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Balkaar

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Everything posted by Balkaar

  1. The Singhs who dragged Bhai Kanhaiya before Kalgidhar Patshaah sounded very similar to you. "Why give water to some muslim, an enemy, when you could be giving water to a Sikh instead? Shouldn't the Sikhs be a priority?" I shouldn't have to remind you how this turned out for them. When Dashmesh Pitaa asked Bhai Sahib why he had done this, Kanhaiya replied "I saw no Mughal or Sikh on the field of battle Maharaj, I saw only you". Guru Gobind Singh said that of all those present in the group Kanhaiya alone had understood the real message of Gurbani. Bhai Kanhaiya was right. The Singhs were wrong. I believe you are wrong about this too bhenji. Be careful not to become so obsessed with protecting 'sikhi' that you forget what you're supposed to be protecting in the first place. Helping somebody is never a waste of anything, it is not only one of the best things we can do for others, but one of the best things we can do for our own Sikhi.
  2. That's a fair point, one I hadn't ever considered before. But how do you suggest we make Sikhi appear less like a 'Punjabi' faith when most Bani is written in Gurmukhi and our bana/kakkars are based on Punjabi dress? Sikhi is bound to the Punjab, and Punjab to the Sikhs, because of the fact that three of our takhats and most of our historic Guru Ghars are there if nothing else. To overturn caste in Sikhi by tipping the balance against Punjabi Sikhs would require at least as many Non-Punjabi Sikhs, so about 30 million if they were all made this second. Those tens of millions of converts to Sikhi are not being made any time soon. And if we can't even preach effectively enough amongst our own people to get them to forsake anti-Sikh practices, how are we ever going to get non-Sikhs to accept Sikhi and do the same?
  3. What bigger issues are there in the qaum than caste Singhji? Deras? - They exist almost entirely because of 'upper caste' prejudice against Mazbhis which cuts them off from the Guru Ghars, from the Guru, and therefore from Sikhi. Hindutva? - The easiest way for us to slip back into the Hindu fold like the RSS and BJP want is by embracing caste. Caste is the foundation stone of Hindu civilization. Drugs? - What kind of gaaneh do you think the wannabe gangsters selling, consuming and glorifying drugs in the Punjab listen to? Bhangra songs, which are an outgrowth of Jatt culture, hence the endless references to Jatt Jatt Jatt and how strong and brave they supposedly are. Demographics? - the reason the Sikh qaum is so powerless is because it lacks the numbers to have any real political clout, if Jatt supremacists had not obstructed the entry of Dr Ambedkar into Sikhi then Sikhs would be much more powerful today. Virtually every problem faced by our people today can be linked to caste. There is no bigger issue. It is the stone tied around the neck of Sikhism which prevents us from achieving our true potential as a people. In any case, the problem isn't people remembering where they came from, the problem is what people are doing with those remembrances.I am indeed talking about ending prejudice, not being blind to history. It would be ok if someone acknowledged that they were descended from farmers and left it at that, but in 90% of cases that isn't what happens. The farmer's descendant is convinced that his arbitrary descent from a farmer makes him superior to his neighbour, who was descended from a carpenter. And the carpenter has his own ideas. I mention sexism because in the context of Punjabi society, caste and sexism are tied. The reason sons are generally preferred over daughters after all is because they serve to perpetuate the family name, which is basically the caste/got name. If this obsession with caste legacy disappeared, then most grounds for viewing female offspring as inferior to males would also, I believe, disappear. Maybe then the shocking gender imbalance in Punjab due to female infanticide would be remedied.
  4. We shouldn't try to ration the blame here. Every one of us is guilty, all the fake Sikhs for continuing to breath life into the monstrosities of caste and sexism, and the rest of us 'real' Sikhs for doing nothing at all to stop them. We can only move forward as a people if we all acknowledge our personal complicity in the vandalism of our nation.
  5. Balkaar

    .

