Mekhane'ch Jannat

I read somewhere once that "to be truly spiritual, you must reduce or cut down on 3 things - Sex, food and sleep" The reason for this is they promote attachment to the gross body. With sex i believe it is not just physical but mental. If you even think sexual thoughts this leads to loss of ojas. Indian wrestlers who promote a Brahmcarya lifestyle also say a person who controls sexual desires can be noticed by a healthy glow around his face, this is ojas. Prevention of ejaculation or even doing Vajroli (where semen is sucked back up the penis) does not ensure retention of ojas. Pure brahmcarya involves a high level of mental purity, not just abstaining from sex. Subjective purity not Objective BUT as they say Ek Nari - Brahmchari, this means even being married you can be brahmcarya by controlling or destroying lusty thoughts. To go back to the first point about Ojas, why would a singh want to cultivate ojas. Because it improves concentration and you can do simran one-pointedly without images of breasts etc. popping up in your mind. Why do you think wrestlers are brahmchari, it gives a person more strength energy and concentration ability, you can do simran for hours and hours and hours. Just another point, to get obsessed about controlling desires or abstaining from sex is bad. If you feel like sexing it up don't repress the desire, let it get destroyed on its own, by keeping in mind that you want burn all desires, and one day you will beleive it.

Drawrof Maharaj, the first question you put forth, is difficult for me to answer, i need to mull it over and look to the guru for guidance. The second question i'll enjoy answering as it gives me a chance to get things straight in my head. For me grace is tied up with karam. Karam occurs when we self identify with our actions e.g. if i write a cheque for $1000 and don't sign it, its not valid, once I associate with an act in effect i'm signing the cheque. So every action has a reaction every cause has an effect. I believe that actions are tied up with desires, people act (do something) because they believe they (the Ahamkara or "I") will get something, this is in effect a creation of a desire. Creation of desire pushes us from life to life, it creates, or, it is karam. Grace of the guru/god occurs when we say "i've had enough, i desire to know/see God" This desire to know/see god is the grace of the guru/god. Without his grace we wouldn't have the inclination to seek him. So being born into a Sikh family and being directed towards the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, and doing shabad vichar, is his grace only by his grace we have the inclination to do this. Our Karams steer us in this direction. The "I" principle does nothing, there is no free will. Or to say it another way because a person controls his desires and performs less karams he becomes more receptive to the grace of god. But controlling his desires is the grace of the guru/god. It all comes back to Him. I know this might sound like "I should not do anything" philosophy, in a way it is, internally you have to aim to be actionless. But its the game of getting there which is fun or just downright terrifying, when you begin to lose identification with the body. Getting there involves manipulation of the I ness. Please note these are only my ruminations, im just "thinking aloud" please feel free to criticize, if only as a favour to keep my ego under control.

That is a shame, because i'd rather feel something and do domething with my life than just bandy about words. Like I said before logic is a means of understanding something, it is not understanding in itself. This statement shows why you cannot understand sikhism 100%. To understand 100% you have to part of the Sikh tradition. Viewing the tradition from outside objectively, will only give you a small insight into the tradition. This comment seems illogical. From the first two sentences in your statement you talk about your own view which acceptable. Then you, change the context and impose your own view on other members of this forum who believe in reincarnation "But I guess, if you believe in reincarnation, you should have enough time to do such a thing" Maybe you should kill yourself. (Egoically) Too many assumptions. Their is no "try it out method" Sikhism believes all faiths are true, no faiths are "man-engineered falsehoods" I really do not understand where you are coming from in this statement, your previous posts were the essence of clarity and openess, but there seems to be some underlying sentiment pervading this paragraph, which has not been made clear in your discourse. Let it out, we don't take offence, here. You are confused with regards to sikh theory. Because you do not understand that from stages of creation there are different views. In the state of God as transcendent there is no manifestation it just is (I cannot explain further). As manifestation unfolds viewpoints change. So to say god is sending himself to hell is true from an absolute viewpoint but not from an individual limited viewpoint. Logic is limited to an individual subject's discrimination, if you believe in god do you think he is limited as you and has to follow logic? The idea of hell is tied up in the idea of reincarnation. There are many hells. One hell i read about is that a soul/Jiva is continiously "reborn" as a sperm. I don't like you saying "The truth is I can already see some trememendous problems with the idea of 'hell' in sikhsm." You do not have much knowledge of Sikhism, i don;t know if you done research outside of this forum. But you have only talked to a few people on this forum, and they do not represent Sikhism in its entireity. So to make this statement shows that you are more concerned with making assumptions about Sikh Theory then seriously researching Sikh Theory.

