amardeep

Thanks for the explanation. I wouldn’t say a person who stole something 20 years ago can still be regarded as a thief. Similarly, someone who left school 20 years ago and has worked ever since can’t be regarded as a pupil. So what happens after you accept the sacrifice of Jesus and continue to steal, treat people badly and create chaos on earth etc ? Is the promise of salvation then withdrawn?

Yes feel free to expand. I’ve always had a hard time understanding faith based traditions and how this works in a modern society

No there is an afterlife, either through reincarnation or dissolvement of the self (liberation). I don’t view sikhi as a religion. I see it as a life philosophy, a way to direct your thoughts, speech and actions towards a higher goal. Christianity (from what I’ve read) is a faith based religion Based on the belief that Christ died for your sins on the cross and that people are now liberated if they believe and accept this sacrifice of Jesus . Sikhi is action based. What matters is not whether you believe in the idea of selfless service- this matters is if you practice it

Hi and welcome to the forum You ask a good question that probably many Sikhs also Wonder about. If salvation was based on a mathematical formula (you do X amount of good deeds and then you get liberation) then Sikhi would turn into a merchandise religion. You sit and calculate in order to have a surplus of good deeds and once you got it, you'll just stop and turn into an arsehole again. This approach means that you would end up in a situation of empty rituals where you would 'exploit' the bad condition of the less fortunate in order to help yourself gain succes in the afterlife. In essence "Thank God there are all these poor people, so they can help me attain liberation". Thats not how Sikhi Works. The instructions have been given to repeat the name of God, to do good deeds constantly without fail. Why so ? Because it benefits humanity and your own soul. Not because it lands you liberation per se. If I only stopped myself from robbing or beating up people because it would land me in 'hell' then what kind of person am i? Thats a ticking timebomb waiting to explode. The urge would constantly lurke within me but i'm only stopping myself for external reasons. Sikhi goes to the core of the issue and makes you Work with yourself to 1) reduce your bad qualities 2) to promote gooodness for the sake of goodness and common Progress of humanity. So to answer your question: there is no formula. Just keep going - constant Progress and self developement. ਸੁਰਗ ਬਾਸੁ ਨ ਬਾਛੀਐ ਡਰੀਐ ਨ ਨਰਕਿ ਨਿਵਾਸੁ ॥ Don't wish for a home in heaven, and don't be afraid to live in hell. ਹੋਨਾ ਹੈ ਸੋ ਹੋਈ ਹੈ ਮਨਹਿ ਨ ਕੀਜੈ ਆਸ ॥੧॥ Whatever will be will be, so don't get your hopes up in your mind. ||1|| ਰਮਈਆ ਗੁਨ ਗਾਈਐ ॥ Sing the Glorious Praises of the Lord, ਜਾ ਤੇ ਪਾਈਐ ਪਰਮ ਨਿਧਾਨੁ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥ from whom the most excellent treasure is obtained. ||1||Pause||

Check this out, it might contain something useful: http://www.global.ucsb.edu/punjab/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.gisp.d7_sp/files/sitefiles/journals/volume20/3-JS Grewal 20.pdf

Yes because they relate Guru and Singh history. But in terms of government structures, social conditions of the people under sikh rule etc they provide very Little. The Persian writings produced at the courts of the Sikh Kings of Lahore, Kapurthala and Patiala however provide information on this. But due to them being written in difficult courtly Persian, very few Sikhs have studied these.

Malcolm sketch of the Sikhs from 1812 also gives some info on the internal structure of Sikh government

They deal more with history than setup and governance. Though they do give a few hints here and there

The government structure is very similar to the Mughal administration but overall there is a Sikh ethos to it.

the prem sumarag Granth. It’s also in English translation. The last two chaperone talks about how to govern a Sikh state in great detail.

Also look up Bhai Vasti Ram

I couldn’t find it. Maybe it was a Granth I found on Punjab digital library then. I once remember going trough a book with no front page or title but looking at the content I could tell it was about medicine. Try look on Punjab digital library they have all kinds of gold there. The udasis and nirmale did stuff on medicine in the Sikh tradition. I heard that sewa panthis also did due to their lineage of Bhai Ghaneya but I’ve never seen anything from them

I also think I have an Ayurvedic granth in Gurmukhi at home, i'll try and see if I can find it. It's not that old though, - I think 1950s or so.

