Sat1176

I will never forget that blast in my ears that night because I was awoken so suddenly to an excruciating loud pain and had to hold my ears to try and cope. It was just like described above. It happened on two consecutive nights.

Maybe he came but I couldn't handle the experience. My god that was 7 months ago and he never came back.

WaheGurooooooooooooo!!!!!!

We have truly lost the plot Veeray!! Mega LOL

When I had my experience my wife jumped up from the bed as I screamed in shock.
She said, "Whats wrong?"
"Didn't you hear that?" , I asked with my hands over my ears.
"Hear What?" she replied.
"That loud Sound!"
"No.", she said half dozed.

That's when I knew it was one sided.

Make sure you let us know what happens Lucky when your time comes. You have done it the right way with having your Rom-Rom pargat first, hopefully you will be able to withstand it.

Here is rough translation:

First stage of simran, according to Gurmat, is to bring one’s scattered attention back. Normally it is absorbed in thoughts therefore to help bring the mind back within various points are given to help focus the mind.

Each syllable of the Gurmatar is chanted at the following points with focus/dhyaan.
Wa – Rasna/Mouth
He – Hirda/ Heart Centre/ Sunn state is also knows as Hirda when the Mind becomes pure.
Gu – Nabi / Navel / belly button / Nab Ghat where the breath originates from. There is also a knot here between the physical (astool) and non-physical (sookham) bodies via the breath. It will also be a point later on where we will come to and sit/aasan the mind.

SGGS Quote:
The breath is seated in the home of the navel; the Gurmukh searches, and finds the essence of reality.
naabh pavan ghar aasan baisai gurmukh khojat tat lahai.

This Shabad permeates the nucleus of the self, deep within, in its own home; the Light of this Shabad pervades the three worlds.
so sabad nirantar nij ghar aachhai taribhavan jot so sabad lahai.

Ru – Dharan (About 2 inches below the navel). This is the one end of the sukhman channel which has two ends. This is where parkash and Brahm Agan/fire manifest/pargat. FYI - Other end is the trikuti. ;-)

When your mind becomes free from thoughts then know that you have completed the first stage.

Now you have made the route in a down up motion, then when the breath goes in/down (i.e. Inhale) chant "Wahe" when you breath out to the Gagan/Sky (i.e. Exhale) chant "Guru". When you do simran this way again and again and when the mind looses its awareness of the body; mind separates (ateet) from the shabad and from the air/paun and when your surti begins to connect with the shabad (Shabad-Surat da mehl) then know that you have reached the stage of Swas-Giras simran.

After this when the shabad and surti merge, and when the surti breaks it's connection from the air then we need to start rom-rom simran. This is done in shej by putting the attention/surti on the heart beat (Dill Di Dharkan a.k.a Pulse). Then as the heart pumps the blood around the veins of the body in this way the shabad will also be pumped around the body.

Then when rom-rom becomes established, internal amrit drops start. It will feel like cold drops falling on the bare skin even when there are no clouds in the air. Another experience is if you go where people are doing bhagti then your rahkha - think that is what he said) chakar will make roms and stand on end. Where ever you hear any sound it will appear as it too is japing WaheGuru WaheGuru WaheGuru for example a running fan. These are indicators that your rom-rom is working.

Then we need to head towards Shej state where only dhyan remains. Then ahead we are told how to open the gate which is closed due to the imbalance of the air flowing. Sometimes we breath more through the left nostril and others times we breath more from the right. The other is the imbalance in the eyes also knows as chand (moon) & sooraj (sun) which are doors that are closed on the inside. Also the mind is lost thoughts in the trai-gun (tamogun, rajogun, and satogun). When you go to sharan of Guru he/they will tell you how to balance all these. Once balanced the gate will open and parkash will manifest and then you can enter the nij mahal, your true home.

Then you go on and merge into the parkash.

Keep watch, as sometimes some people who go to Sants and have their minds made unstable because the stay awake more during the night and day because they keep their Gyan Indriyas (5 senses – Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch, Taste) awake because they try and do more jaap and simran. Guru Nanak’s way is different. If a person does loads of bhagti and stays awake for too long like staying awake for a few days then eventually the mind goes mental for which doctors do not have a remedy.

Quite a lot of people due to ignorance tread on this path in the wakeful/jagrath state with this wish to read this much bani, do this much simran etc. Guru Nanak’s Dev Ji's way is:

Eradicating the three qualities, dwell in the fourth state. This is the unparalleled devotional worship.
tarai gun maytay cha-uthai vartai ayhaa bhagat niraaree.

This is the Yoga of the Gurmukh: Through the Shabad, he understands his own soul, and he enshrines within his heart the One Lord.
gurmukh jog sabad aatam cheenai hirdai ayk muraaree.

In this way the mind needs to be awakened. The mind will be awakened when you enter the state of Sunn more quickly. When you leave behind the giyan indaries (5 senses) and fall asleep. Then the mind will come out again of Sunn again so take it back into the Sunn state and make it sit in the Sunn. When it merges in the Sunn it will eventually be awakened by the Shabad. It will eventually begin to look inwards at the play within, like it looks outwards today. Therefore do not stay awake too much via the giyan indaries.

Then due to ignorance when mind goes on the path of Shej and is awakened then eventually the Lord speaks and there is a very loud blast/tumbhakha. For example when a plane takes off, the blast/roar from the engine can break the glass from doors and windows. In this way when the Lord roars inside you it is louder. If one does not know this and one has not done rom-rom simran then the Mind cannot withstand it and the mind can be made unstable.

By following the stages outlined when the Lord speaks and rom-rom is manifest and one is in Shej, then he has the power to withstand it in the body. The first time it happens to a person he is shaken because it happens unexpectedly, but if one has knowledge, when the Lord speaks then he has the power/shakti to handle it in the body. Therefore on the journey anytime the Lord can speak to you and it will feel like the head is going explode, like the roof has flown off because the sound is so loud. At this time don’t panic, sometimes even light can also manifest. Just think the Lord has spoken and has come to the level of our mind in our body.

Like the pangtis:

The Panch Shabad, the Five Primal Sounds, vibrate with the Wisdom of the Guru`s Teachings; by great good fortune, the Unstruck Melody resonates and resounds.
panchay sabad vajay mat gurmat vadbhaagee anhad vaji-aa.

I see the Lord, the Source of Bliss, everywhere; through the Word of the Guru`s Shabad, the Lord of the Universe is revealed.
aanad mool raam sabh daykhi-aa gur sabdee govind gaji-aa.

Therefore don’t stay awake too much, stay in the dhyaan state. Ahead when there is Parkash, you go and sit in Truth/Sach, sometimes the Lord wants to speak with you and comes and awakens you and calls out you. Here one does not talk themselves until Waheguru himself calls out to you within. When he does call out to you, then you are in the awakened/jagrath state, you are in front of one another, then you can talk about whatever you wish.

In this way the place with Gost/Conversation takes place is ahead of Amritsar, where there is parkash of the jyot where the Lord is in the Shej ghar himself, where the Gurmukh’s go and talk with the Lord.

In this way, Gurmukhs are to do as much simran in the first and second stages so the thoughts stop and the wall of dirt is knocked down.

Gurbani starts all from the Dhiyan stage. When our dhiyan goes inwards, from inwards it starts to awaken and then from here is where the play starts which is what Gurbani tells us about. Therefore try and awaken the mind, go to the sharan of the Guru and do naam abhyaas is vital.

Then he goes through the example of Wa-He-Gu-Ru. With practice it becomes very intoxicating and mind begins to go within. With practice the Gu-Ru part can be said internally. It will forget about the body and giyan indaries and head towards Sunn.

Then he goes on to explain the Swas-Giras technique “Wahe-Guru”.

If you do this regularly you will quickly go into Sunn and amrit ras will begin to drizzle internally.

From the True Guru, contemplative meditation is obtained.
satgur tay paa-ay veechaaraa.
And then, one dwells with the True Lord in His celestial home, the Primal State of Absorption in Deepest Samaadhi.
sunn samaaDh sachay ghar baaraa.

Maybe there is some sort of physical shock when we get some kind of break-thru !
I mean we expose our bodies to so much filth around the world having to walk in public, past people smoking and spitting..etc...etc.
So, when we take some kind of spiritual leap, it probably has some sort of rebound effect physically.


Anyway, .....I was a little relieved to hear and also read your translation of the below.


Lately, because it's so hot.. we have the overhead fans on in every room about 18 hrs/day !
I have repeatedly gone from room to room and I can feel the 'waheguru' jap coming from the fan in complete sync with body rom rom !
The crazy thing is that for a few days I was just walking around room to room and changing the speeds on the fans to see if my rom rom reaction still stayed in sync.... and it would do so immediately !
Again, I was getting a little concerned because I thought that I have developed some 'oversensitivity' problem..!
I have been constantly telling myself that it's not rom rom and that i have messed up my own brain wires of sensory stimulation somewhere.
So, i was quite relieved when I heard this video the other day and then re-reading Sat's translation convinced me that I heard it correctly the first time.

Just a few days ago, I was even telling my wife and asking her if she could feel it ....I was asking her to really try hard to see if she could pick it up..... but she just gave me a weird look thinking that I'm losing the plot !

I can even feel it coming from the pump in the fish tank... but I never told her that bit !!

Here is rough translation:

First stage of simran, according to Gurmat, is to bring one’s scattered attention back. Normally it is absorbed in thoughts therefore to help bring the mind back within various points are given to help focus the mind.

Each syllable of the Gurmatar is chanted at the following points with focus/dhyaan.
Wa – Rasna/Mouth
He – Hirda/ Heart Centre/ Sunn state is also knows as Hirda when the Mind becomes pure.
Gu – Nabi / Navel / belly button / Nab Ghat where the breath originates from. There is also a knot here between the physical (astool) and non-physical (sookham) bodies via the breath. It will also be a point later on where we will come to and sit/aasan the mind.

SGGS Quote:
The breath is seated in the home of the navel; the Gurmukh searches, and finds the essence of reality.
naabh pavan ghar aasan baisai gurmukh khojat tat lahai.

This Shabad permeates the nucleus of the self, deep within, in its own home; the Light of this Shabad pervades the three worlds.
so sabad nirantar nij ghar aachhai taribhavan jot so sabad lahai.

