I think the story of Dhanna Bhagat explains a lot about the contradictions in our faith. i.e we are against idol worship but he found God through worshiping a stone. The meaning must be that you can find God through any path or way if you have complete love and faith in what you are doing and you do it with a clean heart.
Like if a Giani is reading the paat at the Gurdwara and he is just doing it for wages, then you have a person unschooled in religious thought but he is worshipping something and treating it as God himself/herself then who has the better chance of reaching the ONE. Surely the person with 'sharda.' Knowledge is useless, all that you learn must be unlearnt, all you need to know is the ONE and you dont have to look far to find Him/her. Ek Onkar doesnt exist in Gurudwaras, Mandirs, churches or mosques. The creator doesnt reside in words and scriptures although they may point you in a certain direction. Repeating words like a parrot wont give us enlightenment. This whole 'Waheguru Waheguru' repition, None of the Gurus even used the word in the Guru Granth Sahib I dont think. Guru Nanak just sang about love, nature, merging with the Ultimate. He travelled everywhere, met all kinds of people of all back grounds, what some would rudely call 'manmukhs.' He didnt look for God in a building, he was a rationalist. He said 'why should I wear a janeo when you can buy it in the market place, it will not go with me to the next world,' amazingly we treat a kirpan as a modern janeo. Unless a kirpan is used in defence of the meek, it is just as useless as a janeo.
All of our Gurudwaras are split into caste groups, 95% of Sikhs only marry into their castes. That means mentally we are still hanging on to our Hindu past. So maybe we are not that different.
We put food in front of Guru Granth Sahib? Like Hindus do infront of idols. A very high percentage of us have never read Gurubabi but we bow before it like its an idol. Most of the Sikhs have pictures of the Sikh Gurus in our homes, when it is meant to be against our faith.
The more I learn about our faith the more it seems to have been twisted by political Sikhs for their own benefit. Dont do this, dont do that, dont eat with them or speak to so and so.
The Akal Takhat is a joke, the Akalis are a joke, all the jathe bandia are busy trying to make personal gain. The saints are gathering chela.
Its a pretty bad state of play, I am currently writing a paper on Sikhism and the political influence of the corrupt for uni, its about 80 pages long and I will post it one here.
I am just confused by the people who preach our faith, they seem to be lying to make ground for themselves or for their groups, maybe its time some younger intelectuals got together and studied Sikhi and came up with some frsh perspectives because the older generation have failed us. Before too long we might be able to come up with a thousand theories why Sikhs are distinct but in reality it will be proven that we have the same practices as Hindus, they just vary slightly and are denied outwardly. Our generation need to step up.