Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguru Ji Ki Fateh!
So looking at Christianity and trying to understand it from a Sikh perspective.
Many Christians would tell you that Christ died on the cross
for the sins of all of Humanity.
Now that does make sense from a Christian point of view.
But many of us, like Sikhs like myself,
we would listen that I would say, "okay fine, that is what you believe in. That is cool".
But from a Sikh perspective, I want to get us to analyse this a little bit more.
I just want to give a little disclaimer.
This is not denigrate Christianity in any way.
That is not our purpose.
Our purpose is just to educate the Sikhs a bit more about this aspect of Christianity.
Where it is coming from and offer a Sikh perspective on the same issue.
So when a Christian will say that Christ died on the on the Cross for our sins or in their view,
sacrificed Himself or in fact you might say he was crucified.
Then there are two aspects of this.
That sentence can be broken into two parts.
The first part is that forgiveness of the sins.
Let us put that to one side.
We have got forgiveness of the sins.
Now from a Sikh perspective, yes obviously, we do believe that Christ can forgive sins.
We believe that obviously, God can forgive sins.
We also believe that the Guru can forgive sins.
So for us, this can come down to the point where we say that actually,
anybody who is of that certain amount of spirituality level,
Karam Khand, we would say the fourth stage.
Then Maharaj says,
This person, when they say something, then it will come true.
So if somebody at that level says,
"Oh you know what? Your sins are forgiven".
Then God comes and makes than Bachan.
Makes that sort of command by that saint come true as well.
Now that is the concept which comes up in Gurbani.
Maharaj says,
The people at that level, when they say something then it becomes true here and true in the next world.
In Sikhi we understand that for us, the Guru forgives all of our sins.
When we take Amrit, we are told straight away that from now on all your previous Paap has been wiped out.
It does not mean that you have lost all the bad habits and stuff.
But it just means that for the moment your Lekha has been wiped out.
Maharaj says,
The Lekha can get wiped out.
So we accept that part.
Now moving on to the first part, which is that the idea that Christ died on the Cross.
In order to forgive our sins.
This is the key part that I want to focus upon.
The concept is that Christ died on the cross.
We understand that part.
The Gurus also you know went through a terrible torture.
Guru Arjan Dev Ji Maharaj is on Tati Tavi.
They are tortured from heat.
Their skin is burned off.
Finally they succumb to the injuries.
At the same time, you have got Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji Maharaj,
who is beheaded in Delhi.
Again they are giving Shaheedi.
So the Gurus are giving Shaheedi.
Chote Sahibzaade. By all of the Sikhs. Bhai Mani Singh Ji. Bhai Taru Singh Ji.
The concept of sacrificing yourself for the Panth by giving Shaheedi.
We understand.
But the key thing here is that Christ died on the Cross in order to forgive our sins.
Now this is the bit I want to focus upon.
Where is this coming from?
The question is why did Christ have to die, in order to forgive our sins?
To understand this from a Christian perspective effectively, we have to look at the idea of blood sacrifice.
The idea that somebody's blood, it has to be atoned for other people's sins.
This comes from the idea that you have to give something in order to get something.
So therefore, the blood of Christ is actually the price that he paid to forgive everybody's sins.
Christ was already out there forgiving people of their sins.
He was walking around saying, "Okay, you know what?"
So they met somebody who repented.
He would say, "I forgive you of your sins".
At that point he did not require to make a sacrifice to forgive somebody of their sins.
But now where the concept has come into Christianity,
that Christ had to sacrifice himself and shed his own blood, give his own life.
As you know on the weighing scale.
You have got Christ giving his life and everybody else's sins.
Therefore Christ giving his life is bigger than everybody else's sins.
This concept of sacrifice is actually, you could say, a very pagan in nature.
That you give some blood.
If you look at the every culture in the old days.
The idea of Bali.
You kill a buffalo or you kill a goat.
All these things, it comes down to the concept of Bali.
But this is not a concept that we as Sikhs do agree with.
