By Kyle Panesar
Sikhism – Our Religion and Culture (Religion and culture are not the same) but still connected and sometimes are portrayed as one. Some people wonder how come our culture and our customs have changed so much today?
Where are the true values for which our ancestors sacrificed their lives for? Why all the richness is diminishing from our culture and all that left in the name of culture is ungraceful dancing and singing and that seems to take the upper hand on it.
Sikhi was formed from hardship and sacrifices and that’s the foundation of Sikhism. The bana is the reminder of a soldier that every baptized Sikh wears with pride. Tears roll down on me and I get goose bumps when I read the history of the formation of our religion as how many Sikhs were martyred and how they were tortured by Mughals and how they not only didn’t care for their own lives but the lives of their families as well. Sikhism is a very superior and unique religion and it began with Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s teachings that the whole universe has been created by one divine light and no one is higher or lower and we are all the same. Guru Nanak spent his whole life demonstrating people how to be away from falsehood and hypocrisy. He never believed in any rituals but only in the purity of oneself. Guru Gobind’s Singh Ji gave the name of “Khalsa” which means “the pure one” to Sikhs. Sikhism was militarized by Guru Gobind ji to oppose the excruciation by Mougal emperors on the common people. They could not see the suffering and the agony people were going through and had to take the stand against that cruelty to save the humanity.
We come from such a rich Virasat….Baba Deep Singh ji and Mai Bhago gave us the examples of bravery….Bhai Kannaya ji gave us the message of serving everyone equally without any discrimination let it be your friend or foe….Bhai Taru Singh Ji was an example of keeping your identity intact by giving his head but not his hair…Guru Teg Baharder Ji scarified his own life to save Hindu religion. There are hundreds and thousands of these kinds of examples in our history. Guru Granth Sahib contains not only the teachings of our ten Gurus but also of many Saints and Sages of that era…and the most amazing thing is that all the teachings give the same message as all of them were attuned with Diving and channeling the Source’s messages. Our religion is so abundant that it’s beyond our comprehension to grasp the richness of it. The qualities of these martyrs and Guru Ji’s are not only to be sung in thadi-vara but to learn and embody.
We go to Gurudwaras as a mere ritual and listen to these sakhiyas and come home. We need to have a serious look at ourselves as to what really are we doing? Are we practicing and embedding these teachings? Are we teaching these to our kids? Living as a Khalsa is not an easy walk….it’s a test and unless and until we walk through this fire, we cannot be purified. Gold is considered to be one of the most precious metal but to have that status it too has to go through intense fire. Our gurus and our forefathers went through the same and now we are reaping the fruits of the trees that they planted. We are sitting under the tree of Sikhism and enjoying its shade but are we nurturing it? Yes, we are fortunate enough to get a rich heritage but are we preserving it?
It’s not that we take Amrit and we become Sikh. We need to be the example of the teachings of our Gurus. We need to shine that light through our acts. Just preaching will not do anything. We have the great examples to follow through. In this day and age, we cannot force anything on our kids and we must connect them to their roots so they see the value themselves and the flowering will happen from within. It’s all about balance and changing with time. If you look at the lineage of our ten Gurus, each one of them taught us different unique lessons according to their timeline and they didn’t interfere with any other’s teachings. Our Gurus are the examples of how to be true to the time.
Gurudawara literally means “dawar of guru” God’s gate, where one enters and meets God. Gurdwara is the place where one learns the techniques and meditates to connect with Waheguru. Instead of promoting the way to meet the God, we are keeping ourselves busy on petty issues such as to if we are to eat food sitting on table/chairs or on the floors. That should be the least of our concerns. The whole reason Guru Nanak made the ritual of sitting together to eat food was to get rid of the discrimination of so-called high and low classes/creeds and he said whoever comes to the door of God’s house must sit together in one row to eat, let it be king or poverty stricken, royal or lowborn. Guru Gobind Singh again re-enforced the message of equality by giving the same last name of Singh and Kaur to everyone.
