Sikhs With A Mission

"The Upside The Hate Mail" 

About two months ago, the Mission IT administrator called me and asked me why I was not replying the attacks and hate mail that was being sent to our site by this small group who we know. He was insistent that I should defend the Mission’s work by setting up a Facebook account. I laughed and said to him that I have a lot of important work to do. I am not going to waste my life replying silly emails from kids still wearing diapers! If the president of America spent his time replying the emails sent to him by his 300 million citizens who know nothing about running the government (otherwise they would have been elected to the presidency), who is going to do the work of running the country.

Opposition to powerful ideas is something as natural as the sun rising every morning. The sun rising will bring a lot of heat and make the day hot, but it is still beautiful and its part of the deal. You cannot have the bright sunlight, and say no to the heat. You cannot have one and say no to the other. It’s a package deal. Popularity and success will come with the jealousy and the criticism. No one can escape this.

(Definition copied and pasted from Internet)

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Hate mail (as electronic, posted, or otherwise) is a form of harassment, usually consisting of invective and potentially intimidating or threatening comments towards the recipient. Hate mail often contains exceptionally abusive, foul or otherwise hurtful language.

The recipient may receive disparaging remarks concerning the subject's ethnicity, sexuality, religion, intelligence, political ideology, or sense of ethics. The text of hate mail often contains profanity, or it may simply contain a negative, disappropriating message. 

Hate mail is a fact of life. Guru Nanak Sahib Ji received more opposition and hate mail than any one of us ever will. The more popular and successful He was becoming, the more became the hate mail from the Brahmins. So did Guru Gobind Singh. Twenty two hill rajas accused Him of polluting the religion of His fore-fathers by letting low caste people eat together with the high caste in the Guru ka Langgar. They accused him of being a ‘breaker of idols and statues’, something they had worshipped for thousands of years. They could not understand why He was changing things. They also quoted Him their books on the Hindu rehat maryada, and pointed out to him where he had gone wrong!

 He received hate mail from the pundits, the Brahmins, the yogis, the imams, the mullahs and the kadhi’s. Every single Guru Sahib Ji received opposition and hate mail. Guru Amar Das ji was ridiculed by the weaver’s wife. Remember the Amrit Velaa when He was taking water from the river Ravi for the ‘ishnaan’ of Guru Angad and his foot got caught in the weavers peg? He lost His balance and fell to the ground. In her derogatory words, she called him homeless and deranged. Then, the next morning, she herself became mad. 

You can’t imagine the amount of hate mail that was received by Guru Arjun Sahib Ji. His own brother was the biggest culprit. He even tried to have Guru Arjun’s son, Guru Hargobind, killed by employing a woman to poison Guru Ji when He was still an infant. When that failed, he got someone to let loose a King Cobra in the cradle where little Hargobind was sleeping. You all know what happened. Little Hargobind caught it and squeezed it hard until it lay dead in His hand! 

Then remember how Dhir Mal sent so much hate mail to Guru Tegh Bahadur, and CC’d it to Emperor Aurangzeb. Then he paid one of his chelas to have Guru Ji killed. The chela got a rifle and shot at Guru Ji. By the grace of Waheguru, the bullet that was fired only caused a flesh wound and did not do any serious injury. The hate mail didn’t even stop after he had succeeded in getting Guru Tegh Bahadur beheaded in Delhi. Then he started sending hate mail about Guru Gobind Singh. That is why Guru Ji had to raise an army to protect the Sikhs from the emperor. Because there were so many people poisoning his mind against what Guru Gobind Singh was doing to modernize the Hindu people with new ideas.

Even our Holy Gurus were not good enough for these ‘champions’. You see, what these hate-mailers don’t realize is that they are behaving in exactly the same way the Hindu Brahmins were behaving. The Brahmins thought that Guru Nanak was changing their religion, and it was unacceptable to them. First they tried to remind Him that He was a high caste Hindu and should not behave like that. When He didn’t stop preaching His new and popular ideas, they attacked Him. You must remember that at that time, there was no Sikh religion yet. Our Gurus were still thought of as ‘a kind of Hindus’, but this ‘kind of Hindus’ were trying to change the religion. By attacking the Gurus, they thought that they were protecting the Hindu religion from getting deviated, even though what Guru Nanak was doing was changing all the things that were not working in the religions of that time. But these ‘champions’ thought that by attacking the Gurus, they were doing something very holy and sacred, and that they were protecting their religion! And many other foolish people, without thinking or understanding the issues, were joining this circus.

