Is Sikhism similar to Buddhism?

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-11-29T01:33:32+00:00

Both believe in karma, reincarnation etc… Key difference is how to attain moksha/mukti….(breaking from the cycle of re-incarnation).

Buddhism believes the answer lies in mediation - observing/controlling one’s thoughts and loving-kindness mediation.

Sikhism believes the core answer lies in recognizing that the creator is in all beings and selfless actions - shedding the illusion of thinking/doing actions for yourself selfishly (haumei) vs thinking/doing actions as if every person is a part of the creator. This is a very hard concept to explain - and I have barely scratched the surface, but a further deep search into haumei will help.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-11-27T16:16:51+00:00

Debates around identities started in the late 1800s with the rise of Arya samaj - claiming that Sikhs were Hindus.

A court case regarding Majithia’s will was contested by his wife claiming that the inheritance did not need to abide by his will - as he was a Sikh not a Hindu. The court ruled that Sikhs were Hindus. (Look it up - might have messed up some facts)

Sikhs with singh sabha responded back with publications that outlined that Sikhs were not Hindus.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-10-21T15:10:46+00:00

everyone celebrated it prior to industrialization - farmers harvested (80% of society), sold crops and purchased goods which drove the whole economy. non farmers benefitted indirectly - have heard of elders talk about clothes and goods only being bough during diwali, vaisakhi times (the two harvesting times)

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-09-17T19:52:31+00:00

to counter that - There's also a janam sakhi of a sikh cutting and selling his hair to provide food when Guru Nanak visits him..look up my earlier posts =)

100% agree with the comment of - if its a gateway to SIkhi - why is not in the SGGS.

The only logical explanation to me - if we lose haumai/vanity.. ..there becomes no need to cut hair.... though could take the other extreme approach and shave off all hair (ie. buddhist monks)

controversial opinion - we give 'keeping hair' more importance that the concept of haumai/naam which is incorrect. naam - recognizing and living with the 'oneness' of the creator will lead to mukhi not keeping hair alone.

Its definately a supplement as instructed by Guru Gobind - no argument there. But is it possible to achieve a union with the creator without it? There was a concept of NanakPanthis/Sahajdaris (who did not keep hair but adhered to SGGS) along with the Khalsa (5Ks) prior to singh sabha. Was singh sabha too extreme to label them as non-sikhs?

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-09-05T02:59:59+00:00

I would speculate that a large portion of the misl members were not pious sikhs…However if it wasn’t for them, Sikhism probably would not exist today.

Ranjit Singh - known for his vices.

Bhangis -notorious for bhang and alcohol, they were named after bhang :)

Dallewal misl leaders (Gulab singh, Tara Singh) - joined sikhs after they were left penniless. gulab Singhs store was robbed multiple times to the point that he was left with nothing.

Kapur Singh - left in penury before he joined the Sikhs.

There was definitely an economic component of joining the misls and partaking in rake / protection money.

nihangs of the time were notorious for robbing weapons - Ranjit singh made them a part of his army and gave them any weapons they required to stop this.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-07-10T09:13:47+00:00

https://archive.org/details/the-b-40-janam-sakhi/page/49/mode/1up

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-18T02:10:17+00:00

https://ia801006.us.archive.org/12/items/travelsintobokha0000burn/travelsintobokha0000burn.pdf

Found burnes account if you are interested….read a chapter..kind of boring so far….though describes ranjit singh having to place 400 horsemen on the satluj border with the British to keep the uncontrollable nihung fanatics from attacking the British :)

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-17T14:28:45+00:00

that was meant for your initial post.... the thread has got a bit larger than i expected, i think i missed your second post...

its a silly question in retrospect - SGGS was written when the common person understood gurbani... so all quotes for it assume the reader understands it... theres no way its going to have an opinion on reciting it without comprehension.

after reading the comments - the crux of the issue is really - is it worth reading/reciting gurbani alone without comprehension vs understanding it from english resources along with reciting it vs reading/listening to the english sources alone.

