japmans

i remember my dad said that in older times, and among the older generation... you go in with an ardaas.. and you say "and here's my contribution so hopefully my ardaas can come true". That's a part of your dasvand too, right... so why not give it directly "to" your guru.

I'm sure your school also makes concessions for those who are experiencing a trying time in their personal lives. Let some of your teachers know whats going on, and ask them if there's anything that can be done. If you've been a good student all year long, i've known many high school teachers to take such an issue into consideration when marking final exams, and giving a few more marks if they know that there's some trying family issues. They may even let you write it later or something.

hehe i laughed out loud at this line: His wife continued, "If i find some people hanging on unnecessarily after a friendly evening, i request everyboday to enjoy the Rehras to be recited by our daughter. Every person thinks of an excuse to leave us." funny in a sad kind of way..

The world doesn't work on "should" and "shouldn't".. definitely, they shouldn't feel disappointed, and definitely they shuld be proud... but reality and theory are two different things... but yeah, to me the analogy is the same because they might as well not be Sikhs, based on the way Singh has described them for them, he's being pulled in a direction that they don't feel is best. Most people understand that being a Gursikhs isn't about being a cult-member or so on so forth... and i'm not suggesting that the parents in this case feel this way, either... but I have yet to come across a set of parents that willfully and wholeheartedly want their child to suffer. Sometimes their perspective of "best interests for their child" is incongruent with what the Child him/herself feels....and in some cases, parents feelings can be misguided, like this one. But that doesn't mean it should be addressed as a retaliatory strike "Screw what your parents have to say, jus do it, man, just do it", which is the point i was trying to make originally... They want to raise their child in method A, but child wants to become method B... to me the analogy of you growing up and raising your child through Method B, but your child wants to follow Method C is still valid.

Please make the conscious effort to WORK WITH YOUR PARENTS though. One day you will likely be a parent, and if you try to raise your own children as gursikhs, and they are preached to by a friendfrom another religion, their friends will tell them "don't let your parents stand in the way of your Hinduism/Islam/Buddhism", keep in mind, this is the same situation your parents are in. Not to suggest your parents are right, by any means... but make sure you put it all on the table and make them a part of it.

Please make the conscious effort to WORK WITH YOUR PARENTS though. One day you will likely be a parent, and if you try to raise them as gursikhs, and they are preached to by a friendfrom another religion, their friends will tell them "don't let your parents stand in the way of your Hinduism/Islam/Buddhism", keep in mind, this is the same situation your parents are in. Not to suggest your parents are right, by any means... but make sure you put it all on the table and make them a part of it.

not sure if this is necessary, but I thought i'd share. Rena Kaur was brought into the world on this day 20 years ago, March 21, 1987

hahaha.... i think this post should be re-posted in the sikh politics forum, where it seems like every few posts is a criticism and insulting of Hindus.

so here's how this analogy works: When true love between people exist, it is said that the love between them is as pure as the love a saint has for God. It's of the same intensity, and it's not misdirected because the partners help each other progress on their spiritual/religious path. If you've never been a Brahmgiyani, what gives you the right to comment on the love they feel for God? Generally, the enlightened can't qualify (use words to describe) the feelings and sentiments for whom he/she has accepted as their best friend and their "preetam" (Beloved). It's just... Love. and If you've never been in true love, then how can you sit and say that your friend is just lusting over a girl? If he wrote a poem for you telling you how much he loves her, would you have been satisfied? Lust = describable. Love, I don't believe it is, not with words.... only with emotions.. True love is an expression of the soul, in my opinion, and the soul doesn't convey messages with words. So why sit back, expecting a "definition"? And in general, yes, our minds make us think we're in love all the time, because "she's the ONE!!!", and if anything, that undelrines Sikhi's message that humans just need love to feel happiness...Not to say that it's "okay" or "right" to be ..uhh.."in love" with every next girl/guy you see hahahaha I'm of the belief that you'll just KNOW when you're in love, and you won't be able to describe it to anyone else.. Ask any newlywed couple and ask someone who's been married for 50 years... ask them "how do you know you actually love her", and I challenge that you won't get any real concrete answers... how do you describe a feeling?! and further, how do you describe a feelnig like love??? any analogy would cheapen it ("it uhh..feels like a refreshing breeze on a hot summer day on a beach by the water! hahaha) Perhaps we should just accept htat love is only experienced, not talked about, and can be expressed in numerous ways. Some may equate it to open mindedness, some may equate it to non-discriminatory generosity, but that doesn't mean that those two qualities are a DEFINITION of love. Remember, love is the language of the soul. We're here trying to spend life times to understand our own souls and destinies a bit better so that one day, we can merge with the Big Man... When there's TRUE love, the souls will communicate, it will be beyond human interaction. We can barely understand our mind, we probably shouldn't start saying that we can define love, because it's really not possible. If anything, the more you can describe it with words, the more likely it is that its' NOT love... remember that Maya is defined as those things which appease our body and mind, superficially. Lust is definitely that, and it's a feeling that can be described in words (i.e "damnnnn...she's FINE!" and so forth...hehe)..... Don't mix the two, and don't expect any definitions of love, because you're asking for way too much. A billion poets could come together and write one passionate love poem and it would still fall short. Don't put human limitations on something your soul experiences.

