It is amazing to see the strife amongst Sikh brethren, between the oldschoolers, who take Sikhi as one more belief system based on some dogmas which can not be questioned because questioning gives Sikhi a scientific approach.
Then there are others who want to question and find answers besides repeating and memorizing the Gurbani, the TRUE essence of the message in SGGS. I include myself in the latter.
First and foremost the question we should ask is, why this fear of the scientific approach when as Sikhs we live in the realm of NIRBHAU. Why reject something without even understanding it? Is this the role reversal of a Sikh who wants to wear a Janieu without questioning its meaning? We hope not.
Lets try to define what SIKHI is before we indulge in our obstinated view of Sikhi through our self created blinders and start mud slinging with fellowseekers who may have a different approach which is as old or as new as IK ONGKAAR, and that's of questioning in order to create perfect harmony within-Sahej- Gurmat Fulcrum.
Lots of us still refer to Sikhi as a religion, full of dogmas of dos and don'ts based on personalities like Judaism (Messiah in coming), Christianity(Jesus), Islam (Mohammed) and Hinduism (many deities personified as gods andgoddesses). We tend to compare sikhi with these religions, each of which claims to have the ONLY WAY to seek IK ONG KAAR. In other words all the above personality based religions are exclusive, enclosed by walls erected with bricksand mortar called dogmas. In order for them to lure the followers, they offer their exclusively concocted snake oil (secret recipe) to the potential recruits as the only ticket to an imaginary place called Heaven-eternal life. And those on the outside are guaranteed to go to an awful place deep in the earth(where all our riches in the form of minerals come from) called Hell-eternal torment. In order for the followers to get the full potential of the snake oil rub, they invented mechanical rituals which do not require any thought process thus making them feel as comfy as birds of a feather. This creates an environment of an exclusive - bigoted- group with its exclusive rituals - Water baptism, Hajj, praying 5 times, circumcision, animal and human sacrifice (Sati) and many more. These enclosed belief systems created their own Dos and Don’ts. As someone said about Christianity, which can also be applied to all dogmatic religions, "It is time for all spiritual beings to stop preaching hell fire and brimstone and other stupid fears, and just teach, "love one another"...nothing else".
These dogmatic religions went to wars, crossing the territorial boundaries in order to enforce and expand their belief systems unto others in the way of abductiing, raping and ruthless killings all in the name of some imaginary personified God with a long white beard and anger in his eyes, holding a clipboard or the modern kind with the tablet pc, noting down our each movement, just like the prison warden keeping an eye on the shackled ones.
Fear became the mode de jour, mouse traps with cheesy dogmas as baits and we all know when a mouse is trapped, there is no way out.
Then in the 15th century came Nanak- The Guru. The one that took the veil of fear-based ignorance away. He helped us come out of the darkness of dogmas and examine ourselves in the light of pragmatism- The Sat. He showed us that IK ONGKAAR couldn’t be put behind any walls and become exclusive to any one-belief system. In fact he took the notion of belief system out of the Sikh psyche and gave us the unique way of life called Sikhi Marg based on 3 basic rules of thumbs: Naam Japnah, Kirat karni and Vand kei chaknah.
Dogmas create ideologues not pragmatists. Solutions of the world's problems cannot be solved by any dogmatic ideology but only by pragmatism. That’s the message of Guru Nanak to us and we should embrace it.
The best example in today's world is of our President Bush’s change of policies in Iraq, which were based on ideology and not pragmatism.
If my fellow mates, who are reluctant in using the word Science in their sikhi way of life, change it to Pragmatism, it may help them to see our Gurus' message from a different dimension- sans dogmas, sans do's and don'ts but only with will's and won'ts. Because Sikhi is NOT dogmatic but Pragmatic, hence scientific
Tejwant
Then there are others who want to question and find answers besides repeating and memorizing the Gurbani, the TRUE essence of the message in SGGS. I include myself in the latter.
First and foremost the question we should ask is, why this fear of the scientific approach when as Sikhs we live in the realm of NIRBHAU. Why reject something without even understanding it? Is this the role reversal of a Sikh who wants to wear a Janieu without questioning its meaning? We hope not.
Lets try to define what SIKHI is before we indulge in our obstinated view of Sikhi through our self created blinders and start mud slinging with fellowseekers who may have a different approach which is as old or as new as IK ONGKAAR, and that's of questioning in order to create perfect harmony within-Sahej- Gurmat Fulcrum.
Lots of us still refer to Sikhi as a religion, full of dogmas of dos and don'ts based on personalities like Judaism (Messiah in coming), Christianity(Jesus), Islam (Mohammed) and Hinduism (many deities personified as gods andgoddesses). We tend to compare sikhi with these religions, each of which claims to have the ONLY WAY to seek IK ONG KAAR. In other words all the above personality based religions are exclusive, enclosed by walls erected with bricksand mortar called dogmas. In order for them to lure the followers, they offer their exclusively concocted snake oil (secret recipe) to the potential recruits as the only ticket to an imaginary place called Heaven-eternal life. And those on the outside are guaranteed to go to an awful place deep in the earth(where all our riches in the form of minerals come from) called Hell-eternal torment. In order for the followers to get the full potential of the snake oil rub, they invented mechanical rituals which do not require any thought process thus making them feel as comfy as birds of a feather. This creates an environment of an exclusive - bigoted- group with its exclusive rituals - Water baptism, Hajj, praying 5 times, circumcision, animal and human sacrifice (Sati) and many more. These enclosed belief systems created their own Dos and Don’ts. As someone said about Christianity, which can also be applied to all dogmatic religions, "It is time for all spiritual beings to stop preaching hell fire and brimstone and other stupid fears, and just teach, "love one another"...nothing else".
These dogmatic religions went to wars, crossing the territorial boundaries in order to enforce and expand their belief systems unto others in the way of abductiing, raping and ruthless killings all in the name of some imaginary personified God with a long white beard and anger in his eyes, holding a clipboard or the modern kind with the tablet pc, noting down our each movement, just like the prison warden keeping an eye on the shackled ones.
Fear became the mode de jour, mouse traps with cheesy dogmas as baits and we all know when a mouse is trapped, there is no way out.
Then in the 15th century came Nanak- The Guru. The one that took the veil of fear-based ignorance away. He helped us come out of the darkness of dogmas and examine ourselves in the light of pragmatism- The Sat. He showed us that IK ONGKAAR couldn’t be put behind any walls and become exclusive to any one-belief system. In fact he took the notion of belief system out of the Sikh psyche and gave us the unique way of life called Sikhi Marg based on 3 basic rules of thumbs: Naam Japnah, Kirat karni and Vand kei chaknah.
Dogmas create ideologues not pragmatists. Solutions of the world's problems cannot be solved by any dogmatic ideology but only by pragmatism. That’s the message of Guru Nanak to us and we should embrace it.
The best example in today's world is of our President Bush’s change of policies in Iraq, which were based on ideology and not pragmatism.
If my fellow mates, who are reluctant in using the word Science in their sikhi way of life, change it to Pragmatism, it may help them to see our Gurus' message from a different dimension- sans dogmas, sans do's and don'ts but only with will's and won'ts. Because Sikhi is NOT dogmatic but Pragmatic, hence scientific
Tejwant