satpalahuja

Guru Gobind Singhji created the Khalsa, and then urged the faithfuls to keep their kesh. Does your common sense not tell you that our other 9 Gurus who were born before 1699 did not keep their Kesh ? Kukdu koooo !!!!

"All our Gurus had long hair and turbans " sarpaanch - who told you this, who said so ? The tandoori chicken you ate last night told you so ?

I am amused that you want to report people you cannot argue with. It shows how insecure you are, and how mentally bankrupt you are. This is a shame, because though there are so many examples of sikh success stories, but there are too many santas and bantas are like you amongst us - Intolerant and useless people who would and will ruin any sikh run political establishment ( including your khalistan ) Today india is a success because level minded hindus from south india & bengal, also intelligent gujaratis and marwaris are balancing silly bhaiyyas from the cow belt, silly tribals from the centre and north east, and we over excitable Punjabis and Sikhs cannot have our own way. coming back to your main post complaint - its not all that wrong. Worshipping a book is not different than praying to an idol! - is that not true ? Depicting pictures of gurus who probably never had long hair or wore turbun is ridiculous. - is that not true ? Let me add something. I have read that Aarti means ( gagan mein thal - raag chand deepak bane ) that Guru Nanak Devji was criticizing ostentatious pretensions in religion. Then we silly sardarjis come along and cover Harmandir Sahib with gold. So, get your own house in order first before making allegations!!!'' - ………………….now – is that not true as well ? And about our Guru Nanak Dev ji being a Hindu - well .......... i dont believe at all that he considered himself to be a hindu, but i dont believe either that he wanted something very different. Guruji only wanted to rid Hinduism of brahmanical evils which he did not believe in. Whatever i say, is open to debate. In brief, History means 'to dig the ground, find something, explain half of it, and add your own views to the other half not explained'. That is why we idolize Maharaja Ranjit Singh whereas the Pakistanis consider him to be an intolerant fanatic. And vice versa about Aurangzeb.

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Eurocentric Imperialist thought is not relevant nor credible. - Agreed . But an outsider generally has a more objective analysis - provided he does it without bias. <BR><BR>Agreed to your earlier post as well when you said Guruji is without such labels. I only made my statements because we love to label our Gurus in one particular way.

So you are a follower of Mc-leod. It is interesting that most Anti-Sikh scholars include in their diatribe the lines "Britishers had a political objective in writing Sikh history there by attempting to divide sikhs from Hindus." They, with their enclosed and poisoned mind fail to see that in the first ever population census done by British in india, classified Sikhs as Hindus. The British historian who is blamed by such people for giving a new shape to Sikh thought is Joseph Davey Cunningham (often called Macaulay). They don't see that he was punished by the British for writing genuine history and was humiliated by his commanding officers and died of heart-break, it is said. As for dividing society, i don't want to talk about the thousand years old divisions of Indian society, by Hindus. Mc-leod was a political agent of Indira Gandhi (a fact he denied whole heartedly, but his actions if studied clearly reveal that he was working under 'external pressures'). He was a christian missionary working to convert Sikhs in punjab (he said in his autobiography that he became an agnostic, a lie told to escape criticism by those who called him working with motivated intentions as he was a missionary). Mcleod preached Christianity all his life but used his historical capabilties to write about an 'alien faith', Sikhi and not his 'natural faith' Christianity, in which he was well versed. ironical ! Mc-leod's entry into writing Sikh history marks the period when Sikhs were fighting Indian Govt. He invented the term 'Sant Mat' and used it to include Guru Nanak in it. He said that Guru Nanak chose Bhai lehna over Baba Buddha as his successor because Bhai lehna was a Khatri and Baba Buddha a Jat. it is clearly mentioned in sggs that Bhai lehna was chosen because of his devotion to Guru Nanak (why did Mc-leod refused to accept sggs as authority? because later on he would attempt, through his student Pashaura singh (another GOI agent) that sggs was tampered with by Guru Arjan who changed hymns of Guru Nanak and Sikhs later on and it was not 'revealed bani'). Mc-leod also translated wrongly Bible into only old testament, to defend his God, Jesus. He was a malicious writer who openly twisted Sggs and refused to correct even when reminded. He said that Guru Nanak did not find a new religious philosophy and Sikhi is thus not a religion of Guru Nanak. He stated that arms were taken by Sikh Gurus at the instance of 'Jats'. If you go through all of his work, you will see that he tried to down grade the jats role in Sikhism, an attempt to undermine Khalistan movement in North America, esp. Canada (Jats were at forefront of the movement) I could give you a hundered logical reasons that refute Mc-leods work and observations, which were motivated. But as a Sikh Historian said, "hindus have learned one thing that they cannot learn another", so i won't waste any further energy. I am not a follower of W H Mcleod. Unlike most of you, I don't get blindly passionate about anything. But before we go to Mcleod, lets understand the concept of history. In brief, History means 'to dig the ground, find something, explain half of it, and add your own views to the other half not explained'. That is why we idolize Maharaja Ranjit Singh whereas the Pakistanis consider him to be an intolerant fanatic. And vice versa about Aurangzeb. Our Sikh history has been littered by assumptions. And as Sikhs in a religious group can be a violent, close minded lot, most Sikhs and all Hindus stay way from contradicting these assumptions. 2 Sikh scholars nurtured by Mcleod were hauled up before the Akal Takht to atone for their sins. Its like the olden days – if you say that the earth is round – it is blasphemy. Best not to contradict Sikhs when they are in a group. Let them say that lassi is made in computer. Whatever – just let them say anything. You are right – I am wrong….. Sat Sri Akal. Now - a lot of your statements are assumptions, so why argue ? I am not saying they are definitely wrong, only that they are not necessarily right either. Instead of blindly assuming Mcleod to be true, just give him a fair read. Remember, he did devote a lot of time to Sikh studies. He had a doctorate in Oriental Studies, he spent 9 years in Batala, learnt Gurmukhi, studied the Sikh scriptures, janam-sakhis (life stories) of Guru Nanak etc. and whatever else was available on the subject. Lets stay away from assumptions and concentrate on historical facts. You have made a huge gaffe when you say – "They, with their enclosed and poisoned mind fail to see that in the first ever population census done by British in india, classified Sikhs as Hindus." In fact in the various population census done by British, it is the hindus who returned themselves as Sikhs. Why did this happen – why 200 years after the initiation of the khalsa were Hindus and Sikhs mixing each other up. Was it because the Khalsa was not of such huge relevance anymore? We know from our Grandparents that till the 40's and 50 's Hindus and Sikhs freely mixed and intermarried. Elder sons in Hindu families were made Sikhs. The Khalsa has been recentty rejenuvated by Right Wing Sikhs after Right Wing Hindus tried to intolerantly bring back all sects of India back to ther brahmanical religion, by various ploys such as the Arya Samaj. Then Indira Gandhi came along and made it worse…….This hatred is all politics.

