Thanks! And thanks to Harbeer for the website =)

I’m deeply sorry. Clearly my comments are not welcome.

Please stick to one name on this blog. This is your 3rd name on the blog. Keep switching names will get you banned.

My attitude is not ‘fundementalist’ – far from it. Neither am I anti-sensual nor anti-aesthetic. I simply choose to to elevate in my mind the love of Guru Nanak for the Divine above and beyond mortal love. That’s my interpretation. I stated in my first comment that it was my personal point of view.

‘If you can’t love God’s creation, I don’t really see much hope for you “loving God”–the two are inseparable.’

I didn’t say that I don’t love God’s creation – I said I choose not to glamorise love stories like Heer Ranjha and this is because I choose to exercise moral responsibility towards those who might be easily influenced by these so called legends. Then you’ll get people who complain that so and so’s daughter has ‘run off’ with someone because people promoted bollywood love stories or the ‘legends’ of heer ranjha et al. Four years down the line you realise that the girl ran off with a total waster thinking that it was ‘true love’ etc etc… This is my reason for my statement.

Associating this sort of love with religion – gives the impression that it’s acceptable to make life altering / destroying decisions based on ‘feelings’. We don’t live in satjug anymore Harbeer ji and there are people out there who just need an excuse to excercise immorality.

But okay I accept the value of such literature in intellectual discussions on the internet. So Cammile I accept your argument on this level – For me personally if the analogy is used to promote Sikhi – and the Teachings of Sikhism then cool – but the other way around it doesn’t make any sense to me. Perhaps this is pragmatism to an extreme that other’s consider ‘fundementalist’

Phulkari, I don’t know how more to explain my point of view on the similarities and differences than I already have done in the first comment.

Thank you for posting that line from Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s poem! It’s absolutely beautiful … the idea and process of how you just learn to eat and digest sorrow because there is no other option.

P.S. Thanks a lot Harbeer for the “chewing gum” comment … now I can’t stop listening to Chitra Singh’s version without initially thinking that she is trying to explain how she finally learned to properly eat a piece of watermelon flavored Bubblicious!

I can understand your desire not to equate the love expressed in Punjabi folktales and poetry with that conveyed by Guru Nanak Dev Ji. You bring up some good points about the differences and I agree with you. However, those differences as Camille stated, are “… just different facets of a similar concept” and not mutually exclusive. The beauty in Sikhi, for myself, is that the concepts of social relationships discussed by our Gurus are supposed to be practiced in real life (their teachings provide us guidance); however, we are supposed to figure out how that actually works out for us “mortals”. I hope this thread would provide a space for us to have those discussions in a critical and respectful manner (that is the purpose of this blog) by thinking about the love discussed in Punjabi literature alongside that conveyed by Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Sikh scholars. What are the similarities, differences, contentions, nuances, and possibilities?

You seem to have some knowledge of Gurbani and Sikh literature, please continue to share it.

I like it because I’m a silly punster and I translate it as “I finally got the hang of chewing gum.”