At every leadership and management seminar, the participants are reminded that whether we like it or not, whether we are ready or not, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN. Time is moving. The world is moving. Things are moving and changing. Ideas are changing. Feelings are changing. Language is changing. Behavior is changing. It is the reason why we may still listen to the Hindi songs from the 1960’s and 70’s, BUT ALSO WANT TO LISTEN TO TODAYS HINDI SONGS. It is the same for Bhangra songs. Today, we don’t listen to the Bhangra songs from 1960. We say they are soooooo boring! It is the same reason that your children will want more, to listen to songs of their time and their generation. It is also the reason why today’s parents bring up their children in a different way from the way they were brought up. Resisting change is a fool’s occupation. A wise person understands change and moves with it, adjusting and fine tuning things while ensuring the PRINCIPLES and PHILOSOPHY are protected.

And ‘Change’ my dear friends, is a CONTINOUS PROCESS. That is also the reason why our Holy Gurus created the ‘Akaal Takht’ and the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’, the Sikh parliament, where we were supposed to go to discuss and debate the new situations and challenges that will be faced by the panth and how to adjust and accommodate with the changing times. For example, this is the place where the Sikh Panth would debate our future changes, our position on say for example, issues like family planning; is the usage of contraceptives allowed in our religion, our stand on abortion; is it allowed in our religion.

 Then also the question of Divorce – is it allowed in our religion today. According to our religion’s rules written hundreds of years ago, there is no such thing as Divorce and anyone who practices it cannot be a Sikh, let alone Khalsa. In Gurmukhi, we don’t even have a word for divorce. But today, even Amritdharis are getting Divorced! So how do we deal with this modern phenomena that has been brought about by our changing lifestyles? Because we are a tiny minority living amongst other major communities, is it OK to marry someone from another community or religion. The rules that were made when our Guru’s were yet alive, may not be applicable anymore. Things are changing so fast. The world is spinning.

Changes in every community and religion are on-going all the time. Is it allowed to copy the whole Gurbani of Guru Granth Sahib in a CD? Can you carry the CD in your ‘cargo pants’ or in your dirty college bag? Today some people tell us that we cannot do parkaash in a flat or apartment house because there are people living upstairs. Are you telling me that if Guru Gobind Singh was in a physical body today, he would not come to visit me because there are people upstairs. Just because there were no apartments and condominiums 500 years ago, we say that we cannot take Guru Ji there? If we continue to follow the old rules, we will become dinosaurs. If some people want to be dinosaurs, that’s their business. I don’t want to be one. And there are millions of Sikhs like me!

So there are thousands of things that have changed. And they have to be clarified, discussed and debated at our Parliament, the Akaal Takht and the Sarbat Khalsa. It is a different matter that the Sikhs today don’t have a functioning Akaal Takht. It is controlled by politicians. All the jathedars are not really leaders and visionaries. For example, with the due respect that their station calls, our panthic leaders do not even have a 5 year plan for the Sikhs worldwide! Most cannot speak English, don’t have a proper modern education, and have no idea what is happening to the Sikhs living outside of Panjab, in the US, Canada or Europe. Almost none can use a computer. How are they supposed to give us any advice on how to be a Sikh in today’s world.

But not including the fact that the Akaal Takht is temporarily not functioning today, the above mentioned reason of providing global leadership was the original purpose of setting it up. If everything in the Sikh religion was unchangeable forever like some religions we know, why would our Gurus have given us the Parliament? What is there to talk? What is there to discuss? Just keep quiet and follow exactly what our Gurus have said 500 years ago, for the next 5000 years. When gurdwaras have been built on the moon by the next generations of Sikhs who have migrated there, we must still sit on the floor to have langgar! No need to modernize. No need to advance. Keep parroting the same things we been talking for the last thousands of years.

