jo bin paratheethee kapattee koorree koorree akhee meettadhae oun kaa outhar jaaeigaa jhoot(h) gumaan
Those who lack faith may close their eyes, hypocritically pretending and faking devotion, but their false pretenses shall soon wear off.
-Guru Ram Das Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 734

In an age where image is everything, more and more youth are beginning to define their spiritual connections, not by public display of devotion but by showcasing their alliances in the form of tattoos. While no religion specifically condones them, tattoos however, raise suspicious and sarcastic looks from those that find them undesirable, no matter how simple and clean they may seem. The Sikh youth are abandoning the Guru’s form (specifically the turban and unshorn hair) and replacing it with their own alternative – by expressing their pride through ways that find them acceptance with their peers who can longer bear the weight of conforming to their age-old tradition of wearing dastaar and unshorn hair. The turbans have swiftly lost their princely status and replaced with chic statements of tattooed arms, chests, backs and necks. Today’s generation is into the GenerationX thing – technology, luxury, image and peer-respect. It no longer matters what the Guru thinks is better – our educated youth know better and have given godly status to their outer displays of fashion statement. Tattoos have today joined the legions of body piercings, crew cuts and blings. It seems like God is in fashion these days, regardless of how aloof or ignorant we want be in trying to understand His Will, and attempting to win His attention with our artistically decorated bodies. Whether it is to show your religious alliance, to make a fashion statement or to try and interpret your version of spirituality, tattoos may not be condemned by religion, but they lead you no where.

The Sikh Gurus revealed to us what Akaal Purakh had envisioned for His peoples. Over 240 years, the Sikh of Guru Nanak was groomed into the Khalsa of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. Abandoned were all rituals and meaningless aspects of life, and replaced with those that would stand the test of time and be of purpose and lead us to our Creator Lord. One may argue that while tattoos are of outer display, then so are the turbans and beards. Valid arguement, but . . . the dastaar and kesh of were marks of our affiliation to the Guru, a form blessed to the adherents of the Sikh way of life. One may adorn the Sikh turban and even maintain his kesh, and yet still pierce his body and tattoo his skin, is far more close to manmat and foolishness than those that have forsaken the Sikh roop altogether. Tattoos are nothing less than body-modification which is a process of deciding who you are and what you want to be. Tattooing and its allied arts, in other words, are increasingly understood as substitutes for more traditional religious rites of passage. Body art may be considered as an individual expression but it will never find favour with religion, no matter how much one may claim to defend it as their way of spiritual expression.

Many who decorate their bodies with religious icons as tattoos claim to educate those that catch their curiosity. This is simply a sign of cultural starvation, resulting from rebelling against the norms and established way of a religious life. People claim to wear meaningful tattoos, but unless their life is dedicated to the inner self, the outer statements are as good as decorating a dead body. When we lose our intrinsic values, we attempt to guise that vacuum with alternative, self-defined ways. By ignoring the path of religious teachings and claiming to be wiser than the masters, we do nothing more than condemning ourselves into the darkness of meaningless existence.

The greatest show of religious affiliation and devotion is a silent and humble one. When one sees a turbaned Sikh with a full kesh, he says more than one who has discarded the form of his Guru. While one cannot completely condemn tattoos, they can never find acceptance either. Just because religion does not condone body piercings and tattoos doesn’t mean such body-works are accepted. What God wants to see is not your self-defined image, but the one that He commissioned, through teachings of faith. In the end, the outer is to rot away anyway, whether it is adorned by the dastaar or by tattoos, but what will matter in the Court of the True Lord is how much of our being we offered to the Guru and accepted as good what they instructed us to do, not what our fickle minds thought so otherwise. A life lived without contemplation on the Word of God is far worse that exhibiting our decorated bodies that insult our divine form.

naam binaa jaethaa biouhaar || jio mirathak mithhiaa seegaar
Without the Naam, all occupations are useless, like decorations on a dead body.
-Guru Arjan Dev Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 240

My deepest, humblest and sincerest apologies to all thos who have been sending me emails and leaving feedback on my blogs for I have been completely out of touch with my blog for a very very long time now. This has been due to a number of combined reasons, much of it relating to my health as I have been unwell on and off. I have also recently quit my full-time job and started my own design consultancy which is demanding a lot of my time and resources and the full set-up is still taking a while (phone line, internet connection, email connection . . . so I’m relying heavily on cyber cafes, for now). I have also become a papa now with a son turning 4 months this week – so that too is demanding a piece of my diary. But all this is taking pace and I’ll soon be settled into a routine (you know how it is for bachelors when they have all the time to do so many other things, but once that certificate – of bacherlorhood – gets replaced by a marriage one, then the earth’s axis changes its course of rotation!).

Now, coming to what’s been happening to my Sikhi-life – I’m still struggling but beginning from zero (I remember on a number of ocassions, praying to Waheguru, “to empty me of me and fill me eith Thee”, so maybe that explains why I feel down and beaten – probably like a rug pegged onto a wire and teh dust beaten out of it!). I have missed my blogs and the wonderful new family of Sikhs I have found through them and eager to touch base with everyone once more (for keeps this time, i pray) so that the Inner Journey can now truly begin – for the past was only in word, and now the time has come to put the today into deed – and of course, not without the Grace and Hukam of our Husband Lord, Waheguru.

So, to all my friends of the InnerJourney – I’ll soon be back online and reply to each one of you personally and humbly beg your forgiveness for the absence in communication.

Until then, may the Grace of Akaal Purakh be with you all.

WaheguruJi Ka Khalsa. WaheguruJi Ki Fateh.

