Super_Singhni

If your main thoughts involve you believing that others are talking about you, try looking at the evidence for this - i.e can you over hewr it, has this been done to you in the past etc. Our mind is a powerful thing and can be our biggest enemy at times. Think about where this issue first arose from...and hopefully you'll gain better insight into the problem.

I think it would be interesting to know more about the behaviour that you do/thought that you have after thinking these things about God as its not been clear in the original post. At the end of the day its not so much about being a given a diagnosis but about you recognising there is a way out. Good luck

Bhenji,

I am so disheartened to read your post. I hope you are okay. I know you question your strength ,however the fact that you have posted here demonstrates the opposite to me. The fact that you realise that something very wrong is going on means that you have the power to change/stop what is happening. I reiterate what others have said, seek help for this matter. You are strong enough to do this, more so as Maharaj will be with you each step of the way.

I agree with other posters that you would benefit from seeking professional help from a psychologist via your GP if you can. What you have described sounds like you are experiencing intrusive thoughts (which are actually very common) but understandably can be disheartening given their intensity. Contrary to other posts, it would only be classed as OCD if you are having these thoughts prior to feeling like you need to undertake a certain action/job I.e. flicking the light switch a certain number of times or until it feels 'right'. Intrusive thoughts can occur without the compulsive part of OCD. Furthermore, CBT is helpful but is one of many therapies designed to overcome such problems and as long as you go in motivated to overcome this, with Maharaja's Kirpa you will undoubtedly succeed

If I was angry I would be speaking as Kully does. I am not angry and I am not hurt. Where have I said I am hurt? Now you are both not reading my posts properly which is why you write what you do.

Yes it is up to the individual and I still go to the Gurdwara then.

You say you 'can' even understand the point I am making so then that's good we understand one another's view points.

When women give birth the baby is taken away to be cleaned. You don't give birth and then go straight to the Gurdwara to matha tek you would tink oh better clean the baby first. You are not dirty as in no one can touch you etc.

Also being on a forum where people make accusations and use exclamation marks for a small disgareement says a lot about us sikhs and your responses just further support my point. This is the youth of today. If we don't agree with you you are ignorant. You are naive and you just insulted our sisters.

So many things I can disagree with you here, but I won't. Benti I do ask to you is to read posts properly before you reply, is all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So then the TRUE question is, can one have an ego and really be a Sikh? The answer is yes. It is impossible to do well in the world as we know it without being competitive. There are limited seats on a basketball team. There are limited seats in law school. The important thing is not whether one is driven to be better than others: THE IMPORTANT THING IS, AFTER HE SUCCEEDS, WHAT SORT OF RULER IS HE? After he is better off than others, will he give some of the fruits of his labours to others (vand chakna)?

Hopefully that answers your question.

It wasn't a question about ego, more a statement. I suppose what I feel is missing is why you think women shouldn't be equal (however that is defined). Your post is primarily about your life and then ends with 'I am TOTALLY against equal rights for women'.

First and foremost I think Kaurs need to start treating themselves like Princesses. This is no excuse for things that happen as the OP has written about however would these situations happen if Kaurs had the strength, courage, self-esteem they have in them but do not yet recognise?

Isn't it funny how many times the original poster has used the word 'weakness'..I wonder if this tells us more about him than it does about the topic he is questioning?

I disagree with many of your points but realise people like you do exist. It's all about ego these days....

Harpreet, why are you so angry?

If people think your view, which is different to the norm, is ignorant or naiive why does it hurt you so? Are these not as valid as they are only our views?

Like somebody said previously its all up to the individual. I know if i have a regular commitment at a Gurdwara I am going to do this irrespective of it being the time of the month however you may not. Life goes on, no?

Apart from the fact that muslims are far bigger in numbers than us Sikhs, the reason we are underepresented in the media is because we do not have a polished media machine. The Muslims, just like us, have most of their community speaking in localised working class dialects BUT, unlike us, they do not put those people in front of the media. They always ensure their spokespersons in popular media programmes, are well spoken, southern BBC speaking people. We, as a people, have a habit of placing people with hideous Midlands accents in front of the media. Never in the history of British television politics and current affairs, has any group ever placed a Midlands accent in front of the audience, knowing the negative impact it has.

The Muslims have a highly polished machine in place. The working class mass are the foot soldiers in the street and the Oxbridge educated well spoken brigade do the media bit. See this is the problem us UK Sikhs have. Our Canadian and American cousins don't live among an inherent class system so end up speaking a good standard of English. We, on the other hand, because we grow up in working class inner city neighbourhoods, end up speaking in a poor quality inner city working class standard of English. Not the sort that makes for good representation.

You seem to have quite a negative view of the Midlands, in particular the accent. Interestingly, I think it was a couple of weeks maybe months ago that a Sikh Londoner was in the audience of The Big Question and made very little impact. Surely its the content and not the dialect of the material that is being spoken about that matters and if not why not? I'm not sure dialect is the main cause of poor media representation, for instance how many Sikhs go into media at University in the first instance anyway?

It seems that the board members are not interested in this particular topic but to me it is an important one. If we have representatives of the SIkh community on teleision then we there will be more awareness and Sikh and non-SIkh people will be drawn to this religion.

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, why? Is it because they have something to offer that no other religion has or is it because they are an organized aith and know how to get their message across?

Should we be interested in making Sikhism into the fastest growing religion in the world?

Just out of curiosity, what drives you to ask these questions hgsingh? Culture is a very hard concept to define and is closely interlinked with religion hence both will undoubtedly have an impact on an individual. Furthermore, are we talking about the impact of culture on an individual living in India, the UK, Canada etc?

