# ‘Sikhs Through The Looking Glass’ Are They Stupid, Says Kapur Singh



## Archived_Member16 (Oct 10, 2009)

_The learned author presents a deep insight into the ways of the Sikh leadership over the last five centuries and the hope that “like all living things, Sikhs want to live, they do not want to die”-Sirdar Kapur Singh_

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Sikhs are a religious community and a political nation, simultaneously, and thus they are a unique society of the world. The Sikhs are distinguishable from the Hindu society, which is essentially a territorial culture-group. In the ancient Sanskrit texts, Vishnu-purana, in particular, it is laid down that Hindus are those born in the geographical area called, Bharat and this geographical area is delineated as extending from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, Cape Comrin of Europeans, and from the river Indus to seas that girdle the soil of India; that is, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Essentially, Hinduism is non-exportable and relocatable and its modern conversion and oecumenical activities are unsanctioned innovations.

Islamic society is grounded in totalitarianism of religious formulae and social laws, enforceable by political sovereignty and overlordship over non-Muslim societies. Christendom and Christianity formed a political society of medieval ages and are an oecumenical, universal religion of Gentiles, without being a political society in the modern world. The Jewish society is basically and fiercely ethnical while Buddhism is fundamentally non-social and non-political.

Sikhism is a social religion, non-ethnical, oecumenical, grounded in a political society, directed and committed to propagation and establishing of a plural world-society, tolerant, open, progressive and free in character.

Thus, Sikhism and the Sikhs form a unique religion and a unique society, which and who can be clearly distinguished from the other religious and political societies of the world.

Arnold Toynbee, the world-famous historian and philosopher of History, in his magnum opus, "History", refers to Sikhism as the forerunner of the true elan of the Communist Party of Lenin. Arnold Toynbee adds that Lenin was quite mistaken in claiming that his Communist Party was a unique party in the history of the world and had been formed for the first time. Arnold Toynbee asserts that because of its elan and structure, the Khalsa of the Sikh society is a true fore-runner and prototype of the Communist Party of Lenin.

Sikhism and its apotheosis, the Khalsa, have merely a structural affinity and kinship of elan with the Communist Party of Lenin insofar as it is essentially an organisation of committed elites for furthering the cause of social transformations, but in aims and content it is poles apart from communism as it is irrevocably committed to social pluralism and freedom of conscience, tolerance and recognition of the human individual as an end in himself, and not an expendable limb in the beehive society of communism.

This aspect of the matter, Arnold Toynbee has failed to appreciate and point out in his great book.

Above all, Sikhism is irrevocably committed to the doctrine of the existence of God, the one almighty God, as the beginning and the end of all, that is and that shall be, alawawal walakhir, as the Koran puts it.

Sikhs are an international community. There is a quip, current in European as well as in Asiatic countries to the effect that wherever life exists and is sustainable on earth, the potato and the Sikh are bound to reach there sooner or later.

Arnold Toynbee, in his latest, one of the latest books--not the latest, "East to West", has observed to the effect that if the human race survives its follies at all--he is doubtful that it will survive--but he says that if it survives its follies at all, Sikhs shall surely be there as vigorous, hardy and go-getting homosapiens on this planet.

Sikhs are universally admitted as excelling most other races of mankind in the basic activities of man: production of food, manipulation of tools and fighting. As agriculturists, artisans and manual labourers they excel many other races and human groups and as soldiers they are inferior to no group in the history of the world, in bravery inspired by ethical considerations.

This religion of Sikhism was founded, as we know, by Guru Nanak, who was born in the year 1451 AD. Guru, in Sikh terminology, means, a prophet and a world-teacher and Sikhism is a prophetic religion based on a definitive revelation, like semitic religions of the West, and it, therefore, can be clearly contra-distinguished from the eastern religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, which have anonymous mysticism as their source of validity.

