feeling stuck in bhagti?

Ik oankaar satnaam satgurparsaad||

 

Kar sadhu anjuli pun vada ha,

kar dandauth pun vada ha.

On meeting the saint, greet Him with pressed palms,

that is a great deed.

Lie flat at His feet in Dandauth,

that is a great deed.

        Guru Ram Das Ji

 

This is a long email of our expereinces of the last 8 years, the lesson leanring being that GAREEBEE is essential for doing NAAM.

 

 

With SatGuru Baba ji's kind blessings, with Dassan Dass ji eternal blessings,

with Tanraj ji's merciful glance, with Namjeevan ji's compassionate healing touch,

we would like to share the following for all those feeling stuck in their bhagti. 

Which we also shared in sangat on Friday after doing simran.  Which we

pray is the Puran Sat.

 

For the last few months we have really been praying for our ego to go.

That our ego is like a rock we cannot break through.  That everytime we

sit for doing simran its like banging our head against a brick wall.

Every sangat for the last few months we have been sharing our frustrations.

This week everything became clear to us.  We are not saying we have

beaten ego, or maya, but we feel the rock is crumbling under the kind glance of

our Merciful and Kind Masster, SatNaam SatGuru.

 

 

When we first met Dassan Dass ji on emails we were inspired, baba ji

blessed us right awa with Naam on the phone.  We tried very hard

to getup early and do long hours of simran.  But mostly we did not

feel love, or light or amrit and any of the things that Dassn Dass ji and

Gurbani and the sangat did.  This caused us great frustration.

Frustration leading to feelings of failure.  So we turned our attention

to something that we had some control over - to do seva of the website instead.

This gave us something to do at work, this gve us sense of self satisfaction.

This gave us favourable comments from Dassan Dass ji and from the sangat.

At least we felt if we couldnt do simran at least we could do seva.

But at some level it was just fulfilling our low self esteem needs.  IT was

 making our ego feel better, that we were useful in the world.  Because

for whatever reason we must have been feeling rejected by our wife, parents,

community and work colleagues at that time. 

 

Having done the article seva, we became very knowledgable.  But as Dassan

Dass ji wrote to someone recently, reading may make you very knowledgable,

but it wont make you wise.  And as Tanraj ji pointed out to us recently as well,

we have already been blessed with all the divne education, but need to

APPLY it to our life.

 

So that is the first lesson.  Even doing seva of the articles only helped my

low self esteem, as when I went to sit for simrn in the early hour, I still got

frustrated wit banging my head against a brick wall.  Coupled with the

jealousy of seeing others who have read the gyan, applied it, and soared

ahead of us into the spiritual realms we only dream of.

 

So we are not good sasangat ji.  Our seva has just been to satisfy our ego.

No amount of divine knowledge is going to please my Master.  Reading

and reading is no shortcut to pleasing God.  Knowing about spiritual

experinces is not the same as having your own spiritual experinces.

 

So the path of reading and doing seva INSTEAD of simran is also a dead end.

Our master only wants 100 out of 100 on the test He sets.  We cant fool

him frm the insidde that is why the brick wall is there for us.

 

The next thing we were blessed to see about ourself this week was our

pattern of maya behaviour.

 

Getting frustrated with doing simran in the early hours, we went into

leanring reiki, yoga , meditation and doing that and running classes and

dreaming of setting up a meditation centre and doing that as a living.

But even whilt getting good repsonse from students, we alswys felt we were

stuck and not able to go into deeper realms.  Plus ontop of  that

we would get attracted to some of the female students and also have to deal

with feelings of greed because we wanted to charge them and be rewarded

for our seva - which then is not seva.

 

And after  few years of that, we sat for simran and still hit a brick wall.

Our master is not pleased with ego and cannot be fooled no matter

what we achieve in the world in His name.

 

Then we gave up on that, ~Baba ji advised us to stick to our technical job.

So we listened - relectantly, because it was our dream.  But the thought at 

that time came , "what is the point of taking a Guru, if your are not going

to listen to Him?"  so we are so gld now, that we did listen to baba ji and gave

up on those maya dreams.  Baba ji said we are supposed to be waking up

fromthe dream we are in, not making anothere dream within the dream.

so we prayed to baba ji to give us motivation to do our day job.  And

we got a better job, with good people and felt good again.

 

However, simran in the early hours for long hours was still more frustrating

than anything else. So we gave up again.  This time our family situation

got much worse.  We lived in extended family, financially we were losing

a lot of money every month due to bad investments in properties,

our parents were constantly chipping away at our self-esteem.  We decided

to separate and had to hear how bad a son I was everyday for six months.

We gave up trying to give parents divine wisdom, we gave up trying to

argue with them.  We just stopped sayng annything to them and just bit our lip

and listened when they started their guilt trip on us.  If I had had the habits

of drinking, I would easily have becomean alcoholic at that time.  But I had

the habit of wathcing TV so became a TV-holic, into the early hours.

