Worrying Statistics

[Guest]

My cousin married a gora.

None of our family and other cousins went to the wedding.

Main problem is that parents don't teach crap to their kids at all.All they want is education so they can fit in.What they dont know is that if you don't install Sikhi into them at a right age then they will be messing around with the opposite sex,drinking,doing drugs etc.

Another point to be made is that parent are encouraging this type of behavior because the parent do it themselves such as drink alcohol.

Its not the children's fault but the parent fault for not taking care of their kids at an earlier age.

[SikhSeeker]

Has anyone met the families of these girls? I am curious to know why they would do something like this. If 15 Sikh girls converted in 2 months, what is the reason behind it? Did they get brainwashed? Didn't their parents teach them about Sikhi? Oh wait, were they discriminated against in case they belonged to one of the so-called "lower castes" ? No hang on, before attacking me, just realize that I am just trying to storm my brains ( ) with all possible causes and reasons for this occurrence. What is the real problem? Where have we failed? If it was a few Sikh girls, one could imagine that something was up with them. But 15 ?!?!?! And in just 2 months ?!?!?!?! What is it that they were not getting here and will get there is my question. 40% inter-faith marriages, why? Is it because the Gyani was paid a big sum of money to do so? Isn't the committee paying him well enough already? Didn't they pay for his kids education, or did they say "tusi ki karna paddhaai ke, tusi vi vaaja hee vajouna" ? Sorry but this does happen guys. 4 Sikh girls marrying Muslims, bloody hell, howcome!!!! Its not possible that those guys treated them with more respect than a Singh would, or is it? Wait, they all got tricked and brainwashed into believing that Islam is the best!!!! The parents never taught them about the Shaheeds!!! (etc. etc. etc all that I've been reading on here for 9 plus years).

Sorry for playing the devil's advocate here, but just wanted to take a different approach for a change. Think about it guys. If our brothers and sisters are leaving Sikhi, lets not (as usual) blame the others. Lets introspect as to what WE are doing wrong. I am NOT saying anything is wrong about Sikhi, but possibly a handful of Sikhs. I don't want to start about what the caste cancer has done to us, you already know it. I am not going to start about what kind of Gurdwara committees we have these days, you already know it. I am not going to start about the tactics Muslims use, you already know it. My question (similar to one I asked a few months ago: http://www.sikhsanga...uk/#entry537429 ) is what now? Where have we gone wrong? Why did we treat some of our own the same way they were treated for centuries by the "casteist elitists"?

Don't shoot me, I am just asking questions, please respond if you have answers otherwise don't bother hitting the "Add Reply". Its ok to type your rant and then close the window. I do it at times when I know the post will get "unapproved" :D .

Some interesting points there. You mention that there must be something we should do, but from what I have seen there are 3 types of Sikhs, The Amritdharis, who are all Sikhi, the middle ground, who have Kesh or not in some cases, but have a pyaar for Sikhi, go to camps, know about the Shaheeds etc, and then theres the ones who dont know at all, and are just Sikh by name. Its usually the 3rd set that are usually the ones marrying a muslim or whoever.

These are the people we need to connect with, we cant by force take them Gurdwara, or make them go camps etc. We cant go to their parents and them them off, but then we cant sit idly by and watch them go drinking clubbing and falling for the wrong type. We need to find a way to get them into Sikhi or at least know enough values to know that they respect it enough not to go marrying outside Sikhi.

Phul Chuk Maaf

[VanHelsingh]

@ Mehtab Singh Ji - In my opinion I think the reason for those conversions are less of a reflection on anything lacking in Sikhi (conceptually), but simply more about certain females deciding their relationship with a Muslim lad is of a higher priority to them than any loose connection they have with their faith. "Love" if you want it summed up in a word. :biggrin2:

[MrDoaba]

<banned word filter activated>? 18 out of 20????? woah.

You will know this Gurdwara Veer Ji.

What also is worrying is the disgusting language being used by the original poster to describe our Muslim brothers. It shows only ignorance and nothing else.

It might be a slightly derogatory term but i wouldnt go as far as to say its disgusting. He could have said much worse.

Has anyone met the families of these girls? I am curious to know why they would do something like this. If 15 Sikh girls converted in 2 months, what is the reason behind it? Did they get brainwashed? Didn't their parents teach them about Sikhi? Oh wait, were they discriminated against in case they belonged to one of the so-called "lower castes" ? No hang on, before attacking me, just realize that I am just trying to storm my brains ( ) with all possible causes and reasons for this occurrence. What is the real problem? Where have we failed? If it was a few Sikh girls, one could imagine that something was up with them. But 15 ?!?!?! And in just 2 months ?!?!?!?! What is it that they were not getting here and will get there is my question. 40% inter-faith marriages, why? Is it because the Gyani was paid a big sum of money to do so? Isn't the committee paying him well enough already? Didn't they pay for his kids education, or did they say "tusi ki karna paddhaai ke, tusi vi vaaja hee vajouna" ? Sorry but this does happen guys. 4 Sikh girls marrying Muslims, bloody hell, howcome!!!! Its not possible that those guys treated them with more respect than a Singh would, or is it? Wait, they all got tricked and brainwashed into believing that Islam is the best!!!! The parents never taught them about the Shaheeds!!! (etc. etc. etc all that I've been reading on here for 9 plus years).

