Dear Editor:

I have recently read view point from Dr. Balkar Singh Husson and many others on the above. Subject. I will like to submit humbly some thoughts before all my Sikh brothers and sisters:

Don’t you think Guru Granth Sahib is an universal Guru rather than just for a particular class of people. Don’t you think the advice contained in it is for everybody who is interested in his or her spiritual upliftment. Don’t you think when Guru Ji was advising the Hindus against the useless practice of throwing water to the Sun was and is equally applicable to all and particularly those people who call them his followers or Sikhs. Don’t you think when he was ad vising the Muslims to pray with full concentration of mind and not with their thoughts wandering about their horses. Can the Sikhs say that advice was for the Muslims only and not for Sikhs, i.e. it is alright for the Sikhs to pray with their minds absorbed in business thought.

The point I am making is that our Gurus have tried to give us some most wonderful pieces of advice using different examples, sometime addressed to a farmer, some time to a bride and some time to a person of different faith. I believe and I am sure that this advice is for all and more so to his Sikhs. If he is advising a farmer to sow the Seed of Name in the field of his body can anybody say that this is for the farmer only. Dr. Balkar Singh has taken great pains to translate the whole Shabad containing the line “Sabat Surat Dastar Sira”. I don’t have even one tenth of his scholarship, but I find it impossible to believe that Guru Ji is advising only the Muslims to make Truth their prayer, or God’s Praise as their meditation and it is alright for others to lie or meditate on statues instead of the Lord God. I will rather say that this and every other advice or edict including that of Sarbat Surat Dastar Sira by any of our Gums including Guru Granth or Guru Panth is most applicable to the Sikhs.

Regarding the code of conduct particularly a taboo against cutting the hair, I have heard many Sikhs saying that this was applicable during those times and not now, or there is no justification and useful purpose of long hair now. Dear brothers and sisters when we bow our heads before our Gurus we are saying and ac knowledge that,” O, Guru you are much wiser than me, I surrender my incomplete knowledge and wisdom to you, please accept me as your innocent child and guide me.” We have to believe and act on Guru’s advice, even if it sounds unreasonable, just as a child has to sometime go without Candy on the advice of his parent, because he does not know its bad effects on his teeth and his general health.

People who now question the usefulness of keeping unshom hair, 100 years ago could question the taboo against SMOKING. It is only last 30 years or less that research has been coming about all the bad effects of smoking. It is only now that the whole world is rallying against the curse of smoking, about which our wisest Gurus warmed us against, 300 years ago. Imagine how many Sikhs would have died and suffered terrible deaths of Lung Cancer, if they had said to themselves, “if everyone else can smoke why shouldn’t I, or where is any medical proof of its bad effects. “So dear brothers and sisters if we call ourselves Sikhs of our Guru let us have complete faith in their wisdom, who knows after some time other research might prove all the medical, social and spiritual advantages of unshom hair given to us by our Lord God, who is the source of all wisdom. Perhaps that is why all our Gurus and prophets of all major faiths kept their hair unshorn.

Lastly I will humbly request all the Keshadhari and particularly Amrit dhari Sikhs to try to become model Sikhs. Because if even after taking Amrit we do not resist from slander or lies or other undesirable habits than there is no inspiration for non keshadhani Sikhs, Rather they should try to find ways to help them overcome their difficulties in jobs or social acceptance while maintaining their Saabat Surat. I apologize for any unintended wrong word.     

Daljit Singh Jawa Topeka,Kansas.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 4, 1996