Ru – Dharan (About 2 inches below the navel). This is the one end of the sukhman channel which has two ends. This is where parkash and Brahm Agan/fire manifest/pargat. FYI - Other end is the trikuti. ;-)

When your mind becomes free from thoughts then know that you have completed the first stage.

Now you have made the route in a down up motion, then when the breath goes in/down (i.e. Inhale) chant "Wahe" when you breath out to the Gagan/Sky (i.e. Exhale) chant "Guru". When you do simran this way again and again and when the mind looses its awareness of the body; mind separates (ateet) from the shabad and from the air/paun and when your surti begins to connect with the shabad (Shabad-Surat da mehl) then know that you have reached the stage of Swas-Giras simran.

After this when the shabad and surti merge, and when the surti breaks it's connection from the air then we need to start rom-rom simran. This is done in shej by putting the attention/surti on the heart beat (Dill Di Dharkan a.k.a Pulse). Then as the heart pumps the blood around the veins of the body in this way the shabad will also be pumped around the body.

Then when rom-rom becomes established, internal amrit drops start. It will feel like cold drops falling on the bare skin even when there are no clouds in the air. Another experience is if you go where people are doing bhagti then your rahkha - think that is what he said) chakar will make roms and stand on end. Where ever you hear any sound it will appear as it too is japing WaheGuru WaheGuru WaheGuru for example a running fan. These are indicators that your rom-rom is working.

Then we need to head towards Shej state where only dhyan remains. Then ahead we are told how to open the gate which is closed due to the imbalance of the air flowing. Sometimes we breath more through the left nostril and others times we breath more from the right. The other is the imbalance in the eyes also knows as chand (moon) & sooraj (sun) which are doors that are closed on the inside. Also the mind is lost thoughts in the trai-gun (tamogun, rajogun, and satogun). When you go to sharan of Guru he/they will tell you how to balance all these. Once balanced the gate will open and parkash will manifest and then you can enter the nij mahal, your true home.

Then you go on and merge into the parkash.

Keep watch, as sometimes some people who go to Sants and have their minds made unstable because the stay awake more during the night and day because they keep their Gyan Indriyas (5 senses – Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch, Taste) awake because they try and do more jaap and simran. Guru Nanak’s way is different. If a person does loads of bhagti and stays awake for too long like staying awake for a few days then eventually the mind goes mental for which doctors do not have a remedy.

Quite a lot of people due to ignorance tread on this path in the wakeful/jagrath state with this wish to read this much bani, do this much simran etc. Guru Nanak’s Dev Ji's way is:

Eradicating the three qualities, dwell in the fourth state. This is the unparalleled devotional worship.
tarai gun maytay cha-uthai vartai ayhaa bhagat niraaree.

This is the Yoga of the Gurmukh: Through the Shabad, he understands his own soul, and he enshrines within his heart the One Lord.
gurmukh jog sabad aatam cheenai hirdai ayk muraaree.

In this way the mind needs to be awakened. The mind will be awakened when you enter the state of Sunn more quickly. When you leave behind the giyan indaries (5 senses) and fall asleep. Then the mind will come out again of Sunn again so take it back into the Sunn state and make it sit in the Sunn. When it merges in the Sunn it will eventually be awakened by the Shabad. It will eventually begin to look inwards at the play within, like it looks outwards today. Therefore do not stay awake too much via the giyan indaries.

Then due to ignorance when mind goes on the path of Shej and is awakened then eventually the Lord speaks and there is a very loud blast/tumbhakha. For example when a plane takes off, the blast/roar from the engine can break the glass from doors and windows. In this way when the Lord roars inside you it is louder. If one does not know this and one has not done rom-rom simran then the Mind cannot withstand it and the mind can be made unstable.

By following the stages outlined when the Lord speaks and rom-rom is manifest and one is in Shej, then he has the power to withstand it in the body. The first time it happens to a person he is shaken because it happens unexpectedly, but if one has knowledge, when the Lord speaks then he has the power/shakti to handle it in the body. Therefore on the journey anytime the Lord can speak to you and it will feel like the head is going explode, like the roof has flown off because the sound is so loud. At this time don’t panic, sometimes even light can also manifest. Just think the Lord has spoken and has come to the level of our mind in our body.

Like the pangtis:

The Panch Shabad, the Five Primal Sounds, vibrate with the Wisdom of the Guru`s Teachings; by great good fortune, the Unstruck Melody resonates and resounds.
panchay sabad vajay mat gurmat vadbhaagee anhad vaji-aa.

I see the Lord, the Source of Bliss, everywhere; through the Word of the Guru`s Shabad, the Lord of the Universe is revealed.
aanad mool raam sabh daykhi-aa gur sabdee govind gaji-aa.

Therefore don’t stay awake too much, stay in the dhyaan state. Ahead when there is Parkash, you go and sit in Truth/Sach, sometimes the Lord wants to speak with you and comes and awakens you and calls out you. Here one does not talk themselves until Waheguru himself calls out to you within. When he does call out to you, then you are in the awakened/jagrath state, you are in front of one another, then you can talk about whatever you wish.

In this way the place with Gost/Conversation takes place is ahead of Amritsar, where there is parkash of the jyot where the Lord is in the Shej ghar himself, where the Gurmukh’s go and talk with the Lord.

In this way, Gurmukhs are to do as much simran in the first and second stages so the thoughts stop and the wall of dirt is knocked down.

Gurbani starts all from the Dhiyan stage. When our dhiyan goes inwards, from inwards it starts to awaken and then from here is where the play starts which is what Gurbani tells us about. Therefore try and awaken the mind, go to the sharan of the Guru and do naam abhyaas is vital.

Then he goes through the example of Wa-He-Gu-Ru. With practice it becomes very intoxicating and mind begins to go within. With practice the Gu-Ru part can be said internally. It will forget about the body and giyan indaries and head towards Sunn.

Then he goes on to explain the Swas-Giras technique “Wahe-Guru”.

If you do this regularly you will quickly go into Sunn and amrit ras will begin to drizzle internally.

From the True Guru, contemplative meditation is obtained.
satgur tay paa-ay veechaaraa.
And then, one dwells with the True Lord in His celestial home, the Primal State of Absorption in Deepest Samaadhi.
sunn samaaDh sachay ghar baaraa.

Here is rough translation:

First stage of simran, according to Gurmat, is to bring one’s scattered attention back. Normally it is absorbed in thoughts therefore to help bring the mind back within various points are given to help focus the mind.

Each syllable of the Gurmatar is chanted at the following points with focus/dhyaan.
Wa – Rasna/Mouth
He – Hirda/ Heart Centre/ Sunn state is also knows as Hirda when the Mind becomes pure.
Gu – Nabi / Navel / belly button / Nab Ghat where the breath originates from. There is also a knot here between the physical (astool) and non-physical (sookham) bodies via the breath. It will also be a point later on where we will come to and sit/aasan the mind.

SGGS Quote:
The breath is seated in the home of the navel; the Gurmukh searches, and finds the essence of reality.
naabh pavan ghar aasan baisai gurmukh khojat tat lahai.

This Shabad permeates the nucleus of the self, deep within, in its own home; the Light of this Shabad pervades the three worlds.
so sabad nirantar nij ghar aachhai taribhavan jot so sabad lahai.

Ru – Dharan (About 2 inches below the navel). This is the one end of the sukhman channel which has two ends. This is where parkash and Brahm Agan/fire manifest/pargat. FYI - Other end is the trikuti. ;-)

When your mind becomes free from thoughts then know that you have completed the first stage.

Now you have made the route in a down up motion, then when the breath goes in/down (i.e. Inhale) chant "Wahe" when you breath out to the Gagan/Sky (i.e. Exhale) chant "Guru". When you do simran this way again and again and when the mind looses its awareness of the body; mind separates (ateet) from the shabad and from the air/paun and when your surti begins to connect with the shabad (Shabad-Surat da mehl) then know that you have reached the stage of Swas-Giras simran.

After this when the shabad and surti merge, and when the surti breaks it's connection from the air then we need to start rom-rom simran. This is done in shej by putting the attention/surti on the heart beat (Dill Di Dharkan a.k.a Pulse). Then as the heart pumps the blood around the veins of the body in this way the shabad will also be pumped around the body.

Then when rom-rom becomes established, internal amrit drops start. It will feel like cold drops falling on the bare skin even when there are no clouds in the air. Another experience is if you go where people are doing bhagti then your rahkha - think that is what he said) chakar will make roms and stand on end. Where ever you hear any sound it will appear as it too is japing WaheGuru WaheGuru WaheGuru for example a running fan. These are indicators that your rom-rom is working.

Then we need to head towards Shej state where only dhyan remains. Then ahead we are told how to open the gate which is closed due to the imbalance of the air flowing. Sometimes we breath more through the left nostril and others times we breath more from the right. The other is the imbalance in the eyes also knows as chand (moon) & sooraj (sun) which are doors that are closed on the inside. Also the mind is lost thoughts in the trai-gun (tamogun, rajogun, and satogun). When you go to sharan of Guru he/they will tell you how to balance all these. Once balanced the gate will open and parkash will manifest and then you can enter the nij mahal, your true home.

Then you go on and merge into the parkash.

Keep watch, as sometimes some people who go to Sants and have their minds made unstable because the stay awake more during the night and day because they keep their Gyan Indriyas (5 senses – Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch, Taste) awake because they try and do more jaap and simran. Guru Nanak’s way is different. If a person does loads of bhagti and stays awake for too long like staying awake for a few days then eventually the mind goes mental for which doctors do not have a remedy.

Quite a lot of people due to ignorance tread on this path in the wakeful/jagrath state with this wish to read this much bani, do this much simran etc. Guru Nanak’s Dev Ji's way is:

Eradicating the three qualities, dwell in the fourth state. This is the unparalleled devotional worship.
tarai gun maytay cha-uthai vartai ayhaa bhagat niraaree.

This is the Yoga of the Gurmukh: Through the Shabad, he understands his own soul, and he enshrines within his heart the One Lord.
gurmukh jog sabad aatam cheenai hirdai ayk muraaree.

In this way the mind needs to be awakened. The mind will be awakened when you enter the state of Sunn more quickly. When you leave behind the giyan indaries (5 senses) and fall asleep. Then the mind will come out again of Sunn again so take it back into the Sunn state and make it sit in the Sunn. When it merges in the Sunn it will eventually be awakened by the Shabad. It will eventually begin to look inwards at the play within, like it looks outwards today. Therefore do not stay awake too much via the giyan indaries.

