TejS
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Everything posted by TejS
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Bedouin culture. Persian culture. English culture. Greek culture. All original cultures. I'm talking about innovation, new ideas being introduced to the world by Sikhs. But, I think @Ranjeet01 has answered my question about that. That we first as a people need to learn the rules of the game, to be able to play it better than everyone else later on like the Japanese. So I'm hoping the Sikhs you mention that are involved in research will lead on to pass on that knowledge and interest for the sciences in their progeny as well. I know I will. I think we're big on celebrations already, so no need for anymore.
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Something that isn't a complete taking of other cultures, and instead is a culture that was practiced by our ancestors or is cultivated by our own people. Original forms of literature, music, visual arts, not forms ripped off of West Asian cultures. Gurbani Sangeet is one form of artistic expression. How about we branch out into more? Not sure where you're getting your claim of being over-represented in the sciences? Source? We are in fact not represented in science at all. And another thing, just being a part of academia means nothing, its moot. Actually innovating and bringing new paradigm shifts is referred to as making strides. I can sit and read all about Jewish and European inventions and theories, but that doesn't make me a player in the game unless I actually present my own ideas and theories. What Sikh entrepreneur has actually offered new products/tools that the world can use to better their lives. Opening up a restaurant to finance your living is admirable, but don't mistake that for making strides. And please, can we stop with this Punjabi brotherhood. Because Muslim and Hindu Punjabis don't really take kindly to sharing their achievements with us. Where are our inventions? Our ideas? Our theories? Our forms of art influencing the world? Our methods improving the lives of people? Nowhere to be seen, hence lacking.
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Indeed, our people are practical learners! We're so practical that despite farming for centuries, we still use harmful rudimentary techniques to clear fields - stubble burning, because we can't come up with better methods that the West already has. We're so practical that we're still using inefficient irrigation methods from centuries past. We've developed no farming equipment/machinery that could ease our lives because practicality courses through our veins and that's why we use machinery developed in the West, such as our beloved John Deere tractor.
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You undermine intellectuals a lot. Most of the major turnings/revolutions/rebellions in history have arose from a mind of a person that "likes to talk because they have no power to make things happen." In fact, they are the ones that give people the power to make things happen.
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Let's not forget that most of the battles that Guru Gobind Singh Ji fought against the Mughals did not only consist of Mughals, it was also Hindu Hill Rajas. They've never been on our side, not sure why a narrative of brotherhood is framed. -
I know, hence the blasphemy of idolizing the Guru.
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It's great that Sikhs are now diversifying their choice of academic pursuits. Hopefully we can actually make a mark in those fields and not just study them for the sake of getting a job. You see getting a degree is one thing and actually putting to good use the knowledge gained from that degree is another. To make new discoveries and to construct new theories and paradigms, it takes far more than just attaining a degree. It takes creative and imaginative application that unfortunately I'm not seeing among our "educated", including myself. Also, there may be a lot of educated Sikhs in your circles, however look at it globally, and you'll see that it is in fact a tiny fraction, not even considerable enough to be termed as a minority. Punjabis have been historically the opposite of what you've described. But yes the positives of being a Sikh are that we almost always succeed in the face of adversity.
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Blasphemy!
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I think it shows with the lack of educational achievements our people are raking in the West and back home in India. Even the Sikh students that come from Punjab to study in Canada/US take up meaningless courses (and this is their words) at a community college to only get citizenship, whereas you have Hindus filling up seats at universities for actual careers. There is no desire, yearn for education within our community, it's the truth, to deny it would be only letting the problem grow. And stereotypes exist for a reason, they don't just appear baseless.
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They are synonymous as I have mentioned before. Peaked domes were not present on any building prior to the Islamic invasion of South Asia. The Hindu dome you're ignorantly referring to is actually the Buddhist stupa, and our Gurudwara domes look nothing like it: London is a city founded by the Romans, and therefore the British have built their architecture on that foundation. Byzantine cathedrals are variants of Roman architecture and therefore not foreign to them as it would be to us. The British, the Europeans and even the Americans have through their architecture defined that they are a continuation of European culture and civilization that started off in Ancient Greece. That is their definition. What is our definition? That we are a continuation of Arabs, Persians, Byzantines? I sincerely hope you're not suggesting that with your "everything is connected" motto. I think it's safe to say that having mentioned Byzantium, I made it clear I was talking about the Christian Empire. Shared heritage with everyone? Oh yes, the whole word is one big happy family. Only a Sikh stands with a Sikh, never Hindu or Muslim or Jew. That should be your only heritage. I'm not telling you to hate other people, as that would be against Sikhi, but I'm telling you to identify who your kin is. How about we actually cultivate our own culture first and then we can argue over the definition of intelligence, for now consider it to mean development in the science and arts - which we Sikhs are severely lacking in. I did not once in my thread imply that I was more intelligent than anyone on this forum or in our community. I'm in fact looking for people on here to contribute their ideas and help me understand and learn why we as a collective community are not intellectual, and I'm included in that community as well. I clearly don't have the answer, hence me asking. But you'll draw the kind of meaning you want, so continue on.
