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Being Connected :
The Way of the Sikh
Letter & Spirit # 28

YUKTANAND SINGH

 

 

 

Translated from Bhai Vir Singh's ‘Gurmukh Sikhia’


Part XVIII


“If you want eternal surety and eternal peace, then, O Nanak, do the simran of the Lord at all times” [GGS:714.3].

If we are attached to something that is perishable, then, when it perishes, we are miserable. Waheguru is eternal and imperishable. In God’s love we have eternal happiness.

But how can we develop love for someone who has no shape or appearance? Keeping Him in our mind, remembering Him, is the same as loving Him. Waheguru himself resides in His simran, in mindfulness of His presence. After some time it becomes filled with sweetness. But we must continue whether or not it tastes sweet.

When a lamp is disconnected from electricity, it stops giving the light. As long as the power is on, the light continues. But if a connection did not exist at all, how then, will the power reach that lamp? The simran maintains our connection with Waheguru.

Guru Gobind Singh’s teachings do not advocate living in a state of samadhi being absorbed in the spirit; nor does it advocate oppressing others to gratify our sensual pleasures and forgetting our spiritual side.

Just as a fish stays in the water naturally, similarly, we need to continue doing our daily activities while we are naturally aware that we are in presence of Waheguru.

A brahmgyani delights in the welfare of others. We need to make our body useful even after we have received the gift of union with our Lord. This body becomes worthy if it is engaged in service and simran. A brahmgyani engages in seva (service) … but not for his deliverance. He is free already. He serves to make his body worthwhile.

With the help of naam simran we stay in the presence of Waheguru and we are in a higher state of consciousness. Feeling exalted without naam is only conceit.

The religion of the Sikhs is not individualistic, but collective. For example, cleaning one’s house cannot save a man in a town that is afflicted with plague. The entire town as well as the entire subdivision needs cleaning.

A common man’s heart is naturally attracted to material rewards. We need to turn it away from these and put it on the path to union with our true self.

We need to engage in doing good deeds and naam simran. Definition of good deeds is those acts that are spiritually profitable. Bad deeds cause spiritual loss. Without spiritually profitable acts, the soul remains naked:

“Naked he goes to hell and hideous is he then” [GGS:471.1].

By giving us the kirpan, Guru Gobind Singh did not teach us to kill, but to embrace death. [During the atrocities of the Partition,] countless Sikh sisters committed suicide by drowning themselves, but they did not accept a life of oppression and disgrace. On the other hand, not even a single Muslim woman killed herself. Rather, when Indian authorities offered to send them to their families in Pakistan they declined, and preferred to stay here.

Just compare those brave Sikh wives thus martyred, with the hundreds of women who were captured earlier and taken to the Middle East by their Mughal oppressors. Only Guru Gobind Singh produced this change in our ideal.

The various sections (the ‘khands’) that are mentioned in Japji, are spiritual levels, not separate worlds. Waheguru is everywhere. He is in us, is outside us, as well as in the ‘Sach Khand’ level. We can easily meet Him inside our own self.

What is this meeting? He is already in us, but we need to be aware, through simran, that He is with us, and, is very near to us.

When Waheguru sees the world in pain he sends various teachers … Raam,  then, Krishna, for example, to enlighten us. Guru Nanak who is the Guru aspect of God had sent these spiritual teachers. In the present age, when the conditions became really bad, then He himself came, and has stayed here with us by adopting the form of the shabad.

Waheguru has three 'roles':

1  The creator

2  The sustainer, and

3  The teacher of spiritual enlightenment

 
Guru Nanak is the teacher aspect of Waheguru himself.

If we occupy all our idle moments, and the intervals between activities, with naam simran, then, by the time we go to bed, we will have accumulated several hours of simran. This is how we make all our idle moments productive and fruitful.

Any paatth or kirtan that is done for the welfare of a departed soul helps that soul. This is why Guru Amar Das gave us this command: “Sing the immaculate kirtan after I have departed” [GGS:923.15]. If a soul had done good deeds then, this adds to its spiritual welfare. If it had not, then the kirtan done now relieves its pain.

Waheguru’s simran, even if we do it for just five minutes a day, is beneficial. In the beginning, our mind will not feel like doing it, even for those five minutes, because the dirt is getting washed off in the beginning. Once the mind is clean, then we start to enjoy the taste of simran. Then we will not want to stop it at any moment.

Once a lady complained to me that her mind does not like simran. I told her to do it for just five minutes daily. She said that she finds it impossible to do it even for five minutes. I told her to simply continue to make the effort. When I saw her after a year she appeared extremely content. She told me that now she was very happy that now her mind does not even want to stop doing simran. “Now my mind spontaneously keeps repeating Waheguru - Waheguru” she said.

Our Guru has told us to do these three things: good deeds, naam simran, and kirtan.

Those who do these three, they will take their profit with them upon their death, and they will depart bearing the mark of His Grace.

 

April 2, 2013

Conversation about this article

1: Devinder Pal Singh (Delhi, India), April 02, 2013, 6:15 AM.

Bhai Sahib's works need to published so as to reach not only the worldwide Sikh diaspora but also enable the non-Punjabi and non-English speaking people interested in his works and learn from them. His interpretations of the Gurus' teachings have enabled many an individual within and without the Sikh community to live a better life. I am all for his works to be digitized and made available to all. In fact, this is an effort which could help preserve and disseminate the works of all great Sikh scholars.

2: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), April 03, 2013, 7:47 AM.

Sikhism has no 'side issues' or 'overlaps', the true Sikh does not do anything 'mechanically' or just 'going through the motions' as an egotrip for self gratification but instead does worship of the One through the distinct understanding that Guru Nanak tells us that it is all a 'love thing'! If you have love for something then you will cherish and respect that thing and the same is with all aspects of Sikhism, especially the ecstasy of the naam shabad with its message of goodness, balance and harmony in human existence.

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The Way of the Sikh
Letter & Spirit # 28"









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