Why sikhi isn’t spreading
By Bindy Bains
WJKK WJKF
Part of a reply from another forum…
We haven’t spread our beautiful religion to other parts of the world because we are afraid of the power the raw spiritual, untainted energy that new sikhs often have. We used to have that energy on a large scale in the times of the gurus and shortly after. Then we stopped somewhere down the line and decided that the Punjabi race was the only way to expand, and we got too used to ourselves and well it all went down hill from their for the most part. To much Cultural and racial inbreeding (couldn’t find another word to describe it , sorry) can be a fatal mix to a religious community.
Think about it, the sikhs that say that sikhi is not for new people and you have to be born into it – they are actually betraying/denying their own heritage! A great number if not 70-80% of the sikhs today are born into families that at one point, in their family history, were moved to take up the Sikh faith. That’s one of the main ways sikhi spread – it was people accepting guru ji’s message (converting or realizing).
Now I don’t like the word converting or convert, people who have entered sikhi where always sikhi to begin with, they just needed time and help to realize the path! So today, I don’t think it’s a good idea to do what other religions have done in the past and are doing. There are different ways to reach out to the world other than going door-to-door and forcibly converting people.
Sikhi must be spread, and there are many millions of people out the world who want to know more about god and are in need of helping hand. Yet the sikhi community and the actual institutions that run today are very poorly equipped to handle new people who are interested in sikhi. The punjabi community dominates the sikhi scene, and that is not a good thing because when a new sikh, especially from a different background appears. He\she is overwhelmed by the fact they are alone and sometimes can’t understand what’s going on (as what I felt when I went t down to surrey last year).
I speak from experience. Long stares, ugly faces, talking behind backs, rude remarks, that’s the daily treatment received when I go to my gurdwara, one reason why I don’t go up to my gurdwara very much. But listening to other people opinions is not going to do anyone any good, so just move on and be yourself.
So that is one reason why sikhi isn’t spreading, there are other issues, but this is the main one.
By Bindy Bains
WJKK WJKF
Part of a reply from another forum…
We haven’t spread our beautiful religion to other parts of the world because we are afraid of the power the raw spiritual, untainted energy that new sikhs often have. We used to have that energy on a large scale in the times of the gurus and shortly after. Then we stopped somewhere down the line and decided that the Punjabi race was the only way to expand, and we got too used to ourselves and well it all went down hill from their for the most part. To much Cultural and racial inbreeding (couldn’t find another word to describe it , sorry) can be a fatal mix to a religious community.
Think about it, the sikhs that say that sikhi is not for new people and you have to be born into it – they are actually betraying/denying their own heritage! A great number if not 70-80% of the sikhs today are born into families that at one point, in their family history, were moved to take up the Sikh faith. That’s one of the main ways sikhi spread – it was people accepting guru ji’s message (converting or realizing).
Now I don’t like the word converting or convert, people who have entered sikhi where always sikhi to begin with, they just needed time and help to realize the path! So today, I don’t think it’s a good idea to do what other religions have done in the past and are doing. There are different ways to reach out to the world other than going door-to-door and forcibly converting people.
Sikhi must be spread, and there are many millions of people out the world who want to know more about god and are in need of helping hand. Yet the sikhi community and the actual institutions that run today are very poorly equipped to handle new people who are interested in sikhi. The punjabi community dominates the sikhi scene, and that is not a good thing because when a new sikh, especially from a different background appears. He\she is overwhelmed by the fact they are alone and sometimes can’t understand what’s going on (as what I felt when I went t down to surrey last year).
I speak from experience. Long stares, ugly faces, talking behind backs, rude remarks, that’s the daily treatment received when I go to my gurdwara, one reason why I don’t go up to my gurdwara very much. But listening to other people opinions is not going to do anyone any good, so just move on and be yourself.
So that is one reason why sikhi isn’t spreading, there are other issues, but this is the main one.