Ceremony in which vows were taken

Retroflex Gurmukhi Letters

t	t	d	d	n
T		t	f	F

Mantra in Gurmukhi

Someone on a yahoo kundalini group asked for the Gurmukhi script for a particular mantra:

AP SAHAEE HOA SACHE DA SACHE DHOA, HAR, HAR, HAR.

From the way I remember hearing this chanted in Gurdwara, I think a few of the vowels are not represented properly in the above written (transliteration) version. I prefer to use a different transliteration scheme

Aap sahaaee Hoaa, sachay daa sachaa dhoaa, har har har

I found a website showing the same transliteration of this mantra as I have written above.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:vcLlDOVxrucJ:www.harijiwan.com/erin/2006-3-30.htm+aap+sahaaee+hoaa+full+mantra&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

So, in Gurmukhi it would look like this: (and I have corrected two errors - Oct 9 - since first posting this almost a week ago)

Awip shweI hoAw scy dw scw FoAw, hr, hr, hr

First Experience hearing Gurbani

I studied a great deal about sikhism for almost a year before I began to look at Gurbani words beyond a few I had run across.

It was around ten months after the vision that made me become a regular at the Sikh Gurdwara that I decided I would begin to learn how to read Gurmukhi myself. One reason for this is that I had learned that the Sikhs believe that even making the sounds of the Gurbani words can transform a person. It is said to stimulate meridians in the roof of the mouth, and these subsequently activate hormonal secretion by the hypothalamus and pituitary glands. That was explained by Yogi Bhajan and I read it in lectures of his that are posted online at www.sikhnet.com. On a less scientific level it is said that even just hearing Gurbani has the power to change a person.

Now I have to say, with my scientific background, this would have sounded like nonsense to me, and to my Western mind it still "sounds" like metaphysical nonsense. But my experiences have taken me beyond what I can understand with science or Western thinking. And I believe my experiences most of all. These things would seem like nonsense to me, if not for the fact that the very first exposure I had to Gurbani had set me to tears of joy immediately. My first words as the music began and my tears began to flow, were "This music is about happiness that I have never known in this lifetime on this Earth." Then within minutes, the Gurbani chanting brought great bliss to me. By the third chant, a great compassion for the suffering of others - even people who were very difficult to be around - had been unleashed inside me, and that never did go away. All of that happened during a massage March 23, 2004. It was that sudden change in me produced just by hearing Snatam Kaur's "Shanti" CD during that massage that led me to go to the Sikh Gurdwara, for when I went to buy that CD I was told that Snatam Kaur lived here in Eugene, which shocked and thrilled and scared me, and I wanted to talk to her about what had happened to me. Such remarkable changes had never happened to me in my life before this time and while I was happier than ever, I was also very mystified about it, and frankly felt beside myself. My best friends were mystified too, since none of us were practicing any religious paths until this happened to me, and suddenly I seemed to be a quite different person in some ways.

. Months later as I studied everything I could find about such things, I came to the conclusion that hearing the Shanti CD had opened my heart chakra. As I expressed it to Snatam one time a year later, the Gurbani Chanting on her Shanti CD had "blasted open my heart chakra." Snatam smiled when I said that to her.

Favorites (1) Naanak Nadaree Karamee Daat

nwnk ndrI krmI dwq

Gurbani is the name we give for words written by the Sikh Gurus. Bani means "word" and the "Gur" prefix makes it mean "Words of the Guru."

Gurmukhi is the name given to the written script form of this language. The language itself is an older form of Punjabi (from Nothern India) which was in use 300 to 500 years ago. The first Sikh Guru, Guru Naanak, began doing a great deal of inspired and inspirational singing and teaching around the year 1500, when he was near the age of 30.

My memory is not terribly clear about the order in which I discovered my favorite lines or phrases of Gurbani that really moved me or which I related to immediately. Some of them I do remember very well and what order they came in. I do know that the first phrase I remember really resonating with was this one;

nwnk ndrI krmI dwq

The transliteration for this phrase is "Naanak nadaree karamee daat." Naanak is the first Sikh Guru. Nadaree means "Gracious or merciful Glance (of God). Karamee is a word for action, for the doing of something, and Daat means gifts. In the Guru, "Gifts" usually mean great gifts- great blessings. So this phrase means something like this: "Naanak says" that through the merciful glance (of God) great gifts are given."

This particular line - and also the URL name of my blog - occurs in JapJi - the morning "prayer" by Guru Naanak, which is commonly called "The Song of the Soul." I am not sure if I encountered it first in JapJi, but I think probably I found it somewhere else first during the course of my solitary studies of Sikhism online.

The very first time I heard this line it felt precisely like a description or explanation of my own experiences with Sikhism. By the time I came across this line, which must have been some months after all this started; I was experiencing the tearful bliss regularly during my meditation and while listening to Gurbani Kirtan (chanting). I was at peace inside myself like I had never been before. There were challenges and some tumultuous feelings in my outer life, but inside none of that changed the immense happiness I could experience almost anytime I listened to Gurbani being sung or read.

