Re: Sehajdhari issue as old as Gurdwara Act
Any Amritdhari will always say the physical Rehat is essential to being Sikh,remember people wore turbans because that was the culture in Punjab,some smoked Huka too .One never likes to break with convention and articles of faith have become to those who wear them essential to their faith If you like the Amritdhari fundamentalists say a Sikh must have the physical appearance to be Sikh then you are also saying that practice of Gurbani is by itself not enough,we all know that cannot be correct.I think once you keep Kesh no one will convince you otherwise but most people will agree that Gurbani deals with the Self not the body.And there is no Rehat Maryada for the body contained in it's pages.In the end no one will take their bodies much less their long hair so what is the use in making distinctions, we all leave without Kesh.If you cannot see all Sikhs as the same then how will you see all mankind as the same.Guru Nanak said their were no Hindu and no Muslim in otherwords there is no two of anything on this earth.If you see two that is duality.May I quote Spner Max314 he explains the distinction much better than me. "Guru Nanak's sentiments never actually promoted religion, nor did he promote any other form of institutionalised belief system. Rather, he spent most of his time pointing out the common goods in existing religions, and condemning what he perceived to be their individual deficits.I don't think that Sikhism is a 'religion', though I believe that Khalsaism is.The reason for this is very simple: the Guru Granth Sahib promotes equality, secularism, non-discrminatory, non-divisional views on living with a God who is featureless, formless and timeless. It rejects the notion of rituals and routines, and it discards the importance of wearing particular clothes over the content of one's character. Guru Gobind Singh Ji's Dassam Granth, on the other hand, teaches that a Khalsa is above all and that a Khalsa should not consort with non-Khalsas. It teaches of a God who is wrathful and vengeful, and places importance on certain rituals (e.g. taking amrit) and codes of practice and dress (e.g. the Five K's, etc).Weighing up the two sets of information, it would seem to me that the way of the Khalsa measures up to all the distinguishable requisites of a religion, whereas Sikkhism is almost entirely independent of that.The Khalsa, it seems, was forged very deliberately into a warrior cult or religion in order to protect those universal, non-institutional teachings of the Granth and to enforce its principles. A 'necessary evil', one might say.Of course, given the amount of time and the proximity with which Sikkhism and its warrior Khalsa cult have lived side-by-side has meant that many Khalsaist influences have trickled down and eventually set upon the now-accepted image of Sikkhism. But, in my view, the two are always going to be essentially separate, though historically linked"
