Snatam Sikhi

An Introduction


When All Other Means Have Failed, It Is Righteous To Do Something New And Different!


Snatam Sikhi is just a name, a reference to a different approach to Sikhi. It is in no way an attempt to start a new sect. Don’t we have enough of them? Instead, it is an attempt to re-energise and inspire a new wave of Sikhi that can take us to the big wide world out there, and to the future. Snatam simply means devotional, divine.

Sikhi was never meant for only the Punjabees. If that is what we have understood, we are way off the mark. The Holy Guru Nanak Himself walked round the whole known world of His time, to spread his message of Sikhi. And we Sikhs had better wake up to that fact. We should encourage as many people as we can to embrace Sikhi instead of giving everyone such a hard time for trying to become Sikhs, with our endless rules and conditions that almost no one seems to be able to comply with.

The Sikh leadership from the Punjab has failed the Sikh nation. All appointments to the Sikh religious leadership are actually political. Even then, no one has any real power or ability to deliver measurable gains for the panth. The jathedaars come and go. All they have done till date is add and subtract verses from the Rehraas and the Doheraa we read after the Ardaas. Almost none of the religious leadership can read or write English, further adding to their isolation from the ‘real’ world that we all live in today.

Even the Akaal Takht is today simply a building. Our Gurus had intended it to become the Vatican of the Sikhs. There is no leadership or guidance coming from there. We keep showering it with layers upon layers of gold over the top, but inside, all we hear are the echoes of our past. Besides the daily readings of gurbanee and the daily presentation of the weapons of our holy warriors, absolutely nothing happens there.

The Sikh leadership has no strategies or budgets for global or even local missionary work. The entire landscape is in shambles. The seeds for the ruin of the panth have been planted everywhere. Christians are swooping down on us from above. 35 Sikhs from the Sikh holy city of Sirhind, where the chhoteh sahibzadeh were martyred, were recruited and sent to Bangalore to be trained as Christian Missionaries. Can you imagine the damage to Sikhi when they return to Punjab.

This is only the beginning. The real show has not even begun. What happened in Sirhind was just a test to see the Sikh response to a direct frontal assault on the Sikhs right here in their homeland. As usual, there was none. The Christians always do their homework. Our leaders are too busy grovelling for positions to notice what is happening right under their noses. In Singapore and Malaysia, a huge number of Sikhs have already been converted to Christianity. Not a single month goes by without news of another family’s conversion.

In India, Hindu chauvinists are gnawing at our flesh. Every attempt is being made to re-absorb us into the Hindu mainstream. Another eternal enemy of the Sikhs in the UK are openly taunting and targeting our youths for conversion. They are succeeding too. If persuasion doesn’t work, they use violence. Sikhs fight each other in Gurdwaras, but no one has the guts to fight those who conspire to swallow us up, who grow bolder each day.

It is a sign of desperate times. But it is the perfect time. Just like the time of our Gurus. Adversity has always been the friend of the Sikh and the Khalsa. It is in times of adversity that the Guru brings out the best in His Sikhs. History is my witness. This is the true meaning of ‘Chardhi Kla’.

For the ‘Chardhi Kla’ of the panth, the Holy Guru Gobind made this earth shaking pronouncement in 1675 – “When all other means have failed, it is righteous to draw the sword”. Today, we find ourselves in an exact similar situation. Again, it is our faith that is under attack.

The reason we are under attack is because Sikhi worldwide is itself witnessing a Fizzle-Out. People are bored in the Gurdwaras. The programs are dull and uninteresting. Gurdwaras worldwide are experiencing massive absenteeism. Almost 80 % of Sikhs only go to Gurdwara upon the invitation of someone. Long gone are the days when Sikhs went to a Gurdwara to worship!

I could go on for weeks, but I believe I have made my point. Unless we all learn how to come together and re-inject new life and new energy into the Sikh masses, we could be looking at our sunset; looking pretty, going going, slowly gone. In just a few years, we could lose the ‘critical mass’ in numbers required to sustain a living 'religious' community. Of course we will have no trouble surviving as Punjabis. It is our survival as Sikhs that i am talking about. That is what is under threat today. If we fall below a certain number, the few that remain will simply disappear into the crowd. 'The Last Sikh Standing' would really have nothing to be a SIkh for. Already we are so few and so far between that many Gurdwaras remain shut for weeks before an event is held there, for whatever reason.

I pray my readers will be kind enough to spare me the rhetoric we are so used to hearing whenever someone raises the topic of our slow disappearance, about Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s declaration of – “Raaj Karega Khalsa”. When saying that, He never implied that He will be pulling all the strings from His heavenly abode and Jack Robinson!! Suddenly there are one billion new Sikhs on the surface of the planet. Wake up folks! He was actually laying out the Mission for us, yes, YOU AND ME! He was telling all of us to get off our behind (pardon my French) and spread the message of Sikhi to the world. He was actually commissioning all of us to do that work, not sit around for it to somehow magically ‘Happen’.