Then due to ignorance when mind goes on the path of Shej and is awakened then eventually the Lord speaks and there is a very loud blast/tumbhakha. For example when a plane takes off, the blast/roar from the engine can break the glass from doors and windows. In this way when the Lord roars inside you it is louder. If one does not know this and one has not done rom-rom simran then the Mind cannot withstand it and the mind can be made unstable.

By following the stages outlined when the Lord speaks and rom-rom is manifest and one is in Shej, then he has the power to withstand it in the body. The first time it happens to a person he is shaken because it happens unexpectedly, but if one has knowledge, when the Lord speaks then he has the power/shakti to handle it in the body. Therefore on the journey anytime the Lord can speak to you and it will feel like the head is going explode, like the roof has flown off because the sound is so loud. At this time don’t panic, sometimes even light can also manifest. Just think the Lord has spoken and has come to the level of our mind in our body.

Like the pangtis:

The Panch Shabad, the Five Primal Sounds, vibrate with the Wisdom of the Guru`s Teachings; by great good fortune, the Unstruck Melody resonates and resounds.
panchay sabad vajay mat gurmat vadbhaagee anhad vaji-aa.

I see the Lord, the Source of Bliss, everywhere; through the Word of the Guru`s Shabad, the Lord of the Universe is revealed.
aanad mool raam sabh daykhi-aa gur sabdee govind gaji-aa.

Therefore don’t stay awake too much, stay in the dhyaan state. Ahead when there is Parkash, you go and sit in Truth/Sach, sometimes the Lord wants to speak with you and comes and awakens you and calls out you. Here one does not talk themselves until Waheguru himself calls out to you within. When he does call out to you, then you are in the awakened/jagrath state, you are in front of one another, then you can talk about whatever you wish.

In this way the place with Gost/Conversation takes place is ahead of Amritsar, where there is parkash of the jyot where the Lord is in the Shej ghar himself, where the Gurmukh’s go and talk with the Lord.

In this way, Gurmukhs are to do as much simran in the first and second stages so the thoughts stop and the wall of dirt is knocked down.

Gurbani starts all from the Dhiyan stage. When our dhiyan goes inwards, from inwards it starts to awaken and then from here is where the play starts which is what Gurbani tells us about. Therefore try and awaken the mind, go to the sharan of the Guru and do naam abhyaas is vital.

Then he goes through the example of Wa-He-Gu-Ru. With practice it becomes very intoxicating and mind begins to go within. With practice the Gu-Ru part can be said internally. It will forget about the body and giyan indaries and head towards Sunn.

Then he goes on to explain the Swas-Giras technique “Wahe-Guru”.

If you do this regularly you will quickly go into Sunn and amrit ras will begin to drizzle internally.

From the True Guru, contemplative meditation is obtained.
satgur tay paa-ay veechaaraa.
And then, one dwells with the True Lord in His celestial home, the Primal State of Absorption in Deepest Samaadhi.
sunn samaaDh sachay ghar baaraa.

Here is the english translation of first page of scan:
 
source: Japji sahib teeka by sant gurbachan singh bhindranwale teekakar, likhat by sant kartar singh bhindranwale.  Pdf page - 397/ page - 788, can be downloaded from - http://gurmatveechar.com/books/Steeks_and_Teekas/Sant_Kartar_Singh_(Bhindrawale)/ Many times we have seen or come across with word surat in gurbani. Here are the various deep meanings or commentary of word surat- Manaie Surat Hovaie Man Budh || 1. Surat means intellect 2. Surat means pure consciousness/awareness. 3. Surat means awakened divine love 4. Surat also refers to pure portion of mind 5. After realizing importance of naam Surat in above context also means one realize the knowledge of bibek budh (intuitive intellect- inner spontaneous voice which guides and also gives knowledge to distinguish good and bad) 6. After realizing importance of naam or following naam.. surat is also esoteric/gnosis knowledge of sidhant of vedas ie maha Vaks, upanishads and gurbani ie- mahavaks: https://www.facebook.com/groups/132561576872781/permalink/526019740860294/ 7. After realizing importance of naam or following naam , one gets knowledge of shabad and spontenously abide their surti in shabad. 8. After realizing importance of naam or following naam , mind abides in the knowledge of self- one's antish karan gets cleaned and their antish karan gets transformed purely their perception changes from worldly to divine perception.Please see below screenshots for more information on deep commentary of surat.

I came across this video, just wanted to share it. Please share your thoughts.

About 6 months focus on naam simran now and before that about 1 year on mool mantar. Before that it was just reading books and listening to kirtan katha but I was still lacking inspiration do the practical myself. Only over the past 2 years have I moved up a gear and more so in the last 6 months.

If my post inspires even just one person then I really consider it worth while. Go for it Singh!!!

I'm reading Guru Granth Sahib Ji (english translation) along side naam simran and its really giving me the push I need. The amount of focus that is placed on naam/shabad unity with Almighty is just really shocking me to the max. To the point i'm getting quite annoyed by the fact that if Guru Granth Sahib Ji placed so much focus on naam simran being the only means by which we will reach Waheguru why weren't we told about it in Gurdwaras more. Maybe it was me who just wasn't taking it in. Why aren't we told this is what you need to do and this is how you go about doing it....

There are days when I run out of steam and the desire isn't there but when I read a few more angs it gives me the kick I need to get me going again. Actually i'm hooked reading Guru Ji. Can't even focus at work, just want to keep reading. My respect for my Gurus is increasing daily. Guru Amar Das ji' belows me away every time, actually they all do. Going to get shitter at work if they find out what I'm doing. I find myself totally becoming withdrawn from what is going on in the outside world. Don't care about news, tv, movies, family etc either i'm holding my phone or ipad. I'm really seeing a difference in me. Its growing to such an extent that my own mother is getting concerned and telling me to slow down and keep my feet on the ground and says I got my whole life ahead of me yet.

The only advice I'm able to give anyone is keep the simran going throughout the day whilst your doing your day to day stuff. From the moment I get up I try and start. Getting ready, journey to work, lunch times, take a few minutes off during work and just do simran eyes open or closed, journey home. I bet the other travelers are saying what is that guy mumbling to himself. If your able to dedicate fix time to it then so much the better. This is the part I'm really finding difficult to do. My legs and backside ache and I can't sit for long and the discomfort over powers the concentration your trying to reach. I find myself looking at the clock to see if times up or my thoughts just keep coming and I get frustrated but there are times when you know you had a good session even if it was just for a few moments.

Sitting here at work just focusing on slow nasal breathing and notice that both nostrils have opened up. Sushmana is active!The breathing feels so smooth and calming. It feels like such a natural time to just close my eyes and do gurmantar jaap, infact my eyes want to close by themselves. The breath seems to be going in very deep into both lungs and the feeling is very tranquil and cooling without any jerks. Its a damn shame I'm at work at this moment in time.

It is a beautiful sensation!!

Here some helpful tips:

Breath meditation

Sit on the chair or the floor with head, neck, and trunk in a straight line. Seated posture (asana) should be steady and comfortable in order to prevent you from shifting and adjusting the seated position. Perform Anuloma-Viloma (alternate nostril breathing). In the beginning breathing may be noisy but gradually as the nostrils open, the breathing should become soft and silent. Establish effortless quiet, slow, smooth and rhythmical breathing.
At this point you may begin mental nostril breathing, that is, without using your thumb and fingers to close and open the nostrils, you are shifting the flow of the breath from left to right nostril and vice-versa Now, bring your attention to the center of the eyebrows. Imagine and feel that your in-breath from the nostrils is going up to the center of the eyebrows and out-breath is starting from the center of the eyebrows and down and out from the nostrils.

Mentally observe and intend that your both nostrils are fully open and the breath is flowing equally from both nostrils. If one nostril feels blocked, less active or smaller than the other, mentally with a gentle will equalize them and direct the flow of breath equally from both nostrils. Observe the entire flow of in-breath and out-breath in the nose. Be aware of the tips of the nostrils and the outer walls of the nose and the inside walls of the nostrils as you breathe. Bring your attention to where the nostrils join the upper lip. Feel the in-coming and outgoing breath touching the upper lip and the edges of the nostril. This is the "breathing triangle," that is, in- coming breath is going up from the triangle base (the upper lip and nostrils juncture) and the outgoing breath initiated from the top of the triangle is going down and out touching the triangle base. . .

Now attend to the septum of the nose. Imagine as you inhale, the breath touches the inner walls of the septum and as you exhale, the breath touches the inner walls of the nostrils (another triangular breathing).
At this point, narrow your mental focus even more and become aware of the center of the tips of the septum where it joins the upper lip. Imagine there is a tiny hole at the tip of the nasal septum from where the in-breath and out-breath are entering and exiting.

You have now equalized your breath to the capacity you have at the present time. You are standing at the entrance of the Sushumna Nadi and breathing through it. According the Himalayan tradition, it is called, "Sushumana application"
My Guru Swami Rama of the Himalayan tradition taught us that "sushumna" is another name of "sukhmana" (sukha+mana) which literally means "happy and joyous mind."' Swami Rama said that with the application of Sushumna, you enter the state of a worry-free, happy and joyous mind.

Steady and comfortable seated posture, deep and silent breathing and the equalized flow of breath accompanied by joyous and peaceful state of mind (chitta prasadanam and mudita) you are set for a deep and prolonged meditation.
"Some offer prana (inhalation) into apana (exhalation)
Some offer apana (exhalation) into prana (inhalation).
By controlling the speed and course of prana and apana
They absorb themselves in pranayama" (Gita 4:29)

Prananyama can be the instrument for accessing pratyahara ("sensory withdrawal" the 5th stage, dharna (concentration, the 6th stage) meditation (dhyana, the 7th stage) or even absorption (Samadhi, the 8th stage). Such is the organic process of the 8-limb Yoga Tree.

Source : http://www.mindpub.com/art581.htm

I was reading this transcript of Ishwar Puri on How to Meditate and Go Within. I found it very inspiring so thought I would share some relevant bits. It might offer as an aid as we make our inner journeys. Its bit of a long read but worthwhile.

