BhForce

Great to hear that, hope to see more of you on the forum. That's good, but I would want to warn you that some people fall into the mistake of thinking that they have realized the Truth of Sikhism, and everybody for the last 500 years has been doing it wrong. I would urge you not to fall into that trap. I would not say that mere paintings of the Gurus should be banned, but you're right that some foolish Sikhs do bow to them, and they should absolutely not. Mostly, these are people who don't have a single gutka in the house. If you have a gutka, place it on a high shelf, and you can bow and do ardas while facing it. Instead of "ritualism" I think you might mean to say "idol worship". Anyways, not it's not idol worship to think the Gurus are holy in some way. The Gurus are holy. Forget the Guru, even those who merely serve the Guru are holy, and so are their parents: ਧਨੁ ਜਨਨੀ ਜਿਨਿ ਜਾਇਆ ਧੰਨੁ ਪਿਤਾ ਪਰਧਾਨੁ ॥ Dhhan Jananee Jin Jaaeiaa Dhhann Pithaa Paradhhaan || Blessed is the mother who gave birth; blessed and respected is the father of one who serves the True Guru and finds peace. ਸਤਗੁਰੁ ਸੇਵਿ ਸੁਖੁ ਪਾਇਆ ਵਿਚਹੁ ਗਇਆ ਗੁਮਾਨੁ ॥ Sathagur Saev Sukh Paaeiaa Vichahu Gaeiaa Gumaan || His arrogant pride is banished from within. ਦਰਿ ਸੇਵਨਿ ਸੰਤ ਜਨ ਖੜੇ ਪਾਇਨਿ ਗੁਣੀ ਨਿਧਾਨੁ ॥੧॥ Dhar Saevan Santh Jan Kharrae Paaein Gunee Nidhhaan ||1|| Standing at the Lord's Door, the humble Saints serve Him; they find the Treasure of Excellence. ||1|| ਸਿਰੀਰਾਗੁ (ਮਃ ੩) (੪੯) ੧:੩ - ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ : ਅੰਗ ੩੨ ਪੰ. ੧੩ Sri Raag Guru Amar Das So, if the mere servants of the Guru are holy, how holy do you think the Guru himself would be? Answer: Pure holiness. Not only are the Gurus holy, their parents and their lineage is holy, too: ਸਾ ਧਰਤੀ ਭਈ ਹਰੀਆਵਲੀ ਜਿਥੈ ਮੇਰਾ ਸਤਿਗੁਰੁ ਬੈਠਾ ਆਇ ॥ Saa Dhharathee Bhee Hareeaavalee Jithhai Maeraa Sathigur Baithaa Aae || That land, where my True Guru comes and sits, becomes green and fertile. ਸੇ ਜੰਤ ਭਏ ਹਰੀਆਵਲੇ ਜਿਨੀ ਮੇਰਾ ਸਤਿਗੁਰੁ ਦੇਖਿਆ ਜਾਇ ॥ Sae Janth Bheae Hareeaavalae Jinee Maeraa Sathigur Dhaekhiaa Jaae || Those beings who go and behold my True Guru are rejuvenated. ਧਨੁ ਧੰਨੁ ਪਿਤਾ ਧਨੁ ਧੰਨੁ ਕੁਲੁ ਧਨੁ ਧਨੁ ਸੁ ਜਨਨੀ ਜਿਨਿ ਗੁਰੂ ਜਣਿਆ ਮਾਇ ॥ Dhhan Dhhann Pithaa Dhhan Dhhann Kul Dhhan Dhhan S Jananee Jin Guroo Janiaa Maae || Blessed, blessed is the father; blessed, blessed is the family; blessed, blessed is the mother, who gave birth to the Guru. ਧਨੁ ਧੰਨੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਜਿਨਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਅਰਾਧਿਆ ਆਪਿ ਤਰਿਆ ਜਿਨੀ ਡਿਠਾ ਤਿਨਾ ਲਏ ਛਡਾਇ ॥ Dhhan Dhhann Guroo Jin Naam Araadhhiaa Aap Thariaa Jinee Ddithaa Thinaa Leae Shhaddaae || Blessed, blessed is the Guru, who worships and adores the Naam; He saves Himself, and emancipates those who see Him. ਹਰਿ ਸਤਿਗੁਰੁ ਮੇਲਹੁ ਦਇਆ ਕਰਿ ਜਨੁ ਨਾਨਕੁ ਧੋਵੈ ਪਾਇ ॥੨॥ Har Sathigur Maelahu Dhaeiaa Kar Jan Naanak Dhhovai Paae ||2|| O Lord, be kind, and unite me with the True Guru, that servant Nanak may wash His feet. ||2|| ਗਉੜੀ ਵਾਰ¹ (ਮਃ ੪) (੧੭) ਸ. (੪) ੨:੫ - ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ : ਅੰਗ ੩੧੦ ਪੰ. ੮ Raag Gauri Guru Ram Das Now, if Guru Nanak Dev ji were to appear right now in front of you, would you matha tek and wash their feet? If so, great. If not, sorry to say, bro, but you don't have the level of devotion and love that a Sikh is supposed to have. It say right there in Gurbani that a Sikh's mentality is of a humble servant wanting to wash the Guru's feet. You're confusing two different things. We're not supposed to bow down to pictures of Guru Sahib, we're suppose to bow down to the actual Guru Sahib (currently Guru Granth Sahib ji). At the same time, the fact that Guru Nanak ji say they were not special means nothing. That's what Christian missionaries say. They say that since Guru Nanak ji called themselves "neech", therefore he was lowly. No, Guru Sahib was not lowly. Guru Sahib only called themselves lowly out of humility, which is a Gurmat virtue. Guru Nank Dev ji was and is Satguru. Satguru is everything. Satguru is God. Satguru is the creator. Satguru is the grantor of wishes and boons. He is the grantor of spiritual bliss. Satguru Nanak ji is not "nothing special".

