I remember a fellow Sikh classmate from my Engineering degree, who used to very carefully burn his beard with a candle flame to get the trimmed beard look. Nobody bothered to ask too much into it but on one occasion upon questioning, he responded back with an awkwardly placed guilt expression – “As a Sikh I am not supposed to cut my hair, so you know I burn….” The answer just floored me with disgust back then.Flash forward a few years, each day I am filled with the same disgust, that I felt towards his answer back then, but the disgust this time is directed towards myself. Every morning before I tie my turban, I apply generous amounts of hair fixer and an awkwardly placed hair pin to stick my beard, further pressing it hard together with a “thatha.” I hate the feeling of my beard for the rest of the whole day. It feels sticky, the jaw movement is restricted for sometime, sometimes the pin hurts; often the beard starts to unravel, the pin comes out and I spend the whole day fiddling with the pin and the unstuck strands of gelled-hair.
Why do I tie my beard? You see, “In Sikhism you are not supposed to cut your hair. So I can do, all that I can do to achieve that look of a small and neatly trimmed beard, only as long as I don’t cut my hair; for that is the written word”.
I come from an urban Punjabi background, raised up to become a professional Indian Sikh. You can find the likes of me strewn all over India working in all sorts of MNC’s and government jobs. Most of them have long given up their Kesh, some wear turbans with trimmed beard (the Rocket Singh look), and a large part of few professional Sikhs left, sport a tied beard. It was indoctrinated into me that keeping your beard neatly tied is mark of professionalism and going with all my beard hair strewing & falling out presents a shabby dishelved appearance, very unprofessional. And to set the record straight, this comes from within the Sikh community itself. I don’t want to pick up names, but just have a look around and see for yourself the number of successful professional Sikhs that you see in the media today, and how many of them tie their beard, if they do keep one at all.
You will see millions of posts all around the Websphere, condemning the hair cutting apostates for giving up on the Amritdhari ideals and postulates, while we so conveniently have chosen to silently subdue the apparent hypocrisy about the practice of using hair-fixing solutions. Why are these guys (like myself) lauded as Sikh icons for their achievements, whilst at the same time the picture of a trimmed-Sikh achiever would be criticised for failing to stick up to his Sikh principles?
Is something wrong with me because I sense hypocrisy in the judgments here? Since when in Sikhism have we moved away from the understanding the sublime essence of a religious practice to the acceptance of loopholes that we have created based on the sad premise of treating the Rehat as a set of written rules.
I do not understand how have we come up to this point, nor am I interested in digging out the historical trends that have led to this. But one thing that is easily obvious “We have just lost the real focus all along the way”. The Rehat comes from within, from realization and understanding.
No longer is the personal spiritual journey being emphasized as much, than the importance of the outward appearance of the Sikh.
I am not very eloquent with words, but I would suggest a recent SikhNet article by Gurmustuk Singh Khalsa entitled “Look in the Mirror” which expresses similar concerns. And he beautifully explains how religion should be a personal spiritual enlightenment journey and not a “fixed list of things I am supposed to do”.
What is killing me at the moment is that I have come to realize that all around me, within the Sikh community I am valued more for my outward appearance than for who I actually am, and nobody cares if I do really live the Sikh lifestyle. There is a strong societal pressure towards maintaining the physical saroop to the point of dogmatic expectations. We have developed for ourselves a list of kurehats – to the point of all being majorly focused on outward appearances.
How many times have you seen a Sikh commenting upon the un-Sikhness of another Sikh turning away a beggar from his house asking for food, or serving their servants with food in a different plate (the spirit of langar for them is just to show to fellow Sikhs, to be practiced in the gurdwara premises only, I guess.) But these same very Sikhs would shrug their head in disgust at the very sight of a Mona-Sikh, of how he has let down the teachings of Sikhism.
What about the real life teachings? Nobody seems to care.
This I guess is at the heart of all the deviating practices in the very simple and sublime message of Sikhi. A society that mandates religious practices is a society that mandates hypocrisy, because force can only govern outward behaviour. It can say that such-and-such behaviour is prohibited, but it cannot say that such-and-such thought/belief is prohibited. And as the gap between belief and behaviour widens, hypocrisy sets in. People with beards still kill. People who cover their heads still steal. People who thank God for their victories still cheat. And because so many people do these things, the split between religion and morality becomes profound and widely accepted.
That is what I believe is happening with, let’s just say, the Kesh debate. We are not encouraging children to understand the real essence of Sikhi and letting them choose the right path for themselves, instead we are forcing them to comply without any understanding or deep experience of it. What miffs me more is that we come up with faulty reasons or explanations for justifying a certain expected outward appearance. Some of the reasons I always get to hear at all Sikh talks are: “Keep your hair as a sign for acceptance of GOD’s will. “Hair help you stand out.” Who are we kidding with these reasons? The will of GOD has a more sublime meaning than what we are trying to imply here. It is a flow. It is ecstatic. It is understood through subtle intuition and awareness, not by following externally imposed rules.
Not only have we degraded the rehats to mere written words, we are also trying to enforce them, I think, instead of making them inspirational and aspirational.
I don’t understand why are the non-Amritdhari Sikhs expected to maintain – just Kesh (turban) & Kara – two of the 5K’s – even when they are uninitiated into Amrit, and honoured fully for being a Sikh for doing that? I mean nobody questions me for not wearing a Kacchera, Kanga or Kirpan, because they know I am non-Amritdhari. I always thought that 5K’s were associated with Amrit. Since when and how has it come to 2K’s for Non-amritdharis and all the 5 K’s (2K’s + 3 K’s) for the Amritdharis?
I might start to sound ludicrous here but bear with me to understand the point I am trying to make.
The way I see it is that for a Sikh (learner) to start on his spiritual journey – kirat karna, naam japna, wand chakna – are very difficult ideals in themselves to achieve and strive for. First, focus should be on that. For those, who can make the further leap to be able to take up the challenge of Guru Gobind Singh Ji for taking Amrit– brilliant! What a blessing!
But for the rest of us, who are struggling to improve spiritually everyday, who have yet not understood the importance of Amrit, why condemn us for not maintaining the saroop? Rather, we should focus on showing the true spirit of Sikhism and if the Guru wishes it, they will themselves be pulled to take up His Amrit. Once they have willfully taken to the blessing of Amrit, They need not be coaxed to keep them hair; why coax them when they are willfully not ready to receive the Amrit? Let us not breed and feed hypocrisy.
I know there will be a lot of people ready to criticise me big time by now for trying to be a smart ass here. That exactly is what worries me. As Sikhs, we are supposed to be students in the school of Sikhism. The way our classrooms are being run right now are very much top down, rote based learning. You are just told to do “the right thing,” and no questions should be asked; if you do end up asking, you are handed down with illogical answers with great disdain in order to shut you up. It is certainly not a classroom where discussions are encouraged, where the mind is stimulated and you are encouraged to find the answers for yourself. How is this congruent with the essence of growing up to be a Sikh (a true learner?)
Hence, I have personally decided that I am simply going to listen to my Guru and let my Guru lead me. I will not go by the rules which today’s Sikh world seems to judge me.
One thing is for sure, I no longer want to live in hypocrisy. I hope that get the strength to stand on my own by the time I finish this bottle of hair fixer. May this be the last ever bottle.