Great Master kept on saying, “This is not blind faith. This is not believing somebody. It is believing your own experience. Go within and find out.” Then he would quote from all the religious texts; original texts. The Bible says “The kingdom is within you.” The other texts say “The original sound is the sound that created this world.” The oldest Rig Veda of the Indian Vedas, the old text script, the Sanskrit texts say that “The original creation took place because of the Naad, the Sound.” John’s Gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

How can all these different scriptures, all these different fountainheads of religion say the same thing? Who has practiced it? Who has gone inside to see if there is such a thing as the Word or a sound or a Nad or a Shabd? I said, “This has to be found out. You can’t have blind faith. You must see it yourself.” I made some progress, but I also gradually found that when you make that kind of effort which I was trying, there is a big obstacle on the way. That obstacle is your own thinking, your own mind. I discovered that the mind, which is supposed to be a great help to us, the thinking mind should be able to rationalize, think out, make a good effort, but itself it is the creator of doubt and fear.

Since then I have seen most people, my friends, when they are on the path, they suffer from the same problem. Their mind and their thinking process are creating doubt and fear. I wondered why there should be doubt of these things. The nature of the mind, human mind, is to create a doubt. It is not something unusual. The mind is designed to do it. As I discovered later on that the mind by its thinking process does not always
clarify things because it has limited data on which it works.

The mind is a logical machine. It works on logic, and as some of you might have studied logic, you know that logic is of two kinds, the deductive logic and the inductive logic. The deductive logic only deduces things, comes to conclusions based upon what is fed to the mind. You can say there is a white wall here in front of me. This is part of the wall; therefore, it is white. That is deductive knowledge. There is no additional knowledge that you get through deductive logic. The mind does not go beyond what is already known.

The inductive logic is a guess work. It speculates. This wall is white. This wall goes around the corner, which I cannot see. Presumably, probably, it is also white. That is an inductive method. It is uncertain. What kind of activity of the mind can give me certainty? There is nothing that would give me certainty. Today the mind says this is very clear. Tomorrow a new factor comes in, you learn something new, and the old conclusion.
becomes absolutely wrong.

I discovered that the mind creates doubt by its very nature, by its very function. The mind functions in a very unique way, that it creates time and space for us. It creates thinking in us, and through thinking, it picks up the sense perceptions and translates for us. It took me some time to know that the mind is what sees things, what hears things, what touches things. All sense perceptions are merely stimuli that come to us. The mind tells what it is. If I saw a painting, I can't know it is a painting. I see just globs of color. I see different perception of sight. I look at it. The mind converts it and says, “That is a nice painting.” The interpretation of all sense perceptions is being done by the mind. Because the sense perceptions keep on changing the perceptions we are getting, the mind keeps on changing interpretation. It did not take me very long to find how unreliable the mind is to seek anything of reality or clarity. Therefore, I have to find something else. What else is there?

I found that most of us are misled into believing that we are the mind, that our consciousness consists of nothing else but the thinking self. That the thinking self is “I” and that is what the self is. We totally forget that there is some part of us which is conscious, knows it is there, and does not depend upon thinking. For example, intuition, the flash of gut knowledge that you get suddenly … there is no process of thinking involved in that, and yet you know sometimes a gut feeling seems to override what the thinking mind is saying. The mind says, “Don’t do this.” The gut says, “I have to do it.” “Why?” “I don’t know why.” The thinking mind is saying, “Don’t do it”, and the gut feeling says, “Do it”, or the reverse. The thinking mind says, “Do it”, and the gut feeling says, “No, it is not right.” Whether you call it the conscience speaking inside or if you say the second mind speaking inside, the higher mind speaking inside, there is obviously something else that does not require the process of thinking, yet is conscious in yourself.

This was a very big discovery for me, and it was made very clear by Great Master in his explanations to me. He said, “We do not have only the mind. We have the soul and the mind. They are not the same thing. The soul of a human being is pure consciousness. It does not require thinking. It can function on its own, and its own functions are intuition, love, beauty, joy. Only the soul can experience these; the mind cannot. The mind can do thinking, rationalization, logic, interpretation, but it cannot create love, it cannot create intuitive knowledge, it cannot create the sense of beauty and joy, and bliss that we get.

Once we knew the distinction, also we found out the mind functions only in time and space. Even the smallest thought takes duration, takes time. Intuition soul functions outside of it. It gives you instant knowledge, instant feeling. There is no time involved. The mind functions in time and space. The soul, the spirit of the human being, which is pure consciousness, can function without it. Once the distinction was made … and very clear … that there is a mind and a soul, that who are we? Are we mind or soul? It doesn’t take very long to discover that mind is merely an accessory, a little machine added to ourselves, like a little computer we are carrying in our heads. The mind is like a computer. Whatever you put into it, it processes and gives us results.

But the soul consciousness is the real self, that is the powerhouse that makes the mind work, that makes the senses work, that makes this body work. Our life force, our real life, our real consciousness is the soul, not the mind. Once that came into my knowledge, and Great Master emphasized it, “Don’t forget you are the soul, not the mind. What would happen then? Do not be led by the mind. Lead the mind! The process is very simple.” His teaching then became very clear to me, that we have been led by the mind all our life, that thoughts dictate to us what we should do. Instead of that, our gut feeling should dictate what to do and tell the mind, think like that, and do it. It is the soul that should make decisions, and the mind should implement them. This was a reversal of our ordinary way of living. Ordinarily, we think what to do and then somehow hope that destiny will take us along the path, something else will take us. Our consciousness will follow it. But we are putting the mind ahead and the soul to follow. The truth was that if you want to find out the reality of who you are, you must put the soul ahead and then instruct the mind what to do.

So meditation became a very simple exercise. Meditation was “Soul giving direction to the mind; do this.” Then I understood what the whole process of initiation was, why we repeat mantras, why we repeat words. It was not just because those words are special … mantra, which of course they may be, but we don’t know. At the least the initial function of repetition of words which we don’t even understand, the initial function is that the mind should be instructed to think of those words and squeeze out other words of thought. It is a control of the mind. By repetition of words, you can squeeze out the thoughts that otherwise take us astray. It is the thoughts that take us away from ourselves.

Every time we think of something, it has an association of ideas outside of ourselves. We think of our children, our work, our business, our friends or associates, our concerns and worries about what is going to happen. Every time we have a thought like that, it takes us away from our own center. We are never actually sitting in our own head. Our consciousness is proceeding from our head. Our attention flows from there, and we never spend any time there. Through our thinking process, we are spending all our time outside.

Therefore, the meditation process became simple. It is just an act of withdrawing your attention, withdrawing your consciousness from everything outside and putting it back on yourself to discover who you are as a soul, not as a mind, not as a body, not as sense perceptions. So this was a clear method that Great Master was able to explain in so many ways as time went on. When I was … it was the ‘40s, about 1942, when I had my last question and answer session with Great Master. I said, “Master, I have one more question to ask you.” That was about experiences that were being generated by His method of meditation. From 1943 I never asked any questions. All questions were answered internally.

I tell people, “Do you know all your questions have their answers inside you? There is not a single question that you can ask for which the answer does not lie inside you.” When we ask somebody else for an answer, we are only verifying the answer that is inside us is correct. When somebody gives us an answer that makes no sense, we reject it. If somebody says something, say, “I knew that! That is it!” Then we are just getting a verbal confirmation of the answer that was already in us. Through the meditational techniques of the Great Master’s teaching, we are able to see the answers before you even ask them. The answers even precede before you can put the questions.

Therefore, you discover that answers to all questions of your mind are sitting inside you, and all you have to do is go to the point where the answers lie, which is the mental region of experience, which means that there are many regions of experience that we can have access to through meditation. The regions of experience are the physical experience of the physical world. We are all sitting here in the physical world.

Our bodies are physical, material, and through the body, our sense perceptions, and our thoughts, we are connected to the rest of the physical and material world. If you were not material, there would be no material world around us. Our physical body connects us and gives us the experience of the physical and material world. This is a level of consciousness. We are experiencing consciousness by being conscious of the physical world. If we withdraw our attention in this body, if we just withdraw our attention within ourselves to the point from where it looks like attention is flowing out and connecting us with the world outside, if we just withdraw our attention to the point from where we can notionally see our attention is flowing out, which is in the head. It doesn’t take very long to introspect and see, am I putting my attention from my hands, from my feet? Of course, they are too far removed from my head. You can just by thinking about it, just by introspection find out that the attention, which is the movable part of consciousness, which is the manipulative part of consciousness, which you can move here or there, put your attention here or there, or not put attention here or there, that part is flowing out from your head through the eyes, through the thinking process. It all takes place in the head.

Therefore, when you close your eyes, you are still there. The feeling that as a conscious being, if you are just a conscious thought existing, where are you existing? You will discover it is in the head behind the eyes. The rest of it is attached to you as a physical body. Therefore, the right place to withdraw your attention would be the third eye. Great Master said, “The truth is the door to all inner perception lies inside the head behind the eyes. If you want to experience all these things we are talking about, on different levels of experiences and consciousness, the door to open those levels is right behind the eyes in your head. Put your attention there.”

We haven’t realized that since we were born we have always put our attention outside. There has been no occasion for us to put our attention inside. We are used to focusing our attention. When you focus your attention, it is always external to yourself. We have never been taught to withdraw attention. We know how to put attention on things. Put your attention on this book. Put your attention on a subject. Put your attention to what I am saying. But we have never been taught how to withdraw the attention to your own self inside the head behind the eyes.

The process of the Great Master’s teaching began to teach me and I learned over time was that the withdrawal of attention is a totally different subject. It is a totally different way of doing things. The process is different than putting your attention. By focusing attention on anything, you are putting your attention out of yourself, not withdrawing, not discovering who you are. Therefore, the Great Master taught how to withdraw your attention to yourself. That is to pull back your attention to where it is flowing from. It takes some practice. It takes some doing to discover that the point where you are having this experience of putting your attention on things is not only behind the eyes, it is at the middle point between the eyes and behind it.

If my two fingers represent the two eyeballs, where the two fingers meet on my hand, if you can see this, it is almost exactly the place if you contemplate where is your attention flowing from, that is the place behind the eyes in the center. If we know that much, then we can proceed forward with the practice of withdrawing attention to our self, and we do it by a very interesting process, the process which we all use without knowing it, is called imagination. If you imagine you are there, attention goes there.

Supposing you are imagining you are sitting in that corner of the room, your attention will go there. If you imagine you are sitting on top of this house, your attention will go there. Wherever you are imagining you are going, attention is pulled there automatically. This becomes a simple method … to imagine that you are sitting inside your head behind the eyes. Make this head of yours, the forehead is a wall in front, these ears are on either side of a beautiful room, that this body is like a mansion and has many floors. The sixth floor is behind the eyes. You are sitting on the sixth floor, and you are putting your attention to where you believe is the center of the head.