that was a nice read. it also highlights the need for us as sikhs to realize that there might actually be Muslims out there who are good people (shock!! hehe) The way the meeting went seems to have gone great, and that's really erally awesmoe that it remained peaceful and civilized. But it is importnat, inm y eyes, to opint out that the Muslmi speaker was as open-minded and tolerant as he was, too.. sometimes that is half the problem, and it's good that we matched his qualities of being open-minded and tolerant. if we were aggressive, it would have made Sikhi look horrible, so HUGE commendations and applause to the singhs that went and remained calm and loving. Shukar Hai

we used to have a few that snuck in recently when there was alot of constructiong goin on in my area .. we were told we had to take it 2 mile away, because that is the rough estimate of a range of a mouse returning to its most recent habitat (i.e, your house!).. i was surprised it would actually be able to track its way back somehow,. so yeah.. if you don't feed it, it'll starve, if you feed it, it'll make a mess. eventually, couple of the mice got too smart for the non-killing trap, and we had to resort to a killing trap. do what ya gotta do's.

super interesting interpretations by Tanu Kaur. I don't necessarily agree, but it's always amazing to see a different perspective. very cool.

it definitely does happen to everyone...we're human after all, and we're not perfect, and as a result, we experience ups and downs, high and lows. Maya will always try to punch you down, and sometimes it'll succeed, but you gotta just keep getting up, because it'll make you stronger. everyone will have a down period, but you gotta just keep plugging away, keep rolling with the punches, and things are always bound to turn up. remember if you're at a low, then the only way for things to go is up, right? so that means you should have things to look forward to. That mindframe alone will make your life feel more at ease. if you're at an up, enjoy the ups, and when you're at a low, realize that life can only get better.

haha i think my post got lost in the little discussion talk to the raj academy folks www.rajacademy.com/dforum is the site for their discussion form (it also might be www.rajacademy.com/forum) they'll have something for sure, because they only believe in doing the full 40 pauri anand sahib no matter when (i.e rehras/to finish off keertan divaan) they'll have something, i'm almost positive.

you should ask the folks at Raj Academy. They only believe in always doing 40 pauri anand sahib, so even after a keertan session, they do all 40 pauris insteadf of 5 and then the last pauri. they'll likely have something in musical form. It will also be in tanti saaj.

Enemies of the Khalsa: kaam krodh lobh moh ahankaar jhooth ninda

why there "appears"t o be contradictions in gurbani i.e, a really simple one why our mind is treatead both as our best friend nad our biggest enemy... (eh man chanchla, vs eh man piyaariya)

what captain c has said is correct too. it's like the word simran.. according to the dictionary, simran means nothing more than "mental concentration on a specific topic"... there's aatmik simran and maikee simran (aatmik = simran of the soul... maikee = simran of maya) so yeah, technically, a samagam is an event.. a gathering... in terms of sikhi, different jathas do different things to constitute a samagam... some do raensabhayees after a few days of an early morning and a late evening session (i.e akj samagams) some do it over a weekend of all day sessions (i.e rampur khera, or dodra/sadhsangat) different ways, but the same goal... attaining one-ness with the Big Man.

yeah, i agree.. personally, the more people that can learn that type of knowledge for the betterment of the Khalsa Panth, the better... He's EXTREMELY talented..... too bad not everyone will think that way.

uh ohhhh i sense trouble coming alongggg...... i hope this doesn't turn into a fight too.

GREAT!!! thank you so much so so so much jassa veerji... we always forget the other guru sahibaan's gurpurab's other than guru nanak dev ji maharaj and guru gobind singh ji maharaj. thank you for bringing it to our notice.

***devil's advocate alert*** I say No. A gurmukh is not necessarily unattached.. he/she is just unatatched to maya. instead of emotions being committed to maya-based things... the emotion is now a result of attachment to Gurbani and attachment to Guru... display of emotions may definitely still occur, but instead of it being a result of "my dog died", it could be "I just saw my Guru again" or along those lines... at least that's my thought... sorry if i be wrongs.

hahaha??

Toronto Sangat awaits you?! what the... i thought this was a waterloo keertan!!! ADMIN, SOMETHING FISHY IS GOING ON HERE.....

Techno Singh: if in your area, when people see the name "Kaur", they think "Sikh", you should be proud you live in such an educated area. The reality is most goray have no idea what or who sikhs are... Seeing "Hard Kaur" won't all of a sudden enlighten them about Sikhism haha... they won't go around saying "oh, you're sikh".. Really, white people ain't all that educated about Sikhism, and they are only beginning to understand that Singh is a name associated to Sikhs (but also to others). Kaur is still foreign soil haha, they've got NO idea. So here's the issue, if this is such a major deal, shouldn't there be more responsible Kaurs out there trying to offset the image? She's going to have her fan base, it doesn't make a diffeerence, chances are you're NOT going to convince someone to not listen to her music if they're a die hard fan. Same goes with the Jazzy B crowd, but frankly, there's a whole lot more Singhs out there that are upstanding, famous people who portray positive images.. especially in the western world (i say that because i have a lack of knowledge about India nad its surrounding countries) If you're upset that she's using the name Hard Kaur, and somehow the 3 billion white people are all of a sudden going to say "she's a sikh" when most of em might not even know what Sikhism is.... then perhaps the proactive step is getting involved with some local bhainaan and trying to be positive and inspirational people so that when people hear the name Kaur, they think of those girls instead of this one. Bringing "Hard Kaur" down isn't your solution... your solutoin is bringing the REAL kaurs up...