dalsingh101

Don't be naive about how bereft of warmth some hearts can be. Certain people would happily eat and have no respect for Sikhs/Sikhi, considering us fools. Not that we should get all hawkish because of this. Some south Indians don't seem to have a clue. There is a door from the diwan to the langar hall and they will walk through without covering their head and have to be told to do so. At the end of the day the langar is gift from the Guru, I can't help but think that we need to be careful about getting petty in reaction to other people's pettiness. But a clear message does need to be sent to others to let them know that we are not easily manipulated fools.

See I was familiar with the word ਅਨੁਵਾਦ, is that not Panjabi?

ਉਲਥਾ

If this reflects the seriousness and passion with which apnay universities back home take the promotion and study of Sikhi, we might as well accept that this is only really going to grow in the diaspora. http://sikhchic.com/article-detail.php?cat=26&id=2523

Let's just say an East London one. I wont give more details because I'd feel I'm being cyber stalked them. lol

They seemed to be having a clamp down on all the nonSikhs who come and eat langar without showing maharaj respect by mutha teking at the Gurdwara today. One Hindi speaking Muslim guy was blatantly trying to avoid it and trying not to. Some people must think we are proper mugs. lol

It's interesting how some of us Sikhs in the west read academic work to get insights into the faith and history. I wonder if there is any link between this and intrinsically seeking didactic information? I think sometimes Sikhs do fall into reading outsider accounts of Sikhs/Sikhi for reasons loosely based around faith and subsequently, very subtly (even unwittingly) find themselves in another domain altogether. This has spawned a whole area of 'Sikh studies'. I guess a lot of apnay are seeking indepth treaties on Sikhi and end up with western academic works due to a mixture of language barriers (i.e. they couldn't access any existing indigenous literature or scripture due to a linguistic inabilities), or some form of dissatisfaction with most of what already exists in English by our people? Who am I kidding! The vast majority of apnay aren't really into reading at all. It all goes back to deep khoj of Guru Granth Sahib and Dasam bani in the end. Seeing as most members of any faith don't go through the rigors of learning the language of older religious texts and exploring them independently to any depth (how many Pakistani Muslims really understand the original Arabic koran?), they will rely on translations/interpretations which themselves are never really independent of the contextual situations in which they arise be they Nirmale or SS or any other strand (sorry if I seem provocative by this comment). I think SS has shown us that trying to create an overarching interpretation that umbrellaed all the variation in the panth may ultimately be a futile exercise (in terms of the centralising of faith at least) because all this seems to create in the end - is yet another substream amongst many. That's what it looks like right now. Anyway, enough of me thinking out loud. Sorry folks!

tsingh I'm just a little bit vary of this tendency to jump into particular 'camps' by apnay. Then we get the inevitable conflicts between them which descends into a quagmire of sorts. It's weariness of this that motivated my earlier statement about language use. That being said, I can see obvious merit in someone unapologetically positing a perceived longstanding Nirmale perspective on Sikhi, especially to help us understand pre and post colonial thinking better (or at least aspects of this). But today, in the final analysis, it's hard not to feel that an urgent and immediate concern for all Sikhs needs to be to minimising the seemingly intrinsic tendency to turn on each other at the drop of a hat. I can't help but wonder if the nature of Sikh studies for the foreseeable future will mostly consist of rejections of SS? Also, if you can forgive me for being so blunt, how do you imagine your current project will materially differ from (or surpass) Oberoi's notions in his famous 'construction of religious boundaries' thesis? Sorry for the digression. Feel free to ignore my post should you deem it too excessive of a tangent.

Okay, I understand what you are saying and I'm not a blind uncritical fan of SS, but that being said do you ever think that maybe natural entrophy may have caused some/any deviation from even earlier Sikh practices by the time of the period which preceded the emergence of the SS lehar (this isn't to suggest that SS resolved these, if they did take place btw)? Also how do you think Sikhs should have dealt with the post annexation challenge thrown in their midst by Europeans, in the form of post enlightenment thought? To my mind much of what the SS did in theological terms sprang from this. Their other moves seem to have been driven by the new political scene that arose in the wake of the Anglo invasion.

I think some caution in the choice of language used on the matter is warranted. For example, more neutral terms such as Singh Sabha 'interpretations' as opposed to 'revisions', otherwise your work is in danger of squarely falling into a particular camp in the acrimonious/antagonistic Santan versus Singh Sabha 'debate'. Unless of course, you consciously desire or don't mind this.

I'm not fully convinced about this. That book I posted about earlier contains extracts from letters that suggest that some Indian (including Sikh) troops had relationships with French women in WW1. Of the recent accusations I'd say the rape and sex with minors are the more serious. In this article a French resistance fighter claims some rapes took place by Indian soldiers in WW2:

Where is the link for this brother?

