#gyanis agree w meeee people who read the texts critically agree w meee pleaseeee

[handweavers]

one of the biggest things i will always reiterate about sikhi is that it isn't actually monotheistic, reading it as monotheism is a fundamental reduction of what "ek onkar" or one god means in the sikh cosmology. whether you are raised sikh and accept these meanings at face value or you are not sikh and just read the opening paragraph of the wikipedia page for sikhism to try to get an understanding, the sikh understanding of god is much better described as panentheism and not monotheism. the sikh god is not a personal god but a transcendental force and it's easier to speak of waheguru in metaphors that liken god to a person so people can understand the concepts but it's not meant to be taken literally. this is supported by panentheism being the primary worldview of most traditions within what we call hinduism, as well as sects of buddhism and also the positions of several islamic sufi philosophers who were fundamental in the establishment of sikh cosmology. all of these worldviews are linked by sharing versions of what we call pantheism/panentheism, but even trying to explain the depths of a panentheistic worldview is challenging because it is just so different in a very fundamental way from the christian worldview where there is a singular, personal god. even explaining how polytheism works within the south asian context requires this base understanding, because if you approach polytheism from a christian perspective you'll once again completely misunderstand the worldview. like "hinduism is like if they just had more gods, the way you view the christian god but imagine more of them" is also not true, not only because hinduism contains such a variety of worldviews and beliefs that making any general statement about what we call hinduism is always going to be reductive, but because it's also just not... how the worldview works, generally speaking lol. just explaining nondualism in the south asian context is so different from the christian worldview, the idea that you can just plug and play christianity into it is so absurd it's actually hilarious to me