Understanding Sikhism (for a 10-year old non Sikh)

steven_ber

Are any members aware of any websites that would help a 10-year old English girl understand the basics of Sikhism?

She is learning about it in school but has difficulty understanding her teacher, the subject or both.

She has no experience of any religion, but seems keen to learn.

Any information appreciated.

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oldhippie

Why don't you have her visit the local Gurudwara. These guys are more than willing to help in any way. I am sure it's the same in the UK.

Bill

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Too Many Gandus, Too Few Bullets.

crvlvr

All the websites I found do not cater to a 10year old. But here is the essence of Sikhism.

Goal: The goal of Sikhs is to build a close, loving relationship with God.
bullet Deity: Sikhs believe in a single, Formless God, with many names, who can be known through meditation. This concept is similar to Islam whose followers believe in a single God who has 99 names. Only he can be worshiped. Rahras, a Sikh evening prayer states: "[O God] since I have fallen at your feet, I do not care for anybody else. I do not follow the religious ways preached by various religions believing in Ram, Mohammed, Puran or Qur'an. The Simritis, Shastras and the Vedas lay down different doctrines. But I do not recognize any of these. O God, I have written these hymns with your grace and kindness. All that has been said is in fact spoken by you." 7

Reincarnation: They believe in samsara (the repetitive cycle of birth, life and death), karma (the accumulated sum of one's good and bad deeds, and reincarnation the belief of a rebirth following death. These beliefs are similar to Hinduism.
bullet Caste system: Sikhs have rejected the caste system of the Hindu religion. They believe that everyone has equal status in the eyes of God. This is a very important principle that permeates all Sikh beliefs, behaviors, and rituals.

Code of Conduct: During the 18th century, there were a number of attempts to prepare an accurate portrayal of Sikh customs. None received the support of most Sikhs. Sikh scholars and theologians started in 1931 to prepare the Reht Maryada -- the Sikh code of conduct and conventions. It is "the only version authorized by the Akal Takht, the seat of supreme temporal authority for Sikhs. It's implementation has successfully achieved a high level of uniformity in the religious and social practices of Sikhism" 4 throughout the world. It contains 27 articles. Article 1 defines who is a Sikh:

"Any human being who faithfully believes in
(i) One Immortal Being,
(ii) Ten Gurus, from Guru Nanak Dev to Guru Gobind Singh,
(iii) The Guru Granth Sahib,
(iv) The utterances and teachings of the ten Gurus and
(v) the baptism bequeathed by the tenth Guru, and who does not owe allegiance to any other religion, is a Sikh."

There are a number of traditions within Sikhism. Thousands of Sikhs, both in India and worldwide, follow living gurus who have lineages traceable back to Guru Gobind Singh. In Canada and elsewhere, major strains are becoming evident between liberal and conservative wings of the religion, as some Sikhs accommodate to the surrounding culture.

Sikh Practices:

Prayers: repeated multiple times each day.

Worship: Sikhs are prohibited from worshipping idols, images, or icons.

Temples: There are over 200 Gurdwaras (temples, shrines or holy places) in
India alone. The most sacred is at Amritsar.

The Five K's: These are clothing practices followed by stricter Sikhs, called Khalsa saints:

1. Kesa (long hair, which is never cut)
2. Kangah (comb)
3. Kacha (short pants)
4. Kara (metal bracelet)
5. Kirpan (a ceremonial dagger)

Website - http://www.religioustolerance.org/sikhism.htm

Hippie at Heart

crvlvr, I think the translation about evening prayer denouncing the other religion is slightly skewed, though I am not a sikh but being exposed to sikhism in my understanding they acknowledge that god is but formless and whatever religion you believe in they all lead to the same god, however the emphasis is more on the fact that it’s not pertinent to believe in clichés and merely treat the props as they should be treated, not ultimate goal on way to formless god. Anyway this could be a scholarly debate and my understanding does not go beyond rookie level.

Not about Sikhism but here is a website www.sikh-heritage.co.uk on the history of sikh but sometime not free from personal bias thought.

crvlvr

Hippie, Did not mean to offend any one. Those are not my words. I have listed the website at the bottom. Upon reviewing the "prayer" it sort of makes sense. Sikhism spawned from Hinduism, and I understand it was developed a more militant form of hindusm to defend the Punjabis against the frequent muslim invasions. Punjab happens to be located enroute to the rest of India.

Hippie at Heart

Crvlvr, none offence taken, just couldn’t help putting my thoughts across as I understand Punjabi very well and listening to sikh prayers in passing here an there, I have a fair basic idea. 1st Guru of Sikhs, Guru Nanak Ji was a very fair person and drew the best ideas from then prevailing Hinduism and Islam as well. His sense of religious tolerance in my option was at par with that of Sufism. It seems only just that guru granth sahib only reflects this preaching that were seeped in the living wisdom of what he saw around him and efforts he made to bring about the change.

shere

Ah the Sikh heritage site. It is not a very good site. I remember first viewing the site and finding they had ripped off a web site I ran about Princely India without even ackowledging the source. Secondly the site has a lot of information about sects etc which are not part of Sikhism.

www.sikhs.org is a good site.
http://www.gurmat.info/sms/smspublications/ has some online books aimed at children. I am sure they will post out any books you want free of charge if you telephone/email them.

