ARCHIVED FORUM: Gurdwara Tapoban Sahib
Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Kaur
Date: 7/25/2004 4:11 am
Vaheguru Jee ka khalsa Vaheguru jee kee fateh
What is the right balance between studying/working and Gurbani?
We keep reading about how "kirat karna" is an integral part of sikhi, but how do you keep your mind on studying when there's all this AMAZING bani to be read and analysed?
Every time I sit down to study, all I can think of is how nothing apart from Bani and Simran goes with us and I just get this mad urge to read random shabads or to listen and analyse keertan.
As a result, I’ve not done well in studies this year and am finding it hard to get re-focussed on work.
Can any Gursikh help?
Vaheguru Ji ka Khalsa Vaheguru jee kee fateh
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Kulbir Singh
Date: 7/25/2004 5:44 am
While you are studying, you should focus as much as you can, on your studies. Basic nitnem is a must for a Sikh and so is following rehit. After your basic nitnem and rehit, your next priority should be focussing on studies. This is your age to study and if you study well, you will reap the benefits of this all your life.
Any time you find after studies, can be utilized on reading doing more paath, Gurmat books, learning Gatka, and socializing with Gursikhs.
This is just my opinion.
Daas,
Kulbir Singh
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Jarnail Singh Arshi Gyani
Date: 7/25/2004 7:25 am
Waheguru Ji ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki fateh.
also take a page out of Guru sahibaan's lives....
GURU NANAK... a storekeepr modikhana sultanpur lodhi.....doling out the goodies and japping tera tera.....nindaks do chugglee...WAHEGURU protects.
GURU NANAK at Kartarpur....doing his KIRSANI..farming....
Same for all the other Gurus....the lesson we get is we are NOT here SOLELY to sit down as WELHARR ( do nothings but "naam japping" and waiting for our faithful chelas to bring us daily bread/or matha tek golak for our use...)...we are given HUMAN FORM to do Naam japp + Dassan nohan de kamaii Honest Work...how we balance the two is up to us...Gurus have given practical examples.
Time to study... STUDY. ( dont think just naam japp will get you a first class honours degree - it wont )
Time to Naam japp- naam japp/nitnem/gurdwara sangat etc.
Simple as that.
dass jarnail singh.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : ved
Date: 7/25/2004 11:05 am
"Time to study... STUDY. ( dont think just naam japp will get you a first class honours degree - it wont )"
i beg to differ jarnail singh ji. i agree we should not just do naam and not do anything else but your statement above belittles naam. your intention may be good but you have gone too far in making your point.
you say naam japp will not get you first degree honours but i have learned frm gurbani that there is not a thing that cannot be achieved through naam. if one can get wahiguru through naam, then what else is there that one cannot get?
j vasath ma(n)geeai saaee paaeeai jae naam chith laaeeai ||
One obtains all that he asks for, if he keeps his consciousness focused on the Lord.
please remember that anything is possible with naam. at the same time i agree that our guru ji made us sant sipahi and we can't ignore our worldly responsibilities.
hopefully i didn't offend you.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : ns
Date: 7/25/2004 12:25 pm
Waheguru Ji ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki fateh
Jarnail Singh you mention
"( dont think just naam japp will get you a first class honours degree - it wont )"
how do you know that , this is where we go wrong on advising, please be careful and reiterate in a different way.
Waheguru Ji ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki fateh
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : hkaur
Date: 7/25/2004 1:04 pm
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!
I went through the same phase after Guru sahib blessed with Amrit- didn't feel like studying at all. I think doing physical things is easy e.g. professions of Bhagat Ravidaas jee or Bhagat Kabeer jee because one can do simran side by side, but studies require attention or full concentration that is hard to achieve while doing simran.
I used to motivate myself to finish some studies e.g. read few chapters or finish some work before I could go to attend a rainsabayee for example :) So you could try something like that! Or if you think about studies, e.g. what if you fail in your exams, you will feel motivated to do study.
But Guru Sahib is always ang sang to His Children and would take care of you and you will pass.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Singh10
Date: 7/25/2004 2:02 pm
According to Jarnail Singh naam jaap is vehlia da kam.
Gurbani tells us 'OOtath batuth sovath naam kaho nanak jan ka sadh kaam.'
The greatest job one could have is doing katha or keertan. Look at the greatest sikhs in our history and how they spent their time. When Bhai Sahib came out of jail, they did not go out and open a business. They spent time on spreading gurmat updesh.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : another singh :)
Date: 7/25/2004 4:04 pm
our dharm is having trouble spreading b/c sikhs are doing such a poor job of prachaar. what we need is some well educated people with full faith in the Guru and Guru's Rehit. This will definitely help spread the dharm. Think of your studies as if it's a type of seva (which it it :)
Sometimes people need to see a high worldly post before they're ready to listen to the truth about Guru's Sikhi.