Are we living up to teaching of our Gurus or just wearing a Khanda on necklace or having it tattooed on bicep is all that it has come to? We have degraded ourselves so much that we should be ashamed to call ourselves Sikhs. We have come from getting martyred to save others lives to a society where we have been labeled as ‘wife and daughter killers’. This is not our culture. We sing ‘ tou kau manda aakhiyey jou jammay rajan’ and then we go on aborting them even before they are born, murdering them for dowry and for the sake of our fake ego. Why is this happening, why is our rich culture turning into this? Our own daughters are being tortured and killed by the hands of those who were supposed to protect them.
We need to empower our kids, our daughter and sons. Why aren’t we teaching our daughters’ to self-respect, living with dignity and self-defense techniques so they can defend themselves? Why can’t our sons be strong enough so if they want, they can be happy with their identity and not make excuses to cut their hair? Are we imposing too much on them? We don’t build a strong foundation and then expect too much from them and then we find ourselves in distress when we see them choosing the wrong path.
There is an outcry in the community about how our kids are following the wrong paths and living low level life filled with nudity, drugs and violence. All this has no place in our culture but its happing…it’s happening in our own families and we are too afraid to even acknowledge it, let alone challenge it or face it. Are we ashamed of ourselves? Where did we go wrong? It seems like we have divided ourselves into two extremes, either you are fully into it or not.
Yes, we live in the North America and in certain society and we need to have certain social qualities as we can’t let our kids to live in isolate. They need to study and work here and they need to adapt certain social skills to ‘fit in’ but it doesn’t mean you sacrifice your values for that. We make our kids participate in certain types of activities such as sports and music lessons, which is not wrong but its wrong when we patch darkness to it. God wants us to live a happy life and not to get stuck in rituals and live with long faces. There is nothing wrong with bhangra and gidda if you do it with your kids as a family activity and it brings happiness to you….dance your heart out and you’ll get the same workout as you would by running on thread mill. Energy is energy…it all depends how we channel it. Electricity can lit your house, cook your food, keep your house warm….same electricity can electrocute you as well. We need to bring balance in our lives. We take our kids for picnics, vacations and watching movies, we also need to take them to the pilgrims’ of historic Gurudwaras. If we are reading the stories of Heer Ranjha to them, we also required to read them the stories of four Sahibjadeys and foury Mukteys. Having your children join a soccer team is good for developing their team building skills, but at the same time as a parent it’s your responsibility to join them in meditation/simran classes to build their life skills. We need to teach them how to swim but we also need to teach them how to defend themselves. A tree is only as strong as its roots. We need to build the strong foundation in our children.
Sikhism is based on giving sacrifice of our own lives to save others. Every child must learn some sort of Martial Art, let it be Gatka or Kung fu. How come Gatka has only been limited to the demonstration in the Vasakhi parades and only a handful kids learn it? It has its reasons; this technique was needed at the battle time, now no one can walk around with these type of weapons in their hands to self defend. However, to keep this great art alive, we need to revamp it and bring it up to par with today’s time. We need to mix it with various martial arts and teach it to our kids to make them strong enough so they can be empowered with this precious technique to self defend and to protect others. This is the only way we can preserve this great art of Gatka. We need to wake the real Khalsa in us.
We are the descendants of such a rich heritage and have inherited pure gold and we still go on playing in mud. Let’s not adulterate our culture and traditions. Let’s recognize our true values and live the life we supposed to live with our heads up high in pride. We cannot avoid the polluted environment, the hurricane of social ailments all around us but we can make ourselves and our future generation strong enough to withstand all that by giving them stronger foundation and nurturing them with love and light.
The core values of Sikhism is all about sharing, protection and love…love for humanity, love for all. It’s all about going above and beyond to help and save humanity. These are the true essences of Sikhism that we need to embody.
It’s time to not to recite the teachings of our Gurus but to understand them and implement them on ourselves and our childrens. Guru Gobind singh ji made Khalsa to be the race of lions. We are to touch the sky, lets live up to that!
Kyle Panesar is a Surrey-based writer.