Sikhs were called Sikhs even before the time of Guru Gobind Singh Maharaj, even by others. A Hindu is one who follows the ideas, teachings and practises of Hinduism. Guru Nanak did not follow the practises of Hinduism. He did not follow the Vedas, the Upanishads nor the Puranas. If Guru Nanak was following Sant Mat, why was he not a follower of Kabir and Namdev. Why did he not put all of their writings into the Guru Granth, instead of a few? Surely all of the writings of "sants" of sant mat were valid? All of the Gurus changed the minds and souls of those who followed them. Guru Gobind Singh made that inward change reflect outwards. He did not make "Sikhs", he made "Singhs". There was only one Guru who changed form ten times. Why did he distinguish Sikhs from others if they were followers of Sant Mat too? Simply said, if the Gurus were followers of "Sant Mat", there would be no "Sikhi" or "Guru Granth". Have you heard of WH Mcleod ? Mcleod wrote a well researched books on ‘Evolution of the Sikhs.’ This is what he had to say. “Guru Nanak has been characterized as fitting squarely within the Sant parampara (tradition) and also in a wider sense, the Bhakti milieu of North India. The tradition rejected the worship of incarnation and Hindu forms of professional asceticism, spurned the authority of Vedas and other scriptures, and ignored the ritual barriers between low and high castes. Further, the sants stressed the use of vernacular language in their rejection of orthodoxy. Central to their doctrines, and binding them, were their ethical ideals and the notion of interiority, rituals, pilgrimages, and idols were worthless in the quest for liberation; only loving adoration of the Ultimate mattered. These strong similarities between the various groups who lived by these ideals have been characterized by W. H. McLeod (1989:25) as Sant synthesis, a combination of Vaishnava tradition and the Nath tradition, with possible elements of Sufism as well. What the Sants also had in common was a stress on the necessity of devotion and practice, the repetition of the divine name, the devotion to the divine guru (satguru), and the need for the company of sants (satsang)” Mcleod, like most mischevious White writers of that time , had no political interest in dividing Sikhs, nor a condescending or denigrating or superficial interest in our religion. He just concentrated on the academic argument. Wicked warrior, - have I answered your query ?

Interesting, most of the family trees have no name like Singh. But of course , Guru Gobind came in after 9 Gurus. So what were our Gurus before the Khalsa was established ? What did the term Sikh mean ? Just another sect, you know Hinduism had hundreds of sects doing their rounds at any one time. The credit for 'identifying', 'branding' and 'marketing' ( in crude but pefect language of today ) Sikhism goes to Guru Gobind Singh. So what were our Gurus before the Khalsa was established? I think they were no more than enlightened Hindus. But they were Hindus, yes Hindus. Everything Guru Nanak said wsa being followed centuries earlier in North India and was loosely identified by the Britishers as a sect called Sant Tradition. Guru Nanak was preaching the beauty of this sect. Bad luck, my Khalistani friends, but a fact is a fact is a fact is a fact is a fact. Our Gurus were enlightened Hindus.