During his missionary journey to the inner Himalayas on the mountain of legendary Kailash near the celestial lake of Mansarowar, he explained the first priority principle on which the Sikh society was to be based. Bhai Gurdas, a very learned man of Sikhism--sometimes he is described as the St. Paul of Sikhism--tells us that when the Yogins residing in these inaccessible regions asked Guru Nanak as to "how did the news go in the world of the mortals"--mat lok main kia vartara--the reply of the Guru was sharp and to the point: "The society has become rotten to its core."

And here he raised an accusing finger at these Yogins, adding: "And Sires, you are the guilty ones, for, society cannot be guided and sustained without men of high sensitivity and cultures, but you, who possess it, have become escapees."--Sach chandarma kud andhiara, siddh chhap baithe parbatin kaun jagat kau parutara.

In this doctrine, he answers the question of questions, the question which has been, for thousands of years, worrying the sensitive and thinking man and which question still remains finally unanswered. This question of questions is as to whether the carriers of the grace, the liberated men, the men who have achieved the highest apex of spiritual evolution, whether they should rise like lions or die like lambs; whether the spiritually elite should withdraw into wilderness to bear witness, or act as leaven to the lump.

Guru Nanak's answer is clear: it is that every fully liberated person must be socially and politically committed, and must return back to the society to serve and guide it, to elevate it, and to preserve its basic ethical and spiritual values.

The next doctrine of Sikh society was demonstrated by Guru Nanak during his fourth sojourn when he traveled by sea to Mecca by sea, the holy sanctuary of Islam, along with the Muslim pilgrims of India.

Inside this holy sanctuary, when doubts arose on account of his behaviour as to whether he was Muslim or a Hindu, he was accosted with the question: "Who are you, and what is the book that you carry under your arm for it is not the holy Koran? Tell us, please, according to this book that you carry, whether the Muslim religion is true or the Hindu religion?"--Puchan khohl kitab nu hindu vada ki mussalmanoi.

The reply of the Guru is not only clear but fearless, particularly when you keep in view the situation in which this reply was made. The Guru said: "Oh, pilgrims, neither those who profess Islam nor those who profess Hinduism are superior, one to the other. It is the practice and its moral quality that makes one individual superior to the other in the eyes of God, and not mere lip profession.--"Baba akhe hajio subh amlan bahjon dovain roi."

Likewise, the third doctrine was demonstrated by his exclamations against the tyranny involved in the invasion of India by Babar, the Mughal, in the year 1521. The heart-rendering cry and audacious question of Guru Nanak put to God is the Babar-Bani, on witnessing the misery caused by Babar's brutalities to undefended and unarmed civilians of India, "just as a herd of meek cows is attacked by a bloodthirsty tiger", as Guru Nanak puts it: Sinh pave ja vagge.

This is the harsh cry and the question of Guru Nanak in relation to a situation of this kind, implicating that under such circumstances it becomes the duty of an enlightened and spiritually committed person to come forward and to organise with those who are similarly cultured, to resist evil--resist evil at all stages, resist in the hope and in the faith that God will grant success, but never to sit in the corner, or on the fence, feeling that it is none of my concern or saying that it is the concern of God alone, whose duty it is to send somebody to stop this evil.


These doctrines which Guru Nanak had thus enunciated were, by the successor-Gurus, demonstrated in relation to individual and contingent situations. They were applied to the practical task of setting up a new society, the Sikh society. The last of the Sikh prophets, the tenth Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, ordained an Order of the Sikh elites, the Khalsa, who now represent and spearhead the tasks of Sikh religion, and are recognisable throughout the world as bearded and turbaned Sikhs.

Then the perfected yogins in the Kailash mountains asked Guru Nanak specifically as to how does he propose to eradicate evil and to oppose the tyrant, as no individual has the power to eradicate evil, it being universal and inherent. The Guru is recorded as having said, " I want to use two levers: human organisation of those seriously committed to the task of defending goodness and to the task of opposing evil and I want to use a second lever, of the authentic and true "idea" of religion which is revealed in the conscience of highly sensitive and cultured men.

