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Summary of Question:	Thinking Of Trimming My Beard
Category:	Hair
Date Posted:	Sunday, 12/23/2001 3:12 AM MST

Hi I have a question I want to ask. I am 19 years old and I am a sikh. Well I got amritshaked when I was in grade 3. My only reason for getting amritshaked was because of gurmat camps. Kids younger than me were doing it, and I felt that it was the thing to do, and I didn't get amritshaked for the right reasons. I regret it at times, and I have stopped wearing my kirpan, and don't consider myself amritshaked. I want to do it when I am ready and have my heart set on it. I want to do everything right, and not make any mistakes along the way.

Since grade 10 I have had the feeling of trimming my beard. I started gelling it that year. I gelled it so that it looked as if I trimmed my dhari and everybody would tell me that, but yet they didn't care that I did. Yet when I decide to trim my dhari it becomes a big deal. They don't care that I am trying to hide my dhari when I gell it but when it comes to trimming oh it becomes a deal. I have wanted to trim my dhari, and start wearing a pug for such a long time now. I have talked with my parents and they say they will support me with any decision I make but they still don't agree with what I want to do. It's not that I want to go against the religion, and it isn't that I just thought of doing this all of a sudden I have thought of it, and want to go throuh with it.

When I gell my dhari I feel so comfortable. Mind you it is the crapiest feeling of all. Having to spend an hour to do your damn dhari really pisses me off. I have to blow dry my face, and I fear it is going to wreck my pores and dry them up, which is true. I have stopped gelling my dhari, but I have been depressed a lot. Since I have people make remarks like, oh you look so puffy now, I've been called Osama on some occasions, and this hurts. It's not a matter of giving in, but a matter of doing what I want. I mean my parents weren't amritshaked from birth. They were munay at one stage and they chose to take this path, and I am glad they did, because I don't regret being raised as a sikh one bit. But I don't want to devote myself just yet. I am not into the whole experimentation thing, as are many youths these days, but trimming my dhari is something I want to do, it is me, and I hope you know what I mean. I want to get to that stage one day and realize on my own terms. I do realize that we should
look at others mistakes, and not do the same. I want to become amrithshaked when my heart is set, and I am ready, and I want to do it for all the right reasons.

I have friends that drink and eat meat, in fact one of my friends just started eating meat and is thinking of cutting his hair. We talk about it, and how we feel about being sikh, and I do try to help him, but who am I to say what is right and wrong. I choose not to eat meat, I am so against it, I choose not to drink, and I am also so against it. I am not a bad person, and trimming my dhari wouldn't make me one.

Well I thank-you for taking the time to read this, please write back.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa
Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

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REPLY
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Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!
Trimming your beard of course doesn't make you a bad person. But it doesn't make you a total Sikh either. The thing about the Sikh path is that it is a total path involving how we keep our bodies as well as our minds, how we serve our Souls as well as our sangat. So, a full beard is part of being a Sikh male.

I'm not going to tell you to trim or not to trim, it is YOUR decision. I realize you are young and you wonder if you really ARE Sikh at heart and I know it takes different people a different amount of time to decide such things. BUT whatever you do, don't do (or not do) something JUST because others are or are not doing it. Do not base your decision on other people's lives and thinking. Think for yourself and meditate deeply, within yourself, on who and what you identify as. In fact, I highly recommend that before you decide anything, you spend some serious time meditating on the Naam and on this issue. The experience of deep meditation can clarify so much for a person --why you'd know your answer without this Forum! (By this I do not mean to imply that meditation will automatically make you decide to keep your beard.) But it's a great tool for getting answers to life's questions.
Guru ang sang,
-DKK