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In Response to "Who is Your Favourite Guru?"


Sukhi

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sexysingh, the answers that people gave to you may have been in part something that they believe they should say to you.

but if you take a really good look at each of the Guru's, you won't only see similarities, but you'll see that they really and truly are the same. what changed were the circumstances they were given the Guru-gaddi.

looking at the Guru's in different ways tends to lead us to believe that each of the Guru's had different gifts. and it's possible that they did. but if that was true, then they probably wouldn't have had the same message.

if you want to take a look at the Guru's as historical figures than religious ones, please feel free to do so. but specify your intentions before doing so.

i have nothing more to say and i hope you won't take offence to anything i have said.

take care...

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the thread was locked .. !!

sukhi i appreciate you taking the time out to think about what i raised and give me your reply. If i try to take a good look at the gurus, through historic sources i find that each guru is characterised with a unique personality. Now, i appreciate lots of ppl here dont want to think our gurus had any personality at all and that they were saintly beings above the human things of humour, affection and so on. That they acted without regard to the human condition (hellow?) but yet we expect them to be unequal expositors of it.

What you say about gurus possibly having different gifts that if you accept this, then it means they probably would have different messages is a bit hard for me to accept, partially in sri guru granth sahib we accept the truths from saints whos lives preceeded our gurus and it would seem their personalities were distinct and seperate from gurus yet we still accept their message as our own.

If you take it that each candidate guru was carefully groomed by sikhs before they became guru so thats why they were so similar, then what does that mean about baba nanak? What about the unconventional guruship of guru tegh bahadur?

Why arent we willing to accept that each guru was distinct, but to sikhs was essentially the same as the gurus that had come before him. same in terms of how a sikh would approach the guru when confronted with a problem and needing help or when seeking guidance over other equally important matters.

No veer, im not offended at all by what you said and i welcome your thoughts. Im trying to reach a better appreciation of our gurus, but looks like i crossed the line :-/

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it's not a matter of personality, sexy_singh. it's a matter of recognizing the fact that each of the Gurus share the same Jot. personality is a really superficial thing to look at when you look at what the Gurus.

i don't know if what i'm saying is making sense to you. but the personalities of the Gurus isn't what we're supposed to concentrate on. it's what they said that we should think about.

but if you're really all that concerned, then you should think about what Singing_Silence (Kaur) said. you can't compare Guru Nanak Dev Ji's approach to Guru Gobind Singh Ji's. one was laying the seeds of Sikhi while the other was ensuring that the foundation of Sikhi remains strong through the ages. obviously the approaches taken would be a little different, specifically because by the time Guru Gobind Singh Ji was given the Guru-gaddi, the Sikhs were creating the Khalsa.

you bring up a point about how the writings of other Saints are present in SGGSJ and that they all had different personalities but the same message. well, what would you say if i told you that there must be a reason that it's only the message that was put into Gurbani rather than a biography of the Saint?

you can't pick and choose your favourites, sexy_singh. because when you do that, you start falling into traps. that's when you get side-tracked on your journey. (been there, done that. not gonna share it on a public forum.)

we don't and can't accept that each Guru was distinct, because as a Guru they had the same Jot. the person and the personality falls into the category of "unimportant things" when it comes to looking at our Guru. instead of looking for differences, try to look at each of our Gurus as one Jot under different circumstances in a different time.

i'm glad you didn't take offence to anything i said, bhain ji and i also welcome your thoughts. there's no such thing as crossing the line when you're dealing with learning and educating yourself. but there are different approaches and different ideas. this was my opinion, and i might be wrong. but i'm not trying to convince you to change your opinion of what you believe. i'm just sharing my thoughts.

once again, i hope i didn't offend you (or anyone else) with what i've said.

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Thats what almost ever sikh believes, that each guru shares the same jot. Now im not sure exactly what this is exactly. Is it a literal thing like a spirit that goes out of one guru and into another, is it a symbolic thing which represents the guru?

What does this mean in the context of a guru passing on guruship to another and still being alive. Does that jot go out of that guru and into the next one? Does that mean the prior guru isnt a guru anymore? If both are alive then who is more guru, are they the same guru? is the gurus guru the guru and the other gurus guru the other guru?

What about sri guru granth sahib? Is each physical representation of guru a guru or the same guru? same jot? Im not too stressed about what the jot is cuz i realise i wont be able to get a concrete definition and it wont be one everyone agrees on. I also realise its probably something abstract and open to intepretation and indeed belief. But i guess the point is we leave it essentially undefined so that there is an aura of mystery and divinity to our gurus. Thats the whole purpose of jot, it seems to me.

As you asked, i thought about what singing kaur said about the apparent personality of each guru as a product of the condition of the times and progression of sikhi. Since this is something we can all agree on, that sikhi progresses with time, can this not be evidence in argueing for the uniqueness of personality in each guru? After all we are accepting existence of differences in the role of each of each guru, can this not be seen as a manifestion of unique vision and focus?

Good point about not putting in putting in biographies and this implying the thought is the focus not the person who came up with the idea. And i think you are completely correct in extending this to our gurus as well. But as you take that idea to its natural conclusion, you do away with the humanness of the gurus, they are no longer actual figures who lived, but vessels for propagating ideas. They lose that essential humanity which is in my opinion very important.

Ofcourse i agree with your sentiment that you cant pick and choose a favorite guru. hehe, imagine if we all did that, wouldnt it be terrible?! i dont wanna see that at all. Sure, each guru should be respected as a sum of parts and revered in the same manner. But ive been taught (even by my guru) to be sceptical about what i choose to believe to be true unless im sure. And part of that makes me hold on till ive thought enough to convince myself. In any given period of time, you have either studied the entire body of sikh teachings or you havent. I find myself in the latter. So until ive learned enough, i will choose to talk about and speak fondly about those gurus who i have contemplated and hopefully learnt from over the span of my life.

The body of sikh knowledge is so large, so complicated, so difficult to approach that it can be intimidating for the best of us. So what chance have i got? And i wanna be honest with myself and everyone else and speak it the way it is. It doesnt mean i love sikhi any less (or more for that matter) than the next singh or kaur. Until im sure how, how can i say each guru is the same jot, whatever that means?

I write all of this at the risk of repeating the same thing over and over, and thus lessening the impact of what i write about. I respect that you arent trying to force me to change my mind, and to be honest i ask this question not because i believe it to be that way, but as way to thinking myself to the truth. Thanks again!

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Sukhi yaar (lol), you hit the er..mekh on the ser, Singh Ji, thing is that the Jyot of any enlightened Prophet or Guru is the same, this is the way I see it. As the Truth is one, every message is essentially the same, it's just the ways in which it's revealed which are different, and these ways and techniques change with time and changing attitudes of seekers, therefore the Guru's had to change the techniques in which Truth was imparted or as Sukhi said, strengthened as in the case of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, that's all.

You know sometimes I think of all the Guru's as ONE GURU with different attitudes and clothes and personalities to keep us interested, so the variety and diversity of even our Guru is so distinct and beautiful, which other religion has 10 Guru's one after the other with the essential same message? with no contradictions and no disputes? It just proves that they had the same thing in them huna? Also, have you noticed that the Bani of any Guru in the Guru Granth Sahib finishes with the name of 'Guru Nanak' at the end, just signifies the unity or oneness of the message I think, GanM man I feel your pain :LOL: went thru a whole box of kleenex after that post too :P

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