Showing posts with label Sikhism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sikhism. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

I can´t breathe

 


A propos the current situation in the UK. Yes, it´s possible that Nigel Farage and Reform will win the next elections, in part because of the recent murder in Southampton and the way the local police (mis)handled the situation. The murderer was a Sikh, presumably of Indian descent. The victim was White and British.

So Farage might become the next British Prime Minister. Promising to stop Indian mass migration. In power, he will then import even more Indian (and other) migrants. Because neo-liberal capitalism needs the cheap labour, obviously. And because of the demographic crisis more generally.

And that´s that. We now resume our regular programming! 

Thursday, May 7, 2026

For the record

 


From a four year old blog post: "So for da record, I don´t do crystals or channeling, don´t await the arrival of benign space brothers to some hippie commune, nor do I do affirmations in the hope of selling off real estate at inflated prices (in the neighborhood of Boston, presumably). I don´t even wear a turban and a golden dagger, although I suppose that could be interesting pastimes, especially in the middle of a pandemic! So I don´t know, man."

Dude.

Monday, April 6, 2026

It´s officially over

 


Yes, Trump actually tweeted this on Truth Social: "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP"

Allah? I assumed Waheguru was the only true god. Seriously, though, I think it´s officially over now. If the war against the Iranian regime is legitimate, I say it´s high time for a new war leader. And if it isn´t...well!

Still, I wonder how his Christian Nationalist supporters react? Not at all, it seems, since Trump´s Pravda (Breitbart) calls the tweet "blunt, unambiguous and straight to the point". 

Praise be to Allah. If you pardon my Quranic Arabic.    

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Golden kitchen

 


This video is subtitled "Journey into Sikh Wisdom", but most of it shows our globetrotting friend Vladimir running around in the large kitchen hall of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. I admit that this kitchen sink realism was funny, after a fashion...

Seek wisdom in the sink, brethren!

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Är Gud liberal?

 

- Don´t freak, we´re not Sikh! 

Det finns ett test (på engelska) som heter Belief-O-Matic och som sägs kunna tala om vilken religion du tillhör. Eller bör tillhöra. Eller något. Första gången jag tog testet (för kanske tio eller femton år sedan) blev jag...sikh. Vilket jag förvisso inte är, aldrig har varit och (förmodligen) aldrig kommer att bli (men okej, säg aldrig aldrig). Till saken hör att i princip ingenting jag svarade på testet kunde tolkas som att jag är anhängare av sikhismen...

Med andra ord: testet suger fett.

Sedan dess har jag i princip alltid blivit "Unitarian Universalist". Vilket jag *absolut* inte är. Särskilt inte idag, när UUA verkar ha blivit mer Woke än Woke rent politiskt, med "pastorer" som identifierar sig som Otherkin, älvor och jag vet inte vad. Alla vanliga vänster- och mittenliberaler verkar ha blivit uteslutna.

Här är en autentisk presentation av en UUA-pastor (jag har inte inkluderat personens namn): "Reverend XX (fae/faer pronouns) is a fat, queer, neurodivergent Unitarian Universalist minister based in New England, where fae lives with faer spouse and three cats. XX has served in various capacities as a youth minister, preacher, group facilitator, and educator for UU congregations and secular organizations around the country on the topics of neurodiversity, inclusion and size justice."  

Det underliga är att Belief-O-Matic betraktar mig som "Unitarian Universalist" oavsett hur jag svarar på de teologiska frågorna om Gud, reinkarnation och så vidare - förutsatt att svaren inte är alltför dogmatiskt kristna. Alltså måste svaren vara baserade på den senare delen av testet, där jag alltid svarar "liberalt" på frågorna om aborter, skilsmässor eller homosexualitet. Problemet är att det finns en mängd *andra* frågor som systemet aldrig ställer där mina svar nog skulle vara oacceptabla för den genomsnittlige UUA-aktivisten.