My understanding about the soul is that it is the same as the subtle body. In very simple terms "what you think yourself to be." E.g. after drinking too much alcohol, the next morning your head will feel very heavy and probably hurt a lot, even though physically it is the same as before. This is one aspect of the subtle body, another aspect of it is your desires. Sexual desires, material desires etc. are all deposited in the subtle body. Then we get into the idea of Karma, where a persons unfulfilled desires in this life cause him to take birth, after his death, in a body where he can fulfill his desires. So we as individuals have karmas from previous births which pre-dispose us to act in a certain way, this is an extremely simple way of putting it, but im trying to give you an idea. Our desires impel us to do actions. The aim of Sikhism is to release an individual from the incessent rounds of births and deaths. To do this he must purge the subtle body of desires. But here's the catch how do you get the desire to purge your desires and unite with the formless lord. The answer is grace of the guru/god. (this is a vast topic of discussion on its own) Getting back to the point of the soul in relation to the nature of god from my amateur understanding it is just another part of creation albeit more subtler than something like a chair. Maybe someone else can clarify the nature of the jiva in relation to paramatma. Sorry for this cryptic statement, what i mean is that only creation is subject to time. When manifest reality emerges from unmanifest god it goes through a series of stages. i can't explain this more, i don't know it, look at the post of the tattva's (thatnesses) in kashmiri shaivism for an understanding of the unfolding of manifestation. In sikhism all this logical explanations and philosophical discussions take a back seat, the emphasis is on devotion to the name of God. The name of God is not something logically explainable. I think it carries different connotations for everyone. Whilst all sikhs recite "Waheguru" the meaning of this word encompasses all the individual person associates with it. It is remarkably powerful. If you concentrate on it day and night and gradually refine your "understanding" of it through reading holy scriptures, it makes for a transformation of consciousness, where an individual associates with the divine being. Rather than logic chopping, sikhism (in my interpretation) says go and experience this for yourself do something. Although logic does play an important role in understanding the nature of things, to me, it is secondary.

By answering one of your last questions i may be able to clarify some of the others. The unmanifest or transcendental aspect of God cannot be conceived by the sensory organs of perception i.e the mental apparatus, and the five senses. In this sense God cannot be "known". He is beyond thought concepts. Everything in this world is made understood through the process of thinking, e.g. this is a computer. When we see a computer this thought pops into our head. We cannot perceive or feel God and say "that is God" This refers to the transcendental aspect of God. The individual soul is in Sikhism a limited form of divinity. Like the metaphor i used in my previous post of the knots on the rope. God (transcendent) is the rope (underlying substratum) and we are contractions of the rope. A similar metaphor is that the soul is a wave arising from the sea and God (transcendent) is the sea. You have to stop thinking in terms of God as an entity limited by time space relativity causality (if you wish to understand the Sikh point of view), he is beyond these limitations. The transcendental and immanent aspect of God both occur at the same time, at different times, but in reality at no time. These aspects cannot be understood through knowledge, only through an undescribable experience. With regards to creation, for every event there is a perceiver, the perceived and the act of perceiving. Now only the subject in this triad the perceiver is sentient, the perceived object is insentient, like a jar. therefore things are created by us perceiving them. So we are all made in Gods form, as we can create the world we live in. BUT this creating ability is limited by the contraction of God that occurs when he manifests. And false identification with the Ego and body prevents us seeing this. We believe we are thrown about by the world and by God, but this is a trick, no one does anything, we create our own world we live in, through mental ideas, nothing else. The aim of sikhism is to go past these covering sheaths of ideas about things and realise our inherent divinity, through concentration and devotion to the name of God. The name of God is not to be taken literally, it has an esoteric multi faceted beautiful meaning, which i wish i could understand.