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I think the reason may be because you have started paath with the goal of reducing kaam, and so when you pray, subconsciously kaam is on your mind, and so the more you pray, the more time it lingers. It's like the harder you try to forget something, the harder it becomes to forget. I suggest you stop praying for a few days to reset your brain, and then begin again to pray for the sake and love of praying, perhaps pick a favorite shabad and recite that.
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Oh my, Einstein, a Jew, was racist? Isn't it wonderful how egalitarian we Sikhs are, we're all just a bunch of goody two-shoes! I've heard worse from Punjabi aunties than what Einstein has said, and it would not be fair to judge him with the standards of today.
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The average Jew and the average Sikh in this day and time have a great disparity in their inclination towards education. And it is this disparity, and apathy for education that has me worried about my community. The Chinese have already caught up in my opinion and the Indians will surely catch up - its no surprise given that the Hindu youth are extremely focused on educational achievement. Whereas Sikh youth in the Western world is more interested in getting caught up in gang culture and shooting themselves up.
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Punjabis were and are a spineless people. It's only the Sikhs that broke free from that attitude, but unfortunately it seems we're slinking our way back. I agree that the constant invasions and overt pandering of Punjabi for foreigners and their self-hate has led to the predicament we are in today, however one has to ask, why couldn't Punjabis repulse those invasions? For all the bravado that is projected by Punjabi, even the non-Sikhs, why couldn't we hold our own?
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Zafarnama is being taught at Tehran University? Where did you hear this tale from, WhatsApp? I guess it must be as true as NASA keeping the Guru Granth Sahib in their library for fact checking. We have nothing new to give back to the world in poetry, musical measures or literary form given that we have blatantly copied those forms in the first place, and I'm not sure the originators would have any interest in reading a foreign version of their own ideas. There may have been a time during the Vedic Age, when all NW South Asians had their own forms, but sadly as we love pandering to invaders, we lost those forms, and they were undocumented. Our Singhs spoke numerous languages because they were under foreign oppressed rule, just like their fellow South Asians. Poetry was in Persian because that was the court language of the Mughals. Our scholars were able to read Arabic because the rulers were Muslim. Our main emphasis should be to cultivate an original culture based on Sikh values and to perpetuate intellectual thinking. I could care less for Punjab. At this point really, I only care for Sikhs.
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I think by referring to Gandhi as a questionable choice, I've made it clear that I understand the Nobel prize is biased, however look at the achievements for which Jewish people have received their Nobel prizes in. It's definite achievements in science and mathematics whose discoveries cannot be challenged. I think you'll find that Jews have had faced quite a lot of oppression throughout their time in Europe through pogroms and systematic exclusion and most of their achievement was during those times, not during periods of relative peace in Judea. How can Hari Singh Nalwa bring fruits and nut trees to Afghanistan when he never set foot in it I'm sorry but where are you getting these tales from? Source? Does Israel, a Jewish nation, need to improve the lives of non-Jewish people on its soil? Self-interest is something the Sikh community needs to learn soon or we'll weaken ourselves further into oblivion by total selflessness. Anyways, many of the technological advancements that we live off of today and have bettered our lives are based or built upon findings of Jewish minds, so I think that's enough help. Yes, ethnic Arabs like Ibn al-Haytham. I'll give you this one. I also believe that history has been unkind and unfair to Aryabhatta. Yes, the Persians submitted to Islam. So? Does that take away from their achievement in any way. You seem to be just picking at the defeats of a people who have achieved an exponential times more than we ever have.
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I don't have a love affair, I just gave you an example of a minority community with exceptional academic achievement. You don't like the Jews, okay no problem, what about Greek, Arab, and Persian intellectuals. Persians number a few more million than Sikhs yet have had major administrative and scholarly achievement over their entire history and have influenced the entire world, including South Asian and especially Punjab? What's your diatribe against them now? Extremely stereotypical. Why aren't we doing the same? Doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. Buffet isn't Jewish, but okay. You've named Jewish intellectuals/investors and Sikh warriors/revolutionaries/activists. I think you've just proved the point I was trying to make. So why aren't we doing the same? Yes, Indians are just as intelligent, that is why 201 Jews have received a Nobel Prize for advancing humanity whereas only 10 ethnic Indians, none being Sikh, have received the Nobel Prize and some of those choices are clearly questionable (Gandhi). Just face it, we're not an intellectual bunch. Accept it and let's discuss on how we can implement measures to bring intellectual growth within ourselves and the Sikh community.
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I did notice that, I was replying to "It's because we are a people of action. We don't like to overthink." Overthinking or dwelling leads to doubt, but is also leads to discoveries, which we have very few of. It doesn't even have to be solely limited to academics. It can be progress made in art as well. Sadly, our people love to emulate rather than create their own. Tacky Punjabi rap songs is not the way forward.
