harsharan000

The Leaking Bucket ~ You wake up early morning trying to do your Pooja / Path/Yoga but your mind is elsewhere and before you know it, you're done with it without being mindful of it. (A leaking bucket) ~ You're very kind to outsiders/people in general and speak with them gently but with your own family you're always harsh/rude. (A leaking bucket) ~ You honour and treat your guests well but when they leave, you gossip about them and talk about their flaws. (A leaking bucket) ~ You try to read as much religious books, listen to Satsang /Keertan, participate in social services/ Sewa but you swear, insult, curse daily. (A leaking bucket) ~ You help others but you're doing it to gain something in return from them and not doing those acts of kindness selflessly. (A leaking bucket) ~ You frequently advice/preach others on religious matters but practice none yourself. (A leaking bucket) ~ You slander other devout persons out of hatred/spite when your views do not meet one another. (A leaking bucket) ~ You look down on others and feel more superior than them, judging their level of knowledge about religion based on external appearances (A leaking bucket) We struggle to fill our "lives"(the bucket) with "earnings" of religious knowledge (the water), hoping it will retain inside but it is leaked by the many flaws (the holes) that we commit daily. An excellent reminder for all, including myself, to try and patch these holes up so we may progress further on this beautiful path of spiritual life.

* Very good points Veer Jee. A1) It is obvious, it means nothing to someone like this fellow. A2) They keep it as a matter of tradition only, because they are born in a sikh family. You know what, the snake also changes several times its skin, yet the poison is very much within untouched. It is a very good sign, if one has in account sikh values by tself, for it shows courage, faith and respect. But all that is futile, when the mind attacks the jeeva. we are all under the influence of mind, some less, some more, but nobody is free from the negative enforcement of the mind, through the vikars.... None can ever overcome the evil tendencies of the mind, howsoever very subtle. Guru Jee tiredlessly emphasizes Bhakti to vanquish the mind, once and forever : Prabh ka simran, man kee mael jae. Sarab rog ka aukhad Nam. Avar kaaj tere kitay na kaam, mil Sadh sangat, bhaj kewal Nam. We are so engrossed and busy paying attention, in cleaning and washing the outer body, which we think is our true self, that we tend to forget our true spiritual nature as soul/ jeev atma. It is something like as for example, if our computer is infected with viruses/trojans, what will happen if we only use outer products, to clean and polish the hardware outside? The internal malware / infection is still very much there.... We need to use an antivirus cleaner /software, at the same internal level where the viruses are located, in order to desinfect that malware/viruses .... And that internal software which cleanses us from all our past karmas, sins, vikars, abosolutely everything.....is none other than His Bhakti as per Gurbani. Stay blessed. SSA.

Bhai Jagmeet Singh.mp4

Found these utmost beautiful Sat Bachans in the Bani, thought of sharing it with the sangat here.... ਨਾਨਕ ਨਦਰਿ ਕਰੇ ਸੋ ਬੂਝੈ ਸੋ ਜਨੁ ਨਾਮੁ ਧਿਆਏ ॥ Naanak Nadhar Karae So Boojhai So Jan Naam Dhhiaaeae || O Nanak, that mortal who is blessed with the Lord's Glance of Grace, he alone understands Him; and that alone humble servant, meditates on the Naam, the Name of the Lord. Raag Suhi Guru Ram Das SSA

Congrats Baz. in reference to your 3 points above, following are my personal views/opinions in the same order. a) This is an act of respect and common sense, great. b) Such is the power of Gurbani, with His kirpa even stone hearted can melt with its purity and sweetness. The more you listen to it , the more you get impacted with its simple Truthfulness, then what to say about if one acts as instructed in it.... one merges into that Infinite Ocean of Love and mercy, namely Waheguru Akal Purukh. c) True, Gurbani brings you closer to that univerasl Ultimate and Supreme Truth, commonly known as God, for it helps us to remove all our negativity, thus made fit to become one with that infinite Ocean of mercy, love and goodness. Stay blessed. Sat Sree Akal.

With due respect to all gyanis and mahapurukhs to whatever they have said, yet that much this das will add, it is that, this our present birth is the best of all ages, for we are born as human beings, thus have the chance to engage ourselves in His bhakti and become one with Him. That is it. To what profit is for us any yuga, if we are not humans in it, and be in any other joonee ... So let us not get deluded by anyone. The best is today and now what we have, for He has blessed us with human birth, to make the most of Bhakti and merge in Him. Sat Sree Akal. P.S Gurbani tells us: Ik gharee na miltay ta Kalyug hota. Those moments, those hours, those days, in which our Beloved Waheguru is not in our thougts, is all as good as Kaliyug, maya, mirtyu ... on the other hand, even in the darkest yuga, if He, the embodiment of Truth, of Sat, of Sach, is in our chit, then those moments, those hours, those days are accounted as Satyuga for us. The question is, whether we have Him with us, or have maya, means to have everything, but not Him. The choice is ours.