Erm, what? What's to say that they were Sikhs prior to becoming Buddhists? I would venture to say they were not. They were just "Hindus" (not really, because they probably couldn't participate fully in the temple rituals), but do you have anything to say they were actually Sikhs? The fact is that they were looking around for a religion to join, and Ambedkar chose Budhism, so that's what they became. Also, when you say that Punjabi Buddhists are Buddhists because of caste discrimination, that's exactly why I questions why a Chahal would feel the need to become a Buddhist. Obviously, it's for a reason other than caste discrimination.

Well, yeah, but not in the way you replied to my statement. It is no more controversial to state that Chahal is a Jatt surname than to say that Anand is a Khatri surname or Smith is an English surname or O'Reilly is an Irish surname. We don't "believe" in devtas, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. We just don't place our faith in them. Similarly, we don't believe that any one racial group is inherently better than another.

It's not as if it's completely forgotten or anything. There's a gurdwara at the site of the Vadda Ghallughara at village Kup outside Ludhiana. Badal also built a memorial when he was Chief Minister. There's also a gurdwara at the site of the Chota Ghallughara at Kahnuwan in Gurdaspur district plus another memorial built by Badal. So, it's not like we've totally forgotten those Sikhs who perished in those slaughters. I would agree, however, that not too much mention of the Ghallugharas is made in local gurdwaras.