Today, I seek inspiration from our great Guru Himself. Using His very own words, I will say – “When All Other Means Have Failed, It Is Righteous To Do Something New And Different!

Today, we have fallen so far behind that there is only one way to go, that is to return Sikhi to its basics and start ALL OVER AGAIN, BABY STEPS AND ALL! We have to imagine we are back at the times of Guru Baba Nanak. We have to re-introduce Sikhi to the Punjabee and non-Punjabee in a language the world understands – English. We have to start again, keeping things so simple; a simple initiation process into the faith like the ‘charan Amrit of our Gurus, and then just the three original commandments of Guru Nanak

Naam japo
Kirt karo
Vandh shakkoh

We have to create a Sikhi that is devotional and experiential. His Holiness Yogi Ji has shown us how practical and powerful that is. For the first time after 300 years, we are seeing new people, in this case from the west converting to the Sikh faith. He has showed us that Sikhi today must no longer be one of passive attendance, most people just sitting around till its time to eat. People must go back to their homes having participated, having experienced an upliftment of their soul, and some fire in their spirit. People must walk and live this journey. They must be involved in it, be immersed in it, not just wait for ragi’s to sing shabads to them and granthis to do ardaas for them! I am willing to bet every cent I have that this new approach will actually inspire many more people rising to the status of Khalsa than what we have today.

Snatam Sikhi is only a name. You can call it any other name you like. Let it be 'Revival Sikhi'. Words are only meant as a means of communicating an idea, to express this line of thought. It is necessary give it some reference to allow us to discuss the ideas that will come from everywhere. I am not the only one responsible for this Mission. You all are too. We are all answerable to our Gurus for growing and spreading Sikhi in the world, which is what they started. I hope you don’t think that Sikhi was only meant to grow and spread while they were around. And after that, we can all sit idly by and watch everything our Gurus built crumble because we were all waiting for them to come back one more time to do the whole stuff all over again!

I don’t have all the answers. I only have an idea to develop on an idea that was given to us by the Siri Singh Sahib. I have an idea that to grow, we have to do something different. Working harder and harder at the same thing that has been failing for decades is not the answer. Doing the SAME thing harder and harder again and again and expecting a DIFFERENT result is Steven Covey’s definition of insanity! That is what I learnt at a motivational camp in 1995 and that is what the Sikh world is still doing today, using the same method of parchaar as we have been doing for the last 40 years, and expecting everyone to suddenly do a U-Turn and start packing the gurdwaras.

If we want a DIFFERENT RESULT, a DIFFERENT SUCCESS, we have to do something that is ‘NEW AND DIFFERENT’. Or stated another way – “We must not be afraid to do something that is new and different” if we want to see a new result. Our Gurus never attended any seminars to learn this stuff but that is exactly what they were doing way back in the 15th century! They turned Hindustan upside-down with their mind provoking teachings. They were not afraid to challenge the centuries old practices of the people then. Then we too should have the courage to walk in the footsteps of our founding fathers, and challenge our own beliefs and practices that have become ineffective.

Snatam Sikhi is best described as 'Inside-Out' Sikhi. That is a great description. It is the exact opposite of the outside-in Sikhi we are all used to; the one where you are born a Sikh, grow your hair naturally, wear your kara etc and go to gurdwara. Then, you start working on your inside, filling it up with substance from Sikhi. Inside-Out-SIkhi allows people to start by learning and experiencing Sikhi exactly the way they are, without the insistence on hair and turbans, then slowly progressing to being a Khalsa if that is their calling. Otherwise, just be a good Sikh!

But sadly, what we see happen most of the time is that the majority drop out after only a short distance. Since there is almost no-one (as in parents, preachers or missionaries that speak a language people can understand or even teach stuff that is actually relevant to life today) around to provide that much needed 'substance'. Out goes the hair, the kara etc, and in comes the booze, the cigarettes and the rest.

Snatam Sikhi is the 'Inside-Out' approach. it may be our only chance to take Sikhi global, to revive flagging Sikhi. I am definately winning back a whole lot of people who had left their Sikhi lifestyle. They are coming back in significant numbers. This is also because Snatam Sikhi does not require or impose ANY KIND OF appearance code. It also does not impose any kind of lifestyle restrictions. everyone is old enough to know what is right for them. My job therefore is only to show them something better than what they already have.

If I can start filling people up from the inside, the rest will simply take care of itself. and everyone can decide for themselves, how much they want. Snatam Sikhi will be the way into the future.


For details on the concepts of Snatam Sikhi, you may periodically log on to my blog http://www.perfectlightministry.blogspot.com/, or the Mission blog at http://www.sikhswithamission.com/ to keep abreast of emerging ideas and concepts.

Satnam