I felt then and I still feel that I had done little to deserve what had happened to me, yet this compassion had been implanted in me and I had been brought to this very joyful sikh path all seemingly by a lucky "accident" of someone happening to play that Shanti CD during my massage. So to me, it truly was as though the "Gracious glance of God" had been cast my way, and I then had the visions and came to the Sikh Gurdwara. My entire life was changed by those events and I had not even been seeking a spiritual path before all this happened. I still feel that this line more than any other describes the great good fortune that came my way.

Recently - only a few months ago, I took a hukam and in that hukam there was a line that said, "You reached down with Your long arm and pulled me up from the suffering of my life." I do not have the exact words nor the Gurmukhi for this - but I cried as I read this because it again describes the feelings I have about the way I came to this path. I had a beautiful vision relating to this the next day in my meditation, in which I saw myself grasped by this strong arm and pulled up and out of this life. I clasped my arms around the legs of this Gur/Savior, and held tightly while crying with gratitude. I remember asking if I could stay where I was and not return to my life on Earth, and was told I was to return and yet that I would always remain at the Guru's feet as I was at that moment. This brought a great wave of peace to me.

The link immediately below takes you to a very beautiful page about Sikh thoughts and perspectives about "Grace" - how it is obtained, and many lines of Gurbani are quoted and translated on that page. I found it by googling "Nadaree."

IF you want greater insight about this "Merciful Glance of God" this page will help a lot!

http://www.gurbani.org/webart154.htm

First Gurbani Words

The first time I paid any attention or had any real curiosity about any Gurbani words was when I went to the sikh Gurdwara for the first time and listened to Snatam Kaur take a random reading from the Sikh's most sacred book, "The Guru" (Siri Guru Granth Sahib). This was on April 15, 2004, and was actually a few days before the life-changing "vision" which I mentioned as the explanation for my choice of blog title. Such a random reading from the Sikh "Guru" is called a "Hukam" which means Divine Will or command. A Hukam can be interpretted as guidance for the day or as a key to understanding current events in one's life, an answer to a question in one's mind, or simply as inspiration for the day. Of course, I did not know what a Hukam was at that time, I had merely been invited to go into the Guru's room with Snatam Kaur and Guru Hari Singh for a short "ceremony."

Snatam took the Hukam in the way that is standard for those who can read Gurmukhi script; reading first the Gurmukhi and then following that with the English translation which is also written in some versions of the Guru. A number of phrases in the English translation of my first Hukam struck me intensely right away. Even the first words of that Hukam, "My eyes are wet with the nectar of the Lord" described the blissful and teary-eyed experiences I had been having while listening to sikh chanting during the previous month.

But there was another line that especially caught my attention; "Those who die while yet alive, are said to be Jeevan Mukhta" (depending on the translation - another version says "He who can experience death while still alive is known as Jeevan Mukhta.")

Since I had already been wondering about the possibility of my death being imminent because of other visions a month before, this sentence really sounded ominous to me.

The Gurmukhi for this line looks like this; (For those of you familiar with Gurmukhi, I took this version from Aasa Di Vaar instead of from the precise place the Hukam is found in the Guru - because the latter might have taken me a while to locate).

jIvn mukiq so AwkIAih mir

jIvY mrIAw

So the words "Jeevan Mukhta"

jIvn mKqw

became a very early object of my study because I wanted to understand what this Sikh "Guru" was saying about life and death. With a lot of study over some months, if not a full year, - (while going through many many other topics as well), I came to understand that becoming Jeevan Mukhta is one way of describing a Sikhs goal in life. One way to describe the kind of death being spoken of here is to call it an "ego death." This phrase is a little more common in the West. The Sikh's mean death to all attachments, death to all attachment to human desires. This does not mean taking no pleasures in life, but it means to not seek pleasures and not to expend effort to attain one's desires, and to not try to sustain or maintain whatever pleasures might come one's way. This then comes to much the same thing as what is meant by the title of my blog: "man jeetai jag jeet" - conquer your mind to conquer the challenges of this life.

This understanding of Jeevan Mukta also gave me a way of understanding the message of my "big vision" a different way. Rather than taking "Say goodbye to all you know and love" to mean I was going to die, it could mean to learn to practice detachment and thus change entirely the way you live life; say goodbye to a life of secular interests and desires. This made sense to me and it was consistant with another aspect of my life following that vision. After that vision I found myself satiated by just meditating and listening to Gurbani chanting. I found that I had very little desire to go looking for entertainment or things to do "for fun." Friends even had trouble talking me into going to the coast for a day trip. I was already happy just being immersed in my studies and meditation practice.

Why this blog title?

