme punishment.
Parsi's faced the wrath of muslims  and urban Paris's converted first , but rural area's remained untouched and conversion took by gradual process. The irony is that they never fought against muslims or provided solid resistance.It took centuries before Iran became muslim majority.
Also just look at Delhi sultanate , Delhi was under muslims roughly 600 years and many of them were tyrants but still surrounding area's of Delhi ,Haryana , Rajasthan , Uttar pradesh etc are still Hindu majority  On the other hand hand majority of Punjabi's roughly 75-80% , Bengali's converted to islam, so this forced conversion theory is not fully true

I am not saying that muslims never converted by force. Muslims applied multiple ways of finding new converts that include sufi, imposing taxes and in very extreme punishment.
Parsi's faced the wrath of muslims  and urban Paris's converted first , but rural area's remained untouched and conversion took by gradual process. The irony is that they never fought against muslims or provided solid resistance.It took centuries before Iran became muslim majority.
Also just look at Delhi sultanate , Delhi was under muslims roughly 600 years and many of them were tyrants but still surrounding area's of Delhi ,Haryana , Rajasthan , Uttar pradesh etc are still Hindu majority  On the other hand hand majority of Punjabi's roughly 75-80% , Bengali's converted to islam, so this forced conversion theory is not fully true

No I'm not saying they are lying but pointing out that sizeable communities existed there for many many centuries - until now. Maybe what happened was the rich and powerful (who had some issue with other emerging powers there) are the ones who emigrated, not Joe Public.  You have to look at causal factors carefully. Prior to removing the local tyrants like Saddam and Qaddafi, certain minorities in the region weren't going through the hell they are right now. Whatever else they may have been, these despots kept their fundamentalists under check.
You could also use the example of pre and post annexation Panjab. Where the former state had Islamic fundamentalists on a back foot, and 100 years of colonialism later - Islamic separatism (bolstered by British style politics) burst onto the scene again, with the creation of a new nation.
 
Another example is Afghanistan. Look at it prior to the Russian invasion - moderate, with a large Sikh thriving community. Look at it now. 
My point is that poorly thought out, selfish foreign interventions open up a Pandora's box which often leads to the bolstering of extreme fundamentalist movements. People in the west have little idea of the complexity of eastern societies, which usually balance themselves under a tyrant. When they remove these 'strong men' something even worse emerges. And we aren't even going into the motives for them interfering - which is invariably resource driven, as opposed to the propaganda line of wanting to establish democracy and emancipate the public. 

In the examples we've discussed in this topic I think you've been right all along by looking into the wider context of the shabads.
Where I disagree with you however is your extreme focus on 'feminism' which blinds you to such a degree that you are actually willing to reject scripture of Sikhi for the sake of moulding Sikhi to fit into your modernist way of thinking.
In terms of how to reconcile secondary litterature of Sikhi with SIkhism - Kavi Santokh Singh said to apply the foundations of Sikhi (as given in Guru Granth Sahib) when reading texts such as janam-sakhis wherein there is also content that is untrue. This can also apply to the rehitname and other secondary Sikh writings. Kavi Santokh Singh said not to reject the writing, but instead to use discriminitive intelligence to get rid of the interpolations.

Many people asked a question on Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s bow. An archer named Jaswinder Singh explains and provides the answer.
Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s bow’s peak draw weight was 225kg or 496 lb. Guru Sahib’s arrow traveled much faster than the fastest bow can produce in modern times given the draw weight. The amount of power needed to pull the string back is 496 lb or you can think of it as picking up a weight of 496 lb with one hand. The bow of Guru Sahib weighed 5kg alone.
Historical accounts narrate that Guru Ji fired an arrow from Gurdwara Moti Bhag into the bed of Bahadur Shah sitting at Lal Qila, Delhi.
The distance from the Gurdwara to the Lal Qila is about 15km but the fly distance is about 10km. Now days, an arrow fired from a bow will only travel about half a Km.
Jaswinder Singh stated that in the market at best a 70lb draw weight bow is available but he was able to have an 80lb bow made for a special order which is considered to be one of the fastest bows in the world. In one second, the arrow is able to go about 360ft in about 1 second. Just imagine how fast Guru Sahib’s arrow must have travelled.

