MiriPiri

Bhaji, this was not my question, but another's. Plus, if the extract is from a shabad that contains the answer, then the whole shbad or a bigger extract shoudl be given so we may understand better the wisdom within. Honestly (as opposed to sarcastically) some of us here are not as wisened to how to read Gurbani and apply to it every day questions arising in our relarively unenlightened minds. :s

pRwxI qUM AwieAw lwhw lYix ] praanee thoo aaeiaa laahaa lain || O mortal, you came here to earn a profit. http://sikhitothemax.com/page.asp?ShabadID=126 That answers all my questions. We are here to earn a profit. LOL! I've never seen anyone so openly and blatantly make a mockery out of gurbani before like you have done. That's disgusting. No, no. I wasn't mocking gurbani not at at all, but the fact that this quote was used in the context of this discussion, hence why I wrote, "That answers all my questions". I was implying that the quote, especially taken out of the context of the whole shabad made no sense in this discussion. Please forgive any offence caused. I feel bad, because readign back I can see how it may be misunderstood that I was mockign gurbani. :-(

If any of you are parents, you will know why a parent beats a child. It is because you are angry. That is a chorr in Sikhism. A parent NEVER beats a child because they think it will discipline them, that is a justification after the event. It is purely because they have failed to prevent the child misbheaving, or because they have lost it in the heat of the moment. Imagine you are a manager at work and a worker is forever doing Sickies, spends half the time in the tea-room, having a <admin-profanity filter activated>, browsing the internet (oops)! Well, do you lose your patience and beat them or do you reason with them or bring in othe rdisciplinary measures? Why should your own child suffer physical punishment and pain? Remember people, physical action is a last resort in Sikhi, be that in a regional crisis or personal one, and onyl to be used for Waheguru's justice. To clarify, beatings are necessary only for bad parents (where they have failed to prevent bad beahviour in their kids, or to control them earlier), and it refelcts badly on their abilities to communicate with their child. They have not taught their child right from wrong, but have taught them that you can intimidate and scare the weak usign physical force. If you have any doubt about this, note that physically abusive behaviour is passed on from generation to generation. And of course, the odd clip round the ear-hole is not the same level as systematic physical abuse, but it's the tip of teh iceberg that thnakfully most people never fall down!

Accordoign to this, every Sikh should mourn the birth of a child, and like Catholics we must beleive that all little babies are evil and in need of salvation. Babies do not cry because they are in pain of being born into maya, but because they are shocked by the light and cold, because they have been through a physical ordeal of being bornw, and because they are hungry. Existentital babblings, yes babblings, do not help when they contradict physiological certainties. By all means, we are lured by maya in our physical lives, but please do not attach this to new born babies. And of course, good Sikhs bring their children up the way of the Guru Ji, to prevent covnergence towards maya, so not disagreeign with that point in general. Sorry for appearing over-emotional, it's been a bad day. Waheguru, waheguru, waheguru.....

pRwxI qUM AwieAw lwhw lYix ] praanee thoo aaeiaa laahaa lain || O mortal, you came here to earn a profit. http://sikhitothemax.com/page.asp?ShabadID=126 That answers all my questions. We are here to earn a profit. LOL!

My dad once told me that when a child is born, he is closer to God without trying than it will ever be. Now, this made me think, why do religions in general, and even Sikhi :-( scare us about what happens to us after death, and yet neglect to tell us what happens before we are born. Where is the soul whilst the baby is in the mother's womb, for example? This leads onto a wider debate about religions frightening us into submission, but please do not post about that as that is not what I am getting at in this thread. Thanks. :-)

It sounds like to me that Mehtab Singh is being down on himself. He is verbally beating himself up. What he must realise is that self-hating is not the same as humility, and looking back and having a go at yourself does not redeem yourself. Look to the future and think if you will be down on yourself in the future as well or will you change. Happy New Year. P.S. Chocolate? Where!?

Start your own xbox thread then!

First of all, I don't want to sound like Sony's marketing person, but there are two ways that the PS3 can be used as sewa. 1. The folding@home application - use your PS3 when idle in other ways, to run this application that helps to do calculations that will help our understanding of genetic diseases and benefit mankind in the future. 2. Use the PS3 as a web browser, then go onto, e.g. kirtan.com, and steram or download your favourite kirtan from a plethora of magical performers, and play via your hifi or TV. Yes, you can go via your PC, but with the PS3, you can switch on your TV and access much easier, especially if you have older person that can easily be taught to go to teh appropriate channel on the PS3 using the BD remote control (just liek using your cable or satellite remote control instead of the game controller). Enjoy.

Peace.

When any religion becomes a politicised, that is the end. Politicisation of a religion comes about through the inception of hierarchical power structures to try and come to a uniform set of ideologies and to impose these upon the followers. Sikhi does not need this as this was done for us by Guru Gobind Singh Ji. The problem is, we forget teh original and simple message and look for guidance from people who probably have not got akhal and chardi kala themselves. Therefore, I prefer to stay out of Khalistan issues as they are NOTHING to do with spirituality and only to do with politics, and I try but often fail to listen to chardi kala Sikhs giving spiritual lectures and kirtan. In summary, forget the politics, and focus only on the truth.