The "organisation" and the "idea" which are both human, with these two levers I hope to be able not only to resist the evil, not only to halt the progress of evil in society, but to elevate and exalt society to heights yet undreamt of, jin manas te devate kie. Through this society I hope to evolve, deified men on this earth, who will be God-like, God-united, and yet-human."

Such are the basic social and spiritual principles of Sikhism as enunciated by its founder, as perfected by his nine successors, as apotheosized by the last Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, into the Order of the Khalsa, who now have the responsibility and the assignment of setting-out these directives of Guru Nanak into practice; and who now bear the heavy burden of this responsibility of establishing a world-society in which the growth and unchecked march of evil is stopped and evil is ultimately, if not eradicated, controlled and contained. Such a high task it is that lies on the shoulders of those whom you sometimes see in various parts of the world wearing turbans and unshorn hair.

These turbans and unshorn hair are not symptomatic of some kind of lack of modern cultural view-point. They are the exteriorisation of a psyche and of a sense of such high mission the like of which the history of the world does not know, that which has not ever been conceived or practised before.

In 1711, they set-up a republic in the heartland of the Moghul Empire in India, wherein they gave land to the tillers in a feudal society, proclaimed equality of all men as citizens of a state, and declared that power emanated from and justly belonged to the people and not to a hereditary privilegentsia.

These remarkable and most modern principles, which were not only avowed but which were put into practice, although for a very short while, are historical phenomena with which not many people in the West or even the East are acquainted; but which, if properly understood and appreciated, would make men marvel as to how it was that in a conservative, tranquil, progressive-and-struggle-avoiding East, such revolutionary and remarkably dynamic ideas not only could spring-up but could be put into practice and could be applied to the actual polity of a state which was founded, but which, unfortunately, did not last. This state of the Sikhs lasted only for six or seven years.

There was yet another principle which the Sikhs, inspired as they were by the teachings of the Gurus, proclaimed and actually applied in this short-lived republic. It was on the 10th of December, 1710 that an Imperial Ordinance was issued from Delhi by the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah, which runs to the effect that: nanak-prastan ra harkuja kih biyaband ba qatal rasanand---"Every Sikh, wherever he is found,wherever he is seen, should be put to death without any hesitation and without any further thought".

On 7th April, 1711, hardly three months and a few days afterwards, an Ordinance in reply was issued by the Sikh Republic under the seal of the state and sign manual of their chief executive, Banda Singh Bahadur, which proclaimed: "We do not oppose Muslims or Islam, but only tyranny and usurpation of power." The substance of this Ordinance of The Sikh Republic is recorded in contemporary documents, such as the Persian Ruquati--Aminul-davallah, Dastural--Insaha and the Imperial Daily Diaries, the day-to-day records made by authority of what passed in the royal court. They are now available for everybody to see.

After that, there comes a period of about half a century of relentless persecution and genocide pogroms against the Sikh people by two contending empires, the mightiest empires of Asia of those days: the Mughal and the Pathan Empire.

But the Sikhs withstood this terrible onslaught. They neither submitted nor abandoned their harsh cry of "death or liberty", a sentiment foreign to and unknown in the Eastern societies, ancient or modern. And then it slid into the form of the Sikh Empire, which was called the Sarkar Khalsa that is “the people’s Commonwealth” from the middle of the eighteenth-century to the middle of the nineteenth-century.

It was in the middle of the nineteenth century that the British perfidiously attacked the Sikh Commonwealth, after corrupting and buying the Hindu Generals of the Sikh army and the Hindu-dominated civil government at Lahore; and during the fierce Anglo-Sikh wars and battles, as a historian says, "the Sikhs beat the British and their Hindu mercenaries to their knees every time!" I am quoting. But the Sikh country was, nevertheless, annexed to the British Empire through treachery at the diplomatic table.

Before the First World War, when the ideas of freeing India from the foreign yoke started stirring the minds of the Indian people, Sikhs were the spearhead of this movement. Such hardships and such terrible conditions of existence they bore, and not a case of a single Sikh is known who either wavered or apologized, though many opportunities were offered them to just say one word: "We are sorry for what we have done"; and they could come back to their villages and to their lands and live a life of comfort and ease as their other compatriots were doing.