Personally, I like to think Sikhi rather than Punjabi culture has the greatest impact on my life.

And if you just do some crap in your pants you would not go to amritshak or do certain sewa so don't do it while you are on your periods. It is common sense isnt it?

Most women know when they are about to begin so do your sewa then.

'Crap in your pants'? Not exactly the same thing as menstruation. IMHO this is quite an ignorant view.

Disagree completely. A little goes a long way.

Depends on what your definition of everything is, it could be a little of everything you have at your disposal...goes a long way. Sounds like they're two close positions on the same continuum.

Wowser....passive aggressive much Only Five.

Everything in moderation.

Your better off left in the dark, sometimes too much info can drive a person away from what is righteous. :biggrin2:

Only five, think you've summed yourself up in your post, maybe you have insight after all

I think people in general are very strange, sure maybe 'fashionable' people more so. This reminds me of news recently where people were injecting themselves with sometimes lethal substances so they could get the 'tanned' look and all the implicit beliefs of what a tanned person has (i.e. money, holidays etc) and yet racism/a dislike for people of brown skin exists.

Funny that its JPG, a french designer given all that is happening/happened in France re. dastaars.

Came across this bit of fashion 'news' today...

http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2012/06/jean-paul-gaultier-menswear-spring-2013-collection.html

Interesting, no?

How's the issue with your social anxiety now? Have you been able to resolve this as this sounds like the trigger for the other issues you have reported. Appreciate the here and now, not sure how old you are but even if you were 60 you would still have a lot of potential and possibility left in your life. I've seen so many people who would kill for some extra time to do the things they felt they could never do and because of illness it is unlikely they will get to do. Take each day one step at a time and remember Vaheguru is with you each step of the way

Lots of people go through what you have described, people of all ages and they find a way out. So please trust in this being a phase rather than a long term issue. Although I realise you find it difficult to pinpoint why you are feeling like this currently, there is always a reason for these emotions and its about talking them through with someone be that a professional or a close friend. It's easy for me to give this advice but I realise that the simplest things are often the hardest to do, just believe that things will get better if you seek assistance from those around you, who care about you and no doubt would be willing to help you through this.

I really hope and believe things will get better for you soon.

I can see why you like his words, whilst reading them I can't help but feel that what he has written just seems so intangible. Its all about positive thinking and reframing but written in a much wordier way. Saying that Paulo Coehlo, who I am a fan of writes similarly but is more concrete in that its about his life...

I am always struggling with myself, but I am very optimistic in this sense.

People are realizing more and more that happiness is freedom, and freedom is to be able to “travel light”, not possessing a lot of things, because at the end of the day, the things start to possess you.

I remember that I considered to buy a castle here in France: I went to see some.

One day I realized that if I buy a castle, I cannot think about anything but taking care of it. Therefore, I bought a small watermill, so to keep it is very easy, and I have time to go to the mountains, to walk, do spend my life in the way that I would like. In short: the less you have to keep, the more you have in freedom.

If I look back at my life I see many occasions where society tried to make me conform to “normality”. This resulted in three hospitalizations in an asylum when I was a teenager (which I describe in my book Veronika decides to die), torture when I was a young adult by the hands of the paramilitaries, and many defeats.

You could look at these experiences and say “Paulo’s life is tragic” but I don’t see it that way.

What I do see is someone trying to remain true to oneself. Yes there is a price but I believe that life tends to be very generous to those that are brave enough to take these risks.

In a word, I’ve always had faith in life, even when I thought “God forgot me”.

Be happy with your contradictions.

Is the moral of the story live your life as your want it to be or rather acknowledge what you have in the present and make the most of it (i.e. his parents, family rather than seeking out money and wanting more than his father had). Its so difficult to be mindful of what you have and not be so future orientated, I suppose thats where Bani and SImran help a great deal.

Sad story.

Only five, thank you.

From what I gather and correct me if i'm wrong OP, but the topic is about Sikh youngsters adopting the 'way of black people' - most of which doesn't seem to be too good. I think of it as, what kind of image are the youth who choose to dress/speak/live like this representing to the rest of the world after all this is why we have a dastaar/5 kakkars etc so that we are recognisable to those around us as Sikhs. If we tarnish this image by mixing our dastaar (or sometimes worse...a doorag) up with jeans hanging down our butts and a balaclava round our necks, what kind of message is this sending out about us? It seems even young white people act like this and to me, it demonstrates how they want to be like their black 'gangsta' counterparts, I wonder if thats the same for the Sikh youth who dress similarly?

It's not about being pompous and uppity its about not looking like you want to be someone else!!

Only Five, in regards to the first sentence in your post - Does anyone know what it means to live in this world? Do you need to know what its like to live to die? As referring back to the OP question, they asked ''do people have a right to kill themselves if they're dying?''

How do you define living? A baby born prematurely and is suffering from so many illness/infection/under developed vital organs and are very likely to die sooner rather than later, are they classed as having lived?

I can only speak for my own posts but nowhere did I say euthanasia was a ''good idea'' so please do not speak for me or misinterpret things. Also as Sikhs my view is that we are students and innate in us is to question and debate as well, and you seem quite close minded and opposed to this. No offence, of course. When we come to decisions based on our understanding of what WE have researched from Gurbani, Sangat, our life experiences that decision is more likely to be upheld and motivate us to change (for whatever reason, in this case deciding about euthanasia). Also with reference to your comment regarding depression, it may be that the person suffering from depression may have a life limiting illness such as incurable cancer, brain tumour etc. Anyway, my view that it is up to the person still remains as we are not experiencing their pain and cannot fathom how they are feeling. Who are we to judge, surely only Vaheguru has a say here?