Sikhism is absolute theism, meaning the nature of the ultimate(God) in Sikhism is that he pervades his creation and transcends it. The transcendental aspect of God in unknowable, our minds cannot grasp it through mere knowing. It is beyond all mental functions. This aspect of God is Nirgun (without attributes) Manifestation of the universe occurs when God wants to perceive himself. Out of himself he seperates the immanent (Sargun) aspect of his godhead - myriad universes. Just as the potentiality of a tree is contained in its seed in an unmanifest form, so all manifestation resides in an unmanifest form in the transcendental aspect of God. Another useful but limited metaphor for understanding, is, the creative urge of an artist. Imagine an artist is about to create a painting. First there is an urge within him to create, this urge is not nameable. The next stage is the creative urge is brought into the mental realm and put into thought forms, but it is still unmanifest. Then finally the artist will use paints to paint the picture now it has become manifest in its gross form - existence. The aim of Sikhism is to reunite the soul with God realised through one pointed awareness and loving devotion towards the name of God. Knowledge of God in Sikhism is not possible, Baba Nanak says one will receive many slaps on his face if he thinks he can describe Gods doings, he is unknowable. Only through intuition can he be realised. Creation/manifestation is said to be false in relation to the transcendental aspect of God. We are not world renouncers, but, sikhs believe in having correct knowledge about nature. This does not make nature/creation bad and god good, but it is just the way of things. Another way to think of it is like knots in a rope, but imagine only the knots are visible. The knots are individual consciousness, but the rope is universal consciousness.

Maybe becoming a schizophrenic is essential for spiritual growth? Being a schzophrenic is only considered an illness, in the world we live in now. We need to be aware that our ideaologies are conditioned by the capitalistic society we live in. Issues like mental illness have been marginalised and pushed outside of acceptable social norms. Whereas in socities not influenced by western post enlightenment values, this is not the case. Certain spiritual paths or ways are not acceptable to western society because they do not fit into social norms. Now i have a problem with modern "spirituality" books that repackage elements of certain religious traditions and present them to western audiences as cures for the "materialism" of the west. But what they choose to include are aspects of those traditions that, comply with the capitalistic machine to ensure that an individual is a productive unit. That is why with me non-sikh "spiritual" books have to be authentic i.e. written within a tradition, it is also important for me to understand the environment in which the text was written to gain a better appreciation of it. Most laypeople cannot be bothered to do this, they want a quick fix, they want consumables, they want comfort. It is ironic that the economic environment we live in has created this need for spirituality, and is itself repackaging spirituality, as a means to keep the worker units productive. Sorry to go off on a tangent, but just to sum up, people please be aware of the world we live in, it is immensly deceptive it is like another maya already on top of the other maya, so very difficult to stay on the true path.

