Why Don't Sikhs Cut Their Hair?
Shabad is by Guru Nanak Dev Ji in Raag Raamkalee on Pannaa 941 of Guru Granth Sahib, Scripture of Sikhs
ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਰੋਮਿ ਰੋਮਿ ਹਰਿ ਧਿਆਵੈ ॥
Guramukh Rom Rom Har Dhhiaavai ||
The Gurmukh meditates on the Lord with every hair of his body.
For Sikhs, the hair, is a part of the Sikh uniform and one of the Five Ks. The practice of keeping one's hair and not cutting it started with the founder of the Sikhs, Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and was institutionalized by the rest of the Ten Gurus and finally by the tenth master Guru Gobind Singh Ji. Hair is a natural part of the body and a gift from God that is not to be cut.
Sikh scholar, Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha, in his Sikh Encyclopedia writes: ਸੰ. ਕੇਸ਼. ਸੰਗ੍ਯਾ- ਸਿਰ ਦੇ ਰੋਮ. "ਕੇਸ ਸੰਗਿ ਦਾਸ ਪਗ ਝਾਰਉ." (ਗੂਜ ਮਃ ੫) ਕੇਸ, ਅਮ੍ਰਿਤਧਾਰੀ ਸਿੰਘਾਂ ਦਾ ਪਹਿਲਾ ਕਕਾਰ (ਕੱਕਾ) ਹੈ. ਦੇਖੋ, ਮੁੰਡਨ। ੨. ਕ (ਜਲ) ਦਾ ਈਸ਼. ਵਰੁਣ. ਜਲਪਤਿ। ੩. ਫ਼ਾ. [کیش] ਕੇਸ਼. ਤ਼ਰੀਕ਼ਾ. ਰਿਵਾਜ. ਦਸ੍ਤੂਰ। ੪. ਆਦਤ. ਸੁਭਾਉ। ੫. ਧਰਮ. ਮਜਹਬ। ੬. ਖ਼ਲੀਜ ਫ਼ਾਰਸ ਵਿੱਚ ਇੱਕ ਟਾਪੂ.
This means hair is one of the first of the Five K's and is part of the Sikh spirituality.
Professor Puran Singh, a major Sikh poet and philosopher writes in his book, Spirit Born People in a passage entitled Under a Hank of Hair
The Guru has buried the disciples under heaps of grass. He has concealed His handicraft in a hank of hair. Very irrational, they say. Possibly very superstitious. but superstitions preserve the life sparks more effectively than the reason of man. In the fleecy clouds is lightening. In our superstition of hanks of hair there is truth of His burning bosom divine. Christ in his Bride-braids is certainly more beautiful even as a man, as a woman-born, than a cleanshaven modern American face which is more in the image of the Dollar than of the sweet Jesus who is the comfort of so many distressed souls. The pendulum would swing. Fashions would give way to Love again. God would replace the Dollar, or elsewhere shall be the Man's Art, which is more of that lyrical leisure divine, of soul, of love. This haste, this machine-like man is far removed from His self, the Great Guru love. Our truth, unlike that of the old Brahman, is not of any mathematical balance of an endless denying of things. Our Truth is not a problem solved. Our Truth is but a lotus and the bee buzing about, the cloud and the rain-bird crying for that pearl-like drop of life, the swan and the lake, the child and the mother, the cow and the calf. Our hymns centre round these metaphors and all human suffering is vindicated in a moment of this transitory Union, even if it be after ages. Meeting Him dispels all sorrow, but it is all sorrow without Him. His absence is as holy as His presence.
