Pheena

Bhai sahib has an awesome voice and his singing is about the closes i've heard of qwali style.

Bhai Ranjit Singh Jee (Jammu) from the AKJ Jatha.

http://akj.org/skins/one/search.php

search his name in the link above and enjoy

Not all shabads are sung in the gazal style, but there are some which are, this one is my favorite: http://akj.org/multimedia/California-Bay/2...8cal)007fri.mp3

they need to uploaded on the new server, give me few days i can up them for you. Or you ask NEO, he should have the files.

Why is it that I find these Rehitnamas to be at a whole another plane than the Teachings of the Gurus themselves?

Was the word Muslim really necessary in the wordings of the rehitnama? Why not focus on the Adulterer aspect of one actions and not whether that man or woman was a Muslim or not. I find this in complete contradiction to the message of our Gurus.

Using the label of a Muslim in the Rehitnama not only is it insulting but it begs the question, so was it ok if the woman was Hindu or another religious background. Once you make a distinction of individuals based on Religion and not on ones character, you open the path to blind hate as is seen with the hate and phobia that exists today in the Sikh youth for both Hindus and Muslims.

Pheena: According to some historians and scholars of sikhism, the original kurehit was only adultery with a muslim female. Amritpal singh has written on this subject on the forum,

In my opinion, historical references are one thing, but to use 'one' of these references as if it is a tenant of the Gurus is another. Such references have no place in the forefront of the message which the Gurus relayed. These references are at best left in the backwaters for historians to debate upon not to be used in a mass media outlet.

I will definitely look it up, thanks for the heads up.

Under the nine great gurus (teachers) who followed Nanak, the Sikhs developed into a monotheistic, militant sect, the symbol of whose God is steel.

Each Sikh wears a steel bracelet on his right wrist and carries a sword, lets his hair and beard grow, carries a small comb under his turban and wears short trousers. Sikhs are not supposed to smoke, drink alcohol, must not eat meat prepared in the Semitic fashion, may have no sexual intercourse with Moslems.

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Why has the path of Nanak become a Militant sect? What is this with not having sexual intercourse with Muslims? What!!!!!!!!!!

thanks gursev

and pheena, it's been ages, hope your good

the shabad is chronic

hows it going mr. dholi. it has been a while.

I finally found a good Tabla teacher in me city. very exciting. hes expensive, but good. 8)

In the same tune?

nope, mine is simpler

who are you freed and why are you so awesome !!!

thats funny as thats the next Shabad I'm learning 8)

very thoughtfull questions which you've asked!

To slumber when you very well know that the end is coming and to do it knowingly exactly what it is that you must do to save yourself. I cannot help but think what good has all that Giaan, the wisdom and the teaching has done for us that we refuse to utilize them to take few steps forward.

Not doing what I must when I know what needs to be done is an illness that is not only offensive to ones Master, but perhaps the worst state one can exist in. How the mind creates excuses, fears to prevent itself from loosing its attachment to the false creation is a reality that most of us face daily.

Driving home from work a thought often enters my mind, that when I go home, i will go straight to my room and meditate. At the moment when this thought exists it is as if i cannot wait to do it. But when I enter the house, the same mind which was full of excitement, betrays me and allures me away from what I needed to do. Even worse i forget what I had promised myself in the drive home.

Why is it that one day we do our bhagti, yet another we slack, why is it that one day we muster up courage to change our habits only to have them come back in matter of days or weeks? Where is our urgency for ourselves? Is it spent on forums like this advising other on what to do, yet we fail to do the same for ourselves? Are we living through the experiences of old, holding on to the states of mind which once existed in our lives filling us will bliss. Do they still exist now?

The most important part of the 2nd video was in the first 1 minute where Bhai sahib mentioned that a Murshid answers the Individual not the Question.

just awesome!

Neo Jeo were you asking the questions?

You seem to be confusing external dharma which is appropriate for time and place with the eternal dharma of which Sikhi is an expression. The eternal dharma does not vary with time or place it is always the same. Sikhi teaches the archetype or the primal idea of dharma, which contains all manifest dharma - like the shariat. Sikhi is the source of all rules and is the source of shariat.

It may be unintentional on your part, but the attitude you have towards the Akash Bani of the Guru's is deregatory. Gurbani is not a rulebook, it teaches men to become writers of rulebooks. Bani creates prophets.

Wah... :!:

how about you give me a reason why you'd think it would be prohibited and why it wouldn't be?

I have had this question in my mind since a long time that is it okay to pray for someone when he/she is in a problem ?