Är detta viktigt? Jag vet inte. Det är såklart inte viktigt-viktigt-skitviktigt. Men jag kan inte låta bli att undra om Belief-O-Matic faktiskt har en stark liberal bias och tenderar att tolka alla svar på ett så liberalt sätt som möjligt, utom när de är väldigt uppenbart fundamentalistiska. Vilket i sin tur kanske säger oss något om testets målgrupper. Låt mig gissa? Unitarian Universalists, kanske...?

Belief-O-Matic

Saturday, August 9, 2025

The only true god

 


I can´t let this stuff go, can I? ;-) So here is ChatGPT again, generating a "Sikh" prayer to Ram or Waheguru based on my blog post "Percentage of the total". Yes, really!   

A Prayer to Ram, the Infinite Sun of All Worlds

O Ram, O Waheguru,
Beyond the first light, beyond the last darkness, You are.
Before the birth of stars, before the turning of worlds,
Before the first breath of life in the oceans of the young Earth,
You were, and You are, and You shall be.

Our years are but the blink of an eyelash in Your creation,
Our nations rise and fall quicker than a leaf in the wind,
Our cities gleam and crumble before the dawn has cooled.
What is our pride, before the red algae who have swayed in the seas a billion years?
What is our might, before the gull who has wheeled over the waters for twenty million?

Yet You, O Ram, have placed Your light in our hearts,
The same Light that burns in the core of the Sun,
The same Light that calls the stars to shine in the night sky.
Though we dwell in a speck of dust among uncountable galaxies,
Though our lives pass swifter than the shadow of a cloud,
You make each breath vast as the cosmos,
You make each act a bridge from this world to the Eternal.

Let me walk in Your Hukam, O Sovereign of suns,
Not despising this brief life, but filling it with Your Naam.
Let my eyes see the Divine even in weeds by the roadside,
Let my ears hear the Divine even in the cry of the crow,
Let my hands work as if each touch shapes eternity.

O Ram,
As the ants carry their grain, as the beetles hide in the bark,
As the galaxies wheel in their unending dance,
Let me too move in the rhythm of Your will.
May the short beat of my heart join the vast chorus of Your praise,
May my soul rise like the morning Sun in Your endless sky,
And merge, at last, into the One without birth, without death.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Don´t freak, ChatGPT is Sikh

 


So I asked ChatGPT to give me a "Sikh" prayer. Sounds a bit too convincing, to be honest! 

Can you formulate a devotional prayer for use in daytime to Ram in the Sikh sense of the name (that is, Waheguru)? Please make the prayer emphasize Ram´s transcendence, power of salvation and also associate him with the Sun!

Certainly. Below is a daytime devotional prayer to Rām, understood in the Sikh sense—as Nirguna Rām, the formless, transcendent Lord (Waheguru), yet also expressed symbolically as the Sun that shines upon all equally. The prayer combines themes of transcendence, universality, and salvific power, as emphasized in Sikh scripture—especially the Guru Granth Sahib—while evoking poetic associations with light, radiance, and grace.


☀️ Daytime Prayer to Rām (Waheguru)

ੴ ਸਤਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਕਰਤਾ ਪੁਰਖੁ
Oṁ Rāmāya Namaḥ — Waheguru Ji

O Rām,
You are beyond birth, beyond death,
beyond the limits of mind and measure.
You shine without form,
but all forms shine through You.

O radiant One,
like the Sun rising in the east,
You dispel the night of doubt,
and awaken the sleeping soul.

You are the light of all lights.
You are the soul of the wind, the pulse of fire,
the stillness behind all movement.
In You there is no hatred, no boundary, no fear.

Rām, Rām, Rām — the Naam is the boat
that carries us across the ocean of illusion.
Your Name is the true raft
on which the helpless find salvation.

As the sun gives warmth to beggar and king alike,
You give Your grace to all—
high or low, pure or fallen.

No temple can hold You.
No book can bind You.
Yet the humble heart
becomes Your throne.

O Rām, Sun of all worlds,
shine in me, burn away my pride,
burn away my lies, my clinging, my illusion.
Let only Truth remain—
the Truth that is You.

