Sikh News Use Of ‘Allah’ Should Not Be A Problem?

[spnadmin]

Lee ji

In an earlier post I brought up half in jest and half in seriousness a scene where my simran is Allah Allah Allah -- and asked how to explain it to my husband. The example was offered as a kind of thought experiment -- so bear with me. This morning I asked him - OK - if you heard me in simran to Allah Allah Allah what would you think?

I am going to withhold his answer for the moment. In my opinion his reaction is interesting because it addresses the core concern of my inquiry about how broadly the ideas posted in the first post.

How far can the ideas of Bulbir Singh be stretched before they no longer make sense?

 

[seeker3k]

How many gods are there?

I do not understand what is going on in Malaysia. Why there is a need to put Allah in other religion. Are the people there being forced to say Allah. I know the Government in Malaysia is Muslim but are they forcing Sikh,Hindu Christian Jews to say Allah?

Most religions that I have studied believes in one God. It is our interoperation what we think religion have more then one God. We are looking at them from bias point of view.

Jews have one God they call it Jehovah. This God do not take birth. It does not have any shape or body. Jews have no idol picture that they worship. Jews had many prophets but they were not gods. What we read in Toras are man made stories. What we hear or read is not what the Jews believe.

Christian also has one God his name is also Jehovah. It is our lack of knowledge that we think Jesus is God. God of Christian do not have wife. That god also do not take birth or have any body or shape. As the story goes. It was an angle from God who pregnant Mary. Who was virgin? The child she gave birth was called son of God ( see Hindism future post ). Christian that time did not call God as God. God is English word which came long after the Jesus was on earth.

Muslim believes in one God. They call it Allah. I think it was Muhammad who called it is Allah. It is also called Khudah. Allah was not called in Islam only in Mohammedanism. Islam is not Muslim. Mohammed took ideas from here and there and came up with his own version of God which he called Allah. It was when the Mongols conquered Mohammedan and they accepted it their religion. Then it became a religion. They saw it was the best way to control people and give them the power. They pushed it on to masses. They spread it by sword not by peace. Women had and still have no rights in Islam. No matter how they justify it. But Islam is here and not going to go away. We have to accept it and learn to live with it.
They are changing but not as much it need to.

Hindus also believe in one God. It is called Satha Shiv. It is written in Vedas and SGGS too. Muhrakh think mahadev is satha Shiv. Brahma,Vishu,Shivji are the devtas not God. They are just like other devtas. Brahma is the creator, Vishu is preserver, Shivji is the destroyer. There was not any physical person as devtas. It is just a theory not real. That satha Shiv is not born do not have body it is consider power.

Sikhs claim to have only one God. We call it Waheguru. The meaning of Wahe Guru is not God. It is guru who remove darkness and show us the truth.
Balhari gur apne jin mans se devte kiae, shin na lagi bar. It was common at the time of Nanak to call god as hari or many other names. Nanak never used the word waheguru..
Why we chaned it from hari to waheguru? We want to have our own identity. We have to be different from Hindus.

Now some of us are saying it is ok to call Allah for the Sikhs. There has to be some politic reason behind it. It may be Muslim are supporting us to fight for Khalistan. Pakistan was the first to recognize Sikh marriage act in Pakistan. We fail to se what is going on here.
The real problem is when we claim that name we use is the true name. Religion have divided us not united us. We all justify by blaming others. What difference will it make to God what name we use. SGGS “ bada bole bada no hoe”.

seeker

 

[Gyani Jarnail Singh]

seeker ji,
the issue in Malaysia is that the Govt wants to RESTRICT CURRENT usage of ALLAH to mean God to ONLY MUSLIMS.
Under current Laws it is PROHIBITED to try and convert Muslims OUT of Islam..or even to talk about another religion to a muslim may be reported as an conversion attempt which is tantamount to Insulting Islam..and severly punishable. The Christian Churches use a Malay language Bible wchich uses the word ALLAH in place of God..so its Allah the father..Allah the Son etc etc which seriously hurts...Muslims (or so the Govt contends) Such Bibles are routinely CONFISCATED and the Church is presently in Court to fight this.
Sikhs jumped into the fray simply becasue the word Allah also occurs in SGGS and this rasied fears that the SGGS may thne be banned/edited...etc.FEARS which are really unfounded becasue its CURRENT usage in Bible context and converison aspect that the problem is being rasied..Sikhs DONT Convert anyone and Allah in SGGS is NOT meant to convey to Muslims that SGGS is being used in converting Muslims to Sikhism by giiving a wrong impression thats its OK BOTH are same religion blah blah..