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I agree that we are a people that cannot analyse, thus ending up in the current predicament that we are. I respectfully disagree with the notion that people of action cannot be intellectuals or that analysis leads to paralysis, and the tenets of Sikhi will disagree as well. If we take a glance at the Ancient Greeks, whose people have had considerable influence on the Western world, they too believed that one should and can possess both traits and they claimed, ""The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools." If we take a look at the Ancient Persians, who were a people of action through out their conquests, they too have had a significant amount of scholars as well and continue to nurture that scholarly attitude. I don't think the two need to be mutually exclusive for any community.
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A handful of people, yes. Compare this to the Jews and I would find it difficult to fit in all their intellectuals into one post. Yes, we have gems like Narinder Singh Kapany but they are very rare and few.
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You are so misinformed, it's not even funny. Moorish architecture in Spain is not "Arabian", as the Moors were from the Maghreb and not from Arabia. Moorish architecture found in Andalusia is mostly a mix of Berber (the ethnicity of the Moors) and Spanish architecture with Arabic/Islamic influences. Yes that demonstrates Arabian architecture which by the way is synonymous with Islamic architecture. And the peaked domes and the overall layout is very reminiscent of Gurudwaras I see all the time. Yup, you're still pretty misinformed. You would not have said the Arabian style is different to the Persian style which is influenced by Byzantine architecture, had you known that the first major demonstration of Arabic architecture that was to serve as the basis and influence for Arabic/Islamic architecture, the Dome of the Rock, was heavily influenced by Byzantine architecture. Persian architecture pre-Islam and before the Sassanids was extremely different and did not have the domes and horse-shoe arches that are now seen everywhere in Iran. The ruins of Persepolis and the Tomb of Cyrus are good examples of what Persian architecture was like before Islam. So, the influence goes like this: Byzantium > Arabic/Islamic > Persian > Central Asian > South Asian > Sikh. Persepolis ruins: Here's a reconstruction of Persepolis: And here's the Tomb of Cyrus: And herein lies the problem with our community. I've even opened up a thread about it that we have never cultivated a culture of our own. Everything that we call our own today is West Asian in origin, a group of people that we share no heritage with. Our culture represents the stupidity of our ancestors and their servitude under their West Asian rulers. Yes, everybody is influenced by others, but there's a limit to influence. You can be inspired from something and then build on it to make it your own. This has not been the case with our people (Punjabi and South Asians as well) who have blatantly taken what was imposed on them. It's a shame really.
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What's the reason that we have not been able to cultivate an original culture based on Sikh values, yet have continued to propagate Punjabi culture which is a hodge-podge of foreign culture given an identity by the Mughal Jehangir? Why have we not developed any meaningful or impactful pieces of art that reflect Sikh values? Why have Sikhs made no innovation or strides in science or business? What are we lacking or missing that prevents our community to have intellectuals?
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Are you sure about the comparison you just drew, bro? There is no similarity between the lineage of the prophets, and the lineage of the Gurgaddi. God firmly established a covenant with Abraham and his descendants out of the blue. God did not do the same for our Gurus. Guru Nanak Devi Ji contemplated and searched for the truth and eventually he found God. The Gurgaddi was then passed on to individuals that were deemed worthy, and this is evident in Guru Nanak Dev Ji passing over the Gurgaddi to someone who was not related to him by blood, Guru Angad Dev Ji, rather than his own sons. This demonstrates that there was no monopoly on the Truth by a single bloodline. There was a certain circumstance that led for the Gurgaddi to stay within the family of Guru Amar Das Ji, and that was Bibi Bhani's request in return for her seva, whereby she was granted her wish for the Gurgaddi to continue on throughout the Sodhi family - her in-laws and the line of Guru Ram Das Ji. But I guess you already knew this, so I'm surprised you would equate this with the familial covenant that God chose on Abraham as if they were his "chosen people".
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This video demonstrates the intellectual disparity between Jews and Muslims perfectly.
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God instructed people out of the blue in Abrahamic religions to spread God's message because they descended from Abraham, therefore based on lineage. There is nothing of that sort in the Dharmic religions. Either God came as an avatar to teach his message, or saintly individuals prayed and contemplated on God to reach the truth, and neither of these things match up with the narratives of the Abrahamic faith. But if you have specific citations that claim this, please post them. As for Muhammad being mentioned in the Dasam Granth, well it doesn't specifically claim that Muhammad was an avatar of God or even enlightened. It simply states that he was created by God, as is everyone, and he was"made the master of Arabia", a King or administrator, not necessarily a saint or enlightened individual with the truth. Also, Muhammad was visited by Jibreel and there is no mention of this individual in the Guru Granth Sahib at all, so I'm not sure if Muhammad is referred to as a saint or simply a trickster.