Also what needs to be said, if you have been keeping an eye on Facebook regarding a narrative regarding jhatka...the amount of "Sikhs" from India who kept commenting that jhatka is wrong, sikhi and jhatka can't mix etc. It is such a shame, dasme patshah turned our meek ancestors into Shers with the power of Gurbani and focussing on warfare and hunting and now it seems like we have forgotten our warrior past and turned into beard shaving paneer craving vegetarian bamans.  & for those who did read the 100+ anti jhatka comments on daily Sikh updates on Facebook, just because you are vegetarian doesn't make you better, being vegetarian is also about taste of the tongue....chilli paneer, ice creams, eggless cakes eggless deserts, samoseh, pizza, processed "fake" meat. 
I beg your pardon but what was that line? Something son of a khatri, not a baman? 
 
Crystal

This is the prime example from which Sikh preachers should learn......you seems to be intellectual oriented, even from your perpective we should be ashamed of ourselves that even Ram raheem is able to understand how to attract crowds, but we dumbasses have not understood........Basically, your example of Ram raheem has again verified the fact that in order to convert (or say retain Sikhi) the preachers must preach the philophosy of Sikhism (equality for all) and not the same argument....we're decreasing, so let's do something.
Let me give you a very practical example: Let's imagine that someone is Non-Sikh but willing to learn something about God (not dogmatic religion) and searched couple of youtube videos and opened the first link of a top katakar of Sikh and boom after listening to the first 10 minutes, he skips the video because kathakar is just complaining about the minority issues and then boosting of history and eventually asking to take the Amrit.......what do you think; will the seeker come back to Sikh videos.....I guess Not...............on the other hand, he opened a link where a person was explaining the Philosophy of God....hmm, he will stay to listen the whole video.......and later on he might be insterested in becoming part of the group/religion of the preacher..........bottom line is: to put in your terms.....Marketing the religion.
Try to understand the timings in real sense........you cannot convert because you were brave and fought against the evil forces, you cannot convert without the Philosophy......The defination of Religion is the Rules around the Philosophy and not the other way around.
See around you today's Radha-soamis, Ram raheems, Muslims and many others are successful only because they understand the working of mind and understand that people like philosophy, stories, and promises. Get the real handle on the situation and not just the talk.
Regarding Politics, modern Sikhs are far behind that not because they are less in number, its because they don't understand how to play politics. Politics are played and its a kala/skill. Learn that skill first.

Islam is spreading like wildfire , they have now even entered Europe, their birth rate is highest , So by your logic their Sufis must had biggest kamai than any other religion
 
Also Ram raheem from 90s has converted millions single handedly , he must have very big kamai

Much of christianity islam did not spread by forced conversions , sufi's missionaries spread them , and please remember these days quantity has all the political power not quality.Quality has to depend on the mercy of majority  

Practical ways are also created by waheguru and if religion survive through that means then it means it is also God's will.
I am reading Hari Ram Gupta's history of sikhs and it is written in that after Banda sikhs were in very bad shape  .Hunger , mughals  no place to live  death was looking sureshot . At that time they decided to do looting in order to survive , not only that anybody who used to tell about sikhs whereabout they used to take everything away from and kill all their family members.Now where is the gurmatt in the above , but because of these things they survived and paved way for future generation to establish khalsa raj  and whatever Sikhism we see today.
 
So can we say that it was waheguru's will that sikh do that ?

A religion also need to survive and expand so more and more people can benefit from it.Imagine if in 18th century instead of fighting wars Sikhs had decided to go to some corner of India and do bhagti then sikhism could had been wiped out then

LOL LOL

LOL LOL

LOL LOL

It was a serious talk but last paragraph cracked me up so bad. Haha

LOL LOL

I think you are living in your own little world. People have told you over and over again not to put things in their mouths. You connect things that are not connected and then use that as an argument against people. I think its called a straw man in english. You build up a narrative in your own head and then argue with people about why they feel a certain way. But they actually dont feel that way!
 