I understand clearly that parupkar /gentleness or kindness is very important but unfortunately I haven't reached the avastha of Sants and never will be who can sacrifice even their own bodies for the benefit of others.

The reason this doubt has taken birth is due to a certain belief that has been established in my mind. Please help me in removing my doubt.

I believe that when you pray for someone in trouble , you have to be responsible for that person's evil actions due to which he/she is suffering. Your kamai gets less as it is expended in praying. For ex, when Baba Harnam Singh ji rampur khede were doing paths for the betterment of an atheist he was encountered by shaheed singhs. Since he was a Pooran Sant he got away with it but what will mere mortals like us do ? Thats why I am scared.

Also one time when my 10 year old cousin got infected with chicken pox , I did a path of Sukhmani sahib and the next day I had chicken pox and it was bad and couldn't go to sleep for 3 days straight. The scientific explanation would have been that I was just infected by the virus. but nevertheless it has created a doubt it my mind. i know this could be just untrue and false.

We in ardass ask for Sarbat Da Bhala, but seriously do you guys think we are capable of asking the sarbat da bhaala ? we cant do bhala of ourseleves how can we ask the bhala of whole world ? could we have saved the world from the disasters that just recently hit sichuan province and myanmar . I think only pooran Sants could have reduced this diaster by taking the pain on their own bodies ?

If someone is in distress should we just sit there and do nothing and think that this is just a play of karmas ? Will we have to suffer in place of the person for whom we are praying ?

Please help me in clarifying these doubts .

I posted this because I have a very distant cousin , a 10 year old girl suffering from Leukemia who is currently in ICU ( intensive care unit) due to some complications before starting her chemotherapy. I know this is all a play of karmas but it is pretty painful when you see someone in pain even if that person is not related to you any way. My aunt has asked me to pray for her and I will feel very guilty if I don't do so. But I am just scared because of the doubts in my mind.

Lets hear your thoughts please.

I think you have misunderstood the act of prayer gravely. Prarthna for others does not weaken you, rather when you open yourself to the pain of someone else you invoke compassion in your heart which not only benefits the one for whom the prayer is for but it nurtures your heart into become more sensitive. You gain strength in the form of this sensitivity not lose it.

NEO: its means In My Humble Opinion

"It is your resolve to first surrender and your passion to seek out God that is the multiplier, it is your thirst for God which provides the Spark in Amrit. Without cultivating such attributes what good can Amrit do for you which you fail to do for yourself?"

excellent post ji. But Amrit still provides benefit even to those lacking that surrender which they are supposed to have. It is what links you to the Guru, it makes you the Gurus property.

If such is your experience then I am no one to doubt it and You are probably correct that it provides benefit. Personally i do not believe in taking Amrit for the sake of taking Amrit so I can be called a Sikh because a Granthi feels I'm not one. That is his view, perhaps where there should be humility in his eyes there exists arrogance OR perhaps he is so passionate about the Love that he feels for his Guru that he wants everyone to be a Sikh like him.

The cultivation of your heart is essential so that when Amrit does rain, you have planted your seeds of Love and Surrender so they can sprout.

The Guru asked for 5 heads, the Guru did not force anyone to give their head. Live your life with Love in your heart for the Guru and pray that your Love and your Thirst to seek God grows. Every seed has a moment when it erupts into a flower, time spent in the ground is essential to the roots of the tree.

We can take Amrit and call ourselves Sikhs of the Guru, but we only become Sikhs when the relationship of Love takes birth between a Master and his Sikh.

It is your resolve to first surrender and your passion to seek out God that is the multiplier, it is your thirst for God which provides the Spark in Amrit. Without cultivating such attributes what good can Amrit do for you which you fail to do for yourself?

I've only read the first one, but this is awesomeness!!

good find sir ji.

I'm getting myself into amateur photography and I've been reading quite a few book, watching videos on how to be creative in expressing a story with my picture.

So I join a Photography forum and they are discussing all sorts of stuff, some are experienced and some are amateurs like me. My ego still new to photoraphy hasn't yet taken a single picture, nor has it even held a camera in its hands but somehow I feel like i'm an expert in the field because I read few books and watched few movies. I repeat the words of other, the experience of other and express it as my own. Yet I haven't the slightest Idea what that experience is. I haven't ventured out to seek help from the one who lives as a photographer because I am afraid of my ego might get hurt. I argue with other using the words of someone else as my own when I haven't a clue as to what I'm even talking about.

Words may express an experience or point towards one, but they themselves are not one and never can they fully envelope an experience.

