| Re: A Thought on Possible Contradictions Relating to the 5 K's and Amrit
Gurinder, your post reminded me of questions I myself have asked many times. Please, this will be a long post but persevere and you will understand me. Like you, I encountered many contradictions about Sikhism during my upbringing. These were more about displays of Sikhism around me than what the Gurus did. I would like to give an answer to your question but feel I must give some background on myself before you will fully understand my answers. Before I tell of how my thinking has changed, let me tell you how it was: I too am born into a Sikh family. My parents were ordinary farmers, not highly educated, and were the first generation to come to England and called over my grandparents, uncles and aunts. My father cut his hair soon after arriving here; his explanation was that he was offered a good job only on this condition. My own hair was kept uncut until I was old enough to beg that they cut it. It was not because of taunts; I was stronger than most other kids and can remember defending the only other Sikh boy in my school against being picked upon for his long hair. It was more because it meant nothing to me, like most people my parents and relatives would explain the requirement to keep long hair because ‘We should not interfere with how God made us’ or ‘we are commanded not to cut it’ and that Sikhs would die to defend their hair from being cut (there’s the contradiction). Unfortunately, these explanations do not give a ‘fool proof’ answer as you say.Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/sikh-sikhi-sikhism/23329-thought-possible-contradictions-relating-5-ks.html These people were asking me to be a model Sikh but never made the time to educate me (and possibly themselves) on the subject, just demanding always strict obedience to rules without being able to give a convincing reason for them. They grew up in India where the education system and society gave them their understanding, be it good or bad. Other examples of contradictions were (these may not apply to you, but are common in my community): Sikhism denounces the caste system, but lower caste people would be looked down upon and people from them would be called various derogatory names. Where I live there are several Gurdwaras which each have their own following according to caste. We are told by peers that, unlike Hindus who idolise many gods, we have only one God and his will has been given to us by the Gurus and we should look for guidance from their gift to us of the Guru Granth Sahib only, but those same people who tell us this have idolised a constant stream of Babas and Sants who offered to give cures for all problems by their blessings (usually for a price). To challenge the words of these men was treated as blasphemy and would be quashed with threats of punishment by parents. My mother suffers from schizophrenia, believe me, I have met more than a fair share of these ‘Holymen’. My parents have spent most of their life up to retirement (but no longer thankfully) believing in magic and that someone has put a curse on her. A visit to a Gurdwara or someone’s paath would in itself feel like idol worship, just a chanting of verse, often mumbled incomprehensibly (sorry, sounds bad but I am being honest). Most people would just quickly enter, pay their respects, and leave like they had fulfilled a sense of duty. I tried many times to sit and try to understand the message but the words were incomprehensible to me. I put this down to my never having learned Punjabi officially, I can speak, having been brought up in a Punjabi speaking home and married an Indian born girl, but the words used were not to my understanding. I thought that others sitting around me, those who did their paath every morning and night could understand but, later found out that they were just sitting, absorbed in the poetic chanting, not being able to hear clearly what was being read. It was always a meaningless experience that I would partake in with a sense of duty that had been drummed into me. When I was very young, we had an old paathi who would stop and close the Guru Granth Sahib and explain in simple Punjabi to everyone present what the meaning of the verse he had just recited was. When he was around the room where the paath was being read was always popular. After he died, which must be at least thirty years ago, I have never come across any paathi interested in explaining the meaning of the verse as he did. Has reading paath become similar to the Brahmins chanting of the Vedas? Think to yourself why some offer to pay for a paath to be read at a Gurdwara then hurry off to work (at my local about ten are usually being read at once in closed cubicles). In my understanding they are missing the point, but where is the guidance from the custodians of our religion? I could go on all day but, to cut a long story short, these experiences ended in me respecting the principles of Sikhism but not wanting to partake in meaningless worship and follow a set of rules that, as far as I could understand, may have been needed in times of oppression but had no use in today’s multicultural societies. To add to the negativity, I, who followed the principles of Sikhism to the best of my knowledge, would be made to feel inferior to another who walked around displaying the five ‘Ks’ but did not practice what he preached. Numerous lectures in the Gurdwara about those who did not adopt the five ‘Ks’ letting down their religion and those who gave their life for it would add to this inferiority. I would think: Who needs to be a member of this club where your outward appearance is the most important aspect? - If I know that I am a good person then that is all that matters and if there is a God who judges me then he should be pleased with me more than them. Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23329 How did my thinking change? My perception of God and the Gurus’ vision changed. By pure chance the right books turned up at the right times in my search for knowledge that gave me an understanding of how things were in the Gurus days in convincing logic. I can now recognise the nonsense that has diluted the original message and created a doubter like me. I can now say that I have been given a spiritual concept of God that I can understand and have faith in. This is an important step, being brought up in a western culture the hardest concept is that of spirituality (not involving after-life and all the nonsense associated with it). Funnily, for me, this came from a fictional book written by a follower of a different religion, but only made full sense to me when I read another book about Sikhs. It should not be this way, a religion is formed to guide it’s followers in their faith, if it were not for my chance reading I would still be asking basic questions. I learnt that there are no strict rules to be brainwashed into me. There is just advice from a visionary teacher who says trust me, learn from my examples and I will show you how to live a worthwhile life. We too can have exceptional lives like them if we can understand and follow their way. This is now my immediate goal, to educate myself, so that I can learn from the teachings given to us. To be able to read the guidance in the book given to us, to a stage where I can repeat the message contained inside with full confidence (If the Paathis can’t teach me then I’ll have to teach myself). This, to me, is reason for daily reading of paath. Only after fully understanding and having no doubts can I follow the Gurus ways, and will I proudly call myself a Singh and display the five ‘Ks’ so that I will stand out in a crowd as one who is ready and willing to uphold his principles when needed. Taking of amrit, for me, is about marking an oath, where the water has the essence of steel to give a Singh the courage to uphold his values with the sweetness to give a humble manner. The important thing is the oath, not the water. This is my understanding of the five ‘Ks’ and amrit, not the hocus-pocus about God’s will about cutting hair or drinking holy water, but of standing proud as an ambassador of your faith and practising your principles. By giving the name Singh to our children and forcing them to keep the five ‘Ks’ without educating them is spoiling the religion, we are all Sikhs until we graduate into Singhs and Kaurs. We are not all capable of providing this education to our children ourselves, this is where it is a duty of the Gurdwaras which were initiated as a place for learning, some are trying but we need people like you who ask questions and persist in finding understandable answers to force change. A respected teacher once said to me ‘If you can’t beat them, join them!’ Don’t distance yourself, become part of the congregation and have the courage to make your voice heard if things don’t make sense.  |