Thanks a lot. Also, 1) Could you remove anonymous reactions? I (and a lot of others, including @GurjantGnostic) don't see the need for anonymous reactions. Or perhaps only keep "like" and "funny" as a reaction. When you like something, you agree with it, there is nothing more to say. If you don't like something, you should explain yourself. There is nothing more frustrating that an army of sockpuppets coming by and putting a "confused bootha" face on your post, with no explanation of why they did so. 2) The old frontpage layout was better where it had on the right sidebar the most recent threads, then the most recent posts. All the way on the main bottom, it had the top posters. Frankly, top posters is not something that people urgently need to know. It's more of an ego thing for people who post a lot (such as me and about dozen others). The reason for having top threads on the right sidebar is that's where most people know of the existence of a thread. If it's not there, it doesn't exist. They don't go into the subforums. I know that there's still a top posts section on the frontpage, but that easily gets overwhelmed by a few posts in the same thread. The top threads section is more stable in getting attention out to some threads that didn't have the most recent posts. I know that the layout I'm requesting is already present in the thread pages. But I'd really like to see it on the homepage, because that's the starting off point for most people, and it's really awkward to have to open up a random thread, just to then see what the top threads are.

I see. I think the exceedingly small number of Jatt, Ramgarhia, Khatri or other such Buddhists must be the overly educated rich Delhi/Mumbai dwelling-type who have never had the fortune of being exposed to the real Sikhi, and instead have the misimpression that Sikhi is simply about swinging swords around or some such and there is no spirituality in it. They are exposed to a whiff of spirituality from some Buddhist that they meet in the big city, and they think, "I've found it. Real spirituality. Never would have experienced this in the small-time provincial atmosphere of Punjab. I'm becoming a Buddhist." Whereas if we had gotten off our butts and preached the real meaning of our faith, we wouldn't have this problem.

So many good points here. For one, we think of Sufis as the "good" and tolerant Muslims. But did you know that the main religious cheerleader for the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev ji was a Sufi Muslim leader from Sirhind (a huge city of that time)? His name was Ahmed Sirhindi, and he was a prominent member of the Naqshbandī Sufi order. Supposedly he was a big philosopher. Here's Brittanica on him: In refuting the Naqshbandīyah order’s extreme monistic position of waḥdat al-wujūd (the concept of divine existential unity of God and the world, and hence man), he instead advanced the notion of waḥdat ash-shuhūd (the concept of unity of vision). According to this doctrine, any experience of unity between God and the world he has created is purely subjective and occurs only in the mind of the believer; it has no objective counterpart in the real world. So you'd think this guy was just living the life of the mind, right? No, he was a fanatic who encouraged the Mughal emperor employ policy of radical Islam (also known as simply "Islam") and to execute Guru Arjan Dev ji Maharaj. This fool's tomb is hardly a mile from the site of the execution of the 2 younger Sahibzade at Fatehgarh Sahib. It's huge complex called Rauza Sharif, and it's quite popular with Muslims. You can also see a few stupid Sikhs visiting the tomb of their 5th Guru's enemy. Note: I'm not saying all Sufis are murderers or encouragers of murder. I'm just saying keep your eyes wide open.

Hey, don't you know? All religions are equal. Get with the program, bro! (sarc)

Thanks bro. Just one more thing: Where exactly was the stall situated (so we can prepare our response for upcoming Nagar Kirtans). Was it on somebody's front yard? Was it on a sidewalk? Or was it in a stall allocated by the Nagar Kirtan organizers? Also, were there a lot of Sikhs perusing the books or talking to them? Or were they being ignored by our peeps?

Well, as I mentioned above, it's unclear what the specific situation was where they were located (sidewalk, private lawn, etc.). We may or may not be able to legally stop them from setting up a stall. But, yeah, I agree the reason they target us is they perceive us as weak. Even if we can't boot them via the police, we can swarm their stall with knowledgeable Sikhs. We should be prepared with a contingent of Sikhs to do parchar to Sikhs, and then also contingents to debate with any non-Sikhs that show up. It's like an army attack. Army vs. army is a fair fight. Prepared Muslims vs the average unprepared Sikh is a slaughter. Anyway, the the knowledgeable Sikhs will debate the Muslims, while the average Sikhs can stand around and watch, and get enlightened instead of being bombarded with false factoids by the Muslims. If they get the message that that's what's going to happen to them every nagar kirtan, then at some point, they'll stop showing up to nagar kirtans. Another tack we can take is to make it clear to them that we have no problem with them following their own faith, but if they're going to try to convert Sikhs, then we'll return the favor with a stall every Friday at their mosque. I have a feeling they'll back off. Thoughts?