Such was the society which the principles of Sikhism gave birth to, and such is the history and tribulations of this society which, though on the material plane may seem to have failed to make a conspicuous mark, but, which on the plane of principles and on the plane of essences has made such a remarkable imprint, as superior to which would be difficult to find in the histories of the societies of the world, from ancient times to the modern times.

When in 1947, the British--in 1946 or even earlier, the British gave it out that they no longer wanted to hold India and it was known that they cannot hold India and it was also known that the British would now quit, and they wanted to hand over the sovereignty and the political power of India to the Indians themselves.

Then the question arose, how and to whom should this political power be transferred? The broad outlines are that the British Parliament, who was penultimate authority in this matter of the transfer of power, declared unequivocally that after the British quit India, there are three peoples, distinct peoples, who are the legitimate heirs to the sovereignty of India.

Definite concrete and pressing offers were made half a dozen times by the Muslim League, as well as by the British, to the Sikhs to carve out and to have an area for themselves in which they could also be a free people and not altogether unlike the Hindus and Muslims were going to be.

There is no doubt about it, because I am a personal witness to some of these occasions, and there is such heavy and credible documentary evidence on the point, that it cannot be doubted or denied. Whenever the British made these offers, the Sikhs said, "No, we tie our destiny irrevocably to the destiny of India.

The promises and commitments which the Hindu leaders made to the Sikhs were as follows: after the British quit India and the Sikhs have refused to accept the offers of separate, sovereign or semi-sovereign areas for themselves made by others--after that happens, the Hindu majority--the Indian Congress, the mouthpiece of the Hindus as they rightly regarded themselves--the Hindu majority community solemnly promises, first, that they will not promulgate any Constitution for the future government of India which does not have the free concurrence and assent of the Sikhs; two, that an area in the north of India, with an autonomous status shall be carved-out in which, in the flowery words of Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, "the Sikhs also might feel the glow of freedom,"--which means, "therein the Sikhs shall be able to act effectively at the decision-making levels of their state." These promises were given-from the year 1930 onwards upto the year 1947.

After August 1947 nothing was done to put these promises into effect, and they seemed to have been forgotten and slowly-but-slowly attempts were made to win-over and corrupt the individual integrity of Sikh leaders. In 1950 the Constitution of India was framed. Nothing was included therein which may have even the remotest semblance to fulfillment of these two solemn commitments which were made to the Sikhs. Thus, the Sikhs had been tricked to give up their right of sovereignty, their right of being legitimate heirs to the power and sovereignty of India.

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, the constitutionality of these political tricks and manoeuvres might be debatable, but their gross unethicality and cynicality, their low perfidious character, is all too obvious.

And ever-since 1947, persistent, calculated, well-planned and regular attempts have been made on the cultural, on the political and on the economic levels, not only to disintegrate the Khalsa--the collectivity of the Sikh people-- once and for all, but to weaken the Sikh citizens in all ways.

I conclude and sum-up in a few propositions what I have been trying to convey here:

1. Sikhism is not a Hindu sect but a prophetic religion and a unique political society, guided and led by an Order of the elite Sikhs, the Khalsa, whose unshorn hair and turbans are merely an exteriorisation of their religious psyche, natural, spontaneous, evolutionary and authentic. This is the first proposition which I have tried to elucidate before you.

2. The second proposition which I have tried to make out before you is that Sikhism enjoins a religion grounded in truth alone, a growing truth in the enlightened conscience of man and sternly translated into day-to-day living of individuals.

3. The third proposition which I have tried to put before you, to demonstrate before you, is that the Sikhs are committed to help the establishment of a world-society which is plural, non-coercive, expansive and forward-looking, motivated God-wards, in which there is maximum toleration, ever-growing affluence and minimum of mutually destructive ambition. And on the basis of this, I want to observe in the form of the fourth proposition that:

4. The mosaic pattern of Canadian society comes nearest to the Sikh ideal of a world-society, though the Canadian society is not, in every respect and in essence, its replica or prototype.