Waheguru!!
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Mkhalsa
Date: 7/25/2004 7:56 pm
I remember there was a semester where I had hard classes. But I had committed to keeping a strict amritvela rehat. And I felt like I was addicted to naam abhyaas. and due to this, after amritvela I was pretty tired and just wanted to sleep.
so I ended up skipping maybe 8 weeks of the 18 week semester. not all together but you know days here and there. I just didnt care about school. I didnt do any homework, nothing.
I had the highest grades to date that semester. i still dont understand it.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Jarnail Singh Arshi Gyani
Date: 7/25/2004 9:27 pm
waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh.
first of all let me say...nothing offends me....i am also here to learn as much as any of you.... ( besides "anything" that might possibly be offensive such as hard language would already be filtered out by admin.) so nidharak hoke write what comes to mind...i will accept wholeheartedly. i hope this is the last time i have to make this clarification.
now we all know we live in a practical world...YES NAAM can CURE all diseases....BUT we still have hospitals ( my dad broke both his hands at the wrist in an accident and he refused to allow the doctor to shave to do surgery..his naam japping got him through..but i cannot reccomend everybody on the net to refuse surgery and just sit at home with a broken hand/leg/bleeding bladder/heart attack etc..??? can I ??
Naam can educate one as far as the next world....but we still have kindergartens, schools, universities...and thousands of SIKHS are enrolled in them paying huge sums as fees....Can I tell them all to RESIGN and sit at home doing naam japp ??is it practical ? No....BUT then again I would be the LAST person to DENY that NAAM is the MOST wonderful thing....and it can DO ANYTHING !!!
the Gurus were practical..... when ever they set up new villages and cities...they had tradesmen of all occupations settle there,,,weavers, cobblers, buisnessmen, shopkeepers, iron smiths...etc etc.....and SIKHS were also doing all these jobs because it follows naturally that if Guru nanak Sahib jee is setting up kartarpur most of the residents would be Sikh...same for Guru angad dev ji's khadoor sahib, guur amrdass ji's goindwal..... were all these towns populated ONLY by sikhs doing naam japping 24 hours a day ??? who was preparing the langgar, tending to the fields.. Was Guru nanak sahib jee ONLY naam japping and NOT feeding his cows, ploughing his fields, cutting his own GRASS ( which was carried by bhai lehan ji on his first meeting with guru ji )
this whole "only naam japping" is a total fallacy spread by the derawallhs/babas/sants who are jetting around the world visiting their chelas deras all over setting up new branches...that we are equal to the gurus ( if the gurus only did naam japp and parchaar... so are we doing the same thing and so we are equal to the gurus ) Each so called sant mahapurash should emulate guru nanak sahib jee and have his OWN JOB of HONEST LABOUR to feed himslef and then he can do all his nam japing parchaar etc. it is a historical fact that guru amardass ji also had his own job of weaving some poonian or something like that which he sold in the bazaar to pay for his own meals...and guru ji DID NOT eat free langgar. this does not mean that guru ji didnt do kirtan parchaar - he most certainly did.......any veer ji from any sant dera can provide proof of such honest labour by any sant in the punjab today ?? i doubt it because there are none.
Gurbani doesnt have a SINGLE example of a bhagat or Guru just doing naam japping and depending on his chelas to bring him food/clothes etc. Bhagat ravidass had shoes to mend, Bhagt Kabeer had his cloth to weave, bhagat dhanna had his fields to tend....and so on and so on. no one is claiming to do just naam jap and kirtan parchaar...in fact bhai gurdass ji verily condemns such velhaar sadhs and sants who sit doing naam japping and then go begging for rotis from the pind wallahs..or eat in the langgar...and yet theese WORKING bhagats were such big naam jappers that they are right there beside guru ji in the guru granth sahib jee.
so now we come to this dilemma....should we just do naam and nothing else. sit under the tree and hope the battera will fall into our lap...how dare i say that naam cannot provide me a battera....will the next person please get his naam to type the next reply to me...if we all started doing soleley naam japping.....all our computers would be dead silent and there would be no phorum ???
example of bhai sahib bahi randheer singh ji is out of place also. bhai sahib jee already did his dasan nahon dee kirt going to jail for the panth. he could have just sat at home doing naam jaap ( like most of the sants and mahapurashs today)...but no sardar ji..bhai sahib jee came out with a chaouri chhatee and challenged the zalim sarkar to do as it wished it would not be able to downthrow a sikh like bhai sahib jee...and that was that...no matter what the govt did...bhai sahib jee always came out on top....bhai sahib jee milked his own cow with his own hands in jail after a short battle with the govt...isnt that a practical action using his two hands ??? or did bhai sahib jee wait for a chela to milk the cow and bring him a glass of milk ??
