dallysingh101

And In your mind it's nothing to do with all the physical training, martial arts and hunting Guru ji promoted to prepare people. No one is saying that Gurbani isn't absolutely essential for Sikhs but you clearly live in some fantasy land.

Yeah, you ever consider that some (or perhaps many) of the puratan Singhs who fought might have also been biologically wired that way too? Not every Sikh is cut out for it maybe? http://www.sikhawareness.com/topic/18843-guru-gobind-singh-jis-advice-to-rai-singh-from-chaupa-singh-rehatnama/

^^^^ Linguistically as well, it is a treasure trove. But maybe people like yourself don't understand or appreciate such things?

What are you rambling on about? I don't think it is perfect. But it is a monumental work of Sikh literature. There is a lot of stuff within that we don't find elsewhere.

I'm glad you mentioned this because I think this vacuum is what pretty much forces some concerned people within the panth (who are outside of this bubble) to take drastic action to fill in the voids, which are essentially avenues for those with ill-intent to undermine and attack us in various ways. The grooming and conversion issues perfectly illustrate this. You'd have thought something as serious as these things would be a high priority with gianis but it hasn't been, leading to more and more problems. And few gianis have a real grasp of the significance of generational, cultural and language barriers at work and can't conceptualise such issues beyond people misbehaving or being indifferent - when it is infinitely more complex than that (ironically it is one of the messages CP conveys in my opinion, so we have precedent). Plus many are essentially employees who are under threat of their livelihoods if they upset the sentiments of the powerful, well-established genteel elements within us. That's why you have the rise of other groups who are compelled to take action to redress this imbalance. That dynamic, socially openly honest, self-protective element within Sikhi has been diminished and replaced by a conservatism which now habitually adopts a risk averse, ostrich stance to contentious but serious issues we face - because it is 'safer' but it isn't - it's just facilitating a slow death. So we should be thankful for those that step outside of this and try and redress this, and fully support them - because they are fighting a tide. Which can be reversed.

You're right about the street smarts thing. But saying that, I've had incidents where people have been making snide comments, or tried to act intimidatingly or have been in a carriage where some argy-bargy is taking place. Sometimes when you are say alone, and in packed train some people see this an an opportunity to act in a very obnoxious way. It does take that street savvy to gauge a situation and act accordingly. If someone has seriously determined ill intent - there isn't much you can do to stop the situation escalating - especially if booze is involved. But otherwise, instincts can help to judge the situation and diffuse it. Misjudge this and anything can happen. Itis tricking though - say nothing and the offensive party might take it as a cue to go even further, say something and the situation could quickly escalate. You have to use your senses and intuition. Someone acting like the gora did here is foolish, because you don't know what the other party may be going through as well. There might be a bereavement, or some serious personal/family issue going on that has their mental state awry, and provoked at the wrong time, this can come out explosively. Plus come on. In urban UK right now, the threat due to street level violence isn't something you can just ignore. A lot of people's survival instincts are activated right now. The deceased guy's son said that the father was the type to engage when he felt insulted and refuse to back down. I'm not justifying or condoning the perpetrators actions - but I think he probably felt a serious physical threat here, not that someone was trying to reach him like you are suggesting above.

Oh okay, I wasn't suggesting that we should never use analogous examples from other cultures to help convey SIkhi concepts. Just that when we start to get embroiled in debates or conceptualisations from external sources, we land in trouble and inevitably introduce new things in, and actually lose things too. That's the nature of the game when we do this in my opinion. Language alone is embedded with lots of subtle nuances that get lost when we translate. Plus what outsiders seem to do is frame 'debates' in a way that is to their distinct advantage, and try and put the onus on us to prove this and that (like Trumpp for example). This kind of exchange (if we can call it that) is a loaded situation. From what I've seen historically and even in contemporary times is that it is designed to put us on a back foot. It's like an intellectual trap. We need to be wary of it, because it is akin to fighting a battle on someone else's terms - which is rarely a good idea. I don't know if I've articulated this well though? I don't know Farsi at all. My interest these days is in Brij Bhasha because I'm just encountering so much Sikh heritage in that language (from Dasam Granth to Suraj Prakash). It might be a good idea for you to pop onto the SIkhawareness site and ask there. They have a couple of Farsi readers. They should be able to point you in the right direction. I think you can post as a guest if you need.