Sorry for playing the devil's advocate here, but just wanted to take a different approach for a change. Think about it guys. If our brothers and sisters are leaving Sikhi, lets not (as usual) blame the others. Lets introspect as to what WE are doing wrong. I am NOT saying anything is wrong about Sikhi, but possibly a handful of Sikhs. I don't want to start about what the caste cancer has done to us, you already know it. I am not going to start about what kind of Gurdwara committees we have these days, you already know it. I am not going to start about the tactics Muslims use, you already know it. My question (similar to one I asked a few months ago: http://www.sikhsanga...uk/#entry537429 ) is what now? Where have we gone wrong? Why did we treat some of our own the same way they were treated for centuries by the "casteist elitists"?

Don't shoot me, I am just asking questions, please respond if you have answers otherwise don't bother hitting the "Add Reply". Its ok to type your rant and then close the window. I do it at times when I know the post will get "unapproved" :D .

Veer Ji, its a number of reasons. Both sides are to blame. Some dont necessarily convert, rather they think Sikhi permits you to marry someone from another religion. But brainwashing is a problem and when you see examples that are closer to you, even if you only just know of that person you will end up taking it very personally. Sometimes its as if its been done to cause the maximum amount of parishaani. The caste thing is also another problem, no matter how much you ask oldies "are all castes equal?", when it comes to marrying someone from one of those castes, its a big no no. A lot, not all but a lot of Hindu-Sikh marriages are down to the fact that parents know that their kids might end up in a relationship with someone from any religion and so they say even if the boy/girl is from a Hindu background its ok, they wont have a problem, its still seen as acceptable. Ive actually had this said to me. Its funny, if you marry a Sikh they must be the same caste but another religion then Hindu is ok. The other issue is people just assume Sikhi is "modern" without really knowing anything, so again, they think it permits any number of things. Ive heard people say Gurdwaras arent doing this or that to teach young people but its not all up to the Gurdwara, education starts at home. This is another problem, many parents emigrated whilst they were young themselves so they have very little knowledge of anything Sikhi related. In these cases its only with Guru Sahibs Kirpa the children of these individuals will take the decision whether or not to learn about Sikhi themselves. The other two reasons are pure stupidity and religion/history/culture just not having any value....pure ignorance and way way too balaiti-fied.

In all honesty i cannot pinpoint where we have gone wrong. We need to think about the way we teach each other, not how Uncle Ji or Gyani Ji teaches us but how are we teaching and treating our peers, i know many feel alienated by those who might be further along their spiritual journey not having any patience, enough to put them off. Having said that though, so much absolutely brilliant seva is being done to bring Sikhi not just to the youth but everyone. Back to us teaching eachtother, the point where teaching about Sikhi begins isnt right IMO, for example i would leave the political side out until the essence of Sikhi is taught otherwise how will one truly appreciate what cause he/she is fighting for and/or their passion for that cause will die. Maybe leave the political/rehat/bibek type things and maybe the Shaheedi/yudh stories out until they understand where Sikhi stands spiritually. This is where we might be going wrong, the one teaching gets annoyed due to lack of understanding and inability of the one who is learning to digest all these random things which mean nothing as he/she doesnt understand the point and significance of them because theres no understanding of the theological aspect, hence, they are put off or get the wrong idea which in turn distances them from anything Dharmik.

Also we should leave out our views on Raag/Larivaar/Jathebandian etc! At least at the beginning!

Anyway this what i have observed from my own experiences and its also a benti to those who are more inclined to teach others and have more influence. :respect:

Phul Chuk Maaf.

[Mehtab Singh]

^^^ Thanks

[TheFancyBanana]

You will know this Gurdwara Veer Ji.

i thought it might have been that gurdwara, never had any idea it was 18 marriages though.

[Kalsingh]

Maybe leave the political/rehat/bibek type things and maybe the Shaheedi/yudh stories out until they understand where Sikhi stands spiritually. This is where we might be going wrong, the one teaching gets annoyed due to lack of understanding and inability of the one who is learning to digest all these random things which mean nothing as he/she doesnt understand the point and significance of them because theres no understanding of the theological aspect, hence, they are put off or get the wrong idea which in turn distances them from anything Dharmik.

Also we should leave out our views on Raag/Larivaar/Jathebandian etc! At least at the beginning!