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Indian-Army-probing-sexual-abuse-charges-against-UN-peacekeepers-in-Congo/Article1-706834.aspx http://www.indianexpress.com/news/indian-army-probes-reports-of-its-un-peacekeepers-.../800244/ http://expressbuzz.com/nation/army-probes-soldiers’-sexual-misconduct/282228.html http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-indian-troops-in-congo/717700.html

Give us an outline of these differences as you perceive them. Are you talking pre and post Singh Sabha or something else?

I'm going to be moving soon to a place with no Internet connection. I was wondering if anyone's ever tried one of those USB Internet dongle things that connect you up? How much does it cost? How reliable is it?

Jannat I think you may have possibly misread/misunderstood the above text?

You know what else I notice about apnay? They completely ignore the concept of diversification when it comes to economy. So you just have pockets of people doing the same thing who never think too much about exploring or developing new areas.

I think that is because it stems from the merchant community who would do lots of traveling in foreign lands on business trips. I don't think it reflects common Khalsa practice.

Kds you really don't contribute much of value these days. What you fail to grasp is that all of us in the panth are being criticised here. No one is going to solve our communities problems for us. Instead of wallowing in self pity we need inspiring leaders to give us new direction because the usual guys aren't doing s**t to take us to a better place corporately. Whatever the solutions for the problems of Panjab are, they certainly don't include a mass exodus to the west, especially when much of the western economy seems to be teetering on the edge of some catastrophe itself. Otherwise we will get more people sleeping in streets and graveyards like in the OP.

Well maybe you need to refocus. The people who are the real unfortunates ones in Panjab/India aren't the ones who can afford to come to the west. Those poor people don't have a chance. And I fully understand why people want to come here. That doesn't detract from the fact that failing to create our own economy and avenues for progression is a collective oversight on the part of the community. Given how Panjab likes to laud itself as the 'richest' state in India you would have thought it had more advantages than most other states. It's poor leadership and vision that is killing us out there.

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing. I think trying bhagti brings us abruptly to that point where the gap between the sought after transcendental experience and the worldly become acute. It's like the latter is a dead weight in the whole affair. Maybe most of us only experience the transcendental on death?

No, I just take a much harder line on this particular matter than you. Ethnic men in general have become lazy and instead of thinking of and implementing strategies to uplift themselves and their own society with a degree of independence (as much as is possible in a globalised world), they want ready made solutions dished out by the west. This all seems to be lost on you. Our people obviously have the drive and ambition to do things, they just need to overcome their nasty petty thinking and intellectual laziness to do big things as a community now. A complete overhaul is needed in our community. You just don't want to face up to that and make up x, y, z excuse for the idiocy that passes off as acceptable behaviour amongst our lot. You don't seem to have critical reflection in your tool bag?

I guess what I struggle with is how on one hand we do have a clear emphasis on addressing all matters worldly, then on the other our bhakti is an attempt to transcend these very things. It's like we are compelled to develop conceptions to deal with the material (i.e. create mental forms/structures to deal with things efficiently or at least try to!) then with our bhagti we are trying to destroy all mental forms to achieve 'oneness'. I guess that is the challenge, to achieve transcendence whilst negotiating the material. Is our human existence supposed to compose of learning to slip in and out of transcendental states? How can one be in a constant transcendental state and deal with the everyday mundane when the latter seems to drag us down from the former? And when we are talking transcendence, how much more is it to a significant cognitive/perceptual shift?

My limited understanding of this term is influenced by Professor Sahib Singh. From what I understand it seems to imply Paratma is not tied to any particular faith and nor is access to the same dependent on any specific religious rites/practices. If this is a correct understanding, it does bring forth the question of the relevance of any religious ਰਸਮ? How is this term understood in classic understandings? I understand this more and more as an adult and this message seems to be amplified somewhat in the Dasam Granth but it does become difficult to reconcile the way the Khalsa (at least in it's currently practiced form) is built upon a very strong sense of distinct identity, one that unequivocally rejects the worship of other deities (as per DG) with the supremely universalist currents you mention above. At this time (at least) the Khalsa seems to place an inordinate emphasis on distinction along multiple planes such as the ideological, the political and even cultural. It's feels like an insanely intricate matter. It also feels as if the distinctiveness (niarapun) is the direct result of the human experience of negotiating the material world i.e. as true as the 'oneness' of all creation is, it still doesn't alter the fact that subcomponents of the oneness can, and frequently do behave in a beastly, violent, oppressive, subversive way to other subcomponents. Even if you didn't want to, you'd be forced to face this and distinguish yourself from sources of aggression, if you were on the receiving end.

Seems like we are stuck with trying to resolve the paradox of having a God that is on one hand ਅਧਰਮੰ whilst having a lot of symbolic prescriptions (or ਰਸਮ) that come with the Khalsa way of life. Personally I don't know how you see this as being of limited relevance, does it not lay at the very heart of the Khalsa way of life? It's certainly something that I find difficult to fully grasp anyway. If we placed little emphasis on form it would be easier to understand, but instead we place an inordinate amount of importance on external form in our community. It seems paradoxical?