Our Gurus knew that as time goes on, there will be so many changes in the way of life of the human race that some things practiced in the 15^th century will no longer work in the 21^st! And that is also the reason why Holy Guru Gobind Singh Ji NEVER WROTE ONE SINGLE LINE OF THE REHAT NAMAS that are floating around today. Our Gurus never wrote any rehat-nama. Is it because they didn’t have time to write? Of course not. How come they had time to write so much Gurbani and so many other things. Guru Gobind singh even had time to prepare another granth, the Dasam Granth. You mean to tell me He had no time to write a small handbook of rehat-nama? Or is it possible that He forgot to write? He could perform all the miracles, but He forgot to write a rehat-nama? What a joke!

The reason He didn’t write is most probably that He had studied the weakness of another religion and saw how written rules make people so NARROW MINDED that they cannot think anymore. They will spend life-time after life-time arguing about how to interpret the rules that were written hundreds of years ago.

The same thing is true of the Sikhs today – Just like that other community, they are always arguing and fighting over the rehat-nama. This is exactly the problem that Guru Sahib wanted to avoid. That is why He DID NOT WANT TO WRITE A REHAT-NAMA! He knew that if He ever did that, the people’s brains would just stop functioning and they would just keep reciting like parrots, the rules made hundreds of years ago without thinking about whether anything of what they are saying makes any sense or not in a modern world.

Actually, these folks are so spaced out that they don’t even realize that they themselves are ‘hypocrites’ by their own defination, and they themselves are not following the rehat from the gurus time. For example, there is a rehat nama (you can read it in the Amrit Kirtan on page 1015, last line) that says –  

‘Khalsa soee jo chareh Tarang’

Now, ‘Tarang’ means horse in Persian. Chareh of course means ‘to climb’ or in this case, ‘to ride’. So the line means that “Only that person who owns and rides a horse has the right to call himself or herself a Khalsa”.  

I don’t have to tell you that none of these folks who condemn others and set up websites are so busy proclaiming themselves to be the purest of the pure Khalsa, have a horse. So, according to their own rules which they themselves insist everyone must follow, they themselves are not Khalsa? How funny! Many of them probably have not even seen a real horse in their life. They all ride motor bikes and air-con cars! But they are so busy writing hate mail, telling others that we are changing the rehat. 

Now, its not rocket science to know immediately that such a rehat would only have been applicable at that time hundreds of years ago when there were no cars and motor-bikes, and our Guru wanted to prepare us to be warriors. At that time, without a horse, a man was nothing. But today, it would be nonsense for any Sikh to insist that since it is a rehat, and since Guru Gobind Singh Ji did not change it before He returned to Sach Khand, we HAVE TO FOLLOW IT, WHETHER IT MAKES ANY SENSE OR NOT! So when we meet them this Sunday at gurdwara, we should ask them – “Excuse me, Where is your horse?” And when they try to twist and turn their story to try and get out of the sticky mess they got themselves into, just ask them who gave them the permission to change the order of the rehat-nama, and how come they are not riding their horses to Gurdwara and to work? 

What is always interesting to see is how these people are so trapped in their narrow mindedness that they always think and behave as if they are protecting their religion. They preach that anyone who is teaching a more practical and realistic path to the same religion, is a problem. And that is exactly how the Hindus of India saw Guru Nanak at that time. Can you imagine what kind of argument must have taken place between the Hindu priest, Nanak’s parents and all His uncles and aunties and the other Hindus who had been invited, when young Nanak refused to put on the sacred thread – janay-oo!  If the internet had been around at that time, I’m sure some of them would have gone home and launched a website called www.antinanak.com or a similar account on Facebook called AntiNanakWhatever! And you know what – Guru Nanak wouldn’t give a damn about how many websites or accounts people set up to oppose Him. He knew what He was doing. It made sense to the world. And He was right. That is why we still have Sikhi today. If His ideas were flawed, they would have died long ago.

What these folks do not know or realize is that despite their narrow-mindedness, they themselves are NOT FOLLOWING THE RELIGION. As I have demonstrated earlier, THEY HAVE ALSO MODIFIED THE RELIGION TO CHANGE THE PARTS THAT ARE NOT WORKING IN THIS MODERN WORLD! And now they are telling us is that what they change is OK. What other people propose to change is wrong!