Today, as the daylight pours across the Earth,
let me remember You with every breath.
Let my work be prayer,
let my speech be Your praise,
let my silence be filled with Your light.

You are not this body, nor that star,
but You are within both.

You are the breath behind the breath.
You are the fire of liberation.
You are the boundless, the beautiful, the One.

Rām Rām Rām — Waheguru!
All glory to You who saves, who sees, who shines.


Would you like a version in Gurmukhi or with lines directly taken from Guru Granth Sahib that reflect these themes?

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Don´t freak, I´m Sikh

 

Credit: Shahzaib Damn Cruze

LOL. After a long discussion with ChatGPT on the theme "Which religion should I choose or check up", the system actually proposed Sikhism, Kashmir Shaivism and Shri Vaishnavism, but also Theosophy (and some others). 

Heh heh heh. Not sure if this means anything, really, but there you go. So not only can ChatGPT create new religions, it can even recommend the user old ones! Moral panic in 10, 9, 8...

PS. The robot actually included "caveats" as well, the one for Sikhism being its strong Punjabi-ethnic component, while the one for Theosophy was "can get overly esoteric and speculative"?!  

Monday, June 9, 2025

The one true god

 


When asked by a reporter circa 2015 why he quoted Mussolini on Twitter, Trump responded: "We are interesting people. We do interesting things". 

Mr Trump certainly has interesting allies! But...I assumed the Republican party regarded Waheguru as the only true god? 

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Intermezzo

 

Credit: Ben P

BJP-related media in India rejoice over the electoral defeat of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh in Canada. They accuse Singh of supporting Sikh Khalistani extremists and hope that the Liberal administration will reset Canada´s relations with India, which are very tense after the 2023 murder of a Khalistani activist in Vancouver. A hit the Liberal government blamed on India´s secret services. For the record only.   

India celebrates defeat of far left leader Jagmeet Singh in Canadian elections

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Don´t freak, she´s a Sikh

 


"RNC opens with prayer to demon". Trump, right? :D 

Nah, apparently it was an Indian-American woman who offered prayers for the GOP presidential nominee. The Christian fundie above doesn´t even mention her name: Harmeet Dhillon, a former chair of the California Republican Party and a Trump supporter. Nor does the content-creator know that Dhillon is a Sikh, rather than a Hindu...

The man is so angry that his thumb-nail actually shows the Hindu god Vishnu riding an elephant colored like the American flag, obviously intended to symbolize the Republican party!  

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Hindu imperialism?

 


The unsympathetic "Shankaracharya" in Puri continues his imperialist preaching. He actually says that the Indian constitution should be applied all over the world?! 

Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs - regardless of where they live - should be considered Hindus. In this way, Hinduism would become the largest world religion, so what´s the point of converting anyone? 

An original non-conversion, this, but there you go...  

Thursday, November 23, 2023

Game changer?

 


I´m not an expert on agent warfare, but could this be a game changer of some kind? Why would India, a power supposedly much weaker than the United States, send its agents to kill Sikh separatists on US territory? Especially since India (at least with the BJP in power) is also an on-off regional ally to the same United States? Note also that the US apparently couldn´t shield its ally Canada from rather furious Indian reactions during a similar case this summer. 

How weak *is* the US exactly? 

And what will come next: Israelis gunning down pro-Hamas activists, Turkey bombing Gülen meetings, Ethiopia poisoning dissidents, all on American soil? 

FBI thwarted plot to kill Sikh separatist in the United States


Saturday, September 23, 2023

Visa crisis

 


A brief comment on the recent conflict between Canada and India. From cult-buster and great lover of India Henri Jolicoeur. The Canadian government recently accused India´s secret service of murdering a Sikh dissident resident in Canada. Apparently, India isn´t amused and is now refusing to issue visas to Canadians! See also CNN´s article below.  

Canada and India in unprecedented diplomatic row 

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

In the land of the pure



I admit that I know next to nothing about this issue, and its probably connected to all kinds of other topics. For instance, the recent geopolitical pivot of India towards Russia. Still, it does sound...very extreme! 