Maya also exists in sargun roop. I've heard that when sikhs reach a certain avastha they will be tested by maya. There are sakhis of various sants being tested, which are all meant to be taken literally from what i understand. (see Baba Harnam Singh Rampur Khera's bio) .As maya came to them in sargun roop to test them.

maya is created by waheguru, and ultimately serves waheguru as a major character in this drama of life. we need maya to live, food, clothes, money, procreation, but at the same time on this marge we endeavor to remove attachment to maya from our mind.

What other forms of maya are there if not only Sargun?

I always thought that which can be seen and then unseen is the illusionary Maya.

a very interesting post pheena. In my limited research on the Satan figure in semetic traditions i also came to the theory that he must be a allogerical figure of maya, a personofication of maya as you say, but then the question is, how is the stories of Satan in the bible and Quran to be understood? When Jesus as approached by satan and he scares him away it could be understood as Jesus was being tempted but he refused to go astray from the path, but what about the stories in the Quran where God commands all angels to kneel before Adam ,and satan refuses to, and is here by expelled ie?

i found this book on amazon, but as i live in europe i am not able to buy this book due to the country i live in ie, but it deals with satan as maya in sufism.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Satan-Eblis-Ja...3754&sr=8-2

I think the description of the book explains it all, " In this book, Dr. Nurbakhsh, drawing from the writings of the great Sufi masters, presents both their favorable and unfavorable interpretations of Satan, who from the Sufi point of view does not exist as a power before God but as a symbol for the ego and its passions."

This comes back to just one question. Is Evil an external or internal problem? It cannot be both.

Again i think the physical expressions in trying to explain God/Devil are being used as a means to an end. Take for example the Devil has a Knee on which he should've kneeled, a leg and a physical body, therefore a mother from which he must've been born and a father. Unless ofcourse we are going to skip all this and move into the *poof* so there God created Lucifer.

The above leads to the great 'Problems of Evil'. If God created Satan ie: evil, then who is the real evil doer, God or Satan? Interpreting the above as a physical reality in which a Physical being named God and Satan exists will always lead to such absurd conclusion.

Since we are see ourselves as the physical body and our physical bodies create more physical bodies, we have created God/Devil/Angles in the same fashion to explain messages, just as a play maker will create characters and then create a Drama to express a message. We are holding on to the fingers but are failing to see where it is pointing.

recently there was a question asked about Lahu being the avtar of one of the 5 pyare. sum1 replied that why do "mukt" people have to come back, and was given an answer that they come back for the benefit of jag-aasu's.

in Gurbani there is a reference to sparks returning to the fire , and water mixing with water, refering to those great people who's atma has merged with the Param-atma.

what i wish to ask is that do these atma's still retain any of their seperateness when they take birth in the first place?

eg if the atma of Lahu had merged back into Param-atma as water mixes with water, then one part of that water cannot be identifeid in the mixed water. So can anybody's atma eg Lahu's still be identified in the Param-atma, which they would need to come back to this world or any other as themselves or an avtar of themselves?

hope i got the wording write.

Common man comes back to take birth not by choice, but is forced to do so as the law of Karma ordains him to do so. A Mukat individual comes back by choice, his own choice, be it to help the struggling souls, or to simply enjoy the creation as it was meant to be enjoyed.

Ravinder Naath Tagore was asked on his death bed, if he wanted to come back to this world. He said, Yes, i will come back again and again because it is only now that I have learned how to live properly, how to enjoy life as it was meant to enjoyed and lived.

Satan is the personified version of Maya. Christianity failed to understand the Nirankar/Nirgun roop of God...they limited themselves to the Sargun roop hences the many references in their stories to the physical aspects of God, heaven, chariots, angels etc. God was taken as a part of Duality, hence the constant fight between God (good) and Devil (evil), While all the eastern traditions speak of God as something beyond the physical and duality in its purest form. God is not in a struggle, Man is with his ignorance which is the evil that needs to be defeated. Evil is not an external entity which influences us. It is our ignorance that is the cause of our suffering.

Consider two pouches...one for positive things, the other for the negative influences. Where Karma is involved, your actions whether positive or negative are going to be returned to you independent of each other.

The Man smoking is going to create bad karma which is going to affect his health even though one doesn't have to think of it in terms of karma but it is a simple fact from a medical point of view that smoking causes health problem.

His Seva is going to incur its own karmic influence on him, whatever they might be.

Although when the negative aspects of ones actions are greater than the positive we can say that the influence of the positive karma will not be as effective as the negative karma. That doesn't mean he has erased his Karma through Seva and its fruits, but it is possible that those fruits might not bare as much sweetness as they might have brought him if he would avoid his negative habits.

this is just my personal view on this matter..nothing more