    First question you need to ask yourself is why you did Paath/Simran in the first place. Did you do it because you actually wanted to or because it was what you thought you should do as a Sikh? If one doesn't know why they're doing Simran or repeating the Nitnem everyday, these practices can begin to appear like the sorts of mechanical rituals which Sikhi condemns, and one may get disillusioned and demoralised. Plenty of our brothers and sisters have. Forcing yourself to do Simran with pain suggests to me that you may have fallen into this mindset subconsciously. You said it yourself singhji, pyaar is the best foundation for faith, the only truly stable one. If you try to build your parosaa on foundations of guilt ("I'm such a bad Sikh etc, etc.) it WILL collapse someday, and you will suddenly be left with nothing in the whole world. I know this from bitter experience, and I can honestly say that it was the worst time of my life. The antidote to this confusion was knowledge, figuring out why Sikhs do the things we do instead of just performing the familiar motions without a thought to what lies behind them. The reason we do Simran is to programme our minds to think like Guru Ji, he who sees Waheguru in everything and everyone. As I understand it, the point is to become so used to uttering the name Waheguru that we begin to utter it subconsciously all the time, and this constant remembrance of the creator is supposed to inform everything we do. Every time you meet a person you are supposed to have Waheguru's name in the forefront of your mind to remind you that this person you are facing is also Waheguru, and that your behavior towards them should reflect this. And most of the people doing Simran do not know this, the tragic consequences of this ignorance are plain for everyone to see. Always remember that Guru Ji instructs us to practice Simran for our own benefit, not theirs. Everything our Gurus gave to us, every bit of advice, they gave out of love, not out of a desire for reverence or personal glory.
  6. We Sikhs are #1 enemies of Sikhi today. We do more to harm our own faith than any Hindu or Musalman.
  7. Xmas has pretty much lost its religious connotations even for most Westerners, it's really just about getting together with family and friends, eating too much. I even know Muslims who celebrate it for this reason. Hindu threads on the other hand have inescapable, overtly religious meanings. Moreover these religious meanings are almost always highly negative and anti-Sikh. Rakhi enshrines inequality between genders, janeu inequality between the castes (caste system essentially amounts to slavery, even worse perhaps, a slave could at least escape his bondage), and various others are said to protect against poots and buri nazar and Cthulhu and 4uck only knows what else. Sikhs should not wear things which carry such negativity.
  8. What is a 'Sikh' name anyway? Most of the Guru Sahibaan and other Sikhs throughout history had Hindu/pre-Sikhism Punjabi names.
  9. I agree with the last bit, but what I take from it is that we should ignore their blatant attempts at baiting us. It has never been difficult for the GOI to understand the national psyche of the Sikhs, we are a highly emotional people. They assist the deraay in their schemes, knowing exactly how we will react, and when we do react exactly how they predicted we would they are furnished with the next bit of propaganda to be used against us. We cannot keep playing into their hands and giving them what they want Kaurji. We need to become less predictable if we want to be viewed with fear and respect instead of as a vaguely threatening nuisance. You're clearly aware that these deraay in Punjab are part of a much bigger game, our strategy towards them should reflect this. The Hindus expect and want us to attack these deraay. I believe we should do something unexpected and leave them alone, let it become clear to all who the real villains are. Those Brahmins in the media won't be able to put their spin on that.
  10. A step in the right direction. We should reach out to all the other subcontinental peoples disaffected by the Hindustani Brahmin regime. Nagas (NE tribals), Kashmiri Muslims, South Indians all have a troubled history with the GOI.
  11. If they aren't physically committing beadbi of Guru Sahib or attacking their Sikhs, we should leave them alone. Ram Raiyas, Hindaliahs, Dhir Malias, our own Guru Sahibaan were beset by heresies and schisms from almost the beginning of Sikhi, but the only course of action they ever took against these groups was to prohibit their Sikhs from associating with them. Sikhs should understand better than anyone that persecuting a group only ever serves to strengthen it in the long run. Interfering with dera followers in the Punjab will only serve to make them more committed to their dehdari gurus.
  12. - Say what you will about the warriors of Islam, but there is serious bite behind their bark. Cannot say the same about our 'warriors'.
