the irreligious nature of the Sikh religion

February 27, 2008

Some kundalini yogis hesitate when chanting japji, in Sadhana, or, in

attending Gurdwara, for example at Summer Solstice. I can understand

this revulsion to religion, or resistance to " betraying " ones

childhood faith. But according to a lot of smart people over the

years, Sikhism may not qualify for that anti-religious reflex. At

least that's what Bertrand Russell and the Atheists believe, if you

read what follows.

So, maybe Yogi Bhajan was right. We should chant the mantras, yes, to

manifest their meaning, but also, perhaps more importantly, to let

their phonetic permutation work magic on our glands. Also, we should

take the yogic lesson of Guru Gobind Singh to heart - that after all

the various ancient yogic techniques were undertaken, that the most

important yoga was to connect with the infinite. Indeed, maybe the

prophecy of 800 million Sikhs on Mother Earth makes more sense, if we

treat it as Yogi Bhajan did, as a lifestyle more conducive to human

potential. I'm sure others more wise than me will have more cogent

responses to what follows.

Amar Atma

-------------

Sikh Religion gets high marks from Athiest Society

02/25/2008

News Source: http://www.sikhsangat.org

Dear Ali, please help us.

We were very impressed with your website and agreed that religion in

general is no longer needed, we can all be humanistic and live in

peace and harmony. We are in the process of making a website which

will hopefully help to destroy the religious doctrines which divide

humanity. We were doing great with knocking out Christianity, Judaism,

Islam, Hinduism, Baha'i, even Buddhism but we have gotten very stuck

with Sikhism. This religion is (to put it nicely) " a big pain in the

ass " (Please pardon the language) We have only found one site which

tries (very poorly) to argue that even this religion is not needed,

but the argument is irrational and very unscientific unlike the very

rational arguments you use.

When we read the following from your website, we found what you said

to be amazingly interesting: " Doubt Everything Find Your Own Light. "

" Last Words Dear friend, if you look for meaning in life, don't look

for it in religions; don't go from one cult to another or from one

guru to the next. You can expend all your life or look for eternity

and will find nothing but disappointment and disillusionment. Look

instead in service to humanity. You will find " meaning " in your love

for other human beings. You can experience God when you help someone

who needs your help. The only truth that counts is the love that we

have for each other. This is absolute and real. The rest is mirage,

fancies of human imagination and fallacies of our own making. " By Ali

Sina Why is this interesting? Because we found this religion of

Sikhism to be in agreement with you! This is why we have a problem. We

tried to look at their holy text (Adi Granth) but didn't find the

usual absurdities we found in the other religious books. In fact its

refreshingly inspiring and very good!? Maybe you can have some better

luck.

We tried to visit a couple of websites and got more of a shock. Did

you know that they believed in Democracy, freedom of speech, choice,

expression, freedom of religion, pluralism, human rights, equality

between men and women, equality of all people regardless of race,

religion, caste, creed, status etc. 300 years before the existance of

the USA! Theirs is the only religion which says in their religious

scriptures that women are equal in every respect to men. They even had

women soldiers leading armies in to battle against " you know who " (The

usual suspects - Muslims!) Their history is a proud one, they fought

in both World Wars. Even Hitler praised them for their bravery and

Aryan heritage! Dear Ali, this religion is hard for us to try and

criticise but you are an expert and may find some faults overlooked by

us. In their holy book, there is a round earth, water is made from

chemical elements, there is even mention of the evoution process, big

bang and life on other planets! This is pretty crazy and amazing

stuff, who would have thought that these New York taxi drivers (There

are lots of Sikh taxi drivers in NY) would have such an amzing faith?