Bro, please respond to this to say whether you saw this with your own eyes, or you just heard about it. If the former, then where where exactly were the Ahmadiyas and Brahmkumaris situated? Sidewalk? A stall allocated by the nagar kirtan organizers? A private lawn? With permission, or without? Also, on what street between what cross streets? Thanks.

Great writeup on Sheikh ji, bro. There was actually a big (10 page) thread on the question of whether Sheikh Fareed ji was a Muslim where a bunch of us refuted just that allegation. I would like to ask you to post this plus the rest of your writing on the Sheikh there as it is a valuable perspective, and the thread would definitely benefit from that. Thanks. Lovely. I would love to see the Youtube video of that, lol. I'll refrain from criticizing Taksal specifically, but we all know that some (but not all) people in many different Jathas have the my-organization-is-the-best mentality. I assume these pamphlets, like most writings on Sikh topics, had Gurbani on them? Stunning that people's dharabazi would be so strong that they could not flinch disrespecting Bani if it means that they could disrespect what they perceive as enemies (or even non-allies) of their particular jatha. Even if they didn't contain Bani, it's still bad throwing them in the garbage. Good for you. That's where (almost) all the people are, anyway.

And to have recorded it for Youtube, too. After all, why have the same discussion over and over again with a handful of people when you can get it out to thousands? Agreed. ਆਪਿ ਜਪਹੁ ਅਵਰਹ ਨਾਮੁ ਜਪਾਵਹੁ ॥ Aap Japahu Avareh Naam Japaavahu || Chant the Naam yourself, and inspire others to chant it. ਗਉੜੀ ਸੁਖਮਨੀ (ਮਃ ੫) (੨੦), ੫:੪ - ਗੁਰੂ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ ਸਾਹਿਬ : ਅੰਗ ੨੯੦ ਪੰ. ੪ Raag Gauri Sukhmanee Guru Arjan Dev

Mindblowing. Thanks for highlighting this. Although I would mention that these people are the "fundamentalist Muslims" you see in the media. According to Muslims, Ahmadyas are not even actually Muslims. But, yeah, I get your point. The question regarding stalls is this: Do they have the legal right to be there? Where were they, exactly? On the sidewalk along the route? If so, that's illegal, right? You can't block the sidewalk. So call the police, or inform the organizers, and let them call the police. I think a lot of people set up their langar stalls on the front yards of people along the router, either their own house, or a Sikh they know, or even a Sikh that they asked permission from. Which is all OK. So if these Ahmadias are on a Sikh's lawn, we can obviously get them booted. Perhaps even if they are on a white Canadian's lawn. But ... what if there's an Ahmadia along the route? Then we can't do anything. Although, we could try asking the mosque, like you say, but why would they have to consent to what we want? Seriously though, these non-Sikhs are lined up like vultures trying to feast off of us. The non-Sikhs sense that we Punjabis have energy, and they want to utilize it.

Yes, all 4 of these. Probably #1 the first one. In Punjab people who have a determination to be the "headman" become, variously, panch, sarpanch, councilman, mayor, MLA, MP, etc. In the West, that's often not possible, so they fight like dogs to become Gurdwara president. When you're Gurdwara president, it's more like you're president of the entire community. To prevent that, I think we should encourage organizations like the North American Punjabi Association and City Sikhs and so on. People who have a leadership bug can go and become the local presidents of those types of associations, and be the "president of the community", meanwhile those who want to do seva can be in the Gurdwara committee.

Apologies, bro, I did not initially view the video. What a royal mess-up by the Buddha Dal in misprinting a Gutka.

