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Showing results for tags 'greed'.
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I doubt there's any mega-brand of almost anything that you can imagine that is not infested with greed. In ALMOST ALL CASES, the end consumer of the general populace is the one who suffers. Greedy corporates fund elections , and in turn govts tweak laws or give unfairly tax concessions to these corporates as a kind of payback interest rates that over the entire tenure of loan amount to recovering interest amount as much as half of the principal you borrowed from bank no wonder, some of the greediest corporates are banking, hospitals, electricity and conglomerates god save us , and even in the corona pandemic they dont have any mercy to commoners
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A word of advice: If your'e a blighty bandar like me, who thinks he (and indeed does) speak a wonderfull colloqial rustic rural punjabi NEVER EVER, when conversing with anyone actually from Punjab, try and explain the old/new Testament parable of it "being easier to thread a camel through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to reach the kingdom of heaven". I tried. I failed. I tried because I was trying to articulate how we are valuing the rich man more than the poor man who is rich in his heart. So I translated the parable. They all looked at me like I was a retarded simpleton and started asking questions (in Punjabi) like "what kind of mental person would try and thread a camel through the eye of a needle?" and "how the hell can someone be so stupid that he thinks picking up a camel is possible?". It went on and on. I quickly regretted even attempting to translate this parable into Punjabi but even then the besti was not complete. They kept going. One minute, in their eyes, I was a man of respect "doing Phd" and the next, simply by embarking on this terrible terrible mistake, I lost all respect. I became nothing more than a man that thinks it is possible to pick a camel up and poke it through a tiny needle. Thats the moral of that story. Punjabis will never get to the bit about it being difficult for a rich man to reach the kingdom of heaven. You will lose all Punjabis (and your respect) the very moment you mention a 'camel' and trying to literaly thread it through a tiny hole. So, because I care for you all as my brothers and sisters I advise you all to never make the same mistake I made. NEVER EVER try and relate the camel, eye of the needle and the the rich man scenario to a Sikh from Punjab. For your own sake's don't do it. But, seeing how most of you are like me (not with the same thinking and mindset but with the similar western born mindset) I feel you'll be able to at understand what I was trying to get at. The point I was going to make to them, but never got to that stage because I became an epic fool, is that we respect the rich man too much. I wanted to explain the deeper meaning of the parable, articulating the fact that the rich man fails to reach the kingdom of heaven not because he is rich but because the richness massages his ego and false pride. I remember when I was a teenager having a similar conversation with an auntie (amritdhari) and I'll never forget how she quoted the fact that Sri Gobind Singh Ji was so rich, had the finest clothes and the finest horses...ie the finest things....that the Sikhs that have those things are closer to HIM. This left me despondent but I quickly realised that the mentality of the average Sikh from Punjab is to think like this. Now here's the thing. I got married in Punjab. My one and only condition for marriage was the girl should be from a Sikh family that is not rich, has suffered from the Indian progroms and would benefit from me. It gave me a sense of worth. It gave me purpose, and I thank the Lord for giving me the opportunity for doing this. But, I look around at all the rich boys and girls from really really Gursikh chardi-kala families in the UK and Canada...western born...and active in standing up for Sikh rights...and I can't help thinking how come exactly 0% of them has married a beautifull Singhni from the widows colony in Delhi ? How come, even though 99% of the beautifull daughters of Sri Gobind Singh Ji, i.e daughters and grandaughters of the shaheeds of 1984 onwards, are living in poverty and suffering, exactly 0% of our UK and Canada born Gursikhs have married any of them ? Basic Maths : 100% of them preaching about the suffering of the family of the shaheeds yet 0% of them marrying one of them thus helping them. Advanced Maths : I've never been any good at Maths but in this instance even I, who is rubbish at Maths can confidently say it doesn't add up. But every maths equation must have answer. The answer is money, greed and riches. But, as the thread implies, we Sikhs of Punjabi heritage have an inherent problem that goes beyond basic maths problems. Punjab and Sikhi's biggest problem is the way that the Badal clan 'keeps it in the family' and has kept Punjab on it's knees by accumulating power by marriage. So what do these western born anti-Badal Gursikhs teach us when they embark on their marraige liasons with other rich Gursikh familes, as they always do ? The answer is that you should never attempt to explain how it is easier to thread a camel through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to reach the kingdom of heaven.
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With the exception of the brief interlude from the 80's to the 90's, almost all noteworthy Sikh institutions have been controlled by elderly men since the beginning of the 20th century. This includes Gurdware. In the United Kingdom, most of these old men are first generation immigrants. They arrived on these shores virtually peniless and their chief object upon arrival was to accumulate money. All other considerations were secondary. They couldn't have been particularly devout as most neglected to raise their children as Gursikhs either due to work or plain indifference. We are still dealing with the fallout of their complacency today. Is it any wonder that the observance of Sikhi is so ramshackle within Guru-Ghars, that interfaith Anand Karajs are permitted for money's sake, when the men managing them spent the formative first halves of their lives consumed by the desire to make money? All the committee members are decrepit old boys, and all the raagis/granthis seem to be relatively young. We've established before on this forum that a lot of these Granthis object to the idea of officiating interfaith marriages in Maharaj's Hazoori, but are forced to because they are dependent for their livelihood on the greedy old men in the committee. Look at how animated the Sikh qaum was in the 80's, look at how much was accomplished when ascendancy was snatched away from the corrupt old plutocrats and invested in young men like Sant Baba Jarnail Singh and the Jhujaroo Singhs. Their blood ran hot with the passionate fire of youth. Where was this same passion from the reptilian old men who surrendered Punjab to be dismembered in 1947, and again in 1966? Where is it when they allow beadbi to take place in Maharaj's Hazoori? Why do we allow our elders to run Gurdware in the belief that their ancientness somehow better qualifies them for the job? It seems to me that obeying our elders is precisely what got us into this mess. Most of the bazurgs with whom I am personally acquainted know pretty much nothing about Sikhi, Gurmat, Gurbani, or anything for that matter. They are also usually greedy, wasting away the last few years of their life obsessing over money and inheritance. Why should we listen to them? Things would be better if the young men and women were in charge. *I don't mean to criticize all of them. Just most of them.*
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