Sir,
Dr. Shivdev Singh stole my thunder. I was looking forward to blasting his statement in “Portraits of our Guns” (WSN 4/16/90): “through a portrait the Guru is brought close … It establishes one to one relationship for spiritual guidance and blessing.” Happily, I find myself on the side of his concluding argument (WSN 4/: 13/90): “We tend to worship the picture on the paper’ and “Our religious sanctity and spiritual devotion will be better served without pictures,
Unfortunately he seems to leave the door open for continued “picture worship.” He argues for portraits which ‘“‘depict higher level of spirituality because they bring “human soul closer to the Guru”. I Hope he is not recommending that if ever authentic pictures of Guru’s lives and times are discovered the Saccha Padshah as embodied in the Guru Granth Sahib will continue to fight for sangat’s attention from behind a massive display of the lookalike of the other ten Gurus! Devotional reverence for Guru’s representation two dimensional (picture) or three dimensional (statue), is still “but pooja,” and against Sikh tenets,
Sukhbir Singh Indianapolis, IN
Article extracted from this publication >> May 4, 1990