Exactly. Oh, so it's not a made-up saakhi? Even if it were, it would be good. It sounds vaguely like the saakhi of Bhai Banno. I agree that it is unreasonable to demand discounts of shopkeepers because "it's for a religious purpose". They can't verify that. You're trading on your long beard to make the other guy think you're "religious". You're just setting it up for unscrupulous people with beards to come by and abuse it, which then gets found out, and then people lose faith in Sikhs and Sikhi. On the other hand, it would be OK for a gurdwara to put out the call for construction materials, legal services, accounting services, medical services (free medical camps). Then people can verify it's for a religious purpose because they're giving directly to the gurdwara. And then sawmill owners can drop off wood at the gurdwara, marble showroom owners can drop off marble, etc. Or people in fields not in demand can buy the stuff (possibly at cost) and have it delivered to the gurdwara.

Thanks for replying. The point is, it's free to the eater. Anyway, "free food" is the term he used, so I went with it. Langar is the term we would use. Yeah, it does cost, but why would you bring that up? The traditional Sikh teaching is to not worry about the cost, just do voluntary service (seva), and Guru will take care of the rest. Agreed. Yes, that's what I meant. In this context, I did not mean "a person who commits violence on non-practitioners". However, even with the first meaning, if @TheeTurbanator is a better-practicing Sikh, or even the best practicing Sikh in the world, it doesn't given him the right to call less-practicing Sikhs mere "Punjabis" and read them out of the faith. Whatever, man. Call it dharam or mazhab if it pleases you. My point is it's not his right to read people out of our faith/religion/way of life/dharam/mazhab if they are looser in their practice of it than him. Why would an atheist attend a nagar kirtan? Do you think the members of the Tarksheel Society ("rationalist" society) attend nagar kirtans? When I used the term "all" I said all the people he's denigrating, not all the people who might be in the vicinity of a nagar kirtan. He's seemingly using the term "Punjabi" to mean "Sikhs who aren't as hardcore as I am". Yes, I do believe the vast majority of nagar kirtan attendees believe in Akal Purakh and our Gurus, and their bani, even if they don't recite it every day. What does it matter if there are a few non-Sikh bystanders? All I'm saying is don't label people who don't have Jaap Sahib and Sukhmani Sahib memorized, and also do Asa di Vaar kirtan from memory as non-Sikhs. Why is this controversial? He wrote a big old divisive essay denigrating loose Sikhs as non-Sikhs and denigrating our culture when he could have just written an inclusive and unifying paragraphs calling for banning non-religious music at nagar kirtans.

Welcome to the forum. Why don't you create a free account to facilitate conversation? I applaud your desire for Sikhs to stick together and do stuff for our Panth. But I think you are mistaken when you think the burden for that should be on shopkeepers or other service providers. I believe you are mistaken when you think it's not reasonable for musical instruments to be multiple times the price of the same product as in India. The price of a product is always less in the immediate vicinity of where it's produced. Do you honestly think that anyone should be surprised that the price of bananas in our homeland of Punjab is multiple times the price in as in banana-producing states like Tamil Nadu? Not to mention the fact that shipping is not free, takes time (tying up capital), the shopkeeper has to face the risk of fraud by the shipper (or he has to bear the time and expense of going to India himself and dealing with the paperwork to export to England), and also the risk of breakage in shipping, plus pay customs while taking delivery. Then he has to store the stuff until it's sold. Need I remind you that the parts of England where Sikh shops are located are quite dense, with commensurately expensive real estate. Warehousing inventory is not cheap. I feel it was unfair of you not to be cognizant of these difficulties of running a business. You're speaking of stuff of which you have no knowledge, bro. If you had the knowledge you could have just taught your child kirtan yourself. The fact is most music teachers have very particular views of instruments, practice methods, and a lot of other stuff. (And I'm talking about music teachers in general, including Indians, Englishmen, Americans, etc.) There is also a wide variety in the structure and manufacture of instruments. You call it arrogance, somebody else could call it experience. Not only that, but they could also call your view ignorance. And, again, it is unwarranted to call it "greed". It is quite possible that from his perspective, the music teacher was doing you a favor by not forcing you go have to go to India just to buy an instrument. Those are all good values. But here's another value you're overlooking: Respect for one's teacher (ustad). In our culture, we respect our teachers immensely. If you don't like your ustad, you should have investigated and chosen another one. Also, please don't say the ustad himself is only a kid. I've seen kids under 18 who are ustad-level, because they've been at it for years, and they have acquired knowledge of Raags. That's great that he did so, but I would caution that he is under no obligation to do so. You want to be able to go up to a shopkeeper, ask for a discount for religious purposes, and get it. I would rather recommend that everybody pay full price (normal price), and then when you make your offering at the Gurdwara, you get the fruit of having donated. By doing it the other way, you put the burden on the shopkeeper, and also allow freeloaders to get discounts by lying about donating to the Gurdwara. Why should shopkeepers in our community bear the entire burden? Why shouldn't lawyers, accountants, taxi-drivers, etc. pay full price for goods, and donate them? Then, with the profit that shopkeepers earn, they can make an offering of their dasvandh.