We read up some information of what Bertrand Russell had to say about

Sikhism, this is the man who destroyed Christianity (same applies to

Islam and Judaism) and exposed its absurdities, but even this great

man got stuck when it came to Sikhism! In fact he gave up and said

" that if some lucky men survive the onslaught of the third world war

of atomic and hydrogen bombs, then the Sikh religion will be the only

means of guiding them. Russell was asked that he was talking about the

third world war, but isn't this religion capable of guiding mankind

before the third world war? In reply, Russell said, " Yes, it has the

capability, but the Sikhs have not brought out in the broad daylight,

the splendid doctrines of this religion which has come into existence

for the benefit of the entire mankind. This is their greatest sin and

the Sikhs cannot be freed of it. "

Please bear in mind that Bertrand Russell was a great philosopher and

free thinker. We have been trying for weeks now to find a way to

fairly and rationally criticize and find fault with this religion but

have failed. We even found out that there are many people converting

to this religion in the USA and Europe as well as Russia (Mostly well

educated and affluent white people). We tried to find some of their

literature and see what kind of claims they make, but unfortunatley

they have no missionary material as they do not have missionsaries!

People become Sikh by learning usually by chance or by coming in to

contact with them. They are currently the 5th biggest religion in the

world and growing quite fast in the west and Russia. Please help us as

we are stuck, to give you an example of they are all about we found

the following websites: http://www.sikhnet.com (This is a pretty good

site and helpful) http://www.hope.at/sikhism (This site is very easy

to follow, check it out, they have a Womans section and a Martyrs

section, it looks like that you are not the only one trying to expose

the falseness of Islam, Sikhs scholars did it hundreds of years ago

and got killed for it!) http://www.sikhs.org (This is the site that

was on CNN when Sikhs in the USA were mistaken for Arabs and Middle

Easterners and were attacked by mindless morons)

Please help us out, we cant make our website about religion being the

cause of war and disharmony when we have this one and only religion

which makes a hell of a lot of sense! lol (I thought Atheism had all

the answers but were kind of stuck now.) We look forward to hearing

from you, we respect your great views and want to promote them to

everyone, thank you for your time, take care.

To read comments, click:

http://www.sikhnet.com/sikhnet/register.nsf/ClickThrough2?OpenAgent & Site=NewsRSS\

& Url=/sikhnet/news.nsf/NewsArchive/52CA870AB7C3BB4C872573FA00618FCB

February 29, 2008

Hi all,

Thanks for the interesting quotes - but I'm sure I've never read

anything like this in Bertrand Russell, and the email from the

'atheists' sounds awfully like a hoax.

I'd hate to think this was the case, so can some kind sangat member

find out where the quote comes from?

Sat siri akal!

harpal

February 29, 2008

Harpal,

Thanks for the good questions on the veracity of Russell's religious

and Sikh quotes and the Atheistic letter. If any industrious person

wants to search for the source of Russell's quotes, a good place to

start would be his Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell#Religion_and_theology.

His Sikh quotes are all over the internet, such as here,

http://sikhquotes.org/120.html, but it would be nice if someone can

label the actual source.

As far as the Atheistic Society letter, here's an early version of the

letter:

http://www.humanists.net/alisina/sikhism.htm.

I believe it is not a hoax, but that due to threats the author adopted

a " John Doe " alias for protection; and the letter seems to get posted

periodically, to provoke discussion and thought.

Regardless of the Russell quotes or the source of the letter, I

believe the content in the letter bears consideration, in terms of the

nature of the faith and its applicability to ones definition of how to

use yoga - and the yogic aspects of Sikhism (or even Atheism, if you

will) - to govern oneself in the transition to the Aquarian Age.

Blessings,

Amar Atma

March 1, 2008

Dear Harpal & all -Sat Nam. In my teens, I was a great fan of Bertrand Russell's, and I still appreciate his life and work. For this reason, a few years back, I spent some considerable time trying to authenticate the quote at

http://sikhquotes.org/120.html - but without success. You may feel free to be as sceptical as you like about it. True or not, I still have a big place in my heart for old BR.

Anyone interested, can check out his famous 1927 lecture " Why I am not a Christian " http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.htmlBlessings abounding...

Guru Fatha Singh