Then into the soft-porn channels.  Then that was the only comfort I got.

Then that became an addiction and it wanted to see more and more hrder

porn and during theday would look at women in a sexual way. 

So obviously simran in the ealry hours was totally out of the window.

Finally, we felt so bad about ourself, we onfessed in sangat and still it took

a while to be free of it.  Guru ji did kirpa that even if we turned on that channel

we would feel sick at the sight of porn.  That was about 3 yrs ago.

 

So last year whilst editing the sukhmani book at the request of Dassn Dass ji,

His choice, not mine!! (but we cant say no to the Guru, otherwise Why did we take

a Guru if we are not going to listen to him?)  We really hated doing the seva.

It took long hours, we couldnt watch out tv!  It seemed never ending.  We cursed

and swore and thought so many bad thoughts about having to do this seva.

But somehow with Dassan Dass ji's grace we also started realinsg that as we were

editing about Maya, maya inside us didnt like it.  It was being rattled, it wanted us

to stop.  We started praying before doingthe seva and afterwards to forgive us for all

our bad thoughts.   Somehow Dassan Dass ji did kirpa and we resolved that now after

7 years, we were finaally going to surrender everything.  Mnd, body and wealth.

Wether wew died doing it, wether we lost our wife, wether we lost our finacnes, we didnt care

now we had to go for it 100% - do or die.

The first month we banged our head against the brick wall, we hated long horus of

simran.  fterwards we were frustrated, we took it out on our kids , we even shouted and

beat them once, that was how bad we were.  After sixe weeks we were completely

exhausted, shattered and a tyrant in our house.  Exactly the opposite of what we were

dreaming of becoming.

But wth kirpa we gave up even having expectations of kid and wife and let them do whatever

they wanted nd stpped trying to control them. It was only trying to control them and failing

t get my way that was causing me frustrations.  So Tanraj ji jas also explained to us that

we have to accept His HUKAM in absolutely everything "thy will be done - not mine."

So that gave us great peace.  But we had to trust God is taking care of our kids.

At the same time we started gving full daswandh, but in secret as we didnt want n argument

with our wife .  But she found out and we had huge arguments , we seaprated accounts

and that was a correction which has been for the best - now it is live ad let live.

In a dream at that time we remember saying to baba ji we give you everything.

After that wew started expereinceing samadhi and reeived blessings from a black skinned

sant who said "the divine light is coming soon."  But after 6 months of not missing

amritvela, we must of got a desire for a digital camera and asked our relatives to give us

money for our birthday so we could get one, (baba ji says NEVER ask for anything of the

world , always be GIVING GIVING GIVING) so we failed here and spent the next six months

chasing photography skills, and going on courses and letting amritvela simran slip away.

 

So last november we were bck to zero, furstrated when we sat to do simran.  We begn hating

doing the email seva of replying to people.  We felt trapped again, banging our head against

a brick wall.  Seeing others do well in bhagti, but being unable to apply the knowledge ourself.

Then Tanraj ji sent us an email saying he felt a lot of hate.  We replied saying he needs to

let it all go, breathe out let it go.  We gave him a standard answer from our "knowledge-base".

But inside we had no love to give him.  Then Gd in him , came to us, and said, "no , let us rephrase,

we feel a lot of hate from you."

 

At that we were caught red-handed, a fake humble person replying to spiritual emails.  But like

a thief who cant bear the weight of what he has done, we confessed everything to Tanraj in our

subsequent emails.  All our physical pains, mental turmoils, frustrations, anything and everything.

And somehow , with His kindness, his word have lifted us, and inspired us and picked us up, and made

us strong to be able to face maya again.

 

But last few sangats we haave been seeing our ego as a rock in our head which we cant get past.

So we went back to basics, started doing dandauth to family at least.  And got the feeling that we were saying

we have had enough of playing this maya game, this pretend game that we are father-son, husband-wfe,

etc etc and all these worldy things we talk aboutour of no consequence. so we bow to god in all of you and say to maya

 - GAME OVER.   Even that hasa been very difficult to do, which shows how thick our ego has become again.

Then after that we started doing simran in the mornngins, and at lunchtimes as well in the car at work.

But our evenings we stll got angry with kids and stressed.  So we sit and do simran in the eening or just becomme

more helpful in the kitchen and kinder. ANd we have been singing sukhmani verses everyday, and have learnt

that humbleness is the key.  We cant go to God with ego and expect the door to open.  Its upto HIM when he openes it.

All we an do is pray, so we have been praying day and night

"kartar kanrama deen bentii karay

nanak tumree kirpa tarar"

Dear Creator  , me the poor one prays to you,

oly by your Grace can I be ferried across."

 

 

But the real key was last week in simran, we were sending reiki to Namjeevan ji as we thought she has ahad

a bit of turmoil recently, and we all think she doesnt need any prayers as she is a Sant.  But its our seva, then unexpectedlt

she put her hand on our head and we felt the rock in our head.  Then we felt God himself was standing infront of us.