5. And the last proposition which I now formulate in precise words is that, while, as Canadian citizens, the Sikhs may look forward to a hopeful and bright future, in India, their historical homeland, they now face the basic problem of their identity and existence, since the control of their own history has been snatched out of their hands and their historical potential has been submerged and throttled.

6. And I add that the Sikhs want to live, as all living things do; they do not want to die.


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

Soul Jyot ji 

Thanks for this article. There is a lot to think about. I am not convinced that its author has thought through a lot of his basic assumptions. Much of what he writes about our Gurus rings true to me. However, he needs to go back to the drawing board on some statements about Islam and Hindu traditions. 

Sikhs are a religious community and a political nation, simultaneously, Is the author referring to Khalistan? or is he using 'political' in a metaphoric way? 

The Sikhs are distinguishable from the Hindu society, which is essentially a territorial culture-group. This may be historically factual when thinking of the origins of Hinduism, but it is not longer the case. 

 Essentially, Hinduism is non-exportable and relocatable and its modern conversion and oecumenical activities are unsanctioned innovations. What is he saying here? There are mandirs all over the county where i live. If you google Gurdwaras for the city of Chicago it turns out that a single gurdwara is nestled together in that teaming city with two other places of worship - a Jain temple and a Hindu mandir. Erroneous claims like this actually weaken his conclusions.

Islamic society is grounded in totalitarianism of religious formulae and social laws, enforceable by political sovereignty and overlordship over non-Muslim societies. 

Yes and no! The entire movement in the US of African-Americans to Islam in the form of the so called "black muslim movement" was completely voluntary. It grows continually and was never 'enforceable' by any 'overlordship' in the political sense.

Buddhism is fundamentally non-social and non-political. Again this is simply not true. Buddhism is non-social if we are thinking that it is not linked to any particular society or ethnic group. If that is what the author means, then I don't follow. Islam, Christendom, and Hinduism are also spread over many political realms, many ethnicities, many cultures, many languages. Maybe I am not getting it

Sikhism is a social religion, non-ethnical, oecumenical, grounded in a political society, directed and committed to propagation and establishing of a plural world-society, tolerant, open, progressive and free in character.

I agree that Sikhism is progressive and free in character; however much of the statement is debatable. Again what is the political society he is referring to? What is a plural world-society? Or is it the plural world-society that would be tolerant, open progressive and free in character?

Sikhism and its apotheosis, the Khalsa, have merely a structural affinity and kinship of elan with the Communist Party of Lenin insofar as it is essentially an organisation of committed elites for furthering the cause of social transformations, but in aims and content it is poles apart from communism as it is irrevocably committed to social pluralism and freedom of conscience, tolerance and recognition of the human individual as an end in himself, and not an expendable limb in the beehive society of communism. 

What is a kinship of elan? How could the author miss a/one fundamental notion. Communism is a political theory with a base in economic determinism. It is philosophically materialist in nature and rejects the idea of "God" however we chose to define "God." (I know lately in the forum there is a trend to annul the concept of "God" but that is beside the point in this part of this discussion.) There is no room for Ek Oankar in Communism -- in fact no place to insert it. Sikhism is neither a political theory nor an economic theory. It is a dharmic tradition, which starts with basic assumptions that are moral and ethical in nature. 

In Communism, conclusions about morality are purely economic and follow from economic assumptions about wealth and justice. In sikhism conclusions about morality are ethical and conclusions about justice follow from assumptions about the relationship between "God" and creation.

Then to make the above point, the author says, 

Above all, Sikhism is irrevocably committed to the doctrine of the existence of God, the one almighty God, as the beginning and the end of all, that is and that shall be, alawawal walakhir, as the Koran puts it.

