User talk:BS

Welcome to Sikhiwiki. Appreciated your perspective on the Sarika Singh/kara issue.

In your sentence ( That each of us should be able to wear apparel which denotes our faith is a more complex argument.) your use of the word apparel in place of jewelry (or jewelery sis-atlantic) or kara will of course become the issue.

I can see both sides of the issue, the 5 k's are held to be Holy items of the religion and not jewelry or apparel by many. Someone has argued, "if it's jewelery then why does my Gurdwara hand them out".

Guru Nanak had refused to wear the twice born string of the higher castes of the religion that he was raised in, seeing it as an empty and meaningless ritual or piece of apparel. Yet his Purohit, who pleaded with him to wear it, thought that it was a Holy Symbol of the religion. Before Guru Gobind Singh ji's edict was a kara more than a steel bangle?

As to Sarika Singh calling herself Singh instead of Kaur it seems she is avoiding the problem that some of my former students (a brother and sister from Iceland) had --the sister's last name was Gisladaughter her brother's was Gislason. I had not thought about Sikhs and the problems that must exist over Singh vs. Kaur and driver's licenses, ect.

Some ridicule has been aimed at Sikhs whi use only S. or K. and go by their tribal or village name, saying that lessens their being a Sikh. I thought she was just using her father's name--western style as Singh.

Of course, as you say, it would be good if anyone was able to wear an Item associated with their religion. What is behind the school's policy, are they trying to stop violence?

Is a cross (not a symbol Jesus would have worn) less of a symbol of the Christian religion. There was no single man like Guru Gobind Singh to give an edict requiring its adoption. Yet many Christians feel its part of their religion and Jews often wear the Magen David.

How about the Swastika, a sacred or respected symbol for Hindus and Budhists--if a skinhead student at Sarika Singh's school wants to wear one is that o.k.?

I can only guess that the Kara, Cross, Magen David are prohibited so that some skinhead can't wear a swastikka. That is the best reason i can find for the policy.Allenwalla 20:45, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Sir

Unfortunately your initials also stand for the well-known phrase BS. I had thought on seeing your first comment--I wonder--? After your second comment I see that you have definitely thought about the issue and its possible consequences in the world for all of us- not just the Sikhs. You speak very well of the deeper meaning of what being a Sikh is and I thank you for that. You have honored Sikhi and your parents even those who you grew up around.

If one looks at Dr. Martin Luther King, for example, one sees that all the adversities that he faced were what shaped him. I think that all the adversities that the Sikhs have faced over the centuries have had a great deal to do with what Sikhism has come to stand for.

I see the work that Sikhs are doing all over the world whether lawyers, doctors, inventors, geneticists, agriculturists or just good warm hearted neighbors as bringing to life the idea of a Khalistan for all of mankind. Not as a piece of land for one religion but as a world where freedom …their is no Musalman there is no Hindu et al with all the little turf wars that have plagued mankind for millenniums.

As one young Sikh said to me recently on my talk page (speaking of Guru Tegh Bahadur - Guruji didn't die fighting over (or for) a piece of land. I know that some Sikhs want a piece of land where they can entrench and have things the way they were in the good old days of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, some want even a land with no tobacco shops or alcohol sales. Would barbers also be forbidden with death threats like the Talibaan are doing these days in West Pakistan's tribal areas. A model they (the Taliban) want for the whole world.

Some applaud Ranjit Singh, other Sikhs (I can only speak to comments here) see him as anything but the model of a good Khalsa Sant-Soldier with all of his excesses. I edited a little on the amazing tale (by an Englishman who greatly admired the pomp and splendour of the Maharaja's court) of the wedding of Nau Nihal Singh--boy did i get an outraged comment or two telling me just how little that particular Sikh thought of the Maharaja.

I am a Sikh as the word is defined, I am not a Sikh of Sikh parentage or initiation, but since the day that I first read of Guru Nanak I thought that he was out to have nothing less than a Khalistan (a world of much less Gu (the dark animalistic mind of ego) and more Ru (the enlightened world that the Gurus dreamed of) for the whole world-- on much the same path that Jeshua Ben Joseph had tread 1400+ years before. I know that he (GurNanak) probably never used the word Khalistan--I don't know that Guru Gobind Singh ever thought of a little Khalistan. But I do know that they all wanted to see a world safe for everyone.

I have been trying to find the specific commands, gifts, and suggestion from Guru Gobind Singh per the 5 K's. I have asked several questions, for instance would wearing only a small kirpan, the size of a pocket knife, and worn in a pocket be seen as complying with the "rules" of the 5 K's.

Can you help me with the actual edict as spoken, or recorded, by Guru Gobind Singh?

Other than being picked up in a tornado (too sudden to become afraid or fearful) And my first Kidney stone (not knowing what was going on). I have only been worried for my safety (in fear) 2 times in my life.

Once as I marched into a southern town at the front of a civil rights march in '71. I am of European decent and have a wheatish complexion (a Caucasian) everyone else had a much darker skin tone than me (African Americans-the current politically correct term). Whites on the sidewalks spit at me, many expressing their desire to even kill me in painful ways.

The second time was in a Gurdwara when an older man dressed in dark blue expressed his dislike of my being in his Gurdwara (by the expression on his face)--he was wearing about a 12 in Kirpan/more like a hunting knife--just a little scary. I asked of a friendlier Sikh just why I was given such a scowling look. (I knew little then of Sikhs and Sikh history.) He told me not to worry the man was a Nihang who didn't cotton to whites coming to his Gurdwara. Not to worry he said he's just a little odd.

I hope you will participate in the future. God Bless Allenwalla 15:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, which i confess to first reading the opening lines and wondering whether this was another attack. I am grateful however for your kind remarks.

Like the Nihang, those who see only themselves as right and no more are always wrong.