This exercise alone, without doing anything else, will open up a door and give you experiences that you have never had before. It is amazing that we think this was so simple, and yet it looks so difficult. The simplicity affected me very much. This is such a simple thing that we have to withdraw attention to the point from it is flowing out, and it is flowing from that point. That point has been addressed in all the spiritual books that I have seen, called the third eye. “If thine eye be single, then your whole body shall be filled with light.” “If you have a point behind your eyes, you will see the truth.” All the scriptures say it in different ways, that there is a third eye, there is a point behind the eyes. There true light lasts. If you can reach that point by withdrawing attention, your whole body gets filled with light. You see a light which you have never seen outside in this world. We are all full of light. Our own soul, which I am talking about, the consciousness, is full of light. You see actual light at the level that you can’t even see with these eyes. A simple mechanical way of pulling your attention behind the eyes can create this kind of experience. The doors open up to all other levels.

What happens if you are steady enough to keep your attention behind the eyes and keep it there, sustain it there, what would happen? You would begin to find that you don’t know where your hands and feet are. I suggest a practice. If you go to a concert and in the concert there are many musical instruments playing. You hear the drums playing, the trumpets playing. Say, I like the drums. Put your attention on the drums. The drums become louder, the trumpets become weaker. They have not changed their pace nor volume. Your attention can pick up on anything and make that more aware in yourself and the other thing less aware. When you put your attention within yourself, the attention automatically is withdrawn from everything else, starting with the rest of the world. You forget it because your attention is here. You want to think about what is happening behind the eyes, not the rest of the world. You forget your worries. You forget your cares. You forget attachments. You are experimenting with withdrawal of attention to yourself.

Later on you will even begin to forget where your body is. The interesting part is that when you withdraw your attention in meditation behind the eyes, the withdrawal of awareness of the body is very gradual. You will notice the first part is you don’t know where your hands are, where your feet are. You don’t know … put your hands here. Your eyes are closed, attention is there. Are my hands here? I don’t know where they are. I don’t know where the feet are. Are they like this or like this? That is the first beginning, showing that your attention is being withdrawn inside. If you sustain that process, you forget the whole body where it is. And yet when you don’t know where your whole body is, you are fully aware of everything. You can see clearly, more clearly than you can see with these eyes. You can fly, walk around. You have left the body. You have a body similar to this one that is not bound by gravity, that is not bound by the limitations of this body, and yet you are the same self! It is the same self. It opens up just by becoming unaware of the outer cover of this physical body.

You can carry out this process again and again through every cover of yours, the physical body being the first cover. The second body is called sensory body, or astral body. It has all the sense perceptions of this body, in fact, more acutely working. You can withdraw attention even within that body and become unaware of that, and then the mind alone becomes your body. Then you find that the mind, the thinking mind, was not merely a thinking machine. It was actually a casing around you. It has no shape like this, yet within that you get experiences that you can never have in the physical body, the experience of how you became a physical body, the experience of what are the laws of cause and effect, the law of karma that makes your destinies in this body. You discover all that. It is all lying there.

Nobody is going to put it there. It is already there, you just have to discover it. You discover through your mind, through the universal mind, that all minds that we think of as people’s mind are proceeding from the same machine, the universal machine waiting there. You don’t stop there! Most of the teachers of spirituality in the world have stopped there or below that. There are very few teachers who will go beyond the mind because they do not distinguish between the mind and the soul. Those who go beyond the mind reach a perfection of spirit, and we call them Perfect Living Masters. The Perfect Living Masters say, “You have reached the end of your mental state, but you have not reached yourself. You are beyond the mind.”

Therefore, the causal body, which is your mind, withdrawing from that, when the mind is withdrawn and the thinking process is left aside, sitting separate from you, you discover your true self. You discover who you really are. You are pure consciousness, the ability to be conscious, the ability to be conscious and create with that ability, the power to create, all experiences of all levels…that is you. That is the real self. That is the soul. When you discover the soul, the next step is even better.

If you withdraw from individuality, the individuation of the soul, you discover there was only one soul, only one totality of consciousness from which all individuation took place within it, creating the whole drama that we call life. Such a beautiful experience. Great Master’s experience with me was so unique to lead me on to these kinds of things, and I feel that it is the greatest gift one can have to see the reality of all these things that are happening, to see how it happens, why it happens, why we are here, why our destinies are different, and why we have different kinds of lives.

Just re-read the following pangti's again.

Ang 953 - Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji

He alone is an Udasi, a shaven-headed renunciate, who embraces renunciation.
so udaasee je paalay udaas.
He sees the Immaculate Lord dwelling in both the upper and lower regions.
araDh uraDh karay niranjan vaas.
He balances the sun and the moon energies. (balance of inhale/exhale in both nostrils)
chand sooraj kee paa-ay gandh.

In the Tenth Gate, the sky of the mind, he erects his pillar. (Put all your surti in the head and stay seated on that pillar/position)
gagan mandal meh ropai thamm.

Night and day, he remains in deep inner meditation.
ahinis antar rahai Dhi-aan.

Throughout existence and non-existence, there is only the Name of the One Lord.
aasat naasat ayko naa-o.
What is that Word, which holds the heart in its place?
ka-un so akhar jit rahai hi-aa-o.
When you look alike upon sunshine and shade, (Sunshine and shade I believe are references to left and right eyes. therefore sit in the centre between them)
Dhoop chhaav jay sam kar sahai.
says Nanak, then the Guru will speak to you. (Shabad Guru/Naam will manifest)
taa naanak aakhai gur ko kahai.

That alone is said to be the Lord`s temple, where the Lord is known.
har mandar so-ee aakhee-ai jithahu har jaataa.
In the human body, the Guru`s Word is found, when one understands that the Lord, the Supreme Soul, is in all.
maanas dayh gur bachnee paa-i-aa sabh aatam raam pachhaataa.

Don`t look for Him outside your self. The Creator, the Architect of Destiny, is within the home of your own heart.
baahar mool na khojee-ai ghar maahi biDhaataa.

The self-willed manmukh does not appreciate the value of the Lord`s temple (i.e body); they waste away and lose their lives.
manmukh har mandar kee saar na jaannee tinee janam gavaataa.
The One Lord is pervading in all; through the Word of the Guru`s Shabad, He can be found.
sabh meh ik varatdaa gur sabdee paa-i-aa jaa-ee.

I was reading this transcript of Ishwar Puri on How to Meditate and Go Within. I found it very inspiring so thought I would share some relevant bits. It might offer as an aid as we make our inner journeys. Its bit of a long read but worthwhile.

Great Master kept on saying, “This is not blind faith. This is not believing somebody. It is believing your own experience. Go within and find out.” Then he would quote from all the religious texts; original texts. The Bible says “The kingdom is within you.” The other texts say “The original sound is the sound that created this world.” The oldest Rig Veda of the Indian Vedas, the old text script, the Sanskrit texts say that “The original creation took place because of the Naad, the Sound.” John’s Gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

How can all these different scriptures, all these different fountainheads of religion say the same thing? Who has practiced it? Who has gone inside to see if there is such a thing as the Word or a sound or a Nad or a Shabd? I said, “This has to be found out. You can’t have blind faith. You must see it yourself.” I made some progress, but I also gradually found that when you make that kind of effort which I was trying, there is a big obstacle on the way. That obstacle is your own thinking, your own mind. I discovered that the mind, which is supposed to be a great help to us, the thinking mind should be able to rationalize, think out, make a good effort, but itself it is the creator of doubt and fear.

Since then I have seen most people, my friends, when they are on the path, they suffer from the same problem. Their mind and their thinking process are creating doubt and fear. I wondered why there should be doubt of these things. The nature of the mind, human mind, is to create a doubt. It is not something unusual. The mind is designed to do it. As I discovered later on that the mind by its thinking process does not always
clarify things because it has limited data on which it works.

The mind is a logical machine. It works on logic, and as some of you might have studied logic, you know that logic is of two kinds, the deductive logic and the inductive logic. The deductive logic only deduces things, comes to conclusions based upon what is fed to the mind. You can say there is a white wall here in front of me. This is part of the wall; therefore, it is white. That is deductive knowledge. There is no additional knowledge that you get through deductive logic. The mind does not go beyond what is already known.

The inductive logic is a guess work. It speculates. This wall is white. This wall goes around the corner, which I cannot see. Presumably, probably, it is also white. That is an inductive method. It is uncertain. What kind of activity of the mind can give me certainty? There is nothing that would give me certainty. Today the mind says this is very clear. Tomorrow a new factor comes in, you learn something new, and the old conclusion.
becomes absolutely wrong.

I discovered that the mind creates doubt by its very nature, by its very function. The mind functions in a very unique way, that it creates time and space for us. It creates thinking in us, and through thinking, it picks up the sense perceptions and translates for us. It took me some time to know that the mind is what sees things, what hears things, what touches things. All sense perceptions are merely stimuli that come to us. The mind tells what it is. If I saw a painting, I can't know it is a painting. I see just globs of color. I see different perception of sight. I look at it. The mind converts it and says, “That is a nice painting.” The interpretation of all sense perceptions is being done by the mind. Because the sense perceptions keep on changing the perceptions we are getting, the mind keeps on changing interpretation. It did not take me very long to find how unreliable the mind is to seek anything of reality or clarity. Therefore, I have to find something else. What else is there?

I found that most of us are misled into believing that we are the mind, that our consciousness consists of nothing else but the thinking self. That the thinking self is “I” and that is what the self is. We totally forget that there is some part of us which is conscious, knows it is there, and does not depend upon thinking. For example, intuition, the flash of gut knowledge that you get suddenly … there is no process of thinking involved in that, and yet you know sometimes a gut feeling seems to override what the thinking mind is saying. The mind says, “Don’t do this.” The gut says, “I have to do it.” “Why?” “I don’t know why.” The thinking mind is saying, “Don’t do it”, and the gut feeling says, “Do it”, or the reverse. The thinking mind says, “Do it”, and the gut feeling says, “No, it is not right.” Whether you call it the conscience speaking inside or if you say the second mind speaking inside, the higher mind speaking inside, there is obviously something else that does not require the process of thinking, yet is conscious in yourself.

