About the Author Of the trilogy authored by GAJINDAR SINGH, Lest We The Sikhs Go Astray is the first volume on WHAT Sikhism stands for and WHAT it does not. The other two books comprising of the trilogy of the spiritual quest are In the Witches' Cauldron and The Armchair Sikh. The fourth book, A God Made to Order deals with the identity, scope and reasoning concerning God, the Creator of all life, who controls and regulates our universe.
Foreword Is much in so few pages? I owe my acquaintance with Sardar Gajindar Singh to his articles on gurmat, which I admired, and some of which I had the privilege to publish in the Abstracts of Sikh Studies during the last couple of years. I have been deeply impressed with his understanding of and commitment to gurmat philosophy. The present volume, Lest We the Sikhs go Astray is a rich collection of eighteen articles covering almost the entire gamut of Sikh doctrines, and I am sure, the thoughts expressed therein will be appreciated by all serious students of Sikhism. The author describes the path to salvation charted by Guru Nanak as gādi rah which he sums up:
Guru encourages a Sikh to ever try to improve, and develop his personality to perfection. Once Sikh attains a superior, spiritual and intellectual status adopts truth and truthful living, sweet demeanour, courtesy and ready to help attitude, shares with others and craves for God's love, he is in sehj state and friend of all and enemy to none. He certainly is the gurmukh, who throws away the yoke of karm and bhog, transmigration, as he accepts that actually the Doer is God Himself. He is causing all events and he is enjoying the Game of Creation, and the Sikh must ever conform to God's Will.
Dealing with the present state of confusion the author laments that we are falling prey to superstition, Karm Kand and Brahminical rites which the Guru condemned in unambiguous terms.
Preface ikhs have matured in the last five hundred years of their history to the extent that though they received repeated jolts and challenges of hostile cultures, they overcame them all. It was but natural that the storms which rocked their boat repeatedly from their very inception should have made dents of historical dimensions. Sikhism has gone through many vicissitudes, but the basic purity of Guru Nanak's philosophy has remained unsoiled and pure, mainly due to the preserved Word of the Gurus in Guru Granth. But for the extra strong keel provided by Guru Nanak, and nurtured by his successor Gurus, the fragile ship, in the high seas of opposing and hostile systems would have toppled long ago. It was, nevertheless, the stewardship of the Tenth Master, Guru Gobind Singh, the right man at the right time, which reinforced their very base, to withstand the extreme jerks and jolts, which they have gone through in the last three hundred years.
One of the most misunderstood belief systems, Sikhism, has been claimed by both the mainstream religions, Hinduism and Islam, as their off-shoot. It has been interpreted by Hindu scholars as nothing new, or, which has not been said in their ancient scriptures. On the other hand, Muslims, in spite of their fierce political rivalry with the Sikhs, have stressed that the concept of the Sikh God is the very imitation of Allah, and their devotion is in the mode of Sufis. There are many points of similarity which Islam and Sufism can point out in the Sikh dogma.
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