Harrak has no idea about what is Sikhism and what it stands for !

Submitted by Sandeep (India), Aug 22, 2007 at 03:30

I am not an authority or expert on Sikhism and neither is religion my profession or educational background. I am just a simple Sikh on the path of discovery and learning. What a wonderful path it has been. This Sikhism Home Page is all about sharing whatever I have come across with others. The philosophy and religion are so progressive and applicable to everyone that it's quite amazing and fills me with a sense of enthusiasm in sharing it with others.

The shame is that few people either Sikh or non-Sikh have made any sort of concerted effort to study the religion in any depth. Many people are ready to make quick judgements on the religion based on very little. Non-Sikhs are ready to dismiss it as an obscure faith while marginal Sikhs are ready to give it up for a more glamorous "mainstream" religion without ever having made any effort to understand Sikhism and the beauty of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, which comes across in Gurmukhi or even an English translation. Others fail to make the clear distinction between culture and religion, deciding to judge the religion by the culture. A religion is a set of unchanging fundamental principals laid out by its founders. It needs to be judged on those principals, their merits and applicability, not on the actions of any individual who chooses not live up to those principles. For example any law in the legal system is judged on its social and ethical merits and not by the attributes of the criminal who chooses to break that law. Judged accordingly its quite amazing how progressive and modern a religion Sikhism is, free of the entanglements of mythologies, blind rituals and prejudices. After all religion is what you make it.

http://www.sikhs.org/message.htm

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".