This was a very big discovery for me, and it was made very clear by Great Master in his explanations to me. He said, “We do not have only the mind. We have the soul and the mind. They are not the same thing. The soul of a human being is pure consciousness. It does not require thinking. It can function on its own, and its own functions are intuition, love, beauty, joy. Only the soul can experience these; the mind cannot. The mind can do thinking, rationalization, logic, interpretation, but it cannot create love, it cannot create intuitive knowledge, it cannot create the sense of beauty and joy, and bliss that we get.

Once we knew the distinction, also we found out the mind functions only in time and space. Even the smallest thought takes duration, takes time. Intuition soul functions outside of it. It gives you instant knowledge, instant feeling. There is no time involved. The mind functions in time and space. The soul, the spirit of the human being, which is pure consciousness, can function without it. Once the distinction was made … and very clear … that there is a mind and a soul, that who are we? Are we mind or soul? It doesn’t take very long to discover that mind is merely an accessory, a little machine added to ourselves, like a little computer we are carrying in our heads. The mind is like a computer. Whatever you put into it, it processes and gives us results.

But the soul consciousness is the real self, that is the powerhouse that makes the mind work, that makes the senses work, that makes this body work. Our life force, our real life, our real consciousness is the soul, not the mind. Once that came into my knowledge, and Great Master emphasized it, “Don’t forget you are the soul, not the mind. What would happen then? Do not be led by the mind. Lead the mind! The process is very simple.” His teaching then became very clear to me, that we have been led by the mind all our life, that thoughts dictate to us what we should do. Instead of that, our gut feeling should dictate what to do and tell the mind, think like that, and do it. It is the soul that should make decisions, and the mind should implement them. This was a reversal of our ordinary way of living. Ordinarily, we think what to do and then somehow hope that destiny will take us along the path, something else will take us. Our consciousness will follow it. But we are putting the mind ahead and the soul to follow. The truth was that if you want to find out the reality of who you are, you must put the soul ahead and then instruct the mind what to do.

So meditation became a very simple exercise. Meditation was “Soul giving direction to the mind; do this.” Then I understood what the whole process of initiation was, why we repeat mantras, why we repeat words. It was not just because those words are special … mantra, which of course they may be, but we don’t know. At the least the initial function of repetition of words which we don’t even understand, the initial function is that the mind should be instructed to think of those words and squeeze out other words of thought. It is a control of the mind. By repetition of words, you can squeeze out the thoughts that otherwise take us astray. It is the thoughts that take us away from ourselves.

Every time we think of something, it has an association of ideas outside of ourselves. We think of our children, our work, our business, our friends or associates, our concerns and worries about what is going to happen. Every time we have a thought like that, it takes us away from our own center. We are never actually sitting in our own head. Our consciousness is proceeding from our head. Our attention flows from there, and we never spend any time there. Through our thinking process, we are spending all our time outside.

Therefore, the meditation process became simple. It is just an act of withdrawing your attention, withdrawing your consciousness from everything outside and putting it back on yourself to discover who you are as a soul, not as a mind, not as a body, not as sense perceptions. So this was a clear method that Great Master was able to explain in so many ways as time went on. When I was … it was the ‘40s, about 1942, when I had my last question and answer session with Great Master. I said, “Master, I have one more question to ask you.” That was about experiences that were being generated by His method of meditation. From 1943 I never asked any questions. All questions were answered internally.

I tell people, “Do you know all your questions have their answers inside you? There is not a single question that you can ask for which the answer does not lie inside you.” When we ask somebody else for an answer, we are only verifying the answer that is inside us is correct. When somebody gives us an answer that makes no sense, we reject it. If somebody says something, say, “I knew that! That is it!” Then we are just getting a verbal confirmation of the answer that was already in us. Through the meditational techniques of the Great Master’s teaching, we are able to see the answers before you even ask them. The answers even precede before you can put the questions.

Therefore, you discover that answers to all questions of your mind are sitting inside you, and all you have to do is go to the point where the answers lie, which is the mental region of experience, which means that there are many regions of experience that we can have access to through meditation. The regions of experience are the physical experience of the physical world. We are all sitting here in the physical world.

Our bodies are physical, material, and through the body, our sense perceptions, and our thoughts, we are connected to the rest of the physical and material world. If you were not material, there would be no material world around us. Our physical body connects us and gives us the experience of the physical and material world. This is a level of consciousness. We are experiencing consciousness by being conscious of the physical world. If we withdraw our attention in this body, if we just withdraw our attention within ourselves to the point from where it looks like attention is flowing out and connecting us with the world outside, if we just withdraw our attention to the point from where we can notionally see our attention is flowing out, which is in the head. It doesn’t take very long to introspect and see, am I putting my attention from my hands, from my feet? Of course, they are too far removed from my head. You can just by thinking about it, just by introspection find out that the attention, which is the movable part of consciousness, which is the manipulative part of consciousness, which you can move here or there, put your attention here or there, or not put attention here or there, that part is flowing out from your head through the eyes, through the thinking process. It all takes place in the head.

Therefore, when you close your eyes, you are still there. The feeling that as a conscious being, if you are just a conscious thought existing, where are you existing? You will discover it is in the head behind the eyes. The rest of it is attached to you as a physical body. Therefore, the right place to withdraw your attention would be the third eye. Great Master said, “The truth is the door to all inner perception lies inside the head behind the eyes. If you want to experience all these things we are talking about, on different levels of experiences and consciousness, the door to open those levels is right behind the eyes in your head. Put your attention there.”

We haven’t realized that since we were born we have always put our attention outside. There has been no occasion for us to put our attention inside. We are used to focusing our attention. When you focus your attention, it is always external to yourself. We have never been taught to withdraw attention. We know how to put attention on things. Put your attention on this book. Put your attention on a subject. Put your attention to what I am saying. But we have never been taught how to withdraw the attention to your own self inside the head behind the eyes.

The process of the Great Master’s teaching began to teach me and I learned over time was that the withdrawal of attention is a totally different subject. It is a totally different way of doing things. The process is different than putting your attention. By focusing attention on anything, you are putting your attention out of yourself, not withdrawing, not discovering who you are. Therefore, the Great Master taught how to withdraw your attention to yourself. That is to pull back your attention to where it is flowing from. It takes some practice. It takes some doing to discover that the point where you are having this experience of putting your attention on things is not only behind the eyes, it is at the middle point between the eyes and behind it.

If my two fingers represent the two eyeballs, where the two fingers meet on my hand, if you can see this, it is almost exactly the place if you contemplate where is your attention flowing from, that is the place behind the eyes in the center. If we know that much, then we can proceed forward with the practice of withdrawing attention to our self, and we do it by a very interesting process, the process which we all use without knowing it, is called imagination. If you imagine you are there, attention goes there.

Supposing you are imagining you are sitting in that corner of the room, your attention will go there. If you imagine you are sitting on top of this house, your attention will go there. Wherever you are imagining you are going, attention is pulled there automatically. This becomes a simple method … to imagine that you are sitting inside your head behind the eyes. Make this head of yours, the forehead is a wall in front, these ears are on either side of a beautiful room, that this body is like a mansion and has many floors. The sixth floor is behind the eyes. You are sitting on the sixth floor, and you are putting your attention to where you believe is the center of the head.

This exercise alone, without doing anything else, will open up a door and give you experiences that you have never had before. It is amazing that we think this was so simple, and yet it looks so difficult. The simplicity affected me very much. This is such a simple thing that we have to withdraw attention to the point from it is flowing out, and it is flowing from that point. That point has been addressed in all the spiritual books that I have seen, called the third eye. “If thine eye be single, then your whole body shall be filled with light.” “If you have a point behind your eyes, you will see the truth.” All the scriptures say it in different ways, that there is a third eye, there is a point behind the eyes. There true light lasts. If you can reach that point by withdrawing attention, your whole body gets filled with light. You see a light which you have never seen outside in this world. We are all full of light. Our own soul, which I am talking about, the consciousness, is full of light. You see actual light at the level that you can’t even see with these eyes. A simple mechanical way of pulling your attention behind the eyes can create this kind of experience. The doors open up to all other levels.

What happens if you are steady enough to keep your attention behind the eyes and keep it there, sustain it there, what would happen? You would begin to find that you don’t know where your hands and feet are. I suggest a practice. If you go to a concert and in the concert there are many musical instruments playing. You hear the drums playing, the trumpets playing. Say, I like the drums. Put your attention on the drums. The drums become louder, the trumpets become weaker. They have not changed their pace nor volume. Your attention can pick up on anything and make that more aware in yourself and the other thing less aware. When you put your attention within yourself, the attention automatically is withdrawn from everything else, starting with the rest of the world. You forget it because your attention is here. You want to think about what is happening behind the eyes, not the rest of the world. You forget your worries. You forget your cares. You forget attachments. You are experimenting with withdrawal of attention to yourself.

Later on you will even begin to forget where your body is. The interesting part is that when you withdraw your attention in meditation behind the eyes, the withdrawal of awareness of the body is very gradual. You will notice the first part is you don’t know where your hands are, where your feet are. You don’t know … put your hands here. Your eyes are closed, attention is there. Are my hands here? I don’t know where they are. I don’t know where the feet are. Are they like this or like this? That is the first beginning, showing that your attention is being withdrawn inside. If you sustain that process, you forget the whole body where it is. And yet when you don’t know where your whole body is, you are fully aware of everything. You can see clearly, more clearly than you can see with these eyes. You can fly, walk around. You have left the body. You have a body similar to this one that is not bound by gravity, that is not bound by the limitations of this body, and yet you are the same self! It is the same self. It opens up just by becoming unaware of the outer cover of this physical body.

You can carry out this process again and again through every cover of yours, the physical body being the first cover. The second body is called sensory body, or astral body. It has all the sense perceptions of this body, in fact, more acutely working. You can withdraw attention even within that body and become unaware of that, and then the mind alone becomes your body. Then you find that the mind, the thinking mind, was not merely a thinking machine. It was actually a casing around you. It has no shape like this, yet within that you get experiences that you can never have in the physical body, the experience of how you became a physical body, the experience of what are the laws of cause and effect, the law of karma that makes your destinies in this body. You discover all that. It is all lying there.

Nobody is going to put it there. It is already there, you just have to discover it. You discover through your mind, through the universal mind, that all minds that we think of as people’s mind are proceeding from the same machine, the universal machine waiting there. You don’t stop there! Most of the teachers of spirituality in the world have stopped there or below that. There are very few teachers who will go beyond the mind because they do not distinguish between the mind and the soul. Those who go beyond the mind reach a perfection of spirit, and we call them Perfect Living Masters. The Perfect Living Masters say, “You have reached the end of your mental state, but you have not reached yourself. You are beyond the mind.”