The sad thing is that while they are trying to look like heroes and defenders of the panth, they don’t seem to have any idea that 24 million out of 25 million of the Sikhs in the world today are already ‘Patit’ by their definition. I have already explained all this in my blog and the Mission site. 24 million ex-Sikhs have already stopped following the things that these people are preaching. Nobody is interested in what they are saying. The 24 million people have already left these people and their ideas behind. And almost none of these 24 million are ever going to come back and follow their way or accept their ideas! 

More than 95% of Sikhs are either trimming their beard, cutting their hair, waxing their legs, shaving their eye-brows, dyeing their hair, have holes in their ears and noses etc. There are less than 1 million amritdharis left in the whole wide world.  

(When I mention this to the Sikh leaders from Singapore and Malaysia as I am meeting them to discuss the future road of the Sikhs, all of them have laughed at me. “You are wrong”, they tell me. “Show me, where are the 1 million amritdharis”. One gentleman even told me – “If you can show me even 1000 Amritdharis in Malaysia, I will give you a million ringgit!) 

And if these folks still can’t understand how serious is the situation we are facing today, let them go to their gurdwaras this Sunday, make an announcements on the P.A. System asking all the amritdharis in the sangat to raise their hand. I think they will have a shock. 

You have heard so many sakhis about how the Brahmins of that time attacked our Gurus. Until guru Nanak had to write so many shabads of Gurbani to put them and the mullahs in their place as ignorant fools and hypocrites. The whole Asa di Vaar is a perfect example of how Guru Nanak answered them. So, I learn from my Guru. I write essays for the Mission to explain what we are doing. Guru Nanak did not go around trying to convince those who did not agree with Him. He just got on with His Mission! 

The whole problem was that our Gurus were teaching a new path, a new road, a new approach, so that people could find their way back to a spiritual life in a way that was practical and meaningful to them. And they taught us to keep renewing ourselves, so that we always remain relevant. And that’s what we are doing.

People who write hate mail actually think they are ‘RIGHT’. They may be, but they have to show how they are right. But none of these people seem to have any idea how to change or improve anything to make our religion strong and start growing again. None of these Hate mailers HAVE ANY SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM AT ALL. Next time you meet them, just ask them what are their suggestions to grow our religion. And please ask them to post their ideas on the internet so we can also read. I’m sure we would like to know. Or why not ask them to post their ideas on Facebook. Let them post their solutions how to save the Sikh religion from decline. And lets hear what they have to say besides – “We should do more Parchaar” and “We should tell people to keep their hair, and take Amrit etc”. If they say that, our response to that could be – “What the hell do you think we have been doing for the last 500 years?

 They are not interested in listening to what you are saying. That is why they can’t understand the simple English in the essays I have written to explain why the Panth has to start changing soon before it is too late. The reason is, since they are always right, there is no need to read another point of view. It is the exact same reason why the Taliban go around Afganistan and Pakistan, killing their own Muslims, even shooting them while they are praying and blowing up their own masjids. This is the psychology of a hate mailer. According to them, everybody else is wrong. Only we are right!

The Jathedars of India could not even save Sikhi in Panjab. You can hardly see any naujawan with a turban there. But Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa went to the west and converted Jews, Christians and even Muslims to the Sikh religion. He even put turbans on the heads of women, something which our jathedars couldn’t do. He did the impossible. But yet, He received so much hate mail from Punjabi Sikhs who refused to recognize him and instead accused him of going against Sikhi, that he washed his hands off the Panjabi community and stopped going to the gurdwaras run by the Panjabis in the US. He got the Western Sikhs to build their own gurdwaras and ashrams.

When you start to receive hate mail, you should celebrate. Hate mail is the first sign that your message is so powerful that some people out there are really afraid that many people will start following you. They are jealous that you will succeed. Worse still, they are really afraid of the power of your ideas, or the power of your influence over the public. They are afraid that more and more people are going to leave them, and less and less people will follow their old fashioned and boring ideas.