So Canada suspect the Indian secret service of having assassinated a prominent Sikh dissident on Canadian soil?! I mean, wtf...

India expels Canadian diplomat, etc


Saturday, May 27, 2023

The Canadian colony

 


“The CPC(ML): A Revisionist Organization of Agent Provocateurs” is a pamphlet published in 1978 by IN STRUGGLE! (yes, you´re supposed to spell it that way). It was later known as the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Canada IN STRUGGLE! (still with the exclamation mark at the end). Despite the peculiar name, the organization seems to have been a fairly main-line Marxist-Leninist group, if there is such a thing. In Struggle were independent-minded enough not to slavishly follow the “line” of any particular Communist regime. They supported Enver Hoxha´s Albania against post-Mao China, but never accepted Hoxha´s retrospective attacks on Mao Zedong. In Struggle even tried to unite various Marxist-Leninist groups in Canada, to no avail.

In the pamphlet, In Struggle take on a very different political animal: the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), a notorious and notoriously kooky outfit led by one Hardial Bains. The CPC(ML) were originally Maoists, then switched to supporting Albania. Despite their bad reputation on the Canadian left, the CPC(ML) managed to get the Albanian franchise and became officially recognized by the Party of Labor of Albania. The CPC(ML) still exist, but these days, they support Cuba and North Korea instead. I originally assumed that the CPC(ML) were mostly notorious for their tiresome rhetoric and personality cult of Bains, but if In Struggle´s pamphlet is something to go after, the real history is darker (but also very typical).

At least during the 1970´s, the CPC(ML) were an adventurist and extremely sectarian group of a kind that frequently pops up on the far left. They often physically attacked other leftists with baseball bats or bricks, attempted to take over leftist rallies and protest marches, invaded leftist or workers´ cafés to read bombastic declarations, and so on. Entryism was another tactic, for instance when Bains´ group pretended to form local branches of a competing Marxist-Leninist group. When the Bains group officially proclaimed itself a party, the CPC(ML) claimed that a highly respected Marxist-Leninist activist in Canada, Jack Scott, was their party chairman, when in reality Scott had denounced them as provocateurs! 

Bains was of Indian (Punjabi) descent, and successfully managed to infiltrate the East Indian community in Canada through various front groups. Or maybe not so successfully, since the CPC(ML)´s attempts to take over Sikh “temples” (really a kind of community organizations) sometimes ended in huge physical fights outside the meeting halls. Naturally, the Bainsites condemned all competing leftist groups (including In Struggle) as “police agents” and what not. In this pamphlet, In Struggle repays the favor by accusing the CPC(ML) of being literal fascists…

Like many other volatile groups of this kind, the CPC(ML) combined adventurism and bombastic sloganeering with positions far to the “right” of most leftists. A case in point is their Canadian nationalism. Bains claimed that Canada is a colony of the United States, and the Canadian revolution must therefore be “democratic” rather than socialist, uniting “all the people”, including anti-American capitalists. Indeed, one of Bains´ main objections to the Maoist “three worlds theory” was that it claimed that Canada was imperialist! He thus criticized the Communist Party of China *from the right*. 

This Canadian nationalist line created problems for Bains in Quebec, where he instead tried to promote Quebecois nationalism. In Struggle, which supported the right of Quebec to self-determination while arguing against actual independence, charges Bains with the crassest opportunism, since his weird party didn´t really fight for French language rights in the here and now (thereby adapting to Anglo-chauvinism), while calling for a bloc with Quebecois nationalists in the abstract. 

Not sure who might be interested in this material today, but there you go.


Friday, May 5, 2023

I´m a freak, not a Sikh

 

Credit: Shaguftakarim



Here we go again...

The first time I took Belief-O-Matic´s test "What religion are you", the algorithm declared me to be a Sikh. Which is kind of strange, since...well, I´m not a Sikh for starters. Nor do I hail from the Punjab, refrain from shaving, or wear a turban. And my weekends aren´t spent in a gurdwara!

