Why Such Lavish Langars ?

[panthicunity]

Did anyone else take notice that langars in North America (and maybe Europe - never been there) are usaully very rich - many dishes , paneer lots of sweets, smosas etc.

This creates a bad incentive for people to come just looking for satiating their tongue rather than the spirit. Langar halls have way more 'sangat' comapred to darbar halls. Wonder what this does to the morale of keeranias and kathawachaks.

In India langar is very simple - daal and roti and mabye achaar at the most ...

[N30S1NGH]

I totally agree with your observations. Traditionally, langar was quite simple and enrich full of protein and satvic in nature- for eg- dhaliya (oatmeal), dhaal, rice-sweet rice at times, roti and kheer.

We should go back to root of langar maryada which- daliya(oatmeal) chaul(rice), dal(lentils without any tarka) and kheer, simple satoguni food which everyone can digest..we should avoid cooking and serving enrich rajoguni food as langar.

The stuff we eat now - rajoguni enrich foods at langar especially at abroad gurdwaras is no where close to what sangat used to eat around Guru's time.Read Bhai Chaupa Singh Rehitnama along with his grandson bhai chibber singh rehitnamas talks about the diet in detail.

I strongly believe whatever we eat affects our mind, too much rajas and tamas does not help with focus, makes our mind chanchal, lazy not to mention aggression and bring sheer hyper ism.

Also on another note many in punjabi community have serious entitlement issues, one can clearly see how they act in langar their attitude is ungrateful, impatient show hardly any gratitude towards sevadars and overall its all like they totally take it for granted..lets not spoil them more with enrich buffet style food.

[Jangal Da]

Yes - Europe (or the UK at least) is getting like this.

A simple dal, roti and water gets my vote.

I will shun the rest. Sometimes an overly enthusiastic langar sevadar tries to push a slice of pizza/ give me a fistful of pakore into my thali - I usually use the excuse that I'm watching my weight so not to offend.

[BritishSingh]

Chips, beans, pizza....what next?

[BarinderSingh]

Sure simple healthy meals would be awesome. What is the reasoning behind simple meals? I think the wrong message is being attached to having simple meals. One good part is healthy meals, but can't other things like somasa be healthy if cooked with healthy ingredients and methods? The one daal system is and can be abused by adding many spices and much salt. Really does not help keeping it healthy or simple.

The issue I think is with personalities. People need different kinds of flavors in their lives. They cannot taste the flavor from reading Gurbani. So amritdhari husband and wife find ways to increase this flavor in life. Yet they want to eat simple foods and promote simple foods at the gurdwara. They go on lavish vacations, restaurants, hotels, drive fancy cars, big house with expensive furniture etc. The weekend comes and they cannot wait to get out and have fun. Simplicity starts at home and I dont mean a house. It starts with training the mind to enjoy the company of Gurbani 24/7 and letting go of your manmukh lavishes ways. Our Guru trained us to look at lavish items and ugly or has the kids now say eewwww old as one and the same.

Amritdhari women spend thousands dollars on suits and dont do seva because it will get dirty and Singhs spend thousand of dollars on dress suits not doing seva because it might get dirty. Manmukh self really comes out on weddings. All shirt and tie but no one is going to do seva. Next day same Singh in a Bana is sitting in diwan like a stone meditating. Where is the Sikhi in this foolish behavoir?

[jpsingh2]

Degh Tegh Fateh

[kharkusingh1996]

The langar at my gurdwara is fine. Usally the sevadaars don't go overboard with the food choices. But for snacks before langar is always smosas and so many sweets I really don't see a point in this and as many people are outside diwaan hall eating and eating and not sitting in the diwaan hall questions me is it appropriate to serve sweets or such food before langar.

[proud2bejatt]

I see it too don't like it.

Best langar I ever ate, was a place in madya pradesh.

We sat outside on dirt, 1 2 spoon aachar, some dal and roti.

We sat as equals my siblings with a few kids there.

Our clothes were clean, their's dirty how you see on tv. The baba was a baba, all I can say is thinking about it he must have been 35 40 but he had the form of mahakal himself.

For those children alone, whether they alive today or not we will bring Khalsa Raaj to m.p.

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[jpsingh2]

Degh Tegh Fateh. Panth je Jeet... stop being so unlearned guys.if you prefer a simple meal no one is forcing you to eat samsoas or sweets or just grab some roti and daal but the.more food the more chance something's good always available at of hours when sangat comes eg 3:00 pm. Stop being party poopers.. Western world problems...

[rvsr]

Talking about langar, a little bit off topic but need some info on it. Went to the gurdwara ate Langar. went to wash my plate as i usually do some one else was already washing and so took my plate. water was running from one of around 4 taps to wash the plates. i naturally put my hands under the water to rinse abit of dal off. I was told that either the water, the sink or mayb the silver plates with remains of food on em where soucha (excuse the spelling) and i shouldnt have rinsed my hands there and so they had to rewash the plates that were in the sink(which i thought were dirty(needed to be washed) anyway) im sure this is some sort of falsehood or weird ritual undertaking of washing dishes. Let me know maybe im missing something.