This was the most unnecessary happening. The victim said his piece (fair enough) about the guy allegedly blocking the carriage, they exchanged insults, the other guy walked away into another carriage (the white guy should have let him be at that point), but no, he followed him in a undeniably intimidating fashion (judging from what is seen in in the video). This guy acted in a way that most people would construe as wanting some physical altercation. What person in their right mind would chase someone through train carriages like this, unless they wanted to have a confrontation?? Given this and what happened to Stephen Lawrence (and other less prominent race attacks and abuse in the UK), is it a wonder that the other guy felt threatened and defensive? It's not like race attacks don't/haven't happened here. I'd be alarmed as hell if someone started following me like that. I know most, if not every last one of you guys reading this here would probably too. If the victim wanted to save face, he did it when the black guy moved on. The mind boggles. Now one person is dead and another facing a long prison sentence. Totally avoidable. I'm wondering with all this Brexit vibe (taken in the totally wrong way by some racist white people, like it is the beginning of some white uprising), is going to make more fools feel like it is okay to publically intimidate ethnics - when they feel the odds are in their favour? I say this as someone who has family members who voted for Brexit because they felt the funds being sent to the EU where better spent here - rather than some racist resentment.

Yeah, white privilege doesn't exist. And those 'effniks' from working class backgrounds getting into uni has nothing to do with them studying harder or having better cognitive skills that enable them to pass exams that the average working class white guy wouldn't even bother with.....

To me one of the most important considerations from all this is that when we start trying to conceptualise our own tradition with external frameworks, perhaps we've already lost? It's the exact same tactic used by the dawah crowd today. Draw people in under the guise of an innocuous interfaith dialogue, but you've already set the framework of the 'debate' beforehand (which works in your own favour because you are going to push the 'so-called debate' along contrived lines). And we know the original impetus or antecedents for apnay doing this was being 'annexed' and colonised, and then having to go through the whole rigmarole of trying to justify our dharam to outsiders, who already had their own agenda to undermine and control (and let's not forget had centuries of experience doing this on other communities they had previously colonised and often enslaved and totally reshaped). I believe this whole process was actually another subtle attack, or subtle obfuscation aimed at control. The conclusion seems to be that we start to subtly imbibe the values or ideas of the colonisers as a yardstick of what is good or bad, and we (whether consciously or subconsciously) start to align our inherited tradition along the the values of these external forces - it's obvious we shift things, and even though this process can be subtle (I think it is designed to be insidious) - we can actually create a totally new thing from what existed previously - even if external forms are retained to suggest continuity. That some apnay felt compelled to align our own thing with a foreign one (that has been rejected by the vast majority of the descendants of the very people who were promoting it so hard back then - the english), is explainable under these circumstances. It does stem from a period of insecurity when apnay had been betrayed by multiple forces, external and internal (i.e. the brits and their feigned professions of friendship and loyalty with the Sikh kingdom, whilst coveting it's wealth and military resources), and those within like Lal and Tej Singh (and probably a good few others), who helped engineer what could have very easily been a complete decimation of attacking anglo forces in Panjab. If goray coming in and throwing around mere words like pantheism and monotheism can cause some sort of major existential crisis for Sikhs, it REALLY does show what sort of back foot engaging in such things puts one in. This Is important because it still happens today. When you hear about people converting, it's usually just a microcosm of this process taking place. Thing is, those amongst us with brains and knowledge could very easily start attacking these Abrahamic faiths with similar tactics, but this just makes us the same as them. And I know from personal experience this just puts a chilli up their anus - and usually leads to conflicts because that's all people have left when their beliefs have been dismantled in this way. Knowing our own thing very well, on its own terms is the key to this. Relating it to the OP, learning to read Gurmukhi is a major key step in this. And today we have to be careful of the enemies within too, who'd twist this whole thing through some clannish casteist lens, or mistaken promote 'Sikhism' (as opposed to Sikhi) which is the end product of what we are talking about above) which has its own negative effect on cohesion, and is another covert obstacle designed to try and prevent us from trying to comprehend what Sikhi is and weakening us as a result.

I tell you, these 'professional preachers' are exactly like spiders sitting in a web waiting. And what they are waiting for is someone dumb or gullible to fall into the trap. They know exactly what to do with them once they get them. I think it's a systematic process. That's why I'm not a fan of so called 'interfaith dialogue' because it opens up the dumb or weak willed for exactly this. If you've got a brain and a strong will, then it's another matter - but if you haven't you'll fall victim to your own weaknesses. Trying to preach your own beliefs and getting converted in the process - OWN GOAL!!!

^^^ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7183275/Lee-Pomeroys-family-leave-court-CCTV-played-fatal-attack.html

This I don't get? Chasing someone through a train (yes, literally chasing, the black guy was trying to get away and moved to another carriage), and not expecting trouble. I wonder if he was trying to show off in front of his son? Shame how it all ended.