 

[Satyaban]

Gyani ji
Gyani ji

"The Christian Churches use a Malay language Bible wchich uses the word ALLAH in place of God..so its Allah the father..Allah the Son etc etc which seriously hurts...Muslims (or so the Govt contends) Such Bibles are routinely CONFISCATED "

Do Malaysians speak Arabic?

Peace

 

[Gyani Jarnail Singh]

Gyani ji
Gyani ji

"The Christian Churches use a Malay language Bible wchich uses the word ALLAH in place of God..so its Allah the father..Allah the Son etc etc which seriously hurts...Muslims (or so the Govt contends) Such Bibles are routinely CONFISCATED "

Do Malaysians speak Arabic?

Peace

Satyaban Ji..

Just to clear things up a bit...
Malaysians refers to citizens of Malaysia...can be Sikhs, hindus, Christians, Buddhits, and about 14 other religions/ethnic groupings...these make up 40%
Malays are all Muslims..and amke up the 60%..they Rule, Islam is the Officla religion although our Constitution is "secular"...but as usual "majority" overrides constitutions not withstanding..hence overwhelmingly islamic in all areas is being pushed... A "malay" has to be Muslim under the Constitution.And a Malay has certian privileges and rights which otherd dotn get..ever..

2. Malay Mulsims..speak MALAY..as do the Indonesians..and lots others in the region...BUT as always..Malay muslims are more "arabic" than the Arabics....no one speaks arabic...except the arabics/their descendatnts/visitors..but the Koran is in Arabic...so it has to be learnt in original language.

3. It si Compulsory to Use the malay Language..and the Church uses it...but then the "allah" in malay BIBLE is objectionable. They want them to use other generic terms like..Tuhan...just as we Punjabis have Raab, Khudah,etc generic brand names for God !!

4. I have seen reports that these Churches use the same "tactic" in Punjab..there they use WAHEGURU...and Kirtan..Sangat..Samagam..Paath da bhog etc etc for BIBLE related activites....so that New SIKH converts dont feel so left out...and it all seems just like your old religion..just that its NOW JESUS that saves and not Guru Nanak !!

 

[Lee]

4. I have seen reports that these Churches use the same "tactic" in Punjab..there they use WAHEGURU...and Kirtan..Sangat..Samagam..Paath da bhog etc etc for BIBLE related activites....so that New SIKH converts dont feel so left out...and it all seems just like your old religion..just that its NOW JESUS that saves and not Guru Nanak !!

Yes this is a normal way to work for many relgions, and I guess goes some way to explain why Guru Nanak ji, included Ram ect.. in Guru Granth Sahib.

 

[Satyaban]

Namaste jis

This whole issue of conversions rubs me the wrong way while I am a convert myself. My distaste arises out of the many ways proselytizers work.

I am most dismayed by the Christians' efforts with false promises of prosperity and an easy way out of karma and offending of God. For sure they are the most active and well funded by American Christians who feel they must save everyone.

I was first shocked into this awareness while I was in Costa Rica. Keep in mind that Latin (South) America is predominately Catholic due to Spanish conquer and colonization, priests were at the vanguard of these missions and conversion and saving souls was their purpose.

I was riding on a bus and this man assuming, rightly, I was an American made a point of telling me of his family being saved by evangelical Christians. I was almost shocked by Christian missionaries compulsion to save these Catholics from hellfire and brimstone. My point being that these folks were already Christians!:crazy:

Less than a block from my house is a Latino church just like any other fundamentalist church in America which judging by the abundance of cars is very well attended.

Another concern is their activities in India. Again promising a way out of poverty. they also do this right here in America. Of course I have written to various organizations asking them to stop and of course I received no response.

Well that is my rant for the day.

Peace
Satyaban

 

[GURSIKHNAM]

Forgive me, my Sikh brothers and sisters. I believe that there is no need for any human on this earth to quarrel or argue about who should call what or who owns the name of the true creator of the universe. Nobody has the right to own the name be it ALLAH OR WAHEGURU. Man tries to conquer everything else on this earth and now the quarrel over this. What he should actually be doing is to conquer his EGO...THE 5 EVILS WITHIN.
"No one can measure Your Worth, or describe You. Those who describe You, remain absorbed in You. || 1 || O my Great Lord and Master of Unfathomable Depth, You are the Ocean of Excellence. No one knows the greatness of Your expanse. || 1 || Pause || All the contemplators met together and practiced contemplation; all the appraisers met together and tried to appraise You. The theologians, the meditators and the teachers of teachers could not express even an iota of Your Greatness. || 2 ||Sri Guru Granth Sahib Page 349. (Sri Guru Granth Sahib - English Translation)

 

[curious seeker]

Sorry Jarnail Ji,

I find this 100% wrong.

