By Asia Samachar | Discussion |
“Spirituality of Guru Nanak is vegaas (eternal joy & bliss). This is what I learnt from Guru Nanak’s Sikhi. It comes after a soul-wrenching awakening of our conscience. Awakening of the conscience is what Guru Nanak’s Sikhi all about. And putting our conscience to slumber is what hijacked Sikhi all about.” (43:00)
This was Dr Karminder Singh Dhillon’s concluding remarks in this two-hour webinar followed by a question and answer session.
The word hijacking appears numerous times in this discussion. It comes from Karminder’s book, The Hijacking of Sikhi, released last year. In the 420-page book, the Malaysian-based Sikh thinker and author looked at what went wrong in the transmission of Sikhi.
“The Sikhi we have is not the Sikhi of Gurbani, no matter how loudly and how often we claim that it is the Sikhi of Gurbani. It is not….The gurdwara has become the place where our children, our youth are taught ‘hijacked’ Sikhi,” he said in webinar organised by the the Phoenix, Arizona-based Global Gurmat Vichaar Webinar Group (GGVWG).
GGVWG covenor/founder Dr Jaswant Singh Sachdev said the session had stimulated and steered the audience of a well-qualified professionals of several Ph.Ds., M.Ds., IT professionals, professors, religious men of repute, and students from several countries into a serious dialogue.
He noted that the speaker has boldly highlighted fundamental flaws in understanding Sikhi and Gurbani concepts by our translators and religious hierarchy, he said in a note shared with Asia Samachar.
THE WEBINAR FLOW
(The timer is indicated in brackets)
What is meant by hijacking of Sikhi and why is the term used?
“Nirmaltaa is the core of Sikhi, and that has been taken away….the destruction of the uniqueness of the Sikhi of Guru Nanak.”
The term hijacking was used because the ‘distortions, corruption and tainting was purposive’.
“It is also not by way of change that a belief system undergoes over a period of time….Sikhi of Guru Nanak is too young a spirituality to have suffered a distortion in this way. The distortion is purposive, planned and calculated.”
Karminder outlines four parameters to make his case for the hijacking of Sikhi.
First Parameter: Distortions of Gurbani.
“The first ever Guru Granth Sahib translation was done by a Baneras-based intellectuals. Think about it carefully. There was no Guru Granth Sahib translation before the 1880s. This is the first one. And who’s doing it? It is by a Baneras-based intellectual group called Nirmalas. This is called the Faridkoti teeka….”
“What is the impact of the Faridkoti teeka is that it has been presented the GGS as the fifth Ved. The Faridkoti has also been the source of all our translations, including the English translations one, whether in print or in the internet. Through the translations, Gurbani messages has been systematically and consistently hijacked into what they are not, what they were not supposed to be.”
Second Parameter: Sikh History
“The history of the Gurus, in particular, has been muddled in unbelievable tales of miracles called Sakhis. This is the one major thing that has put Sikhi out of the range of thinking Sikhs. Our youth, children and educated people….the reason they cannot with our history is because of the unbelievability, the unacceptability on the basis of reason, justification and logic of the kind of sakhis we use to present the history of our Gurus.
Third Parameter: General Conduct of Sikhi
“What we have today is a Sikhi dictated by an institutionalised clergy. Those who have read Gurbani would know that the clergy, as a group, was soundly critiqued and condemned by our Gurus, and clearly excluded from Sikhi.
“When Guru Nanak is asked what is the primary cause of spiritual decay of society when he came in 1469, his answer was clear. He held the clergy squarely responsible, not the belief systems.”
“The gurdwara has become the place where our children, our youth are taught ‘hijacked’ Sikhi.”
Fourth Parameter: Hijacking of Religious Practices
So, who did this hijacking? (13:00)
When did this hijacking began? (13:50)
How would you know of the hijacking? (19:40)
“You cannot ask the hijackers the meaning of Gurbani. You have to understand it yourself….If your plane is supposed to land in New York, look out of the window. If you see paddy or wheat fields, you know you’re headed to a wrong airport. You cannot ask the Ji jackets if we’re landing the right airport. Silly questions will get silly answers.”
“We have to start reading and understanding Gurbani ourselves. That’s what happened to me. Once you do that, once you start understanding Gurbani for yourself, you will realise, as I did, that the Sikhi of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji was totally different from, and In start contrast, to the Sikhi in our gurdwaras, the Sikhi that we practice and the Sikhi we talked about. It is in stark contrast to the Sikhi in our classical texts and the Sikhi that was preached. The Sikhi of Gurbani is, in most cases, contrary and opposite to the Sikhi of our practices.”
Two versions of everything: authentic & hijacked (22:15).
There is the Guru Nanak from the 947 shabads in the Guru Granth Sahib. Then there is the Guru Nanak who’s doing everything critiqued in those shabads – a miracle performer, a faith healer, a magician, purveyor of superstitious belief, a practitioner of supernatural powers, a recluse, an unproductive child, a neglecting father, one who’s demanding blind faith from his followers. The hijacked Guru Nanak cannot be found in the 947 shabads written in his own hands.
Question & Answers:
What makes the original text for Gurbani? (44:10)
What about the teeka (translation) of Prof Saheb Singh? Which one do you recommend? (1:00:00)
Clergy root of all evil. (1:44:40)
Sikhs in Malaysia (1:46:30)
Why did I use the word ‘hijacked’? (1:47:30)
RELATED STORY:
The Hijacking Exposed (Asia Samachar, 23 Nov 2021)
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