His thinking is muddled. Sikhism cannot be that similar to communism but be different on that single point alone. There is no logic in the idea of a godly communist.
Sikhs are an international community. There is a quip, current in European as well as in Asiatic countries to the effect that wherever life exists and is sustainable on earth, the potato and the Sikh are bound to reach there sooner or later. Are not Hindus and Muslims international communities. Hindus have their own diaspora and many converts in the West. Islam has spread through conquest historically and now is fast growing through conversions in South America, Mexico, and the United States -- just to name a few countries.

Without taking a second look the article reads a propaganda for Sikhism -- which is not necessary. It ignores another "truth" which is that we as Sikhs have never sought any justification for our beliefs through comparisons with other religious or political paths.


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## kds1980 (Oct 10, 2009)

> Definite concrete and pressing offers were made half a dozen times by the Muslim League, as well as by the British, to the Sikhs to carve out and to have an area for themselves in which they could also be a free people and not altogether unlike the Hindus and Muslims were going to be.



I would like to see these evidences.If I am not wrong Both Sikhs and pakhtoon followers of Khan Abdul gaffar Khan were unhappy as Britishers did not here their cases.Also Jinnah was promising sikhs something but only verbally and not on paper


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

and now reading this twice - I still can't figure out the title. How did he come up with it? What is the stupid thing that Sikhs are doing?

Soul_Jyot ji  - You always find these articles that make me think. That could be dangerous.


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## Astroboy (Oct 10, 2009)

> The Sikhs are distinguishable from the Hindu society, which is essentially a territorial culture-group.



I guess Sikhs would fit the character roles of Scully and Moulder of X Files while Hinduism would reflect the stained glass view from which a psychic would see only part of the reality who wouldn't be able to pinpoint the crime scene. :ice:


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

:}{}{}::}{}{}::}{}{}::}{}{}: That is really funny. I AGREE that *I am not a Hindu* *Sikhs are not Hindus.*
The problem with the statement is that in the past half a millenium Hindus are not in a geographical gridlock. How weird to even make that statement.


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## Astroboy (Oct 10, 2009)

What I meant is, if we keep looking at reality through a Hindu Sangam's stained glass, then we will be defeated and seem stupid because we keep believing RSS is true.


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

namjap ji

So how does that connect with the discussion?  I don't see where you found that line of implication in the article.  Are you saying that the author is warning Sikhs not to look through a Hindu lens? Why such a bad lead-up to make that point?


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## Astroboy (Oct 10, 2009)

Sikhs are sardars for a very good reason. 
Unlike a Hindu who has to figure out who he is dealing with 
when an conversation is going on, a Sikh bypasses finding out 
which caste the other person comes from, what language he/she speaks, 
which deity he/she believes in. 
So a Hindu will usually be seen shut up as compared to a Sikh. 



> The mosaic pattern of Canadian society comes nearest to the Sikh ideal of a world-society, though the Canadian society is not, in every respect and in essence, its replica or prototype.



I am wondering what Soul_Jyot thinks about this particular statement made by the Author.


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

Thanks again for clarifying NamJap ji

I think this is one of the core ideas that the author is trying to emphasize.What happens as a result of spiritual awareness? Do we escape from society? Or do we use our enlightenment to battle on a moral plane with wrong actions in society at large?  As did Guru Nanak...

During his missionary journey to the inner Himalayas on the mountain of legendary Kailash near the celestial lake of Mansarowar, he explained the first priority principle on which the Sikh society was to be based. Bhai Gurdas, a very learned man of Sikhism--sometimes he is described as the St. Paul of Sikhism--tells us that when the Yogins residing in these inaccessible regions asked Guru Nanak as to "how did the news go in the world of the mortals"--mat lok main kia vartara--the reply of the Guru was sharp and to the point: "The society has become rotten to its core." 

And here he raised an accusing finger at these Yogins, adding: "And Sires, you are the guilty ones, for, society cannot be guided and sustained without men of high sensitivity and cultures, but you, who possess it, have become escapees."--Sach chandarma kud andhiara, siddh chhap baithe parbatin kaun jagat kau parutara.

