When I read this article, many people who trigger this kind of behaviour unto their followers came to mind. Jim Jones, David Koresh, Rajneesh, Baba Virsa Singh, Sai Baba and all the derawalas using Sikh bana etc. etc. who entice the innocent and the ignorant who are looking for the inner fixing while looking outside for it at the same time, a great paradox of life. One can add Christian Science to that too where the prayer is the elixir of all cures.The Christians who talk to the venomous snakes.
Little do they know that the flower has the fragrance inside from where it is emitted, not the other way round. All dogmatic religions are filled with the platter of life where the future of the puppet followers is predetermined by the few who hold the strings on the top. Yes, the cream comes on the top and so does the muck. Take your pick.
Look at the Shia men who bleed themselves with sharp metal objects. Even the kids are taught the same. Or the Christians in the Far East in the countries like Hong Kong and the Philippines who nail themselves to the cross or do other macabre things with their bodies including hooks during Easter as mock crucifixions. There is also a sect in Hinduism who does the same in India and in Hong Kong. They literally put hooks all over and suspend the idols from them.
When one drinks the Kool Aid provided by Jim Jones. When a mother and her underage daughter have sex with David Koresh because he claims to be the living Jesus. When it is OK to poison the water system of Antelope, Oregon as planned by Rajneesh and his ilk. When one climbs the mountains to go to Vaishnu Devi temple only on their knees. Some “Sikhs” do the same, sad to say.
Fasting, pilgrimages, penance, purgatory, celibacy, vows of silence, chileas (a ritual repeated 40 times), dips in the holy waters, worry beads, malas, rosaries become the tools for all the cures prescribed by the leaders of the dogmatic religions because they claim to have the red cell phone directly connected to their respective gods.
When all the above things take place, then it IS a mental illness.
Can you just imagine if we made our mala out of each face we encounter in our lives and did something good to those “beads” with the same hands? This is where Sikhi comes in and hence differs from the other lots. It is the pragmatic way to mine the gems within and share with others.
Guru Gobind Singh lowered himself to our level to take Khandei de pahul in order to lift us to his. Many Sikhs saved Hindu mothers, wives, sisters and daughters from the fiendish Muslims. A Sikh does not snatch anyone’s dignity but brings it back the one that had been taken away.
For me, a Sant-Sipahi is not a Saint-Soldier but a Peace Warrior. That is what the Sikhs have been doing since Guru Nanak came on this Earth.
Sikhi is like a flower which emits the scent from the within, and if a Sikh looks like one but with no fragrance, then he/she is a paper flower from some Dera garden of weeds.
Tejwant Singh