In the Sikh tradition there is Kavi Sainapat's Ram Binod Granth from the early 1700s on Ayurveda and the later Megh Binod Granth by the nirmala scholar Ganesha Singh from the early 1900s. I have not read any of them, but i've seen a quote from the Nirmala granth wherein he urges Indians not to opt for Western medicine but rather stay loyal to the Indian traditions of medicine.

Also see this upcoming book https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-War-Sikh-Rana-Chhina/dp/

Check www.kashihouse.com - they might have something.

Its not recycling - it’s continuing the eternal wheel of Dharam. The gurus consistent use of Vedanta testifies to a continuation of an earlier tradition. The presence of bhagat bani in the Guru Granth Sahib also testifies to people being able to achieve mukhti prior to Guru Nanak in 1469, which means that there is an earlier tradition that the gurus were continuing and adapting to the times. Good that you admit that you believe Sikhi was non existent from 1710 - 1950s and the panth has been deluded for the past 300 years. It shows your extreme point of departure You forgot to answer my question on where the gurus promoted the method of grammar in understanding gurbani. Bhai Gurdaas didn do that. Using gurbani tuks to interpret and explain Gurbani is a samprdaic tradition as can be seen throughout Kavi Santokh Singhs Garabganjani Teeka from the 1820s where he quotes extensively from the Anand Sahib, Asa Di vaar etx to explain the meaning of Japji sahib. He also uses grammar to explain some Tuks and why the verbs have a certain past Or present tense etc. Again, your idea that these things are new, logical and scientific is absurd - they’re a part of the sampradaic tradition!! The only difference is that the nirmale and others didn Chop off their feet while analysing and throwing the baby out with the bath water as present day missionaries do. Beautiful quote by Prof Puran Singh. Thanks for sharing. He is right In a way. Some nirmalas have taken things to far and you can also find the samprdaic Gurbachan Singh Bhindranwale accusing the nirmale and Udasis of the same in his Gurbani Paath Darshan. The samprdayas are not perfect, they make mistakes and it’s good to have a panthic discussion on that. But it’s rather extreme to just reject it all, throw the baby out with the bath water and dismiss 300 years of tradition just because they might make a few mistakes here and there.

Angy please answer the following few questions: Can you name 3 Sikhs prior to the British Raj that you feel were on the right path and understood Sikhi? (and dont just mention names - provide evidence that these Sikhs belived the same as what you consider right Sikhi today) if grammar is the way forward, then why did neither the Gurus nor any of their followers write any teeka that focuses on grammar and it's importance? Did the Gurus ever encourage a study of the grammar of Gurbani If you dont believe in the sampradas, was there any institution of the past that you believe were right in teaching Sikhi?

I think you need to spend some more time studying what Vedanta is. A lot of the things you ascribe to the Gurus can already be found in Vedanta, - that is why the Nirmale and others started to interpret Sikhi in this lense. This does not mean that Sikhs are Hindus – but it is a common framework to interpret reality. For instance, many people think that Sikhi rejects the Vedas because Sikhi puts naam and Brahmgian at the front while it limits the importance of the Vedas. This stance, however, is a key component of Vedanta!!! The Mundaka Upanishad divides wisdom into two categories: The higher and the lower. The higher form of wisdom is Brahmgyan while the lower is knowledge of Vedas, phonetics, grammar, etymology, meter, astronomy and the knowledge of sacrifices and rituals. This atittude towards Vedas is entirely in line with both Vedanta and Gurmat. In this regard, your understanding of Jup can most likely easily be found within the terminology of Vedanta and is not unique to Gurmat. And terms like karma, samsara, jeev, brahman, maya, prakrit etc are all from the Vedantic corpus of philosophy. Gurbani was revealed through shabads that came individually to different people at different times. If Guru Nanak in South India used the word Atma, it is expected that the Hindu would understand what this word meant without having to read 600 shabads of Guru Nanak (revealed in Northern India) to understand what is being said to him. Gurbani was revealed over centuries, - it does’nt make sense that only people who had studied all the shabads would be able to understand what they were being told when the Guru revealed shabads to them. Your approach seems to be heavily depend on logic. But Sikhi defies logic. This does not mean that Sikhi is all Disney world and mythology. But a traditional premise is that Sikhi breaks the make up of the mind. You say that Jup comes from the process of Jupi. You equate jup with jupi. This is very logical, that X is connected with Y and therefore through doing X you will attain Y. BUT the foundation of Gurmat through the Sri Japji Sahib is ਸੋਚੈ ਸੋਚਿ ਨ ਹੋਵਈ ਜੇ ਸੋਚੀ ਲਖ ਵਾਰ and ਚੁਪੈ ਚੁਪ ਨ ਹੋਵਈ ਜੇ ਲਾਇ ਰਹਾ ਲਿਵ ਤਾਰ . So here clearly the Guru is breaking common logic by going the other way and saying Soch does NOT happen through Sochai. And chup does not happen through chupai! This is a clear break with the way we understand logic and how Things are connected. Your idea that SIkhi fits with grammar, science and logic is fair to have but it does not have any tradition behind it. Whereas the Sampradays stretch back hundreds of years and that in itself Means their ideas have to be taken seriosly. You say that jupi happens through Listening ,Believing Accepting and Living. This is called shravan, manan, and nididhyasana in Vedanta and is a key component in understanding reality and transcending the self. Again, your use of grammar takes you back to a Vedantic mindset which the sampradays could easily have done through their traditions, uthankas etc. Again – there is NO way Gurbani discards the old meaning of these words. Gurbani is didactic – it is supposed to change your ways and by this , it implies that the orders given are understood by the people. If Gurbani says to do X it must be inferred that people understand what X means. And not that they have to study six hundred pages of philosophy and grammar to understand what is really meant. In your example, it means that the Panth was dillued for 300 years until Professor Sri Sahib Singh wrote his teeka. That does NOT make any sense and defies all logic of what a coherent, strong and independant religion is about.