What? You mean to say people stopped celebrating Vaisakhi after Guru Sahib created the Khalsa? No, they simply did not. Not only that, Hindus celebrate Vaisakhi (under other names) throughout India, including: Bikhu or Bikhauti in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, India Bisu – Tulu New Year Day amongst the Tulu people in India Rongali Bihu in Assam, India Edmyaar 1 (Bisu Changrandi) – Kodava New Year. Maha Vishuva Sankranti (or Pana Sankranti) in Odisha, India JurShital (New Year) in Mithila (parts of Nepal and Bihar, India) Naba Barsha or Pohela Boishakh in West Bengal and Tripura, India, Nepal and Bangladesh Ugadi in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana, India Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, India Vishu in Kerala, India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaisakhi#Month_of_Vaisakh_celebrations_in_Hinduism It would have been better if you had simply stated that some Sikhs believe Guru Nanak ji was born on Baisakhi, instead of making the outright claim that Guru ji indeed was. The former is an undeniable true fact, the latter is a tenuous claim. Do you sitting in the 21st century know better the Bhai Gurdas ji who references the traditional date of Kattak Puranmashi? Used to be? It is a harvest festival (present tense). The day was used by Guru Sahib. It was not "transformed" or banned, because there was no need for banning. Punjabis didn't worship idols on Vaisakhi, they merely celebrated the harvest. Devolved? Why do you feel a need to use that word? There's simply nothing wrong with celebrating the harvest. Yeah, for Sikhs it's about the Khalsa Panth. For Punjabis it is about (authentic) Bhangra dancing and colorful clothes. However, free food is not a Vaisakhi/Punjabi tradition, it's a Sikh tradition of Langar. Why would you denigrate the Sikh institution of Langar? Free food is not handed out at (inauthentic) Bhangra parties. It's handed out at Nagar Kirtans to the Sangat (or non-Sikhs, too). Another culture?! It's out culture, man. Guru Sahib chose this day. Are you really serious? You propose to remove every little bit of Punjabi culture from the Sikh panth? I'm just amazed at the self-hatred of our people. You'd never hear a Christian Englishman saying that "we need to ban every last bit of English culture". Great, so keep doing this. Since about the time of the 6th Guru, farmers constitute the largest single group in the Sikh Panth. I can't say if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it is reality. I utterly fail to see what you hope to accomplish. Also, if it's so irrelevant, then people won't celebrate it. Problem solved. Why do you need to interpose? OK, so what's the problem? All Sikhs celebrate the celebration of the Khalsa on Vaisakhi. And a great number of Sikhs celebrate the harvest. What are we arguing about? Spoken like you're not a Punjabi yourself. Again, an Englishman would never say "I feel like Englishmen can have a place in the Christian community." So generous of you to offer a place to Punjabis in the Sikh Panth, who are, of course, the very folks (our forefathers) who suffered all the depraved invasions, killings, tortures, thefts, and rapes of the jihadis. When you achieve your desired purge of Punjabi culture, all that remains will not be a "pure" Sikh culture. It will be Anglo culture with an unrecognizable Sikhi. When you say "Punjabis" do you mean to say "Sikhs who aren't as hardcore as you because they're not Amritdhari"? Before you go down that road, I would remind you that that there are Sikhs who are more hardcore than you. Maybe @ipledgeblue wears a blue chola and 3 ft kirpan, and could say you're not a Sikh. (I'm not saying he would say that, just that he could. So think before you start calling people non-Sikhs.) It's just stupendous that you would read Sikhs out of our religion just because they're not as knowledgeable as you. This is another reason the definition of a Sikh by SGPC (yeah, hate on) is so good: It doesn't say you have to have Japji Sahib memorized to be a Sikh. It doesn't say you have to be kesadhari, or amritdhari to be a Sikh. It simply states you have to have faith in Akal Purakh, the 10 Gurus, their bani, Guru Granth Sahib, and the 10th Guru's Amrit, which is what all those people that you denigrate as mere "Punjabis" have faith in. You could have just led with that, bro, instead of a whole long essay denigrating our culture and heritage. Who in his right mind would disagree with the above statement? In any case, non-religious music is not allowed at any nagar kirtan that I've seen. The few straggler Gurdwaras should get their act together. I hope we are talking about authentic bhangra, a dance by only men used to celebrate the harvest, not a male-female pop-music dancing gig. No, we must preach against the bad elements of Punjabi culture (such as girl-killing), and also demonstrate Sikhi's superiority over other religions while also demonstrating Punjabi culture's superiority over other cultures.