Sometimes You Have To Suffer A Lot In Life, Not Because You Were Bad... But Because You Didn't Realise Where To Stop Being Good... Every positive thing in your life represents a single unique blessing. Every negative thing in your life has the opportunity to become double blessing when you turn a negative into positive, then negative situation goes and you are strengthened by positive force

IS THERE A COW IN YOUR LIFE THAT IS KEEPING YOU MISERABLE? Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a Chinese wise man and his disciple. One day during their travels, they saw a hut in the distance. As they approached it, they realized that it was occupied, in spite of its extremely poor appearance. In that desolate place where there were no crops and no trees, a man lived with his wife, three young children and a thin, tired cow. Since they were hungry and thirsty, the wise man and his disciple stopped for a few hours and were well received. At one point, the wise man asked: “This is a very poor place, far away from anything. How do you survive?” “You see that cow? That’s what keeps us going,” said the head of the family. “She gives us milk, some of it we drink and some we turn into cheese. When there is extra, we go into the city and exchange the milk and cheese for other types of food. That’s how we survive.” The wise man thanked them for their hospitality and left. When he reached the first bend in the road, he said to his disciple: “Go back, get the cow, take her to the cliff in front of us, and push her off.” The disciple could not believe what he was hearing. “I cannot do that, master! How can you be so ungrateful? The cow is all they have. If I throw it off the cliff, they will have no way of surviving. Without the cow, they will all die!” The wise man, an elderly Chinese man, took a deep breath and repeated the order:“Go ahead. Push the cow off the cliff.” Though outraged at what he was being asked to do, the disciple had to obey his master. He returned to the hut and quietly led the animal to the edge of the cliff and pushed. The cow fell down the cliff and died. As the years passed by, remorse for what he had done never left the disciple. One spring day, the guilt became too much to bear and he left the wise man and returned to that little shack. He wanted to find out what had happened to that family, to help them out, apologize, or somehow make amends. Upon rounding a turn in the road, he could not believe what his eyes were showing him. In place of the poor shack, there was a beautiful house with trees all around, a swimming pool, several cars in the garage, a satellite dish, and more. Three good-looking teenagers and their parents were celebrating their first million dollars. The heart of the disciple froze. What could have happened to the family? Without a doubt, they must have been starving to death and forced to sell their land and leave. At that moment, the disciple thought they must all be begging on the street corners of some city. He approached the house and asked a man that was passing by, about the whereabouts of the family that had lived there several years before. “You are looking at it,” said the man, pointing to the people gathered around the barbecue. Unable to believe what he was hearing, the disciple walked through the gate and took a few steps closer to the pool where he recognized the man from several years before, only now he was strong and confident, the woman was happy, and the children were now good looking teenagers. He was dumbfounded, and went over to the man and asked: “What happened? I was here with my teacher a few years ago and this was a miserable place. There was nothing. What did you do to improve your lives in such a short time?” The man looked at the disciple, and replied with a smile: “We had a cow that kept us alive. She was all we had. But one day she fell down the cliff and died. To survive, we had to start doing other things, develop skills we didn’t even know we had. And so, because we were forced to come up with new ways of doing things, we are now much better off than before.” 'WHO OR WHAT IS THAT ‘COW’ IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU NEED TO PUSH OFF THE CLIFF?' Many a time, we have let our dependence on certain people, things or situation, create a comfort zone and limit us from achieving greater things. Personally, I am very ‘cautious’ in nature and it takes me a lot to let go and climb to another level. You may feel terrible at first, but in the end, it will all be worth it. From the conversation in the end, the man says that they had to develop skills and do other things when their only ‘source of survival was dead’. At times we need to lose that job to realize that we can actually do well in business. Sometimes that business needs to fail, to realize that we can do well in other things. Sometimes a situation in our lives may have to fail for us to realize that we deserve and can get better. Is there a cow in your life that is keeping you miserable? If so, push that cow down the cliff and please do not be tempted to go after it! Have I talked to someone? Have you learned something? What's that cow that's holding you? Will you push that cow down the cliff?