Guest Posted January 1, 2004 Report Share Posted January 1, 2004 I found this post on sikhnet and wanted to share with sikhawareness members. Taken From: http://www.sikhnet.com/sikhnet/discussion....9A?OpenDocument Below written is a message sent by a friend to me so that the same can be posted on the discussions site & I felt that a discussions & views from all the learned people participating in these discussions can enlighten us & also our mistakes can be pointed out. Dear Sangat Ji, we are not very learned people as I find most of you on this forum. Hence kindly do tell us if we are mistaken at any point of time during the complete write up below BUT we also request you to keep these mistakes aside & concentrate on the spirit of the article below & help in enlightening us on this topic. Regards Ripudaman Singh Dear Sir/ Madam, The most improtant thing which our community requires is the meaning of our gurbani. Todays fast moving world Sikhs do not have time to learn punjabi & then take help of someone for understanding the meaning of gurbani. the meaning also varies from person to person. Its just a myth that one can understand the gurbani by own. I am a engineer but able to understand only few lines of gurbani. My parents, relatives, friends, colleagues, they are daily reading nitnem, but most of them dont even understand their meaning. they are doing this acitivity as there seniors have told them to do. peoples are going to gurudwara for hearing only music of kirtan. They don't try to know the meaning. Our Sikh Gurudwara Parbandhak Commitee is only making gurdwara's building of cocrete and marbels just to show off money. They are distributing langars, parshads to all as gurus has told us to do. We are not doing any new things. Remember if we do not put innovaitve ideas in our religion then it will become religion of only few thousand sikhs most of them will be employees of Gurudwara only. My cast is Ahluwalia forget about abroad in India 99.9% peoples think of Ahluwalia cast as Owner of Potatoes. It is very difficult for me to tell each and every person whom i come in contact to tell the history of Ahluwalia to them. My request to international communitee is to please provide their innovative ideas to our religion to make the Sikh religion as No. 1 in the world. here are few of my suggestions :- 1) Instead of making Gurudwara buildings of marble make it more enviromental friendly like trees, grass etc. 2) open Sikh Training centre or parlour for men - For turban training, Beard Setting without going out of limit. 3) New styles of patkas for younger children as everyone will get bored of using the same style. 4) Proper method of collecting feedbacks from all people and system to give the shape in actual. 5) distribution of Gurbani Meaning in Hindi, Local Languages, English by e mail, classes in all gurudwara, Don't remain stick to punjabi language. Be global and broadminded to adopt all languages. All persons of various religion has got right to know about our Guru Granth Sahib. 6) Proper method of celebrating Gurpurb. Trucks loaded with people in Nagar Kirtan just shows only presence. Make new like Jhankis showing scenes of Sikh History. Sikh role in todays scenerio, Scenes Showing sikhs are against Al Qaida etc. 7) Siksh history must be taught in schools. Aquiring land by political pressure will not help future sikh children in future to know their identity. 8) Sikhs must come in TV Serials/ Movies to tell what the sikh is. My ancestors have give their life for the India but in the result i have got humiliation from Indian peoples. Golden Temple must pass budget of atleast one movie once a year instead of spending lavishly on other items. Rest of the feedback i will give next time when i will sit on internet. If possible display my message on internet and let have discussion of above points. Sorry for the spelling mistake as i have put my inner fire very fast on e mail not taking care of spelling check. Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Wahegure ji ki Fateh. Regards Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia a simple sikh from India 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JOYce Posted January 2, 2004 Report Share Posted January 2, 2004 8) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giani_g Posted January 2, 2004 Report Share Posted January 2, 2004 I disagree with a few of the points mentioned. "1) Instead of making Gurudwara buildings of marble make it more enviromental friendly like trees, grass etc." That point is quite vague but im assuming that it either means converting existing buildings (old industrial buildings, pubs etc) into Gurdwaras which doesn't waste any natural resources and makes use of limited space which I think is isn't the right approach as it has a detrimental effect on the impression the Gurdwara gives and is less enticing for non-Sikhs to enter. It could also mean for Gurdwaras to have their own gardens and trees, I think this is all good but sign posts should be available for explanatory purposes otherwise it would just be a cosmetic feature for ignorant eyes. And finally if this could also mean that the Gurdwara is