  13. I can't be 100% sure Singh, but I have my theories. Native religiosity has more or less collapsed in the West, but the people here still seem to be motivated by the very Christian sentiment of guilt. I've noticed that the third world crises and conflicts which antiwar/pro-refugee types tend to get most worked up about are those which their governments directly caused. This naturally includes almost all the Middle-East. When this is compared against the completely flaccid response from these people to things like the Rwandan Genocide, East Timor, Sikh genocide etc, catastrophes which the West didn't really have a hand in, I begin to feel increasingly certain of my view. Afghan Muslims were made 'refugees' directly because of the West, whereas Afghan Sikhs are made 'refugees' because of the centuries old prejudice against kafirs in this country which the West had no hand in creating. Whites therefore don't feel anywhere near as guilty about the latter as they do about the former, and this lack of guilt to motivate them to do something is why they take no action on behalf of Afghan Sikhs. Secondly, Middle-Eastern/pro-Muslim causes are very fashionable among certain segments of Westerners, in a way that the suffering of Sikhs is not. I'd like to hear your opinion and the opinions of the Sangat on this, but I believe certain Westerners (leftists etc) do not feel as sorry for Sikh refugees as they do for Muslim refugees, because the Sikhs with whom they are familiar are often quite wealthy (working as professionals, lawyers, engineers etc), whereas many of the Muslims with whom they are acquainted are quite poor (cab drivers, small restaurateurs). Sikhs in the UK are reportedly the second wealthiest religious community after the Jews, Muslims are at the very bottom of the list. It's hard to feel sympathetic for people who appear to be doing better than you. Obviously this is not the case - most Sikhs in the Punjab and Afghanistan are hardly wealthy, but their association with the rest of us appears to be working against them.
  14. Good on them, looking out for our people first above all. Couldn't care less about these goraay or coconut Sikhs whining about 'illegals'. Can't speak for the motives of the 'gang', but every Sikh family extracted from that hellhole is a victory in my opinion.
  15. That is true Singh, I use the term in my posts to refer to the army of the Sikh Panth. I stress this definition because it reminds the Khalsa not to shirk his or her military obligations, as well as the importance of being trained shastardhari. The Singh Sabha threw the baby out with the bathwater in my opinion bro. One of the movement's preoccupations was dealing with corrupt mahants, but it failed to apprehend that Mahant does not equal Udasi/Nirmala. Moreover, it hardly succeeded in this aim in the long term. So many of the 'Khalsas' currently running Sikh institutions are basically mahants come again, allowing manmat to take place in Guru ghars just as their predecessors in the 19th century did.
  16. I did indeed forget. Nevertheless those initiated by charan pahul were not khalsa.
  17. That forum will never be a place for meaningful discussions (as far as Sikh issues are concerned, meaningful usually coincides with 'controversial', hence the censorship) if they're not willing to extend almost total openness to their forum users. Ofc this'll mean some 'indecent behaviour' every now and then, but if someone wants to dig for gold they're always going to have to dig through mitee too.
  18. The turban is very important.There are several very useful life lessons which wearing a dastaar can impart to someone: - Helps teach you not to care what people think (CONFIDENCE). I don't need to remind anyone that wearing a dastaar can be tough for a Sikh. Some people will immediately dislike you, laugh at you, abuse you or refuse to associate with you. But if you keep an open mind and learn to ignore this, you can build up a lot of confidence in yourself and in your identity. This is a very useful and very advantageous trait in a world full of sheeple who derive their entire sense of self-worth from how people they don't even care about perceive them. A person who is comfortable in their own skin can run rings around this weak-minded lot. - Forces you to stand by your principles. Another trait which puts you at an advantage over the billions of principle-prostitutes who aren't guided by anything other than personal greed and small-minded 'ambitions'. - Gives you a discipline. - The world is hectic, lots of people are in competition for jobs and resources. Many of these people are also quite lazy, avoiding hard work whenever they can, lacking meaningful or useful structure/regimes in their lives. Keeping kesh rehat forces you to be disciplined, this discipline is very useful in adult life and in the world of work. Of course one can acquire these traits without a dastaar, but I believe it gives a person a huge leg up. This also isn't to say that everyone who does wear a turban possesses these qualities.
  19. Strikes a good balance between being informative and being entertaining. I put it down to the diversity of members, which isn't really the case with the other forums. And the comparative lack of censorship. Ten minutes on the Sikhnet message boards are enough to make me feel like I've been living in North Korea my entire life.
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