Username checks out. You clearly believe you're superior to us "normal" Sikhs. How's the air on Mount Olympus?

What terrorists are you talking about? Syria is a country, with a government headed by Assad, not a terrorist organization. Its ally is Russia, and if missiles had hit Russians or Russian bases, or done wider damage, it would have retaliated by hitting American ships, after which I would ask you: do you think the US would not respond? If it would, then that's your WW3.

They are printed by the SGPC. And transported from country to country either by charter plane or by specialized bus created by the SGPC. The detestable publisher Chattar Singh Jivan Singh also publishes copies. I would advise any believing Sikh never to obtain a sarup from them.

Well, I think there are two Sikh perspectives on the issue of Rani Jindan and her "lovers": 1) Extramarital relations are prohibited in Sikhism, and Rani Jind Kaur is to be condemned for her actions. In this narrative, her actions are of a piece with the general debauchery of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's court, which led to complacency, and ultimately defeat and humiliation at the hands of the British. The lack of rehit led to the fall of the Raj. 2) The "history" written by Mohammedans like Mohammed Latif and others is information warfare to impugn the character of actors of the Sikh Raj. In this narrative, the poor Sikhs having false history written about them is of a piece with the Sikhs being betrayed by various courtiers in the Anglo-Sikh wars. The problem is the moment somebody says Rani Jindan was a <banned word filter activated>, and you hear it, it affects you, whether you logically try to tell yourself there's no real proof or not.

Well, your choice, bro. Although I do think you will admit that waiting more time will not elicit less responses, right? One of the reasons I say so is the admin changed up the homepage a few months ago to where it doesn't show the recent topics on top right of the homepage. It shows the top contributors (which is useless), and then the most recent posts (not topics). Posts move fast, the most recent ones obscure the older ones. Topics are more long-lived, but still, the more active topics there are, the more chances they will be obscured. And we all know that huge numbers of people never go into the forums, they just check out what's on the homepage. Anyway, I'd like to ask you to ask the admin to move the "top contributors" back to the bottom left wide column, and put the "recent topics" back in the top right narrow column.