I was talking to Christian friend yesterday - actually, he is a Jehova's Witness and would call himself a TRUE Christian, but he was saying Christian do not have to be buried, they can be cremated. The burial comes from the Jewish tradition I guess. As for Sikh afterlife idea being superior, I thought so too, until I read an accotn of how you become judged and doesn't matter if you are good or bad, if you do not believe in the true Sikhi, you are treated very poorly. I thoguht this sounded a lot like Catholicism and really dishearted me that our religion shoul duse scare tactics instead of love to make us do good deeds in this life. :-(

If you notice, all around the world, people bow their heads down, and do somethign with their hands, i.e. clasp or bring together, bring down to same level as heads. In other words, it is a natural physiological response to a feeling you have inside, e.g. smiling when you are happy, laughing when you are humoured, frowning when you are sad, crying, blushing etc. That is to say, please feel something when you bow down rather than doign it ritualistically. Ritualistic is fine if you are paying your respects, but for it to mean something, bring that feeling from the inside to the outside. A connected point - why do some people rub their nose a few times when doing mutha terkh? Don't understand this at all - very ritualistic to me. Please don't tell me it is a Hindhi thing cos that infuriates me!

I'm glad we can have spiritual and practical advice here. More of this kind of thing and less uncultured arguing please!

Explain further ... if possible with example ...... I really need this. My feeling is that if you look at your destination and are too focussed on that, then you lose the importance of how to ge there. Think of it like this. You are to walk to teh top of the mountain. You do not look up at the mountain durign your walk. Indeed, for 90% of your walk, the peak may nto be visible due to clouds or sub-peaks in the way. All you do is walk, rest, eat, walk, rest, drink, walk, walk, walk. Just because you cannot see the peak, you know it is there and you kep walkign because you have faith that you will get there. Same with anything in life, or as we are discussing here, the ultimate aim. So take each action and day at a time and do things like sewa and worthwhile things, forgetting the mountain top. Just assume it will coem one day if you do enough climbing.

Just keep in mind the emotions that rob you of your sanctity (the thieves) and avoid or control them as much as possible. P.S. I'm rubbish myself, but I can give good advice, so forgive my hypocricy!

Bhuddists say that you cannot achieve Nirvana by TRYING to reach Nirvana. You just do your duties and prayers, and it will find you. That is faith. So don't try tricks to regain your faith, just keep doing sewa and naam jaaping, and one day, if you're lucky, you may find the path. You really have nothing to lose. Just do what you know is right, and don't use your loss of faith as an excuse to do what you know is wrong. Simple advice.

There are 3 ways this can happen: 1. A Sugar Daddy (or Mummy) creating a channel out of pure service - hardly likely, so forget that. 2. A group of youngs entrepeneurs or volunteers creating a modern, vibrant, channel that is so apt for the modern audience. Problem here is funding. 3. The final and most realistic way is the powers that be in Amritsar hiring a professional production team, i.e. recruting production professionals of Sikh origin to produce a channel to a professional standard. The problem with this is persuadign them it's worthwhile. Also, don't forget, lookign to the future, an Internet presence is probably more worthwhile than a satellite channel, so let's not blow this issue out of proportion.

Id a father custs hiw own hair, then I feel it is unfair on his kids for him to expect tehm to keep theirs. So he should treat them as he treats himself with respect to hair. Then if they are more blessed than him, for want of a better phrase, then they will keep their own hair of their own free will. If he keeps hair, then unfair to cut theirs cos he is saying they have less right to keep hair than him. I don't know your acquaintance obviously but is it a case of he wants to keep their hair deep down put is getting pressure from other quarters to cut it? Soudns very odd that a hirsuite Sikh would want to cut his kids' hair.

Strictly speaking, Sikh physical identity was started by Guru Gobind Ji. Correct me if I am wrong. Sikh spirituality started with Guru Nanak Ji. That's always how I have understood it. All the other Gurus slowly formed other aspects of the Sikh movement, i.e. Sewa, places of worship, philosophy of life, etc.

Religion is like chocolate. A beautiful gift from God, and only abuse of it damages us. ;-)

What I find intriguing is that of all the major religions, Sikhism doesn't attempt to combat science. Maybe it is beyond science, or maybe our founders realised that science evolves (pardon the pun) and they did not want to conflict with future findings. So either our founders were very forward-thinking, or our religion is beyond science. Or both. Either way, it's good and satisfying.

This is actually partly incorrect (IMHO). Science tells us everything (how and when and what) eventually, but religion (or faith, in the absence of proof or rationale) tells us why. Science can never tell us why the fundamental laws exist and why there is an imputous towards life and living and procreation. For that, we either have to accept it is so, as in Taoism ("things just are"), or we have to look at religion, i.e. as mentioned in the posts above about the Lord meditating and creating the universe because it was simply his will.

The original quote that was quoted asked if we are asleep. Well, no, if we were asleep, then we would get angry at every bad word and start killing people for it, i.e. sleep-walking into Islamic-like Sikh Fundamentalism. I want to be a Sikh disciple when I am able to be suitably blessed, not a Sikh fanatic. A Sikh's call-to-arms comes when the people are oppressed, not when some "laraku" people become offended by the admittedly-reprehensible tactics of cults and other religions.

Bundha and AK-47 have explained to me why we should sit on the floor and why we should not have, as a matter of course, chairs permanently in Darbar Hall. All that is needed to end what may seem like a worthwhile proposition in the first place, is a bit of knowledge and enlightenment of those more knowledgable and wiser. Personally, i think the mods ought to close this thread as it is now a non-topic.....except that why do we sit on the floor in teh Langar Hall? :lol: Only joking!