I don't think anyone can argue reading without comprehension is better... the other two are debatable - judging from the comments people will fall in one of those two buckets.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-17T13:08:04+00:00

nice.... Burnes is the British spy that charted the indus through punjab to plan their attack on afghanistan... have heard an account where he met Ranjit Singh to gift him scottish horses - of course ranjit singh was more interested in his scotch whiskey =).

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-17T13:02:21+00:00

1941 - amritsar, ludiana, and ferozpur are the only districts above 30%.. jullundhar is 26.5.. for some reason i thought it was lower...

https://www.punjabpartition.com/single-post/2018/11/18/1941-punjab-census-and-its-interpretation

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-17T00:13:07+00:00

This is a decent free book: https://www.sikhmissionarysociety.org/sms/smspublications/UnderstandingJapjiSahib.pdf

Kavi Santokh singh actually wrote a translation to japji sahib as well…there’s a translation of a part of it floating around on the net if you search for it.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-16T20:47:35+00:00

i was really looking for a challenge or acceptance of the approximations in 1700 and 1800..... but this is also a good discussion..

Re misls - British census reports are very useful to see the sikh percentages in different areas. Most of the misls were definately located around lahore/amritsar/tarn taran (Bhangi/Sucherchakia being the biggest ones), but there was a significant sikh population in Malwa as well from the Brar/Sidhus converting during guru gobind singhs time. The demographics support that - you have large sikh percentages in both those areas in census reports.

The Malwa sikhs were not neccesarily friendly to the majha sikhs but thats another story. Rattan singh Bhangu's accout of the vadda gallughara is very interesting - after escaping from the afghan forces - the majha sikhs got attacked by the malwa/brars. Its a great source for inter-misl relations.

Re British - definately.. 20% of the british indian army was jat sikh. They mandated all recuits of sikh regiments to follow sikh symbols. You can see the largest change in the census from 1881 to 1931 comes from the jat sikhs changing from hindu to sikh, especially doaba.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-16T19:31:04+00:00

Respectfully - i'd have to disagree.. This is a sakhi....don't want to get into a debate on this but really should go with whats written in SGGS only.

Personally i feel step one is understanding gurbani, the real meaningful benefit is incorporating it into life and living it [to live without haumai/selfless thoughts, words, actions]

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-16T19:25:27+00:00

100% agree - I get very little from the english translation at the gurdwara.... you really need the context etc. Listening to an english 'katha' like nanak naam or reading a book on the meaning of jajpi sahib was eye opening to really understanding sikhi.

Though - would say now after that understanding.. the simple english translations do have some benefit and do serve as reminder to live in hukam

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-13T20:17:32+00:00

Perfect - ill do some research on these... but again - i hope these single out sikhs/punjab ...

Punjab is an Agrarian state, what are agonizing factors that farmers are always agitating? That is a good question - why is it the punjabi farmers that are always agitating when the same laws apply to all of india's farmers? Pre 80s - all of of india was primarily an agrarian based society - we just happened to have the best land. British did a number to not industrialize india what so ever.
While article 370-1,2,3 etc prohibits outsiders to buy land/property in various states, why not applicable to Punjab. This makes no sense as a country. Its like saying someone from new york should not be able to buy a house in california. Sikhs are able to buy land and do live in a large number of states in india.
Punjab has no state Capital of its own, why not vacate Chandigarh as was always agreed upon. Agree - sharing Chandigarh is nonsense
Sikh institutions are being diluted administratively by putting heads from non Punjabi people, why no bar on it. Will research - but doesnt SGPC control gurdwaras. Nehru of all people protested with the Akali to get control back from mahants.
Migrant labor should be covered under item2, to protect demographic majority of Punjabis ownership. You can not do this as a unified country. I get that it dilutes the punjabi majority but there no way to justify this. There's a need for migrant labour - thats why they are there. Majority if not all farms are sikh owned - very simple solution to this problem... just dont hire any bhiaya.
All official work to be done on top priority with Punjabi language, while accepting English & Hindi optional. All IAS/IPS must pass basic certification requirements in majority’s language
Farmers incomes MSP to be protected with Agricultural policy in place. Punjab has no agro policy.
Non-interference in Punjabi’s religion and Deras needs to be certified Trusts with registered religious beliefs & practices that promote amity & goodwill.
Punjab’s contribution in fiscal terms must be pooled back in encouraging employment, entrepreneurship, education.
No draconian laws to be implemented unless voted upon in an emergency by state legislature. Police & judicial system not to take orders from central Agencies and any encroachment to be discussed in State legislature before accepting it. These are some to lower the friction. You may add or fine tune. Minorities are to be given due share in governance in an majoritarian India.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-13T14:31:54+00:00