Therefore, the causal body, which is your mind, withdrawing from that, when the mind is withdrawn and the thinking process is left aside, sitting separate from you, you discover your true self. You discover who you really are. You are pure consciousness, the ability to be conscious, the ability to be conscious and create with that ability, the power to create, all experiences of all levels…that is you. That is the real self. That is the soul. When you discover the soul, the next step is even better.

If you withdraw from individuality, the individuation of the soul, you discover there was only one soul, only one totality of consciousness from which all individuation took place within it, creating the whole drama that we call life. Such a beautiful experience. Great Master’s experience with me was so unique to lead me on to these kinds of things, and I feel that it is the greatest gift one can have to see the reality of all these things that are happening, to see how it happens, why it happens, why we are here, why our destinies are different, and why we have different kinds of lives.

Keep going Kukkar the sounds will slowly change... I also sometimes hear that. The more jaap you do with focus, the finer the listening ability of your ears will become. Enjoy.

What is ajapa jap ? I had never found the answer even though I have seen it mentioned in a few books.


Japa and Ajapa-Japa
Japa means repeating or remembering the mantra, and Ajapa-Japa means constant awareness. The letter A in front of the word Japa means without. Thus, Ajapa-Japa is the practice of Japa without the mental effort normally needed to repeat the mantra. In other words, it has begun to come naturally, turning into a constant awareness. The practice of constant remembrance evolves in stages:
At first, you intentionally repeat the syllables of the mantra internally, as if you are talking to yourself in your mind. You allow the inner sound to come at whatever speed feels comfortable to the mind. Sometimes it is very slow, as if the mind were wading through a vat of honey. At other times it is very fast, as if flying through the sky without restraint.
With practice, the mantra japa is repeated automatically, like a song that you have heard many times, which just comes on its own. (Some practitioners consider this automatic repeating to be the meaning of Ajapa-Japa, though there is a subtler meaning, as described below.)
Gradually, you merely remember the mantra with attention drawn to it. It is more like noticing what is already happening, rather than causing it to happen. It is somewhat like the attention stance of listening rather than speaking, though you might not literally hear the sound.
In time, the feeling of the mantra is there, even when the sound or remembering of the syllables is not there. For example, sometimes people will say, "OM, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti," where the word Shanti means peace or tranquility. During the remembering of the word there may be two things--the word and the feeling of peace or tranquility. When the syllables fade away, the feeling may still be there; this is remembrance of the feeling of the mantra.
As the practice evolves, there comes a pervasive awareness of the mantra, subtler than both the syllables and any surface level meaning or definition. This constant awareness is the meaning of Ajapa-Japa of the mantra.
Gosh that is going to involve a lot of chanting to get to that avasta. Going foward I'm going to focus on two things.
1) try and reach the stage of ajapa jap with the Waheguru Gurmantar. Although this has got me wondering what will the feeling be associated with chanting waheguru. Maybe the sweetness is it because it does pull the mind towards it.
2) try and awaken or observe the Sushmana/sukhmana nari. Doesn't sound too difficult if all you got to do is focus on the bridge of the nose between the two nostrils. Not sure if it meant underside of nose though.

Another tip I picked up recently is try and live in the present, not the past or the future. Keep the mind with with you in the here and Now.

That's fine. But what I meant is that it quite common for people to experience pain in that region which is not supposed to be the case. Either the individual is trying to solely focus on this area and straining too much causing pressure at that point or as previously stated it is said that there is a knot at that point which needs to be untied before one progresses further. I haven't mastered this yet so can't comment too much but I believe its something along the lines of balancing the air flow through both nostrils to transcend the trikuti. When this happens naturally in it's own time through saas saas simran the air flow will automatically balance out and at that time you will be breathing through both nostrils at the same time which is not common. Normally one nostril is dominant at any given time. When this happens there should be no pressure at that point and the mind will be still. To cross the trikuti one's conscientiousness must take the aid of the shabad that manifests here. Focusing your mind on the shabad I'm guessing here will lead you to cross the trikuti, which is not going to be easy as it will present it's own set of challenges. You won't be able to cross if your mind is active in thoughts.

There might be numerous ways to progress because even I have heard some sant's state, say waheguru and put your dhyaan on the trikuti. Even to the extent of try and look upwards. I think N3O posted a video of Sant Ranjit Singh Ji explaining this method. Each person has their own way, but from what I have learned one should not focus on this location until one hears the shabad. I am sure I read this in Discourses on the Beyond as instructed by Sant Baba Isher Singh (Rare wale). Will try and put it up. It was only a couple of days ago Sant Ranjit Singh ji did a kirtan programme here in the UK where he also stated just focus on the sound of the gurmantar, nothing else. Just made me smile when I heard this.

I avoid putting my dhyaan on the trikuti but on the sound of the gurmantar which is primarily in front of my mouth when reciting verbally. When japping mentally then on the ears. In my case the shabads appear to be manifesting more on the right side than in the center. Occasionally on the left. I'm expecting something along the lines of first one ear, then both ears, then trikuti. I await that day, then we shall see... So far this method seems to be leading to progress so I plan to stick with it.

My Guru is telling me to do one thing and one thing only and I do so many others..... Waheguru Waheguru Waheguru Waheguru

Ang 426

They are occupied with the Naam, and only the Naam; they deal only in the Naam.
naamay hee naam varatday naamay vartaaraa.

Deep within their hearts is the Naam; upon their lips is the Naam; they contemplate the Word of God, and the Naam.
antar naam mukh naam hai naamay sabad veechaaraa.

They listen to the Naam, believe in the Naam, and through the Naam, they obtain glory.
naam sunee-ai naam mannee-ai naamay vadi-aa-ee.

They praise the Naam, forever and ever, and through the Naam, they obtain the Mansion of the Lord`s Presence.
naam salaahay sadaa sadaa naamay mahal paa-ee.

Through the Naam, their hearts are illumined, and through the Naam, they obtain honor.
naamay hee ghat chaannaa naamay sobhaa paa-ee.

Through the Naam, peace wells up; I seek the Sanctuary of the Naam.
naamay hee sukh oopjai naamay sarnaa-ee.

Without the Naam, no one is accepted; the self-willed manmukhs lose their honor.
bin naavai ko-ay na mannee-ai manmukh pat gavaa-ee.

In the City of Death, they are tied down and beaten, and they lose their lives in vain.
jam pur baaDhay maaree-ah birthaa janam gavaa-ee.

Those Gurmukhs who realize the Naam, all serve the Naam. (To serve Naam is to LISTEN TO IT!!!!!)
naamai kee sabh sayvaa karai gurmukh naam bujhaa-ee.

So believe in the Naam, and only the Naam; through the Naam, glorious greatness is obtained.
naamhu hee naam mannee-ai naamay vadi-aa-ee.

He alone receives it, unto whom it is given. Through the Guru`s Teachings, the Naam is realized.
jis no dayvai tis milai gurmatee naam bujhaa-ee.

O Nanak, everything is under the influence of the Naam; by perfect good destiny, a few obtain it.
naanak sabh kichh naavai kai vas hai poorai bhaag ko paa-ee.

I have to die in that shabad. Kill the mind/thoughts completely as guru ji instructs on ang 429.

Ego, self-centeredness, excessive anger and pride are the lot of mankind.
ha-umai mayraa jaat hai at kroDh abhimaan.

If one dies in the Word of the Shabad, then he is rid of this, and his light is merged into the Light of the Lord God. ||2||
sabad marai taa jaat jaa-ay jotee jot milai bhagvaan.

Waheguru waheguru waheguru.....

I justed wanted to write a little example to help understand what I believe Guru ji is trying to instruct us with, because if you learn you apply this jugti then you watch how much more stable you mind becomes. You will then notice how when you don’t, you will automatically see how it breaks your inner peace.

I am sure you have heard countless saakhi’s of bhagats, mahapursh calling everyone they see WaheGuru. When I first heard this I found it a little strange, why on earth are they calling a person waheguru. I have even been to gurdwaras where this is normal practise. First I thought maybe they are japping naam after ever little phrase. Then when I started listening more and reading SGGS the light dawned.

These people are trying to develop what I believe is called bibek bhuddie. As guru ji instructs us to do in the pangti’s above and probably countless others. If you train your mind to see Waheguru in everyone who will you hate? who will you curse? who will you swear at? Who will you do nindiya off?

Then this is not just limited to people, look at Waheguru’s whole creation. Waheguru is inside that too but we just don’t have that divine sight to see his parkash in it yet, myself included. But slowly when you start bringing this line of thought into your mind you develop more peace/shanty of mind because you don’t want to hurt anyone or do their nindeya because indirectly your only adding more sins into your basket. And boy do we have millions of them already. This is how guru ji is instructing us how to conquer Krodh and the other vices gurbani talks about.

The day the penny dropped for me, I was waling down an escalator and below I saw hundreds of people, and the more I looked at them the more I smiled and just said Waheguru. Then I walked home I saw a tree and I looked at that tree and said to myself guru ji your in their too but one day please show yourself in your true light.

The more I remember to put this at the forefront of my mind, when ever a confrontation starts I have now come to hate it and think this person is has lost it and I wont let him destroy my inner piece which with his kirpa I am trying to so hard to develop. Just silently start japping waheguru in your mind and do not be drawn into any kind of confrontation. You see how most times the situation just dissolves itself.

If the other person doesn't stop, just step back with nimerta and say "Tuwno Jaadha Patha Ji" and walk away.

Dhan Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.

Waheguru.

Appologies for my spelling mistakes...

That night I never slept a wink. I had a constant sound in my ear. My state of mind has become quite biragee and whilst listening to kirtan/simran yesterday the tears were just flowing. When I now say Waheguru it definitely feels as if the voice is coming from the chest. The anand from the simran feels a lot more sweet. Don't feel like working or doing anything. Just feel like reading gurbani and listening to Waheguru Mantar.