The people who have sent us hate mail claim to be holier than us. They say that we are unholy. One guy even asked me if I was smarter than the Guru. 500 years ago, the Hindus were saying the same thing to our Guru Nanak – “Hey Nanak, why are you changing our religion? You mean to say that you are smarter than our god Rama? You mean you are smarter than our god Krishna?  These folks say that only their Jatha, Taksaal, Dera or their Baba is right. Everybody else is wrong.

Example; they will tell you that Sikh women cannot wear make up and ear-rings. So if you do, and you say to them that we live in a modern society, so what’s wrong with wearing make-up and ear-rings, their reply will be – “So, you think you are smarter than Guru Gobind Singh?” Sad to say, they don’t have the capacity to understand problems and issues. They are parrots who keep repeating the same sentences over and over again, even if they have become obsolete over the last 500 years!

But you know what? The test of a Baba or a Dera is the kind of Sikhs it has produced. When you look at the kind of mail these people have sent, and the arrogance and rudeness that they spit out of their mouths towards another group shows you the kind of teachers they have.  

I am a student of Sant Baba Niranjan Singh Ji of Patiala. In 1987 when Baba Ji first came here, he taught all of us from the Naujawan Sabha never to react towards any hate mail, hate comment, poison pen letter or verbal letter. I still remember an incident that happened when Baba Ji was Visiting Malaysia that year. It was during Vesakhi time that Kelab Aman had organized a ‘Beer Drinking Contest’. Angered by this ‘disrespect’ shown by the Kelab Aman Sikhs to the Vesakhi festival, a group of young Sabha members went to Kelab Aman and confronted the organizers, starting a big fight and creating a lot of commotion.

Then, feeling really proud of their ‘bravery’, they went to tell Baba Ji about what they had done.  Baba Ji listened to their proud account of what they had ‘so bravely accomplished ‘for their religion’. When they had finished, they became silent and waited for Baba Ji to speak and praise them for what they had done. Instead, Baba Ji told them off in a firm manner with the following words – “Who asked you all to go there?” What business was it of yours to go there?

Everyone was caught by surprise and totally stunned by his completely unexpected response! And that was the day he taught us – “I never want you to behave like that again!” Actually, I was not a student of Baba Ji at that time. But I was told about this incident by my colleagues in the Sabha Exco. And that is the reason why in the last twenty years, whenever I was attacked or attempts were made to character assassinate me, I never once reacted or responded. Baba Ji’s teaching saved me every time. Today, I am still here fighting for my community. But all my attackers are long gone! 

These people who are doing all this are not our target audience in our Mission work. Our target audience, the sangat that Guru Ji wants us to serve, are different people. They are practical people, modern in their global outlook, educated and professionals by career. Or they are non Panjabis who we are inviting to experience the Sikh way, so that one day they may join us and grow our religion, just like Yogi Ji did in the west. We must start opening doors for the ‘New Age Arrivals’, not shutting doors on even our own existing Sikhs!

Many of our target audience may even be the Panjabi Sikhs who left Sikhi and converted to Christianity etc, because we were foolish not to accept them the way they were. These people may not wear turbans and long hair, but are humble, pious, and Guru loving people. They are people who are listening to our words and understanding where we are coming from, and why we are saying the things we are saying. Even when we make mistakes, they forgive us without any reservation because they know that the work we are doing is to bring more people who have left the rehat, back to our religion. We want to welcome them with open arms, give them all the rights that our Gurus gave them, so that they can experience Sikhi in their own way and not have our ideas forced upon them.  

We are saying to these Sikhs that just like some of Guru Gobind Singh’s closest and dearest companions never took Amrit, Guru Ji loved them dearly until His last breath. The same for you. Stop going to Hindu temples. Stop converting to Christianity and Islam. Come back to the Gurdwara and celebrate your Sikhi. The Guru loves you as you are. No need to feel guilty. The Guru is the knower of all hearts. He will lead you to where He wants you to be. He will bless you and keep you close to His heart. That’s what we are saying to the 24 million Sikhs who are now in Limbo. We want them to feel proud of their Sikhi again, not feel guilty that they are ‘bad’ Sikhs, or second class Sikhs, and so start going to other places of worship to avoid the stigma and this unfair label. That is our message. We pray that all will slowly start to understand the power of this message. And if we can all agree and come together, we will become strong and unshakeable again. 