There is not a universal way of following the spiritual path, each persons way is different. In my posts i proposed a different approach, albeit in a slightly forthright way, purposely to go against the grain of previous posts. My belief (its only that) is that first an individual should foster devotion for God, and because of this devotion he/she becomes detached from worldly pursuits/ambitions. Not the other way around. I am not saying go around doing what you feel like (Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister crowley) But excercise common sense, and live in society, participating fully. Cultivating purposeful detachment from worldly activities, can have harmful effects, and must be effected accordingly to the individuals psychological makeup. Detachment should be spontaneous not purposeful. This spontaneity comes about from the bliss that devotion to god gives a person, so wordly lusts seem drab by comparison. The above paragraph is my personal view and is another option to the ones proposed by others. For some people purposeful detachment may be good, for others they may need to satisfy their lust so they can concentrate on God (with lust eventually becoming nothing compared to god bliss). Existence is pluralistic, his manifestation is amazingly varied, no two people are the same, The sadhanas for each and every sadhaka is also different. Each individual needs to make his own way, it helps a person if he gets views from different viewpoints, to make his own decsions in life. I offered a different paradigm for dealing with lust.

What difference is their between lusting after your wifes backside, or another womans. In my mind their is none. In each case a backside is being viewed by a sensory organ (eyes). This sensory organ creates an image of a backside. The backside due to past mental impressions and previous memories, invokes a pleasurable feeling - lust. This event is made up of the knower (backside viewer) known (backside) and the knowing process. This threefold event in pure sat, is one event, it is god. The feeling of lust is due to the impurity of our buddhi not being able to reflect pure sat inside it.(or a lower level of pure sat). Due to mental impurity (compared to sat) we see things as different, when in sat they are not different. BUT we live in society we are not recluses, so we must follow dharam or righteousness,---- take from that what you think is right with regards to womens backsides.

i apologise, i will be more careful in the future, please feel free to edit my post to make it more suitable.

If an individual has no lust, wouldn't that make it a bit difficult to "get it up" Sorry to be so crude, but as sikhs we are meant to live as householders, so part of household life is the art of pleasing your wife, if you have no lust how can you satisfy the needs of your wife. Observing the feeling in a detached manner, as one poster commented, seems to me as a schizophrenic way of dealing with lust. Because you are splitting your mind into two, at first, careful you don't become a schizo if you take this option. I like sikhers post, why complicate matters, every man likes a nice fat ass, why fight it. A womens arse is made by God, so by lusting after it you are doing pooja to it, which is indirectly pooja to god. Lust is a worship to him who can do anything, he can make you lust after anything, and not lust after everything.

An ardas can have an effect for you as an individual but it does not effect maharaj. In my view maharaj has not decided, or will not, or is not deciding anything he just is. He can do anything he wills. Maharaj in his immanent aspect is the source of everything that will ever happen, has happened, and is happening, in an unmanifest form, like the plant that grows from a seed, is contained in the seed before it grows. Us and the world has sprouted from maharaj, it is a part of him, he is part of us, so, we can do ardas for something we want or for someone else, but this is happening within maharaj's hukam. If an individual feels he needs to do ardas he can do it, and for him it may come to fruitiion and from his view it will have been fufilled, this is hukam, if it is not fulfilled, it is hukam, if he doesn't bother doing ardas, it is hukam. On a more mundane level, I think ardas is psychological. If someone is scared of exams, they do an ardas, this makes them feel as though God is with them, gives them confidence, and God is really with them.

Just to add a contrast to the theme imparted in the above posts. Not all thoughts in the beggining of a seekers journey are bad. A person should always think Shuddha Vidya. This is according to the Trika system of Kashmiri Shaivism thoughts such as I am god, the universe is my, everyting is in me etc... This in my view more closely aligns with the devotional aspect of Sikhism where we should always remember God and keep our mind focused on him and eliminate all other thoughts. The posts previous to mine seem to be more in line with Vedantic and Buddhist lines of though (incidentally Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta share much in common) and also samkhyan philosophy. The danger with eliminating thoughts, without paying attention to the devotional aspect of samadhi, can result in just a state of sushupti whereby there is just cessation of thoughts like in deep sleep. My view is that thoughts must be controlled and shudh thoughts should be focusued on with full devotion, to avoid getting lost in lower states of sushupti or void. This is what Abhinavagupta writes of patanjali's Yoga ideal state of the end of mental fluctuations: Quoted in BN pandits:specific principles of kashmiri shaivsim Take the advice given in the previous posts but still focus on waheguru.