Okay, on this point we seem to have come to the same conclusion. And I didn't spend a week googling it btw. I just remember the news reports of the time. Obviously when I saw apnay in it, it peaked my interest. I'm not defending the Taliban myself, but the truth that Mullah Omar (pre US+allies) invasion of the region post 9/11, protected Sikh merchants under his jurisdiction (for some reason) is one of those strange but true scenarios. It was probably because Sikhs had a monopoly on the cloth trade then and the place was dependent on them? Other people should also note how things changed so swiftly for them when external factors disturbed existing power balances. You wrote this: And I simply pointed out that this was untrue. Sikh women WERE wearing burkhas when they left the house out there. That's what that news report I saw focused on, how they were the first to remove them after the invasion (in the Sikh quarters not when out and about).

When he's ready brother. Besides, kesh or no kesh, it doesn't detract from the good work he is doing. Maybe some of those who've grown up without ever cutting their kesh in the UK could perhaps stick their necks out a bit more like this guy too? Thanks for the share.

I do feel I need it - given the rampant misinformation out there. What you just pointed at might seem like a legitimate source to you, but that is comical to me. So you have no contemporary or near contemporary source outside of this very recent online 'article'. Now we may well find a contemporary or near contemporary source if we hunted, but the fact that you point at what you did, like it had some unquestionable veracity says a lot (and what it says ain't good). If it is true, it would (sadly) conform to what I've experienced with our people anyway, especially the 'rural' lot. I'd just like people to be more conscious and critical of their sources.

I've heard the opposite. Actually I distinctly remember a news report shortly after the American invasion of of the region (post 9/11), that specifically mentioned Sikh females removing their burkhas in the Sikh colonies over there. This (presumably) didn't last long, given the west's failure over there. So you think the Taliban had all Muslim women bowling around in burkhas (which ironically Sikh merchants largely supplied) and allowed Sikh women to bowl around without them...... Seriously.

I agree.

See I disagree there. When we start looking at the writings of Guru ji as in the Dasam Granth and Zafarnama, we see symbolism and subtle allusion used heavily therein. I mean one of the most blatant examples is the use of the Chandi narrative. Look at the whole Khalsa culture - it is ram packed with symbolism too (as well as heavily practical aspects!) It seems out of character for Guru ji not to give deep thought to these things from what I can gather????

K. My point is that: is the symbology that is employed on the original Khalsa standard significant? Did Guru ji chose what was on there carefully with implied symbolic meaning - or was it just a simple selection of weaponry of the time? Essentially, does the standard have deeper implied meanings? - to put it concisely and bluntly.

That's already made the finding dubious in my opinion. Probably wishful thinking on the BBC's part.

You being sarcastic? lol

That's so sad, but let's understand this fully, on a wider global perspective. If powerful Sikhs back in Punjab (and here I mean mainly the SGPC aligned brigade - those in positions of power and who have access to massive resources) gave any sort of serious hoot about developing the state and it's economy (outside of some medieval feudal vision that only benefits a minority) and instead of playing clannish, casteist, selfish politics which panders to certain people's ego, that place wouldn't generally be such a shyte hole that people would risk everything to escape it. It's backwardness on our own people's part in our homeland that is behind this. I've heard from faujis themselves that people routinely die on the 'donkey' trail to get here. So the indirect death toll from failures of apnay in power back home is much higher than we imagine. Then (and I'm talking from personal experience here), we have a complex issue of those that have managed to reach here but at some point find themselves in over their heads and resorting to hardcore drinking and drug abuse to try and cope with it all. Some just give up altogether. I've seen such apnay around the way, drinking in full public, in busy shopping centres in the middle of the day, dishevelled and detached. Now, this obviously stems from deeply embedded psychological issues, that can't be resolved overnight. You can't just solve those deeply rooted neurological issues just by treating the symptoms (although I'm not saying that that shouldn't be done). I know around the Ilford area we had a few such apnay die in the last few years in the cold weather too. I think these things stem from a culture where posing and status is the bottom line, and acknowledging personal difficulties (and let's be straight here - human weakness) is a taboo - and only really results in ignorant apnay laughing at people in trouble. This deeply embedded VERY COMMON cultural attitude amongst apnay (which stems from Punjab whether we like it or not) totally decimates any chance of creating a reasonable, society, which serves as a support network for such people. So if we've got this dog eat dog scenario going on, it's only natural that some people will fall through the cracks and generally it's every man for himself. And when people do try and help - most of the time it seems like some photo-op to enhance status. Those people back home who routinely sell their votes for caste pride, or a bottle of whiskey or whatnot have a big hand in this. Forget running away abroad, us diasporans should be able to go back home and prosper too, bring some of our resources and skills over there for this - but we all know that corruption is so normalised over there - that this is as likely as spotting a unicorn.

Lol I'm sure you guys have figured it out, but just in case anyone hasn't, those bolts on the shield are meant to be these things:

Yep, that we should have had our own space program by now. lol