Generations

In my opinion, there is no family which is more blessed than that which centres their lives around Sikhi. I saw this picture by M Khalsa a while back, and it made me think.

I have seen an Amritdhari grandmother with Guru Ji's dastaar and Khalsa roop, taking her grandson and granddaughter to school. I noticed that the little girl wore earrings and had trimmed hair - very different to her grandmother.

What people tend to not realise is that Amritdhari families have problems with their Sikhi too. Through the generations, family members begin to take their rehit for granted, and make small allowances, with the belief that it won't do any harm.

You can argue that some things are too small to worry about, but everything adds up in the end. Dropping smaller things results in dropping bigger, more important values, because once the small values are gone, the big values become small. As we lose our smaller values, we lose our bigger values too, and we leave gaps in our Sikhi.

Although this picture has some level of exaggeration, it illustrates exactly what can happen. I urge everyone not to drop their small values, such as avoiding make up or jewellery, or tying a full dastaar rather than a small keski. Sikhi is personal, but remember that you need to act in the way which you would like the future generations to act.

This picture shows what has universally happened to most Sikh families. Many of our ancestors would have been rehitdhari Gursikhs, but slowly through the generations we have lost our values and it has resulted in an absence of Sikh lifestyle.

Maybe the younger generation can return to restoring the values of our ancestors back to the panth.