Banarasi at heart

Before beginning, I would stress that what I am writing is not meant for a 10 year old... but I needed to get this off my chest.


I am not a sikh but know that a lot of hindus would definitely owe their life and faith to the sikhs (I am a hindu myself). In fact, the sikhs began with Guru Nank (to my understanding ; I may be slightly wrong here) who protected a lot of Hindus by simply reminding them of their faith in god. Also, there are many stories about warrior sikh gurus who laid down their lives to pprotect hindus. I also feel that sikhism is similar to hinduism and this is reflected in their names. Gobind Singh, Arjun Dev are two of their ten gurus. In fact, a sikh friend of mine said to me that Ram is one of the most often repeated words in Guru Granth sahib - their holy book. Their positive and enterprising attitude can be gauged easilt by the following confirmable observations

1. Indian army has a lot of sikhs (there are ca lot of sikh regiments)
2. Can any of us recall one sikh beggar. I cannot.

They are usually brave and straight people to my knowledge.

On a sad note.. I was in Delhi when the 1984 riots took place and a lot of sikhs were killed. I till feel sad thinking about it.. It was a sensitive time when sikh extremists were also widespresd (a creation of politics) and the indian prime ministed was assasinated by her sikh bodyguard.

Anyway bottomline.. I consider sikhs as hindus more than anything else. Though hindus acted disgracefully in 1984.

xealot

I'm really glad this forum was started. i have no knowledge on Sikh religion but this has now motivated me to look into it further. Sounds like an incredibly noble and beautiful faith.

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xealot

http://www.uri.org/kids/other_sikh.htm

The above site is aimed at kids. With my lack of knowledge on the subject I have no Idea if it is a good source, but its aimed at kis so check it out

steven_ber

Thanks for all the great info, I'll start looking through it all, it should help me learn a thing or two about Sikhism.

Hippie at Heart

Shere, passing off on Internet is a serious issue but I feel it should be pursued to logical end.

Banarasi, yes it was very unfortunate what happened in 1984, but I mince no word that as much as mob mentality which is almost uniform irrespective of a particular religion, was responsible for that massacre it was the entirely Indira Gandhi’s responsibility. She created a mess for her silly political gain, a haughty woman with big ego and small brains and it was not long before her karma catch up with her and she lost her life, but lot of Sikhs and Hindus paid the price as well before peace prevailed. Historically speaking Sikhs are a militant branch of mainline Hindus only and they remained so till the 10th guru Gobind Singh. It was guru Gobind Singh who introduced the concept of Sikhism as we see around us today. Before that even this distinction was not there. (Here I may add that the tradition of Guru was to be carried on after Guru Gobind Singh but his wife Mata Sundri had other idea and there were some disputes about a low caste Hindu taking over from him and the practice came to an and)

Until some recent times it has been very difficult to see Sikhs as some separate religious group. But any minority is apt to feel insecure if lured by a bunch of zealots into believing that they are in danger of being eradicated. Traditionally a Sikh was usually the first male child of a Hindu family, brought up as a ‘Sikh’ so he can defend faith even at the cost of life. Though this practice is not very common but one can still see some Hindu family bringing their first male child as per the Sikh traditions while other kids don’t keep long hair or adhere to Sikh system of life.

On a personal note this is perhaps most dear idea for me to see and realize that India, inspite of all the hype about many religions have such overlapping beliefs that it remains of no consequence what religion one is from. Hindus in Sikh gurudwaras, Sikhs going on pilgrim with Hindus, Hindus going to Muslim Sufi saints or some Muslim coming to temples. Hindu and Muslim together celebrating spring festival. I can perhaps just go on and on but enough to say most religion groups in India are perhaps still ruled by basic goodness of heart and not by scriptures and books alone.

Banarasi at heart

Thanks for the post. I wanted to claify a few things in my earlier post as I had written it in an emotional state. Indira Gandhi is certainly no favourite of mine. Also, I say that there was politics involved. It was the brilliant Narasimha Rao who bought down the problem with minimum fuss. Of course I am happy to note that many share the belief that Sikhism is not very different from Hinduism.

mira4bai4

From my understanding Sikh literally means disciple, the same as Chela. The followers of Guru Nanak and his 9 successors are known as Sikhs. The teachings of Guru Nanak Sahib are not necessarily what is being followed today as he was completely against violence from my understanding and definitely considered killing people as against the wishes of God. So when the Sikhs took up arms the pureness Guru Nanak Sahibs teachings were shadowed by other influences. Sadly many aspects of what Guru Nanak Sahib stressed and taught has been distorted for a very long time.

shere

The Sikhs are not Hindus or a sect of within Hinduism. We have our own : distinct language and script, places of worship and Holy scriptures. In the UK we are recognised as a distinct race.

The teachings of Guru Nanak Ji have never been distorted even when the Sikh faith became armed to protect others. Without the Sikhs being armed no one would have bothered rescuing the thousands of Indian women (mainly Hindu according to history books) the likes of Ahamd Shah Abdali of Afghanistan and Nadir Shah of Persia took as prisoners/concubines. The Sikh Guru never fought to gain territory or to plunder, it was alway a defensive measure to protect the weak.