energy efficient (using renewable energy resources and conserving energy), it would be great and should be practised by everyone but is irrelevant in trying to help people understand Gurbani, people would just take it for granted, imagine if a Gurdwara was suddenly labelled as being environmentally friendly would it create enough impact to convince someone into attending sangat more regularly knowing that the Gurdwara has less maintenance costs? Of course not, what matters (in my opinion) is that the Gurdwara has the facilities to accomodate the local community and that it also organises functions or sporting activities which is a form of seva. What I'm trying to say is that the Gurdwara should be there to preach Gurbani but should also try to serve the community other purposes so as not to appear cold and usurious (the Vatican is critiscied for this). "7) Siksh history must be taught in schools. Aquiring land by political pressure will not help future sikh children in future to know their identity. Sikhs must come in TV Serials/ Movies to tell what the sikh is. My ancestors have give their life for the India but in the result i have got humiliation from Indian peoples. Golden Temple must pass budget of atleast one movie once a year instead of spending lavishly on other items." I think Sikh religion should be taught rather than history, the teaching of history in my opinion has only re-inforced hatred towards Islam whilst making it appear as though Hindus are our bethren. Whilst in Punjabi school we had discussed the wrongs that Muslims had carried out but had never discussed what the brahmins had done. Also much of Sikh history emphasises on resistance to oppression and the fight against evil invaders but there is little emphasis on moral issues such as drugs and sexual conduct (though I believe this isn't intentional!). There already are programs about Sikhs and there's even a Gurbani program but unfortunately arn't on the main stream channels and are limited to obscure overpriced channels. Even then these can not compete with kind of trash that is on the mainstream channels so unless we censor the filth on television, many young Sikhs would just detract from religion as its' values would conflict with popular culture. There is one point I strongly agree on: "5) distribution of Gurbani Meaning in Hindi, Local Languages, English by e mail, classes in all gurudwara, Don't remain stick to punjabi language. Be global and broadminded to adopt all languages. All persons of various religion has got right to know about our Guru Granth Sahib." Guru Ji rejected the idea that ANY language is sacred so it is very important (to me at least) that there should be translated scriptures as there are Sikhs who do not know Punjabi who are being alienated from religion just because of a communication barrier. The word of God is just as relevant in English, French, German etc as it is n Punjabi. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 2, 2004 Report Share Posted January 2, 2004 "5) distribution of Gurbani Meaning in Hindi, Local Languages, English by e mail, classes in all gurudwara, Don't remain stick to punjabi language. Be global and broadminded to adopt all languages. All persons of various religion has got right to know about our Guru Granth Sahib." The idea is noble but we need to make sure that we don't let everyone translate it. It should be done by someone who is fully intellectual in understanding Gurbani and has other laguages knowlegde as well. Guru Ji rejected the idea that ANY language is sacred so it is very important (to me at least) that there should be translated scriptures as there are Sikhs who do not know Punjabi who are being alienated from religion just because of a communication barrier. The word of God is just as relevant in English, French, German etc as it is n Punjabi. But we need to make sure that we don't let translator distort the meaning of Gurbani while he/she are doing it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giani_g Posted January 3, 2004 Report Share Posted January 3, 2004 "But we need to make sure that we don't let translator distort the meaning of Gurbani while he/she are doing it." - truthsingh Well if any translating is to be done then it would obviously have to be done under supervision and must be approved by a Sikh commitee who have to be completely satisfied with the translation. That way any distortion would be prevented. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 3, 2004 Report Share Posted January 3, 2004 "But we need to make sure that we don't let translator distort the meaning of Gurbani while he/she are doing it." - truthsingh Well if any translating is to be done then it would obviously have to be done under supervision and must be approved by a Sikh commitee who have to be completely satisfied with the translation. That way any distortion would be prevented. Check following thread to understand my point of writing above line in which I've described distortion of Gurbani. http://www.sikhawareness.com/sikhawareness...opic.php?t=3125 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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