YES kirtan and parchaar is the best thing.... and i always rue the day i didnt learn this art from my dad......but you are not seriously suggesting that EVERY SIKH take up this job ??? all doctors leave your posts and start your own "daktaari jatha.....pharmacists...dentists...engineers...teachers...students...shopkeepers...industrialsists... IF ALL are KIRTANIYAS.. WHO is going to be in the SANGAT ?? is that a realy practical idea ? would you make all your sons and daughters into kirtaniyas only ??? why are all the 500,000 sikhs in west? if all they wanted to become were kirtaniyas...punjab is the best place.
YES Veero ate Bheno....NAAM is "THE" thing.....it can do ANYTHING, accomplish ANYTHING....and we are here for only one thing ... to do as much as Naam as possible...but waheguru also gave us a human body....to feed, clothe, educate, give it worldly comforts, keep it healthy and strong, disease free,....and most importantly gave us TWO HANDS to work...and ONE TONGUE to Naam japp...Bulleh Shah used to work in his onion fields and do his naam japping at the same time...someone asked him " How to naam japp?" Pulling out the Onions from his nursery with one hand....and planting them in the fields with the other hand...and tongue japping naam..bulleh shah replied: itheron puttna ate ether laawana...pull out from the nursery and plant in the field...metaphorically PULL our MANN from the WORLD ( maya)...and Plant it in the Waheguru World...to PULL it we NEED the TWO hands that waheguru ji gave us....if we were intended solely for NAAM JAPPINMG ONLY we would be BORN ONLY with a TONGUE and nothing else.
learning and re-learning all over again...all the time.
dass jarnail singh.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Billa
Date: 7/26/2004 9:29 am
Giani Arshi Ji,
>>> he refused to allow the doctor to shave to do surgery
This is not an example for us to follow!
How can childbirth take place if we start following this?
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : ............
Date: 7/26/2004 9:42 am
Sikhi first then Study
how can you live with out sikhi
Study will only get you worldly goods
Where Bani will make you close to Waheguru Jee
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : me
Date: 7/26/2004 12:59 pm
>How can childbirth take place if we start following this?<
Childbirth does not require shaving.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : ....
Date: 7/26/2004 1:19 pm
>How can childbirth take place if we start following this?
do u think that something so NATURAL can only be accomplished by doing something UNNATURAL (i.e. shaving)?? how would they do it before the invention of shavers/scissors etc?
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : ns
Date: 7/26/2004 1:30 pm
waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh.
Very nicely explained by Bhai Sahib Jee, it surely answers the question posed.
waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Singh10
Date: 7/26/2004 2:09 pm
The important thing while studying is not to go away from your religion. Or else you can study all you want and your life will still be pointless.
Our Gurus encouraged education. It has been written that Guru Gobind Singh Ji were fluent in I think it was 16 languages. (although there is nothing that the Guru doesn't know)
In response to Jarnails Singh's post, just look into the jeevan of one of the greatest sikhs ever Sant Attar Singh Mastuaneyvale. Although they did not hold any worldly job, they were not vehla. They used to do akhand paats and had devoted their life to spreading Guru Nanak's updesh. Sant Attar Singh used to be able to recite a whole akhand paat sitting in one chaunkrha.
What worldly job did Bhai Sahib Mani Singh hold? They wrote gurbani and did other seva for Guru Sahib.
For the average person doing katha or keertan, someone that doesn't have a jeevan, it would be good for them to do some sort of kirat virat to take care of their family, but it is not wise to pass worldly judgements on anyone that has a direct connection/very close relation with God.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : K. Mahal
Date: 7/26/2004 4:20 pm
Satkar yog Sangat jee,
waheguru jee kaa khalsa waheguru jee kee fateh
As veer Jarnail Singh has explained very nicely:
- Our primary meter must be to follow the Jeenen lead by Guru Jee and Bhakat jees.
-With my limited knowledge of history, I think that Guru jees and Bhakats jees in SGGS were all married and doing kirat kmaayee.
Bhul Chuk muaaf
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : anon
Date: 7/26/2004 5:27 pm
Bhagat Sheik Fareed was not married, nor did they have a worldly job other than serving their master.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : VED
Date: 7/26/2004 5:33 pm
Bhagat Farid was married and had several children.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Jarnail Singh Arshi Gyani
Date: 7/26/2004 7:46 pm
waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh.