“According to Sage Patanjali (400 CE), Japa is not the repitation of word or phase but rather contemplation on the meaning of the mantra,[11] this definition sometimes persists across different sources.[12][13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japa

Who says jup only has one meaning in the vedantic tradition? Considering the sophistication of Vedanta, why would this word only have one meaning in a millennia old philosophical system ? Have you looked it’s meanings up? I don’t see a problem in the two examples you’ve given, they make sense and can reasonably be argued for. I haven’t argued anywhere that the gurus didn use old words with new meanings. What I’m saying is that they did not cancel the old meanings per se (as some akj’ers have argued in the past where they say ALL references to Vedant and mythology means something completely different ie red suddenly means blue.

Fantastic for bringing this up. Thanks.

There might be, but equating grammar with interpretation is a recent thing. It has no tradition behind it.

One of the basic messages of Sikhi is that even a good act can become a dead ritual if the right intention/Heart is not in it. In the Sri Japji Sahib we read the following: ਤੀਰਥੁ ਤਪੁ ਦਇਆ ਦਤੁ ਦਾਨੁ ॥ ਜੇ ਕੋ ਪਾਵੈ ਤਿਲ ਕਾ ਮਾਨੁ ॥ Now this is quite strange, as ਦਇਆ (compassion) is normally considered a good thing. How can ਦਇਆ then be described as useless? This is because of the Gurmat philosophy that says even good Things can be regarded as bad. In Guru Granth Sahib, Dasam bani and the rahitname you have many examples of kesh, simran etc being described as without merit in some cases. This is the strenght of Sikhi - that it even has a critical look at itself as a religion - if it is not practiced correctly. Then even the sadhanas of Sikhi can become useless. So jup in the above has two different meanings as you correctly state. In one tuk jup is used positively because it is practiced in the proper way, whereas in the other it is used 'negatively' because it is used in a context of empty rituals. The context and wider philosophy is key.

It's also vital to note that Professor Sahib Singh's approach is an innovation in terms of Sikh tradition. No other scholar before him had done an entire commentary based on grammar alone. While this is praiseworthy, commendable and adds light to the glory of Gurbani, it is not a "principle" of Gurmat. If it was, you would have seen many more scholars prior to him interpreting Gurbani such. Grammar was important for the early scholars - you can find Kavi Santokh Singh in the garabganjani teeka using grammar in some verses, and Baba Ganga Ram was teaching grammar in the bungas of Amritsar during the Sikh raj - but the grammar was just a small component of many other methods of interpretation. Professor Sahib Singh's massive Work is indeed Unique, but you can't say his approach is part of a principle of Gurbani. It is rather an innovation - but a good one as it adds to the plurality and intellectual exercises of the Sikh scholars of history.