Then we bowed dandauth bandhan at gods feet.  And we really, truly, from the bottom of our heart, apologised to

God, the King of Kings, the Master, the Creator, that we were very very sorry for being such an egottist.

 

Then we felt the cold amrit pouring down our head and our fingers.  Not gushes, but like a crack had appeared

enought to let God come through.  Namjeevan ji told us afterwards she could feel the reiki we were seding her,

but prayed to God to end it back to us.  She put her hnd on our head and prayed to baba ji to give her all the

pain.  And herself hd felt gushes of amrit racing though her body.  And she sen the negativity/dukh to nature ( she focuses on a particular tree), as baba ji ad taught her.

 

That night we got home and had nodesire to watch tv. Got up early did simran, lay down to sleep again and

felt we were doing simran with our hand on the back of a drug addict (showing her the true drug),

we ourself got knocked out into deeper smdhi and woke up sweating.

 

Last wednesday though is when God tested us again.  We sat for simran , forgot to do ardas at the beginning (hence ego),

couldnt get into the simran.   Felt no love, felt frustrated.  We realised that we go into simran with EGO, we came out with

FRUTRATION.   Then Ego tells us "you are rubbish at simran, give up.  Others are better than you.  Others who

have come on the path after you have gone much further."  Then ego gve me neagative thoughts about baba ji

and sangat all day long.  however, with His grace we kept saying to God, listen God, this is just my ego, ITS NOT ME.

Please forgive my ego, I am not going to listen to it.  Then after simran, we lay down to sleep (sleeping after simran

is when we have meaningful dreams).  A woman came to us, to console us, to make us feel better, she snuggled upto us.

We said NO to her, we ddnt want any comfort from her.   (It was maya).

 

Then when we woke up, still feeling frsutrated, we had thoughts to get some instant comfort.  We thought just masturbate

in the shower, but we sid to our ego, when dont have any desire to do that.  We dropped the kids off at school. Then went into tesco to look for some comfort foods.  We looked at all the meats, all the sweets an then asked "why am i here?"

To whcih the answer came I am trying to get comfort because  i am frsutrated.  But I am not hungry.  So we walked out.

All day we had to listen to negavite, slanderous thought from ego.  Finally in the evening we went for  run and did our prayers andwe free of those thoughts.  We prayed to SatNaam SatGuru ji, that we have come to simran with EGO and always left FRUSTRATED.

Then we went into MAYA for comfort for many years until that desire was fulfilled ad we still fetl empty and came back to simran againbut again with EGO - FRSTRATION - MAYA.  Round and round and round - 8 yr have gone like this.  But now SatNaam StGuru Baba ji, we want to come as a beggar at your door, fill our heart with gareebee (spiritual poverty/humblness).  You are the Master.  If you want us to sit infront of a brick wall every single day for the rest of our days, then that is fine with me.  But I dont have anwhere else to go now.  I dont want anything that MAYA offer in way of comforts.  Just keep me as a beggar t your door.  (We read Goya and he wrote that even a beggar at God's door is worth more than the highest worldly king).

 

So we have been praying now from sukhmani verses again

"kar kirpa jis ka gareebee hirdha basaavay,

nanak eeha mukat agai sukh paavay"

..Be Merciful God, within hose heart you place gareebee (humility),

that one is liberated here (this world), and find eternal peace hereafter (god's court).

 

This has been the lesson for us from the last 8 years - GAREEBEE.

 

When Guru Nanak Dev ji retuened from God in the river, they say He came with 2 gifts - NAAM & GAREEBEE.

 

I went to do simran thinking I have the Naam, but I went with PRIDE/EGO that I should get something

in return in term of spiritual gifts (due to my low self esteem needs). 

But I came back only with FRUSTRATION leading into MAYA to fulfill my unfullfilled desires.

 

But Guru Arjun Dev ji says that "birtha koee na janaay je avaay tudh aai" - noone goes empty handed

from God if they come with FAITH.

 

Baba ji i so kind, He has shown us all a glimpse of PURAN SAT (Eternal Truth) by blessing us with

the NAAM.  But it is upto us to chose between PURAN SAT or MAYA.

 

Tanraj ji said reently someone expereinced Puran Sat just with sangat of Tanraj ji, and having expereinced that,

he still hose MAYA.  Tanraj ji sad he felt so saddended by that, but it shows how muh maya was entrenched in the

other person.

 

This made me realise that I have chosen MAYA over PURAN SAT so many times.  So I am very sorry SAtguru ji

and may I promise that from now on I always chose PURAN SAT over MAYA.  I dont wnt anything from MAYA,

not comfort not anything.

 

Please forgive us, please keep us under your feet,

God-Guru bless you all.

 

Dust of your feet

HArjit