Anyway this what i have observed from my own experiences and its also a benti to those who are more inclined to teach others and have more influence. :respect:

Phul Chuk Maaf.

Absolutely spot on! Singhs and Kaurs, you may not like it but it is the brutal truth. Start at the more simple things about the spirituality of the religion rather than all the political, rehat subjects etc. One singh I knew at uni didn't even know if we believe in reincarnation, yet he knew so much about 1984 etc!

I got hated for saying stuff like this at my sikh society as every talker and organiser was hell bent in trying to jump to subjects such as rehat (dastars etc), and 1984 (not saying we shouldn't talk about it at all but maybe there are better places to start?). Rather, they should have started by talking about things like 'who is God, what is the soul, why are we reincarnated etc'.

For me, I see this is one of the major reasons for these statistics. Young kids are brought up wearing dastars and are scolded by their parents for wanting to cut their kesh, but they were never told why they are supposed to keep the kesh in the first place! What do you expect? Saying because Guru Ji told us to is not sufficient enough. It should be sufficient but it is not, unless there is alot of love and faith in the Guru already. So we have to explain the reasons and lucky enough, our Gurus based rehat on pure logic, so we should teach our kids this logic to the best level as we possibly can.

[Pyara]

Name the Gurdwara which has had 18 of these ceremonies performed in just one month. There's a serious issue with the committee and local sangat in that area which needs to be addressed. There's not even enough weekends in August, they must having been performing 5 weddings a weekend....

[N30S1NGH]

As i said this earlier in the radhaswami thread:

I usually like to look at the root of problem. The reason why people are going more towards other pseudo cults like radhaswamis or going away from sikhi is because lack of spirituality offered in gurdwaras and bhramvidya in the panth as i posted earlier - http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?/topic/67189-lack-of-bhramvidya-in-the-panth/ ..it's replaced by bhandi parchar - abhramic version of Vahiguroo/God, rational, missionary, bhausari thought which shoved sikhi in a tunnel. This is single handly an number one cause of people are swaying away from sikhi because of our parcharaiks and parchar.

While political activism is good and have very special place in sikhi as dharam and rajneeti are not seperated they are together. I feel we have gone way overboard with political activism in gurdwaras to the point that we have forgotten spiritual sikhi (adhyatamic sikhi- sant aspect in panth) which is main layer of one's life. It's from sant aspect of one's life(dya, bhramgyan, sam dristhi, satogun) sipahi is born not the other way around..as i mentioned earlier - sipahi spirit in sikhi should be born, properly controlled, preserved and nurture from sant spirit not from sheer tamogun..sheer tamogun makes one rakshash and khalsa is not rakshash.!!

Anyway, parchariks have gone way overboard with doing parchar of sipahi aspect in sikhi i.e - dhaadi varan/katha of our warriors, our guru sahiban..showing only one aspect- sipahi aspect of our guru sahib- For eg- Potral of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji as only an warrior, not divine majestic master and giver to people from all walks of life..there were reasons why there are 52 poets in guru maharaj darbar, there was reason why guru gobind singh maharaj was divine master and giver of raag vidya to all, there was a reason why guru gobind singh maharaj created taksal , nirmale, sevapanthis (scholary knights in the sikhism), there was a reason why sri guru gobind singh ji wrote majestic gurbani in true poetic form such as - jaap sahib, sri akaal ustat showing sargun and nirgun beauty of Vahiguroo and there was a reason why bhai nand lal wrote deep spiritual craving poetry towards majestic divine sri guru gobind singh ji so our pendu bandai don't potray sri guru gobind singh according to their own mindset and according to their own little tunnel version of sikhi..!!..but everything happened opposite in the panth..!!

We didn't even get the basic and extremely important matter right. We failed to provide theological explanation of what is Vahiguroo in Sikhism and let alone mystic layer of sikhi. Most of our parcharaik(missionary etc type) have used abrahamic, semetic version of god in Sikhism to explain Vahiguroo...people need to do their own research on sargun nirgun aspect of vahiguroo (this is what most sikh theology is based on)..On this forum we had a deep vichar with bijla singh ji on it - http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?/topic/66285-sargun-nirgun-nirankar/ ..people can read upon it and do their own search..!!

There is no bar set for our parcharaiks in the gurwdaras. So any joe blow comes along do parchar with their own mindset/bibek buddhi to make a quick buck.

Gyani thakur singh ji patialawale himself said in japji sahib katha that i can go deep but people who are listening are complaining that there is no bir ras in the katha, even sangata are addicted to bir ras katha which are being feed everyday in the gurdwara without keeping balance.