electronics or hi-fi store, i got mine from maplins in the UK. its just a lead with two connectors on either side of it that look like the jack you put in the headphones. Pheena, can i upload this qawwali. It really has to be heard by everyone, the amount of passion he puts into it is amazing, it'll blow you away. Aziz Mian talks about simran and beyond simran in this qawwali. The man really is full of "mast" for the divine.

yeah i've done this. I used Nero smartsuite. Connected cassette deck/walkman to the computer. Used the line out connection from the tape deck to Line In on the PC. You will need a cable for this. Open the Nero wave editor, press play on cassette player, hit record in wave editor and voila! Easy as pie Just one thing to remeber the recorded files will be huge, 30 minutes can take more than a gig of HD space, depending on how good u want the quality. I just recorded an Aziz Mian Qawwali "thaa bhi main, Hoon bhi main" which took around 4 gigs. After you have recorded you can save the file as mp3, ogg etc. than it will be normal size

http://sss.vn.ua/tripura1.htm

Who are the tyrants? - Unbelievers, Kafirs.

Many thanks for your reply, most gracious of you. The main reason for bringing up the point about dinosaurs and interpretations of texts is that most Westerners believe scriptures are historic accounts, not metaphorical. Therefore ressurection of Christ and "God" as a distinctly seperate entity were taken at face value, not metaphorically. The indian equivalent of Judaeo-Christian God in my view is the Aryan God Indra, there are many similarities between Yahweh and Indra. Who are you to judge what is truth and what is not. Does an event have to happened in history to make it true? My view is it does not. Something is true if it makes sense to me personally, it is true from my subjective point of view. It seems to me your definition of truth is very narrow only accpeting historic events as truth. One last point, if you accept "facts" in the Bible about Jesus's ressurection, why do you not believe the myth of Adam and Eve being the first man and women on Earth, if they were the first of Gods creation what about dinosaurs. Do you believe there was a Garden of Eden? Do you believe heaven is an actual place? You cannot pick and choose what bits to believe from the Bible. Parts that cannot be reconciled with modern day evidence you choose to ignore (Big Bang) I have tried being polite and tried offering constructive discussion, but you insult my guru, with polemics and totally un-backed up statements. This is my last post in dialogue with you, as far as i am concerned you can stick your [Mod-Edit], mate, and maybe come back when you learn some manners, just putting KIND REGARDS at the end of a message does not constitute manners. I find your attitude condesceding, and this attitude pervades your posts. Kind Regards

Dear Rajs Sikhs believe that God created the world and he himself entered his own creation. Divinity is immanent and also transcendent. Your conception of divinity is transcendent, in that the universe/world is seperate from him and was created by him. Or through him. This transcendent divinity is distinctly seperate from humanity, (A)why did your god choose to create Human Beings. (B)what is your Gods purpose of being, you said he was eternal what did he do on his own before he created humans. © Did your God create the dinosaurs as well because according to the Bible they never existed because history began with Adam & Eve Regarding your comment about Jospeh Campbell, he cannot verify the theology or history of Sikhism, because 1. we don not have a theology we have sikhi sidhant 2. he has not studied Sikhism or wrote anything on Sikhism and now he is dead 3. Jospeh Campbell is not an anterjammi who knows everything, i only mentioned him because he has wrote about Christianity. Jospeh Campbell wrote abot Christianity, having read his books I can give a general idea of what he proposes: Christianity has taken the Bible to be actual history when modern science contradicts the historical accuracy of the Bible (see point on dinosaurs) Also the motif of the ressurected god-man is prevelant in sumerian and babylonian mytholgy (e.g. Mithra). This mythology was dominant in the near east, where Judaism emerged. Now, even as sikhism has adopted Indian mythology, Judaism adopted babylonian mythology. The problem came about after Jesus had been mythologised as the ressurected God man, when it was put into writing, and then assumed to be actual history. The difference between Judaeo-Christian and Indian ways of looking at texts is that indians do not apply the test of historicity to prove that a text is true. the question of truth does not occur. It is a text, it represents a relationship between the reader and the read, not some historic event, even if it describes such an event. You are reading it here and now so all that matters is what you read now in temporality, whether the event happened or not does not effect the words in the text. How do you account for the historical account given in the bible with scientific evidence about the big bang, dinosaurs etc.