You know for us, the Guru when they give a Shaheedi, was not in order to forgive our sins.
It was order to inspire us.
It was not like you know, they did that as a price to pay.
But they did it as to inspire us that Sikhs, you may have to do the same thing.
You may have to become strong and your faith might be tested.
But you are going to have to stick with it, carry through and rise above the Dukh.
Maharaj says,
The idea of going beyond the pain and the happiness of normal life and into a God-oriented life.
The question from a Sikh perspective is, why does God need blood in order to forgive sins?
Because from our perspective and even today's Hukamnama is very interesting,
because it actually explained to us, what the Sikh perspective is on the forgiveness of sins.
Maharaj says,
In Japji Sahib, Guru Nanak Dev Ji explains that those people that do go to holy places, that do 'Tap'.
Tap means to do some kind of penance
or in effect you could say to give a gift (Daan).
Now here you could say that Christ giving his blood.
Christ giving his sacrifice is a form of Tap
and a form of Daan.
Guru Nanak Dev Ji is saying that in return, what did they get?
They get this much honor.
As much the sesame seed.
But look at the next Pankti.
It explains what God really wants from us. It says,
To go inside you and wash.
Wash throught Naam.
That is today's Hukamnama. Maharaj says,
If I want to go and wash it at Teerath, I was go to God's Name inside of me.
That is actually the real Teerath. Maharaj then said,
The ultimate pilgrimage, the ultimate washing of our sins,
is by doing contemplation upon the Shabad.
Inside us will come the wisdom and the experience of God.
Maharaj says,
So then Guru Sahib comes to the real essence of that Shabad and says,
Actually the whole world is Rogi, is disease.
They say Naam is that medicine.
They say, without that medicine of Teerath of Naam,
without that truth of Vaheguru, then actually we all are living in dirt.
This is the thing that wash off our sins, Naam.
Maharaj says in Japji Sahib,
Your mind is polluted with sins.
To wash that, you need Naam.
The Connection with Vaheguru, God's Name.
Then they say,
Daily wash yourself in the Guru's Shabad.
Actually for a Sikh, this is what forgives sins.
We do not need to give blood in order for God to forgive our sins.
As far as Sikhi is concerned, what we need to do to get our sins forgiven is to ask for forgiveness.
But through chanting God's Name and experiencing God.
Now just a perspective and it could be a bit of a biased perspective,
to understand this sacrifice thing a little bit better.
What we are are saying is that
A. Christ sacrificed himself and he was sure he was a martyr.
B. Christ Ie. a saint of that level, can forgive your sins.
We do not believe, for us as Sikhs, that he would have to sacrifice himself in order to forgive our sins,
because that is not really essential to the forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness of sins for each one of us has to be a personal journey.
I will tell you a Sikh perspective of why we think this was adopted and kind of pushed into Christian views,
is because the idea of guilt.
We have already got in Christianity the concept that we are born in sin.
Not something that Sikhs believe that we are born in sin.
But the idea that we are perpetually in sin,
is something many Christians do believe.
Then added to that, is now this perspective that Christ died for us; therefore, we have to be sort of guilty.
Pay back that price by being a good person.
Not to say we should not be a good person,
and not to say that we should not take inspiration from Christ becoming Shaheed.
But the idea that the only way our sins will be forgiven is
by Christ sacrificing himself is not something that Sikhs agree with.
We would say actually, the only way we can be forgiven for our sins is to connect to God inside ourselves,
and wash in that true place of pilgrimage.
Which is inside our soul.
Vaheguru, God's light, which is inside us.
From the Sikh perspective, it would be your own actions on how much you connect to God and Naam.
This outweighs all your sins.
It is like the Naam is so powerful, it will forgive your sins.
We must as a Sikh, like I said,
we must go inside and try and wash at that true place of pilgrimage, God's Name inside ourselves.
So again like I said, this is not designed for us to criticize Christianity.
It is just a shared light from a Sikh perspective on the idea of Christ's martyrdom.