When people here have respect for samprdayas it is NOT because of the way they view women.. thats YOUR take on it because you seem to center your life on feminism.. So if I tell you im into the samprdayas, then you will find something you dont agree with and make a fuss and drama about me being into the samprdayas due to this one female statement only!! Its bloody weird man and you need to stop it!  People here respect the samprdayas because they reflect a pre-colonial disposition of Sikhi with a heavy regard on oral tradition...... NOBODY HAS MENTIONED ANYTHING ABOUT WOMEN!! yet you keep hammering on and on and on about them....The puratan samprdayas dont even follow the old rahitname, - they have their own oral traditions which they follow.
Like I said, - you dont understand what people are writing, nor do they understand what you are writing.. bloody kinder garden man!! When people showed you the tuks of Sri Guru Amar Das on women, they did'n mean to say that The Satguru talks ill of women.. They were saying "if you use this kind of arguments against Sri Dasam Granth then why dont you apply the same logic to the Guru Granth Sahib".. Its a way of showing how illogical you are.. Yet you read it as the guys saying Guru Amar Das looked down on women...
And now you're making connections between Rahitanme and Dasam Granth....SERIOSLY??? wtf???? The rehitname for the most part are 2-3 pages long... The Dasam Granth is 1300+ pages long... Stop making weird analogies... I dont know if you have some sort of OCD or something but if you do, please let us know... This is getting really tiring.. Everyone here is tired of having to explain themselves over and over again as well as having to defend themselves of weird allegations you keep making, -putting words in their mouths etc....
 
Pappiman says weird shit at times, - all of us laugh at it from time to time and consider those views as representing only himself.. Yet you take it and blow it out of proportions and make it sound like pappiman is the sole global ambassador of SIkhi - everything he says is true and law!
Give it a rest man..

this will definitely pump u up too...but only indian kids who grew up watching DD tv india will feel it
 
 

^ Well people will also say , soorni  daa dudh peya hai te saamne aaa "

^ Well people will also say , soorni  daa dudh peya hai te saamne aaa "

There is some truth in the idea that Guru Ji was originally depicted with a topi and the turban is mostly modern imagination.
 
however, Koenraad Elst is a fraud academic who mostly makes up shit to pander to the Hindutva/RSS crowd (and I mean that in the real sense of that group, not just a catchphrase for interpretations of Sikhi I feel are too "Hindu"). Examples of some of his most ridiculous claims:
-that all Gurus wore topis--completely false given that all old paintings show the rest of Gurus wearing turbans
-that all Persian terminology in Sikhi is modern interpolation
-because he finds the history of Guru Gobind Singh inconvenient (I.e., that he fought Hindu hill Rajas and that he established unique Khalsa identity), he hurls a bunch of accusations against him that literally have no historical basis. I.e., that he was a chela of Aurangzeb and the Mughals who wrote the Zafarnamah out of cowardice, that the Hill Rajas originally provided shelter to Guru Gobind Singh but he raided and looted them provoking them to attack, that he only gave Gurgaddi to GGS because of the death of the Sahibzade (even though Khalsa was created before their shaheedi). He also just denies the existence of all the Hindus who did non-favorable things in history such as Gangu, and also denies the existence of Muslims who acted favorably such as Farid. 
If Teja Singh Bhasauria shows how bad revisionism in the name of staving off Sanatani ideology can be, Elst is the corrolary for how bad revisionism can get in the name of staving off Singh Sabha ideology. I'm all for entertaining alternate viewpoints but the guy is a nutcase and literally cites no evidence, but clearly constructs his history with an agenda. Avoid at all costs. 
 

It depend on women, my cousin had it easy but my community pahbi went through hell. And I can't say my cousin is good with pain, she did not have it that bad while my pahbi was throwing up all the time. 

Just read the above .Women not only produce 4-5 kids but also live more than men,this clearly shows that pregnancy do not kill them or reduce their age.I think many people are now facing strange health problems and may be for few women pregnancy has become quite painful .may be western lifestyle , diet  or genes are responsible for that.O/W how come pregnancy which is very common in mammals has become so painful for few women?