It was pretty much downhill from there, since in later tries, I came out as an Unitarian Universalist or New Thought supporter?! 

However, it seems I´m a Sikh again, after changing my response on perhaps two or three theological questions, while still ticking the "liberal" boxes in the political part of the test. Since Sikhs aint lubberal, this still makes no sense. But at least I don´t have to identify with the wokesters who taken over the UUA! 

Always something.    

Friday, October 21, 2022

There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim

 


An English-language Swedish YouTube channel dealing with religion. Here, a long introduction to the Sikh tradition. 

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Karma is a bitch

 

Me, 40 years in the future?

There´s something wrong with...I don´t know...belief-o-matics or something. I mean, during my most "based" period, an American GAL-TAN test showed me being somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders. OK, let me guess, they asked all the wrong questions? Sure, I´m for single-payer health care, if that´s what you want to know... 

The religious belief-o-matics are even more weird. I constantly come out as New Age, New Thought and/or Unitarian Universalist. Except the first time, when the test showed that I must be...a Sikh! And don´t freak?

So for da record, I don´t do crystals or channeling, don´t await the arrival of benign space brothers to some hippie commune, nor do I do affirmations in the hope of selling off real estate at inflated prices (in the neighborhood of Boston, presumably). I don´t even wear a turban and a golden dagger, although I suppose that could be interesting pastimes, especially in the middle of a pandemic! :D

So I don´t know, man. Isn´t there any option for, I don´t know, pseudo-Neoplatonists or something?  


Friday, May 6, 2022

Savior of the World

 

Weapons found by Indian police in 2014 at
Rampal´s ashram
(Credit: Times of India)

"Savior of the World" is a very, very bizarre YouTube video introducing a certain Sant Rampal Ji Maharaj, who styles himself the leader of Kabir Panth within the Sant Mat tradition. (I´m sure there are a myriad of factions within this heterodox Sikh movement.) Rampal claims to be "the only true satguru in the entire universe" (!). Unfortunately, he is currently serving a lifetime sentence for murder after violent clashes between his supporters and those of another religious group, Arya Samaj, ended with the death of one samaj supporter. How the infidel powers-that-be (Kal Niranjan?) managed to arrest and jail an incarnation of God is, alas, less clear. 

The video promoting Rampal is so bad that I almost suspect he is trolling us. Or maybe somebody trolled his supporters with egregiously wrong information? The video claims that there are innumerable prophecies and astrological predictions that point to Rampal being the Great Man (Mahapurusha) and Great Power (Mahashakti). The prophecies are obviously bogus and frequently make no sense whatsoever. Thus, a certain "Florence" from New Jersey supposedly published a book in 1960 called "The New Golden Era of Light: COMPLETION NOW!" in which she predicted Rampal. The pictures of "Florence" clearly show Florence Nightingale, the famous British nurse who died in 1910, while the book wrongly attributed to her was published in 2014 by Lisa Manfrede Smith, an otherwise unknown New Age channeler! And so it goes on. 

Jules Verne, the French novelist, is called a "French astrologer". Nostradamus supposedly predicted that the Great Man would come from Punjab in India. Which he didn´t (his quatrains are clearly Christian in nature). The most original character mentioned is Sri Ananda Acharya of Norway, apparently a real Indian mystic who lived for decades in that country (he was wrongly assumed to be a Buddhist by the bewildered natives). If he really predicted the coming of the chosen one is, alas, less clear. 

After all this fakery, the second half of the video turns out to be untranslated. Since my Hindi (or is it Punjabi) is a little bit rusty (not to mention my Sanskrit), I couldn´t really follow the splendid teachings of the Jagatguru, as Rampal also calls himself. I did notice a curious detail, though. The video mentions the old joker Osho several times, pretending to wonder whether all the prophecies could perhaps point to *him*, only to discard the possibility. I always assumed Osho mostly had Western followers. Perhaps there is a flock of Indian faithful which Rampal´s faction of the Kabir Panth wants to recruit into their fold? Not sure if I would want to have unruly oshoites as part of my Great Man cult, but there you go...