I was reading SGGS when I came to Ang 152. My jaw dropped and I nearly fell over. I am sure you have all read this but if you haven't I hope you find it as enlightening and inspiring as I did. A few pangti's may be missing because they are taken from my own notes. The baani has been written by Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji. Waheguru.....
The union of air, water and fire
pa-unai paanee agnee kaa mayl.
- the body is the play-thing of the fickle and unsteady intellect.
chanchal chapal buDh kaa khayl.
It has nine doors, and then there is the Tenth Gate.
na-o darvaajay dasvaa du-aar.
Reflect upon this and understand it, O wise one. ||1||
bujh ray gi-aanee ayhu beechaar. ||1||
The Lord is the One who speaks, teaches and listens.
kathtaa baktaa suntaa so-ee.
One who contemplates his own self is truly wise. ||1||Pause||
aap beechaaray so gi-aanee ho-ee. ||1|| rahaa-o
The body is dust; the wind speaks through it.
dayhee maatee bolai pa-un
Understand, O wise one, who has died.
bujh ray gi-aanee moo-aa hai ka-un.
Awareness, conflict and ego have died,
moo-ee surat baad ahaNkaar.
but the One who sees does not die. ||2||
oh na moo-aa jo daykhanhaar. ||2||
For the sake of it, you journey to sacred shrines and holy rivers;
jai kaaran tat tirath jaahee
but this priceless jewel is within your own heart.
ratan padaarath ghat hee maahee.
The Pandits, the religious scholars, read and read endlessly; they stir up arguments and controversies,
parh parh pandit baad vakhaanai.
but they do not know the secret deep within. ||3||
bheetar hodee vasat na jaanai. ||3||
I have not died - that evil nature within me has died.
ha-o na moo-aa mayree mu-ee balaa-ay
The One who is pervading everywhere does not die.
oh na moo-aa jo rahi-aa samaa-ay
Says Nanak, the Guru has revealed God to me,
kaho naanak gur barahm dikhaa-i-aa
and now I see that there is no such thing as birth or death. ||4||4||
martaa jaataa nadar na aa-i-aa. ||4||4||
I am forever a sacrifice to the one who listens and hears, who understands and believes in the Name.
sun sun boojhai maanai naa-o. taa kai sad balihaarai jaa-o.
When the Lord Himself leads us astray, there is no other place of rest for us to find.
aap bhulaa-ay tha-ur na thaa-o.
You impart understanding, and You unite us in Your Union. ||1||
tooN samjhaavahi mayl milaa-o. ||1
I obtain the Naam, which shall go along with me in the end.
naam milai chalai mai naal.
Without the Name, all are held in the grip of Death. ||1||Pause||
bin naavai baaDhee sabh kaal. ||1|| rahaa-o
My farming and my trading are by the Support of the Name.
khaytee vanaj naavai kee ot.
This is the true mark of wisdom: that one remains detached, like the water-lily, or the lotus upon the water.
jal puraa-in ras kamal pareekh.
Attuned to the Word of the Shabad, one becomes sweet, like the juice of the sugar cane. ||3||
sabad ratay meethay ras eekh. 
By the Hukam of the Lord`s Command, the castle of the body has ten gates.
hukam sanjogee garh das du-aar.
The five passions dwell there, together with the Divine Light of the Infinite.
panch vaseh mil jot apaar.
The Lord Himself is the merchandise, and He Himself is the trader.
aap tulai aapay vanjaar.
O Nanak, through the Naam, the Name of the Lord, we are adorned and rejuvenated. 
naanak naam savaaranhaar.
How can we know where we came from?
jaato jaa-ay kahaa tay aavai
Where did we originate, and where will we go and merge?
kah upjai kah jaa-ay samaavai
How are we bound, and how do we obtain liberation?
ki-o baaDhi-o ki-o muktee paavai
How do we merge with intuitive ease into the Eternal, Imperishable Lord? ||1||
ki-o abhinaasee sahj samaavai. ||1
With the Naam in the heart and the Ambrosial Naam on our lips,
naam ridai amrit mukh naam.
through the Name of the Lord, we rise above desire, like the Lord. ||1||Pause||
narhar naam narhar nihkaam. ||1|| rahaa-o.
With intuitive ease we come, and with intuitive ease we depart.
sehjay aavai sehjay jaa-ay.
From the mind we originate, and into the mind we are absorbed.
man tay upjai man maahi samaa-ay.
As Gurmukh, we are liberated, and are not bound.
gurmukh mukto bandh na paa-ay.
Contemplating the Word of the Shabad, we are emancipated through the Name of the Lord. 
sabad beechaar chhutai har naa-ay. ||2||
Ang 153
Meeting the Gur (a.k.a. Shabad Guru within), the hard and heavy doors are opened. 
gur mil kholay bajar kapaat. 
One meets the Holy Saint only through perfect destiny.
saadh milai poorab sanjog.
The Lord`s perfect people rejoice in the Truth.
sach rahsay pooray har log.
Surrendering their minds and bodies, they find the Lord with intuitive ease.
man tan day lai sahj subhaa-ay.
Nanak falls at their feet. 
naanak tin kai laaga-o paa-ay. 
Conquering self-conceit, one obtains the Name. 
aap maaray taa paa-ay naa-o. 
One who dies in the Word of the Shabad, shall never again have to die.
sabad marai,,fir maran na ho-ay.
Without such a death, how can one attain perfection?
bin moo-ay ki-o pooraa ho-ay.
So get aboard that boat when your turn comes.
bohith charha-o jaa aavai vaar.
Those who fail to embark upon that boat shall be beaten in the Court of the Lord.
thaakay bohith dargeh maar.
Blessed is that Gurdwara, the Guru`s Gate, where the Praises of the True Lord are sung.
sach saalaahee Dhan gurdu-aar.
O Nanak, the One Creator Lord is pervading hearth and home. 
naanak dar ghar aykankaar.
The inverted heart-lotus has been turned upright, through reflective meditation on God.
ulti-o kamal barahm beechaar.
From the Sky of the Tenth Gate, the Ambrosial Nectar trickles down.
amrit Dhaar gagan das du-aar.
The Lord Himself is pervading the three worlds. ||1||
taribhavan bayDhi-aa aap muraar. ||1||
O my mind, do not give in to doubt.
ray man mayray bharam na keejai.
When the mind surrenders to the Name, it drinks in the essence of Ambrosial Nectar. Pause
man maanee-ai amrit ras peejai. rahaa-o.
When the self dies, the individual mind comes to know the Supreme Mind.
aap moo-aa man, man tay jaani-aa.
As the inner vision is awakened, one comes to know one`s own home, deep within the self. 
najar bha-ee ghar ghar tay jaani-aa. 
The Naam, the Name of the Lord, is austerity, chastity and cleansing baths at sacred shrines of pilgrimage. (Listening to the Naam is cleansing baths)
jat sat tirath majan naam.
Meeting the True Guru, we are shown the way to die.
satgur milai so maran dikhaa-ay.
Remaining alive in this death brings joy deep within.
maran rahan ras antar bhaa-ay.
Overcoming egotistical pride, the Tenth Gate is found. 
garab nivaar gagan pur paa-ay.
So chant and meditate on the Lord, and remain in the Sanctuary of the Lord. ||1||Pause||
har jap jaap rahan har sarnaa.
Meeting the True Guru, duality is dispelled.
satgur milai ta dubiDhaa bhaagai.
The heart-lotus blossoms forth, and the mind is attached to the Lord God.
kamal bigaas man har parabh laagai.
One who remains dead while yet alive obtains the greatest happiness hereafter. 
jeevat marai mahaa ras aagai. 
Meeting the True Guru, one becomes truthful, chaste and pure.
satgur mili-ai sach sanjam soochaa.
Climbing up the steps of the Guru`s Path, one becomes the highest of the high.
gur kee pa-orhee oocho oochaa.
When the Lord grants His Mercy, the fear of death is conquered. 
karam milai jam kaa bha-o moochaa. 
Uniting in Guru`s Union, we are absorbed in His Loving Embrace.
gur mili-ai mil ank samaa-i-aa.
Granting His Grace, He reveals the Mansion of His Presence, within the home of the self.
kar kirpaa ghar mahal dikhaa-i-aa.

About 6 months focus on naam simran now and before that about 1 year on mool mantar. Before that it was just reading books and listening to kirtan katha but I was still lacking inspiration do the practical myself. Only over the past 2 years have I moved up a gear and more so in the last 6 months.

If my post inspires even just one person then I really consider it worth while. Go for it Singh!!!

I'm reading Guru Granth Sahib Ji (english translation) along side naam simran and its really giving me the push I need. The amount of focus that is placed on naam/shabad unity with Almighty is just really shocking me to the max. To the point i'm getting quite annoyed by the fact that if Guru Granth Sahib Ji placed so much focus on naam simran being the only means by which we will reach Waheguru why weren't we told about it in Gurdwaras more. Maybe it was me who just wasn't taking it in. Why aren't we told this is what you need to do and this is how you go about doing it....

There are days when I run out of steam and the desire isn't there but when I read a few more angs it gives me the kick I need to get me going again. Actually i'm hooked reading Guru Ji. Can't even focus at work, just want to keep reading. My respect for my Gurus is increasing daily. Guru Amar Das ji' belows me away every time, actually they all do. Going to get shitter at work if they find out what I'm doing. I find myself totally becoming withdrawn from what is going on in the outside world. Don't care about news, tv, movies, family etc either i'm holding my phone or ipad. I'm really seeing a difference in me. Its growing to such an extent that my own mother is getting concerned and telling me to slow down and keep my feet on the ground and says I got my whole life ahead of me yet.

The only advice I'm able to give anyone is keep the simran going throughout the day whilst your doing your day to day stuff. From the moment I get up I try and start. Getting ready, journey to work, lunch times, take a few minutes off during work and just do simran eyes open or closed, journey home. I bet the other travelers are saying what is that guy mumbling to himself. If your able to dedicate fix time to it then so much the better. This is the part I'm really finding difficult to do. My legs and backside ache and I can't sit for long and the discomfort over powers the concentration your trying to reach. I find myself looking at the clock to see if times up or my thoughts just keep coming and I get frustrated but there are times when you know you had a good session even if it was just for a few moments.

I'm so hooked to his videos for the past couple of days that it's hard not to watch. Here goes another interesting video where he describes that meditation (as we know it) won't take us beyond Causal plane and various other stuff like Mind/Kal/Time. He also explains the creation, free-will and many other things so beautifully.

Then he also explains sounds from Right vs Left ear are just preparatory sounds and not real sound.

Giani Thakur Singh has done full katha which can be found on www.gurbaniupdesh.org