Thank you Rajs for your reply to my questions. Dialogue between people of different faiths can be helpful to both sides, even though I disagree with some of your views, discussing your religious concepts helps me understand my own. Please let us respect Rajs beliefs, even though we may not agree with them. Do not let this discussion degenerate into my religion is better or truer than yours, lets keep it on an intellectual level. We cannot expect Rajs to have a in depth knowledge of Sikhism, and we as sikhs do not know everything about Christianity. Obviously if you believe wholeheartdly in Christianity than this will conflict with what we believe as Sikhs. Let us engage Rajs on a level where both sides can discuss productively.

Could Rajs answer some questions to satisfy my curiosity. Why does your God allow good(sinless) people to suffer in this world? Who created God? What was there before God? Why do you assume, the myth of Jesus being resurrected, of having happened in actuality? (Joseph Campbell has written about the ressurected God/son of, Motif being repeated in numerous babylonian myths, and also mithraic tradition, all pre-christ.) Who decides what is a sin. There are numerous acts which may be considered sinful by some and pious by others it depends on the subject. Your god is another subject who decides right and wrong from his subjective viewpoint. This in my view is an extremely limited view of divinity. I find you use the word sin a lot but never really describe the meaning of the word from your view. Also what is the aim of your religious life is it Heaven. Please tell me what there will be in heaven, what is your conception of the afterlife. (reminds me of something Bart Simpson said "wouldn't a person eventually get used to the seering heat in hell, like a hot tub", the point being if someone is repeatedly exposed to sensory bliss or torture it eventually becomes the norm for him/her, and stops being bliss, because sensory bliss can only be experienced against sensory pain - duality. Sikhism view is that pure bliss lies beyond sensory pleasure non-dual) (Sikhs do not believe the world is an illusion, but a contracted form of reality. We are not advait vedantins, or samkhyans. The world is real, but their are higher forms of reality. )

isn't this statement you made, one possible answer to your question. ------------------------- The Guru Granth Sahib is our living Guru, who we approach for spiritual guidance. Although there are many contributors, it is one entity, our Guru. If as an individual you also wish to make a dead saint your Guru than thats fine.

Hair is a very important part of being a Singh or aspriring to become a Singh. (Singh=Someone who has taken amrit) So if you want to be a Singh don't cut your hair. Now, my opinion is, not everyone is suited to a SINGh lifestyle. If a person cuts his/her hair that person is still a Sikh and can actively participate in Sikh community, for the communities benefit, and for their own benefit. Keeping your hair won't guarentee mukti, neither will cutting it, neither will going on pilgramage etc. Keeping your hair is something that a person must do 100% dil laake within sikh tradition. Without 100% dil then their is no point keeping it just to please other people. People must not keep their hair because they feel forced, then it is detrimental for themselves and Sikh Tradition. Why force someone to do something they don't want to do? I don't understand. Your soul is in the form of space ether akasa connected through electromagnetic waves to the pores, of which hair grow out. Keeping hair will make soul powerful and you will become invularable like samson. If you believed the above bullshit, then you need your head examined, you bloody nutcase. There is no link between the "soul" (whatever that is) and hair. Keeping long hair IN the Sikh Tradition, and following the rules of that tradition, will transform you psychologically, to prepare you to receive grace from someone or other(GOD). Guru Gobind Singh Ji knew that as a person changes from outside he will change from inside. Similar to the power of ritual.