Why did I choose the expression I did for the title of this blog? The answer to that will be made more clear here and there over time in this blog; for a series of events were and had been happening in my life at the time when I encountered first encountered this expression. I first heard it in the midst of what I call "my big vision," or "Dialogue with God." in April 2004. I would say that, more than any other one single thing, it was that vision which led me into the deep immersion into Sikhism that has become the core of my daily life for over three years now. I will most likely tell the whole story of that vision and events preceding and following it at some point, if it seems that it might serve to inspire someone, but for now, I will simply say that it was more of an "auditory" vision than a visual one. It happened while home alone doing the Salutation to the Sun (Hatha Yoga) and listening to Sikh Kirtan (Devotional Chanting) on a CD named "Prem" by Snatam Kaur. (Prem means love). The third chant on that CD began to play. That chant is called;

"Awdys iqsY Awdys"

"Aadays Tisai Aadays" would be the transliteration for these words. This and the entire chant is sung in Gurbani so at that time I had no idea what the words meant. In a later post I will go into a lot of detail about all the words of this chant and even about the "power" this particular stanza of JapJi is said to have. But at the time I am speaking of, the combination of the music, the chords, the chord progressions, and sound of the Gurbani, "spoke" to me very clearly. It's not like I heard a voice, yet a meaning simply came clearly into my mind. The message I heard in my mind as the introduction to this chant was playing, was, "Say goodbye to everything you know and love and come." I will probably tell the story in more detail some other time when there is more context for it already in place. There was another phrase which I also "heard" and this was while the phrase "Man Jeetai Jag Jeet" (my blog title) was being sung. The chords and this phrase seemed to say to me "This will be sweeter than anything you have ever known." I felt such an intense wave of bliss and sweetness in that very moment, as this promise was given, that I surrendered myself completely to this "request" that I enter upon this spiritual journey. While in ecstacy, I bowed my head to the ground and said, "Then take me, and do what you will with me."

Oh, I might mention that the title of that track, "Aadays tisai aadays" means "I bow and give salutations to you." It is ironic that it was when that line was sung that I had bowed myself prostrate to the ground.

This became quite a turning point in my life, for while I had already had a few transformative experiences which had also emerged while listening to sikh kirtan or hearing Gurbani read aloud; after the "message" of this vision, I felt my life was no longer mine, but was now to be some kind of spiritual journey. (There are other reasons for my seeing it that way - but again - I will talk about that later). Actually, at that time, for a variety of reasons, I did not even think I was going to live for more than a few months, and at first I thought this message about saying goodbye to everything I knew and loved meant that my death was imminent. Having agreed to follow the bidding of this "vision-message," I began going to the Sikh Gurdwara twice a week at 5:30am to hear kirtan and a reading from the Sikh's most sacred book, called the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, or just "the Guru" for short. One month later I realized I was in a position to retire from my job. I had not planned to retire for three more years, but mostly because of the message of this vision I made the decision to retire in a mere two weeks time. I felt I had to devote myself to this spiritual journey that I felt I had been called to make.

If all this sounds pretty crazy and extreme, trust me, this all seemed pretty crazy to me too. I still have moments from time to time, even now three years later, when I wonder what it all really meant, and why all this happened.

Explanation of the Name of my Blog

The title of this blog is a run-together set of Gurmukhi words, namely;

mn jIqY jg jIq

The transliteration for this Gurmukhi expression is "Man Jeetai Jag Jeet."

This phrase basically means that if you win mastery over your mind, the world of this life shall also be mastered. This is very much an Eastern concept. This particular phrase is of Sikh origin. In this view, we can not directly experience ourselves as expressions of the One Divinity unless and until we can learn to quiet our minds and learn to no longer be caught up with human desires. Nonattachment is another, more common name for this goal. In this view as well as in Buddhism, attachments are the source of all human suffering. Essentially attachment means to want things to be different than they are at the moment. It means to want things that feel good or make us happy to last longer and for things we do not enjoy to end sooner. Learning to conquer such desires and learning to accept and appreciate everything that comes is the pathway intended here.

This Gurmukhi phrase comes from the most fundamental of Sikh "prayers" - called "JapJi." JapJi is to be recited first thing every morning. It is a 20 minute long recitation written by the first of the Sikh Gurus, Guru Naanak. "Jap" means to meditate and reflect upon while "Ji" means "Soul." So the name "JapJi" is an exhortation to meditate over this 20 minute recitation.

A good description of what JapJi is all about would take some serious concentrated effort, for it progresses through several phases in its 40 "stanzas." Briefly though, JapJi could be said to be about how to live a spiritual life and tells about stages and kinds of spiritual attainment. It is also an expansive treatise on the unlimited, indescribable and undefinable, infinite qualities of the (One and only) Creative Divine aspect of the universe. Most of all, JapJi sings the praises of this Creative Divinity, of which we are ourselves expressions or manifestations. In the west we call this "God"and tend to personify it as an entity or being. In the East there are many words that when translated into English are written as "God." I might at some later time, write a separate blog entry listing many such words and discussing them.

Font Explorations

I would like to choose what fonts appear when I am posting. In particular I like comic sans MS font type, and I really want to be able to post Gurmukhi script words!

After some experimenting with html I have managed to figure out how to post in Gurmukhi: So here is my name, Naam Hari Kaur, in Gurmukhi:

nwm hir kaur

So hopefully this section here is back to comic sans MS again and back to the same color and size as well.

A picture of me - Nam Hari Kaur