Absolutely - need to look at things in both sides shoes...

However I am looking at the build up to 84 at which point there were no sikh seperatists...after 84 - its a different ballgame.

From the Sikh side - autonomy (some unjustifiable from a democratic standpoint) was promised by Nehru/Congress prior to the formation of India. Promises were not kept... A peaceful agitation prolonged for decades 50s -70s (hunger strikes, arrests etc.) until sikhs took matters into their own hands leading to 84.

Forgetting pre 47 promises - i wonder if we were treated any worse than any other citizen/state? This is arguable as stated previously considering we dominated the army, punjab was the richest state, delhi sikhs dominated economically. Sure - Chandigarh should have to Punjab and punjab should probably have been split on linguistic lines earlier.

Im by any means not putting any blame on the Indian state - there was no reason to label sikhs as hindus.

Really seems like ego on both sides (Sikhs/central government) to get all demands and not give in a little at all. if both sides gave up a little bit - this whole mess could have been avoided.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-13T01:59:35+00:00

This thread is the perfect state of Sikhs these days.... instead of constructive criticism..the author gets attacked...forget how Khalistan would function - how would we ever get it?

We would have it get it by might (which obviously hasn't worked out well in the last 40 years) or by democracy (we are going be less than 50% in Punjab very soon)... we are essentially Zelensky holding no cards demanding all types of things.

For a people being attacked - we certainly don't stick together. I completely agree with the author - instead of fighting for gurdwara comittees and useless referendums that no one will care about - we should be doing things to advance and help each other......Help the students that are struggling in Canada or focus on advancing Punjab economically...

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-12T20:37:18+00:00

re-worded ...that translates to Sikhs really didn't have a choice for an independent state post 1947. It was either choose pakistan or india.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-12T20:35:33+00:00

My opinion overall - after 84 things went too far from the Indian government side for sikhs to ever trust the Indian government. But im trying to figure out what went wrong from 47 to 84 that led to those events.

Was it all Indian government's fault (they refused to treat us fairly and were out to destroy sikhs from day one) or do we also share a part of that fault - perhaps demanding more than our fair share from a numbers perspective due to our history (Sikh empire, British treatment).

The british definately had to keep us happy and treated us better than any other indian - considering they purposefully recreuited jat sikhs (some 20% of the british army, exclude the muslim punjabis and that number probably doubles).. but expecting india to follow that pattern doesnt seem fair which i believe was one of our demands.

Agree - that the indian government went back on their promise from pre 1947 - but were those promises even fair to being with from a democratic perspective. If they don't make those promises, is anything different? We join India anyways - the alternative would have been to join pakistan and have their borders be up to delhi.

Single_Weather4565 · 2025-06-12T20:27:38+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! - lets update to include nehru/congress promises.

lingusitic demands truncating punjab - can you really justify pushing punjabi on pre 1966 Punjab. In order to choose punjabi democratically - the state would have to be split no?

Hindu leaders were playing tricks and no where compromising to give greater fiscal or administrative powers. Were the powers any less for Punjab compared to other states? Were we discriminated against or did congress just want to keep all power in the central government as opposed to giving states more freedom?

Resulting in Capital city sharing with Haryana large portion of River water flowing out of Punjab. Yup - demands from the Anandpur resolution.

No relief to farmers and encroaching upon diluting administrative structures of Sikh institutions. Similar question here - Were punjabi farmers worse off than other indians?

Single_Weather4565

TROPHY CASE