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Summary of Question:	Unequality
Category:	Hair
Date Posted:	Friday, 2/14/2003 8:29 PM MST

Are you saying that people with cut hair are unequal as those with long hair in God's eyes?

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REPLY
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Sat Sri Akal,

There is no inequality in "God's eyes". Everything that happens, happens because it fits into Waheguru's plans or hukums. Everyone and everything is equal under the realm of God. In Chopae, Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj says:

"Cheetee thae kunchar us-thhoola. sub per kripa dhrist ker phoola"
-> From the ant to the huge elephant, God casts His glance of favor on all and gets pleasure.

It does not matter who or what you are, human, animal, mountain, tree, etc. It is all of God's creation, and thus God loves it. Everything and everyone is equal.

So what about hair? Remember that the point of this life as a human is to merge with Waheguru. There are many paths to Waheguru, some which will get you there in this lifetime, some which will take you thousands upon thousands of lifetimes to get there. Obviously, we want to choose the shortest path. This is the path the Gurus advocated. And on this path, the Gurus gave us advice on how best to follow it. So if we want to follow this shortest path to Waheguru, we should listen to someone who has already walked this path to Waheguru. That person would obviously know how to do it. And what do the Gurus say? They say get rid of your ego. Overcome Kaam, Krodh, Moh, Lobh, Ankar. Easy? HECK NO. So the Gurus gave us things to help us. One of them is keeping hair. The Gurus knew that this would be a very controversial thing to do. Keeping hair? Sounds too hard. But that is the whole point. If merging with Waheguru were easy then everyone would have merged and there would be no problems in the world, ever.

So why hair? Keeping hair means nothing. But at the same time it means EVERYTHING. If we can't even control our own ego to keep our hair, how are we supposed to overcome Kaam, Krodh, Moh, Lobh, and Ankar? It's all part of the path.

Someone who keeps their hair is by no means better than someone who cuts their hair. Many people keep their hair because of tradition or whatever, without really thinking about why they keep their hair. But if we understand why we keep our hair, and make it a point to keep it, then we will have an advantage over those who don't. We'll still be equal in the "eyes of God", but our path to Waheguru might be a little easier. I'm not saying that everyone who keeps their hair will have an easier path to Waheguru, but in this day and age, usually that is the case. So keeping hair is just one step on the right path. If that's all you do, and still go out and drink, etc. then obviously it's not going to help. But if you do good pious deeds, help other, paath, then keeping hair is another step in the right direction.

I hope this helps.

Gur Fateh,
HSD