I have been fielding this question for a long time...Had quite an argument with my mom over it. She was angry about me not going to any holy place in general and Gurudwara in particular. She is of the view that I have started to believe in non-existence of God. Quite an oxymoron there, a believer who does not believe.
I think I am on verge of some spiritual breakthrough. Not the 'Nirvana' kind but still quite pressing. Right now I grade myself as an agnostic, a spiritual agnostic, with a bias towards existence of God. I believe that its better not to go to a holy place than to go and be distracted. It is of no use to stand in the queue and look for some chicks and not concentrate on what we came there for. It should be a highly intimate experience than just being present at the right place at the right time. After all it is for our own benefit that we need religion and go to religious places. So is it good enough to just be there.
What I don't understand how my being a non-believer effects others. I know they are my family and dear ones but isn't religion immensely personal matter. I believe that religion is so personal that it should be okay to have people with multiple religions in the same family. Why is it such an issue to be convert from a religion to another. Talking about Sikhism, weren't the first Sikhs the converts. Why did some people chose to convert to Sikhism and some didn't. If Sikhism was the only true religion then everyone should have converted. It apparently did not happen. The reason I think is that our Gurus did not believe so too. They never proclaimed that following them was the only route to Nirvana. It was, however, one of the ways. Gurus did not go to Gurudwaras in search of Nirvana. Gurudwaras were erected because Gurus were there. Shrines and holy places are just placeholders to remind us that people have raised their spiritual level to such heights that they are treated as equivalent to God. As they say in Punjabi, "asi ishara karan wale dee ungli vekh rahe haan na kee ishare vall"