There is as we know one God who's attributes cannot be described even though 100,000 pages be written.

In fact the God of the Muslims must be the same God of the Sikhs(as there is only one God) and the same God as the Christians(as there is only one God).

Black and White are not the same, this is true, but when used as alogory for God, then God is both black and white.

The most we can say is that concept A of God does not agree with concept B of God, however even saying this is I belive wrong, for if God is all then both concepts A and B must be true, otherwise God is not all and that I just cannnot belive.

Hi Lee

We 'meet again! All the attributes of God cannot be described , some , obviously, like Wahe Guru, Ek Onkar, etc, can. Now the God of the Muslims or the Eskimos or of whomever MUST, you are absolutely right, be the same God of all because there is only ONE God. So so far so good we are in agreement. But after that you mention:

'' The most we can say is that concept A of God does not agree with concept B of God, however even saying this is I belive wrong, for if God is all then both concepts A and B must be true, otherwise God is not all and that I just cannnot belive. ''

There we loose our harmony! This goes back to Free Will, and Hukam, remember? We have talked about them in other threads. If you are in the Hukam of God's will, you are in the Command of God's will. In other words God's will is God's will, it is immutable and changeless. It is part of His Tanscendence. But God, or his will, being in Command is towards the creature and that is where God is immanent. The Creature, as I have stated before must have limited free will so that he can choose God willingly by choosing to be in in the Command of His will, that is, by choosing to be under the command of God{s Will, or on His Eternal Law.

Since we are Ignorant and imprisoned in Illussion , we can certainly choose wrongly, that is,not according to God's will if we are not under its Hukam. When we are in His Hukam then our conceptions of God will be in harmony. However, when we are not on His Hukam our conceptions of God are not either and we are ignorant and deluded.

To deny, for example, that a Trinity is FUNDAMENTALLY and totally opposed to a the ONENESS of the Creator, is unacceptable. God is not wrong but man when not operating under command of God's will, can be and is wrong. More importantly, God is not a god of confusion that is Maya. Thus when that wrongful person thinks of God, or postulates a doctrine about God, that Doctrine by definition is wrong and unacceptable. We cannot accept error because we might think that error is not error under the Will Of God. Obviously not all the acts of men such as murder, rape, etc, are under command from God's will and yet men do such acts. They do them because they are not gurmukh, correct? Well those men that devised such doctrines as the Trinity, are also not gurmukh.

Blessings!
Curious

 

[seeker3k]

I remember as a child in Bangalore our mother used to insist that we say waheguru for 5 minutes in the morning just after waking up and just before going to sleep in the night.

During school vacations she would collect score of small kids in the locality around her and asked them to chant "Jai Gobinda, Jai Gopala!" The kids would lustily yell "Jai Gobinda, Jai Gopala" This would go on for about 10 minutes. At the end of that she would take out toffees and distribute among the kids. We asked why she was doing that. She replied that remembering God or doing Simran is a completely secular activity so she was trying to inculcate Simran in the kids in the terms they were familiar with! I remember the parents of the kids comming and thanking my mom for this. She would also identify a sprinkling of Christian Kids and in a heavily accented manner ask them to recite "Our Father who art in Heaven.......!" There would mirth all around.

How can one say whaheguru before he wake up. One can do after waking up but not before. Or did you mean getting up from the bed?

Why there is problem with the name of God. It is only some religions say that is the only name of God thats where other people are getting hurt and angry. As we been preached that God do not have body it does not get born. So God do not have any feeling what name we use. It is only for ourself that we use the name for God in the lenguage we speak.

 

[curious seeker]

How can one say whaheguru before he wake up. One can do after waking up but not before. Or did you mean getting up from the bed?

Why there is problem with the name of God. It is only some religions say that is the only name of God thats where other people are getting hurt and angry. As we been preached that God do not have body it does not get born. So God do not have any feeling what name we use. It is only for ourself that we use the name for God in the lenguage we speak.

}}

Radiant Light to you seeker3k!

Yes its men with small closed minds centered in the mirage, not the REALITY.that pretend to have an ownership of the name of God. God is TRUTH, God is REAL, He Is ONE and Eternal, outside of that to state the obvious 'A rose buy any other name will still small as sweet.'

Be Blessed
Curious

 

[Satyaban]

Namaste

Originally Posted by Lee
Sorry Jarnail Ji,

I find this 100% wrong.

There is as we know one God who's attributes cannot be described even though 100,000 pages be written.


I have been away but am now back with a much slower internet connection, but I can post.

I have to say that IMHO and that of many great sages God has no attributes. Attributes are subjective determinations and are the results of comparisons to others. There are no others to compare God to. God just is!

Peace
Satyaban