I will also take this opportunity to appeal to all Mission members and the members of the sanggat who are inspired by our ideas, to go easy on these hate-mailers, especially when we know who they are. Just let them do what ever they are doing. You guys please keep your eye on your game. Let them play theirs. They do not yet have the experience of life to understand things. Just like me and the rest of us, they have to go through this part of their life. Life has much to teach them. Just think back and see how many times our own ideas and opinions have changed in our short life. When they have their own kids, and have to deal with the world at large, just watch and see what they will be preaching. Suddenly, their world view will start to change. Ten years from now, twenty years from now, they will be singing a different song. Or they will find themselves living in the little cocoon that they have spun around themselves.

I still remember the time when I was living in the ashram in London and I had a disagreement with the European Sikhs there as to why they are using honey to make parshaad. I told them that they are wrong. Parshaad is supposed to be made of equal parts of atta, sugar and ghee. Using honey is ‘against the maryada’. I thought I was so smart. They told me that white sugar is very bad for the body. It is a poisonous chemical. Today, everybody knows that. But way back in 1977, only the people who were doing yoga and living healthy knew that. And I thought I should correct them because they were ‘going against the Maryada’! I don’t think I would have launched www.antieuropeansikhs.com, but you can see ‘how right I thought I was’!

This was only one of the disagreements that I had. I argued with them over why they took off their kirpan when they went to sleep, why they do yoga when none of our ten Gurus did it, why they revere Yogi Ji so much and treat him as if he was a guru, why only keep talking and chanting about Guru Ram Das and what happened to the other gurus, how come we are not giving them any recognition, etc, etc, etc. Technically speaking, all the things I was saying made some sense. But it was many years before I cam to understand that there was another way to look at the same things, and I was not able to see that side of the situation at that time.

I continued to express my fixed opinions for many years. Until the day some wisdom started to come. And I started to understand the nature of things. And today, I am very very grateful that it came and very careful when I express an opinion. And now I even find myself doing some of the things that I was once telling the European Sikhs that they were doing wrong!

So let’s give these folks the space they need to throw their tantrums, just like my teachers in the past gave me. Give them the space to shout and scream. When they have received enough hard knocks from the ‘University of Life’, they will understand that all we were trying to do was improve the situation and strengthen the religion.

In the end, I will quote from the Holy Siri Guru Jyot Sahib Ji , Pg 339

gauVI ]

Gauree:

ga-orhee. 

inMdau inMdau mo kau logu inMdau ]

Slander me, slander me - go ahead, people, and slander me.

ninda-o ninda-o mo ka-o log ninda-o. 

inMdw jn kau KrI ipAwrI ]

Slander is pleasing to the Lord's humble servant.

nindaa jan ka-o kharee pi-aaree. 

inMdw hoie q bYkuMiT jweIAY ]

If I am slandered, I go to heaven;

nindaa ho-ay ta baikunth jaa-ee-ai. 

irdY suD jau inMdw hoie ]

If my heart is pure, and I am slandered,

ridai suDh ja-o nindaa ho-ay. 

hmry kpry inMdku Doie ]1]

then the slanderer washes my dirty clothes. ||1||

hamray kapray nindak Dho-ay. ||1|| 
 

hmrw jIvnu inMdku lorY ]2]

The slanderer wishes me long life. ||2||

hamraa jeevan nindak lorai. ||2|| 
 

jn kbIr kau inMdw swru ]

Slander is the best thing for servant Kabeer.

jan kabeer ka-o nindaa saar. 

inMdku fUbw hm auqry pwir ]3]20]71]

The slanderer is drowned, while I am saved. ||3||20||71||

nindak doobaa ham utray paar. ||3||20||71||

So, Keep Up. Keep Going. After centuries of stagnation, we are growing again. We are winning back followers for the Dharma. The youths and the elders, all are coming to attend our programs. Everyday, we are getting more and more requests from the sangat everywhere, local and overseas. We cannot cope with the demand for seva. Be proud of your achievement for your Guru.

Satnam