In this doctrine, he answers the question of questions, the question which has been, for thousands of years, worrying the sensitive and thinking man and which question still remains finally unanswered. This question of questions is as to whether the carriers of the grace, the liberated men, the men who have achieved the highest apex of spiritual evolution, whether they should rise like lions or die like lambs; whether the spiritually elite should withdraw into wilderness to bear witness, or act as leaven to the lump.

Guru Nanak's answer is clear: it is that every fully liberated person must be socially and politically committed, and must return back to the society to serve and guide it, to elevate it, and to preserve its basic ethical and spiritual values.

But he could have done that more effectively. Instead he leads up with many debatable  claims - some just wrong on the facts. For example, many branches of Buddhism believe that mukhti for the individual is selfish and wrong. Zen asks "what happens after satori?" What should happen?  His lead-up and mstakes make the entire article weak and weakens perceptions of Sikhi.


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## Archived_Member16 (Oct 10, 2009)

*Narayanjot Kaur Ji* : live life to the fullest just do try not to think so hard, least it blows your mind fuses !  To relax please review my today's email :
*"Working - What phase are you at ?"* lol

Please do remember that my posts are meant as "food for thought" and to create awareness of certain issues !

To fully comprehend what Sirdar Kapur Singh Ji writes,and to comprehend his logic one has to read his books: (1) Sachi Sakhi (2) Parasarprasna, in English (3) Sikhism for Modern Man, etc

Further info: Sirdar Kapur Singh


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

*live life to the fullest just do try not to think so hard, least it blows your mind fuses ! lol*

OK - It is the weekend anyway - and "God" knows that there is a lot of fuse-blowing stuff around the forum. :}{}{}: Hope to make it to Monday.


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## Astroboy (Oct 10, 2009)

> But he could have done that more effectively. Instead he leads up with many debatable claims - some just wrong on the facts. For example, many branches of Buddhism believe that mukhti for the individual is selfish and wrong. Zen asks "what happens after satori?" What should happen? His lead-up and mstakes make the entire article weak and weakens perceptions of Sikhi.



http://personal.stthomas.edu/djjenuwine/Ash_Wednesday_2009.pdf


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## Astroboy (Oct 10, 2009)

Narayanjot Kaur Ji,

It is possible to see by being able to pass through a veil to experience the alternate world 
like Alice went to wonderland through the looking glass/mirror. 

Why do psychics gaze through a mystic ball, for example ? 

I think the Author is trying to wake up the Sikhs and make them think rationally like Scully 
with solid proof at hand to present the facts because that's how the real world responds to us.


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

So why does he have his facts wrong? A lot has to be taken on faith as in -- Oh well! His facts are wrong but intuitively we can accept his theory? 

Nothing rational about that.

Anyway I am under orders from Soul_Jyot ji not to think about it any more. Thanks for your input.


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## spnadmin (Oct 10, 2009)

namjap said:


> http://personal.stthomas.edu/djjenuwine/Ash_Wednesday_2009.pdf



Thanks but no thanks!  :yes::yes: Lest we forget. In Christianity a human is separated from "God" who is currently under annulment in some threads, and with effort awareness comes and "God fills us" so to speak. In Sikhism, our awareness problem is not like that. In Sikhism, "God" is immanent and we are already contained within Him. We just don't know it. 

ਤੁਧੁ ਆਪਿ ਵਿਛੋੜਿਆ ਆਪਿ ਮਿਲਾਇਆ ॥੧॥ 
thudhh aap vishhorriaa aap milaaeiaa ||1||
You Yourself separate them from Yourself, and You Yourself reunite with them again. ||1||

 ਤੂੰ ਦਰੀਆਉ ਸਭ ਤੁਝ ਹੀ ਮਾਹਿ ॥ 
thoon dhareeaao sabh thujh hee maahi ||
You are the River of Life; all are within You.


With His grace one becomes Gurmukh...so that ends it for me today on the thread or Soul_Jyot ji will be wondering if I am being stubborn.


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