Today I was reading an article on SikhNet that was written by Amandeep Singh on the topic of Yoga and Sikh Dharma. It was quite interesting to read and think about his descriptions of how there used to be connections with Yoga and Sikhi. I know some might think this is "propaganda", since many Sikhs have little understanding of Yoga and think of Yoga as something "against sikhi".
Different things in history have changed how we as Sikhs live and the things that we do. In the video titled "Women and Turbans by Shanti Kaur" she talks about how Sikh women used to wear turbans and possible reasons why this stopped. In the same way in more recent times during the British Rule of India HUGE things were changed. (Our bana, our bani, practices, etc). In those times Sikhs were commonly considered a sect of Hinduism, which caused Sikhs to discontinue and stop any types of things that might be considered Hindu related. If you have been to Hazur Sahib (Nanded, South India) some of these practices have not changed with the rest of India, and you’ll notice that they do some things very different then you are used to.
Another thing which I think has been affected and changed is our bani. During the time of the British rule some of the banis were shortened and cut. For a Sikh, bani is his/her strength, so by taking/changing bani from us it is a way to reduce our "power". Just as keeping our uncut hair gives us more "energy", by cutting your hair you loose this "tool".
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