On a serious note…
Writing by shinda on Tuesday, 20 of December , 2005
I was reading Mr Sikhnet’s blog, in particular his latest post on Westerners having trouble fitting into the Eastern scheme of things, at the local Gurdwara’s.
The main point raised was the intolerance / lack of understanding shown by Parbhandk’s towards helping those interested in coming into Sikhi in the west a fair shot. Mainly due the lack of support in English.
In recent years many attempts have been made by various Sangat’s to encourage / spread the parchaar and bring it to the new generation. One of the main tools used and popularized in this venture, was off course Sikhi To The Max, which after becoming popular in Jatha programs, has now also been adopted by various gurdwara’s for full time use, (Dixie, and Ottawa to name a few). So progress/change has been happening in helping those who dont understand Punjabi grasp and learn about Sikhi.
Now all that is good and great, but sometimes bending over backwords isn’t the way to go. For example in describing what happens by various Sangats of Sikhs who lack Punjabi, it was mentioned, that Sri Akhaand Paht’s happen from English / Transliterated Maharaaj Saroops. For some reason or another it seems as though we are once again travelling the path we did in the 60’s when SGPC and others decided to split Mahraaj saroop up from its Lareevar form into Padd Chedd, just so that it was more ‘accessible’ to the masses.
This in my opinion is the wrong way to go. Just like now padd chedd has quickly replaced lareevaar at Guru Ghar’s, just because ironically, the majority of the paathi’s used for programs can not read Lareevar, it would be sad to find that in 20 years, majority of the Saroops found through out the Guru ghars, had been transliterated, or translated so that people could follow along and continue to do the seva, or AkhaandPahts etc.
Its kind of like giving a PHD to someone who understands elementary physics and then having
them teach what little they know, to others around them. Now although the last sentance may seem backwards, think about it carefully now. Maybe I’m old school, but doing sevaa of Maharaaj isn’t just something anyone can jump in and do. Its sevaa that is practiced and learned by means of Santhia. In Taksal, anyone wishing to learn any form of vidiyaa, be it tablaa, vajaa, gatkaa or whatever, Santhia was always the pre-requisite. (But sadly such ideals are sacraficed, here in the West, since Santhia isn’t as popular as learning Gatka, and so isn’t used as a means to attract people),
Now it seems we’ve gone astray from making Santhia mandatory to being optional and with that we’re becoming more and more ignorant of our roots, Bani. We’re creating a whole structure on a weak base.
Now going back to Mr. Sikhnet’s post, I personally feel that we need activities that encourage people and let people follow along. I’m all for english translations, katha in english etc. However, all this is useless in my opinion if the parcharaks involved don’t make an honest attempt themselves to first get Santhia and really understand what it is they are preaching. Otherwise we end up just teaching less and less, until sooner or later we end up with very little from what we once had.
So, lets do Sikhi camps, and youth events that support our youth and show them a glimpse of what Sikhi is, but lets not stop with the Kirtan Darbaars etc. Once someone has shown a genuine interest in Sikhi, then move up to first completing Santhia. Then teaching it, because after all if thats not what our goal is, I think running around from one Smaagam, to the next Kirtan Darbaar is going no where.
But then again thats just my two cents, which in the end are meaningless, considering I myself got ways to go.
Category: Sikhi
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Tejdeep Singh from 
Made Wednesday, 21 of December , 2005 at 12:46 am
I concur
Ranjit Sion from
Made Wednesday, 21 of December , 2005 at 4:14 am
i wanted to make this less serious and say somthing stupid, but now your public soo i cant. i hate you. but i agree