The reason our people are attracted to radhaswamis or going away from sikhi is our parcharik fault and our fault of failing to demand some depth- ask parcharak questions, ask committe vales collectively as sangat to have question and answers sessions with our parcharaiks..radhaswamis steal stuff from our mystic traditions and mix it little bit brand it and present to normal joe with fancy terms- normal joe blow gets totally blown off with mysticism..while radhaswamis steal stuff from our mystic tradition/layer our parcharaiks are still stuck at the shariat layer of dharam and feed shariat layer of dharam all day long without going to depth to sangat. Normal joe in sangat thinks with ignorance- looks like this is sikhi and search somewhere else to fulfill their curiosity or get peace. Our parchariks have shoved sikhi in a tunnel and bought beautiful divine path of sikhi down to mere "dhadi varan, sakhiyas', sikhitothemax translations'

Ang- 1083

saraa sareeath lae ka(n)maavahu ||

Let your practice be to live the spiritual life.

thareekath tharak khoj ttolaavahu ||

Let your spiritual cleansing be to renounce the world and seek God.

maarafath man maarahu abadhaalaa milahu hakeekath jith fir n maraa ||3||

Let control of the mind be your spiritual wisdom, O holy man; meeting with God, you shall never die again

Sorry don't want make this too long, each one of us and parcharak have moral and spiritual duty to explore sikh deep within both internally and externally. In Akaal ustat-

In the Akal Ustat (within Dasam granth sahib) are 10 'Dohras' (Verses) from 'Ank' (Number) 201 to 210. Within these verses, Guru Gobind Singh Ji has posed a number of questions. These questions are meant to be pondered over and answered by each 'Gursikh' (searcher of spiritual truth) be they of whatever religion.

Tav Parsad [With the grace of the Almighty]

Dohra (name of verse)

Once Siri Atma [Primal Atma (self)/God] spoke to the mind.

That Who’s glory shines every where is the master of the world.

Say then, how is this glory manifested in all its varieties?'

'Akal Ustat', Dasam Guru Durbar

The mind to whom the 'Atma' (soul) is speaking to above is that of mankind. That question, which has been asked, its answer is what is understood as Naam Simran in sikhi. The questions the Guru asks here after this question, and their answers in fact, answer this above great question.

Questions-

(2) What is the form of 'Atma' (True self)?

(3) What is the thought behind creation?

(4) What is 'Dharma'?

(5) What is 'Karma'?

(6) What is creation?

(7) What is life?

(8) What is death?

(9) What is heaven?

(10) What is hell?

(11) What is cleverness?

(12) What is stupidity?

(13) What is 'Tark' (reasoning)?

(14) What is not 'Tark'?

(15) What is slander?

(16) What is praise?

(17) What is sin?

(18) What is 'Dharma'?

Some of the questions are asked twice by the Guru. Here, the Guru desires a different answer to previous answer. Each question and its answers are inter-linked to each other to produce a whole picture of Sat Guru, meaning the ideology and philosophy of Sat Guru which should appear at the end of answering all the questions.

(19) What is Yoga?

(20) What is enjoyment of worldly pleasures?

(21) What is action?

(22) What is inaction?

(23) What is hard work ?

(24) What is controlling the senses?

(25) Who is a warrior?

(26) Who is giver of charity?

(27) What is 'Tantra'?

(28) What is 'Mantra'?

(29) Who is poor?

(30) Who is a King?

(31) What is happiness?

(32) What is sadness?

(33) Who is ill?

(35) Who is affectionate?

(36) What is essence of affection?

(37) Who is satiated?

(38) Who is healthy?

(39) What is thought behind creation?

(40) What is creation?

(41) Who is defiled?

(42) What is creation?

(43) Where is action superstition?

(45) Where is superstition destroyed?

(46) Where is happiness of consciousness?

(47) Where is knowledge of that which we can not grasp with our minds?

(48) What is 'Naam'?

(50) What is self-control?

(51) What is knowledge and ignorance?

(52) Who is ill?

(53) Who is a worrier?

(54) Where is Dharma lost?

(55) Who is a warrior?

(56) Who is beautiful?

(57) What is secret of being at one with 'Sat Guru'?

(58) Who is the charitable one?

(59) Who is wise?

(60) What is knowledge?

(61) What is ignorance?

Here the questions end.

It must be noted that many of these questions can be interpreted and rephrased in a different manner, therefore one would derive at a different answer. For example, question (3) can be interpreted as:

(3) Where are thoughts of creation contemplated?

Question (7) can be thought of as asking:

Where is death?

Most of the questions can also be coupled to form one question. For example:

Question (5) and (6) can be combined to form:

What is the Karma of Dharma?

This coupling of questions alters their numbers. Hence, Sikh 'Gianis' (interpreters of scripture) tended not to give a particular number count of these questions.

[buddasingh]

Sikhs with the gift of gorgeous eyes decided to keep their eyes closed. They kept banging into a wall.

Many Sikhsangat forum members thought “lets remove the wall and the Sikhs will be able to see again”

eyes closed-haircut

wall –conversion