Jatedar

If guru nanak was here today. what would he call ravidass? brother? Guru? bhagat? by his name?? does it matter?

When it comes to the ravidassia community, most people who run the gurdwara and people who go to them on a regular basis are not well educated. The management have big egos. Many educated ravidassias don't care about whats going on and if they do go pay their respects and go home. So there is nothing typical about the mentality apart from it is low. The truth about me is i have no strong views that ravidass should be called a bhagat or guru. Either makes no difference to me. But rumours that i did hear was that the Soho Road SSG wanted to name him Baba Ravidass. The only reason why chamars call ravidass a guru is out of respect because without his persoal efforts to the chamar community they would have still to this day been under the rule of the brahmins. I don't know the full history but there seems to be some instinct telling us this. The man did more for chamars than any other guru. Please correct me if am wrong. I would be very happy if i was wrong on this point. Guru Nanak fought for equality but my personal view is Guru Gobind Singh ji achieved more than Ravidass in the battle for equality. So what are ravidassia's more into bhagat ravidass? Reason.. Ravidassia still have some personal touch with ravidass, simply because he was the same as them, a chamar. Thats the evil of life with everyone. Love people like you but not your neigbour..

No propaganda mate. These point raise some interesting thoughts. Guru or bhangat to me personally mean little. Its the contribution that counts. The truth is whatever is said defined in the SGGS is the last word. If there are 10 gurus and x bhagats so be it when you want a clear cut defintion of "Guru" in this context. However he is still a teacher and has made some very powerful statements that we can all learn from. Is there an article I in the SGGS? If not it doesn't mean nothing, just man made. "The Bhagats were foundation layers of the Sikhi faith and THE FIRST GURU was Guru Nanak" Totally agree with this. But how many others do??

"Aso why do worshippers touch the stone stairs outside leading into SS gurdwara's?? Doesn't make sense but i guess the above applies in the same way." Nope, its being humble as to touch the sangat's feet - To show that we are lower than the sangat." If you really are humble get married to a lower caste or get married without even asking about caste. This is humble. You just summed up a fake sikh trying to act out in front of others they are humble by doing this stupid act ''.LMAO. You might as wash your sins by going to the ganges as well...lol Guru ravidass was no "ANY" mahapurash was he. He was accepted as an equal by the sikh faith. If you add water to water it will be water. Add anything else it will become something else. Hence SGGS contributors are all Gurus. Why are Guru ravidass holy scritptures in the SGGS if you people don't learn from them?? Are they just as fiction??

read my comments above too.. but also something else i added on a different ravidassia thread.. Matha tekna to paintings is simply what uneducated people do. Educate them but its not really that much if a crime? Aso why do worshippers touch the stone stairs outside leading into SS gurdwara's?? Doesn't make sense but i guess the above applies in the same way. Wether ravidass was a guru or not is not really relevant. It depends on the defintion of guru. I undersand guru to mean teacher. Hence we learn't lots from ravidass so why not say he was a guru? Also many of the 10 gurus were selcted from family members. I don't think that is consistent with what a real guru should be. Ravidass came from no where, and established him self with no help from no one. Also if the SGGS is a living guru, then by definition anyone who contributed to those holy scriptures should also be Guru. Mathematically.. Living Guru(SGGS) = Guru+Guru+.......+Guru etc Are you lot saying... Living Guru (SGGS)= Guru+Bhagat+Guru+.....+bhagat etc... this would devalue the SGGS to living bhagat???

Matha tekna to paintings is simply what uneducated people do. Educate them but its not really that much if a crime? Aso why do worshippers touch the stone stairs outside leading into SS gurdwara's?? Doesn't make sense but i guess the above applies in the same way. Wether ravidass was a guru or not is not really relevant. It depends on the defintion of guru. I undersand guru to mean teacher. Hence we learn't lots from ravidass so why not say he was a guru? Also many of the 10 gurus were selcted from family members. I don't think that is consistent with what a real guru should be. Ravidass came from no where, and established him self with no help from no one. Also if the SGGS is a living guru, then by definition anyone who contributed to those holy scriptures should also be Guru. Mathematically.. Living Guru(SGGS) = Guru+Guru+.......+Guru etc Are you lot saying... Living Guru (SGGS)= Guru+Bhagat+Guru+.....+bhagat etc... this would devalue the SGGS to living bhagat???

Akali, i am very impressed with you. I suggest we need people like to represent our people in gurdwara. At the moment nearly all ravidassia gurdwara are run by amateurs who don't really have a clue. If you feel strongly i suggest you join the committees. Conclusion, many Sikhs need to be educated. I myself have been rejected many times for marriage proposals simply because i am of the wrong caste. Frustration like this can be hard to accept which is why sometimes you start to go your own way. I am assuming many chamars running ravidassia gurdwara may have personal bad experiences with other castes leading to these views of diverging from Sikhism. I am even afraid of joining matrimonial listing in gurdwara of fear of rejection because of caste. Its a all a big joke. But marriage is the final proof if caste is still around or not.

I can agree with many points made on this thread mainly with the fact ravidassia gurdwara are not run to the same same standards as Singh Sabha Gurdwara. Maybe this is because we traditionally have followed sikhism through Guru Ravidass than Guru Nanak so there will be some differences. Although over the years many ravidassis have converged to follow sihkism in its entirety. Alough we have not changed ardass and jakara i have seen addional words said at the end of ardass and an additional jakara. These i believe are fine since we would like to pay our respects to guru ravidass for what he achieved for the chamar community. Guru nanak achieved what i believe bhagat ravidass and bhagat kabir were aiming for. They had similay ideas where bhagat ravidass and bhagat kabir were more focused towards creating an equal casteless society and guru nanak was also focused to spread the word of how to get closer to god. Sikhs in the modern world have not really accepted ravidassias to be sikhs which is why ravidassia are having difficulty in trying to integrate and out of frustation then beging going there own way. Sikhism to me seems like you have to be born a sikh to be one. Its not possible to convert to sikhism and be fully accepted by the community. So in this day and age ravidassia are more sikh than anything. And if you think about it the lower your origianl caste the more sikh you are, since sikhism was to create a casteless society for the lower classes. How many brahmin sikhs to we have?? None i guess. Since they would loose their high status if they became sikhs. The akal takht needs to address these issues. But many there are too racist towards ravidassia. However they did once have female chamar as a Jatedar.