Baba farid Jee: there are very little records about his life but in one life history i read that he wrote koran sharifs for sale... More importantly Baba Ji has written GURBANI for humanity and that counts for a lot of kirt kamaii..... for that matter even a person like Aurengzeb didnt use a single paisa from the state treasury for his own perosnal use but used to write koran sahrifs for sale and lived on that meagre income. for the ultimate test...KIRT KAMAII is also Doing GOOD for humanity and writing gurbani is a huge contribution...there are many many GURSIKHS travelling the lands doing NISHKAAM kirtan parchaar, writing booklets, making Cds of Katha etc besides earning a honest living.
Bhai mani Singh Ji was a full time granthi at Harmandir Sahib....he was also doing a full time job writing out saroops of Guru granth sahib jee and other parchaar work...and he sacrificed his human body for the Panth. I humbly put that ...is more than enough kirt kamaii for one human...MUCH MUCH MORE than 99.999% of the "Sants/mahapurashs" roaming the world today.
can any veer please enlighten us all as to which sant/baba is a nishkam sewak ( without his own dera/Gurdwara HQ) who can equal Bhai Mani Singh, and who sacrificed even a small finger of one hand for the Panth. ...or spent some time in Tihar jail/any jail like the thousands of youths that are still there..... or had his "dera" confiscated by the Govt for working for the Panth..... or whose sons are martyrs or in jail......THAT SANT would be a real Sant.
I still insist that the JEEWAN of our Guru sahibaans and the BHAGAT Sahibaans in the GURU GRANTH...and Sikh Shaheeds should be the Guiding Light ( Chanan munara) for us to Emulate and Follow. NO HUMAN is better than them. That is my most humble opinion.
Dass Jarnail Singh.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : K. Mahal
Date: 7/26/2004 8:02 pm
Waheguru Jee kaa khalsa
waheguru jee kee fateh
The following gurbani tuk tells clearly to Kirat Kamaaye
"Ghal khaye khich hauthon dheh, Nanak raah pchhanay saye"
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : kulmohan
Date: 7/27/2004 9:48 am
Haath paun kar kaam sabh cheet niranjan raakh
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : hmmm
Date: 7/29/2004 1:37 am
I've noticed that quite often, older Gursikhs say things like "study now because you have your whole life to do simran/bhagti/bani after you pass your degree.
But my question is, what if I die today/tommorrow/in a week? What will I have acheived by studying?
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Jarnail Singh Arshi Gyani
Date: 7/29/2004 6:37 am
Waheguru ji ka khasa waheguru ji ki fateh.
Which "older" Gursikh told you that ?? It is utter "*******".
DONT ever commit that mistake.....you are right...how do you know when the SADDAH from waheguru will come....and you know all the PH.D's and Masters Degrees will be rubbish as far as waheguru is concerned ( banana currency).....only SOLID GOLD of Naam Simran kamaii will be the currency in demand there...
Studying is for "here" ( ONLY)......Naam simran is for HERE as well as THERE !!! 2 for the price of one...a better bargain ..dont you think so ??
no body can study for 24 hours a day.... wahy dont you alternate between studying and naam simran as well.....naleh punn naleh fhalian.... you will secure a good job and status here as well as have lots of kamii to follow you there.... the BEST of Both Worlds.
dass jarnail Singh ( also an "older" _ definitely... "gursikh "_ i hope ? )
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : Mkhalsa
Date: 7/29/2004 8:03 pm
I totally agree with hmm..
>>>>>>I've noticed that quite often, older Gursikhs say things like "study now because you have your whole life to do simran/bhagti/bani after you pass your degree.<<<<<
its not gursikhs, its usually just normal punjabi folk, to them studying (and becoming a doctor or engineer) is the only purpose in life and everything else is behind that..
>>>>>>But my question is, what if I die today/tommorrow/in a week? What will I have acheived by studying?<<<<<
Yeah, thats what I always think. And the recent passing of some great YOUNG gursikh friends really drove that home for me.
Re: Studying/Gurbani
Posted by : yea
Date: 8/01/2004 1:31 am
yo i got some stuff to say
God is the best
and he always helps you out
do alot of baani and look at your tests, youll be soaring
(thats of course if u put in a little effort)
I LOVE GODDDD
DHAN GURU DHAN GURU PYAREY DHAN SIDHAK DHAN SIKHI
WAHEGURU WAHEGURU WAHEGURU WAHEGURU
