Sat Sri akaal sat sangat ji,I've just come across the site and registered immediately as i have a few important questions i desperately need answers to.
I live in a small town in the north of the UK and we are the only sikh family here for miles. None of my family have explained sikhi properly to me and I have had to discover the beauty for myself. I feel the energy of waheguru within me and everwhere i look i feel his prescence. I have radically changed my lifestyle over the past 18 months since feeling this way. I now do not drink, am vegetarian, though have cut hair due to years of ignorance and uneducation on sikhi, something which i deeply regret now knowing the significance of such an act. I have been waking early to meditate on nitnem for around 12 months and am learning gurmukhi. I now feel as though I am ready to accept waheguru's hukam and take amrit, though i have a few issues and i do not know where to go and who to ask.
Firstly, i help my parents in our convenience store on a daily basis which means i am handling packaged meat products, cigarette packets and bottles of liquor! I'm relatively new to sikhi but i'm quite sure that as an amritdhari sikh i will be unable to carry out these duties, which in turn would mean i am not contributing to the household, as this requested as a pre-requisite to being a good sikh by guru nanak. For this reason do I delay taking amrit until we have sold the store?
Also i am 33 and am looking to settle down and get married, i am looking to marry an amritdhari girl with dastaar and no make-up etc. which i believe is as it should be, though if i myself am not amritdhari due to waiting for my family to sell ther store, i seem to left in limbo. The vast majority of girls drink, have busy social lives and are not religious.
I am also considering moving to amritsar to study sikhi in greater depth, and maybe could settle there if possible, though im sure this would be a huge wrench for my family, again something i wish to avoid given the fundamentals of guru nanak's teachings.
I would appreciate your comments.
waheguru ji da khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh (i hope i have spelt that right! I am now quite literally a sikh - student.)