Lakhvir Singh Khalsa

naa ham hi(n)dhoo n musalamaan
I am not a Hindu, nor am I a Muslim
poojaa karo n nivaaj gujaaro
I do not perform Hindu worship services, nor do I offer the Muslim prayers.
eaek nira(n)kaar lae ridhai namasakaaro
I have taken the One Formless Lord into my heart; I humbly worship Him there.
- Guru Arjan Dev Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 1136

In today’s advanced age and time, more and more people have access to education and information than ever before. This has plunged majority of them into the lofty heights of self-acknowledgement. Though this is not a new breed of people (such false preachers and self-proclaimed wise men exited since the beginning of civilization), they philosophies spread their net on people of weaker judgement and victimise them into believing their poisonous preachings. The people of Truth have always been in the minority, because I believe that is the very intention of God. If the people of Truth were in the majority, the minority would be oppressed – like the Mughals did when they spread their faith by the sword. God’s purpose to keep the men of Truth in the minority is to prove that no matter the opposition, Truth’s might triumphs – its takes time, sacrifices and faith to win over the enemy.

The day Nanak was born, only the village Pandit and the midwife instantly recognised the divine soul. Extremely few saw the Diving Light in Nanak, while the rest remained ignorant until the day Nanak merged into the Divine. The ignoranced did not end there – opposition against the House of Nanak continued through the successor Sikh Gurus and still exists today. But today’s ignorance of Sikhi is prevalent not just in non Sikhs, but in many Sikhs as well. Sikhi has proved to me, beyond doubt, that when Truth comes face-to-face with you, the face of the enemy can be seen as Truth reflects only that what we really are. Truth is a mirror – it never reflects what the one facing it isn’t. When I face Guru Granth Sahin (as Shabad), I see what I really am – if I am earnestly following the Shabad, then the picture is pretty, otherwise it is disgusting – and it’s mine, whether I like it or not.

No wonder, that since the advent of Sikhi, with the birth of Nanak, the amount of opposition has been piling up. The greatest opposition to the message of Nanak was that Sikhs are are part of Hindus. It’s a strange claim because on the one hand the Hindus want to own the Sikhs as Hindus, and on the other hand oppose Nanak’s teachings that speak against idol-worship and the caste system. then we have the Muslims who also lay claim on Guru Nanak as one of their own. This is a remarkable scenario, unparalleled in the history of religion where one man is claimed as their own by more religions that the one he founded. Is it not strange to hear the song over and over again that ‘Sikhs are Hindus’ when the people procaliming it do not even believe Guru Nanak’s proclamation that he was neither Hindu nor Muslim? What we miss here is that Nanak as the man is not the entity to be accepted (if we do not want to), it is the Shabad that he revealed to us that is to be followed. The fact is that anyone and everone is a sikh (learner, student) because they follow the teachings of their respective religions. But the Sikhs are those who follow the teachings of the 10 Sikh Gurus as enshrined in Guru Granth Sahib Ji, which includes the worship of one God. Besides this, Sikhs cannot be Hindus because Nanak may have been born in a Hindu family, but was not born as a Hindu – he rejected the Janeu at such a tender age. That alone does not prove that Nanak was not a Hindu: He worshipped only one Akaal Purakh (Hindus worship 33 million gods); he grew his kesh and protected it with a dastaar (Hindus cut their hair); he was casteless; he did not fast (Hindus fast); he studied the Vedas but was not a follower of them (Hindus follow the teachings of the Vedas and Puranas); he did not take the mandatory dip in the River Ganga (Hindus are instructed to bathe in the River Ganga at least once in their life time); and he did not follow the Hindu festivals of Raksha Bandhan, Karva Chauth, belief in Vishkarma, astrology and numerology (which all Hindus are devotees of).

The last point above has been separated because it applies to those Sikhs who have allowed themselves to revere certian Hindu customs and rituals which have prompted the Hindu activists to stamp Sikhs as part of Hinduism. What the Hindu activists forget is that even Hindus visit the Harimandir Sahib but no Sikh tells them that it makes them Sikhs. It is just the Hindus that take the exception only because they feel threatened and insecure (just like the Hindu Hill Rajas felt when they saw the flourishing congregation of Guru Gobind Singh Ji), lest the Hindu faith loses on what keep the caste system dominating over the lower castes. Sikhi is so free of dogmas and the worship only one Akaal Purakh, that the Hindus feel the most offended for it challenges centuries of their blind rituals. They forget that the faith of Nanak does not condemn their rituals, but merely awakens them to Truth. No Sikh Guru ever denounced Hinduism, but the opposite is what is happening with the Hindus for they can simply not accept Sikhism as a new faith.

Just because the number of ignorant Sikhs who follow Hindu customs and rituals (like astrology, numerology, fasting, Raksha Bandhan, Diwali, Dushera) is growing in numbers is no proof that Sikhs are Hindus. What is true is that those Sikhs that follow Hinduism as well will one day relapse into Hinduism itself – for they cease to be Sikhs as they have ignored the teachings of their faith and chosen to follow their own manmat which our Gurus rescued us out of.

Just like anyone can dress up like a policeman and commit crimes in its guise, likewise, it is just as easy for any Hindu propagandaist to adorn the roop of a Sikh and try to proove the Hindu-ness of Sikhs by doing Hindu things. The perfect example is the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) which has began to create rifts into the Sikhs by founding a wing of their Sangh under the name of Rashtriya Sikh Sangat which does everything Hindu and denounces Sikh beliefs because the very mission of RSS is to promote their language (Hindi), rule of their faith (Hindu) and return India to the land of Hindus only (Hindustan). This is nothing short of the ambition of the Mughals when they dreamed of turning Hindustan into a fully Islamic State. The Mughals failed in their ambition because it was based against the very nature of God. The very cause of the agenda against Sikhs is the fact that while every other religion considers itself as the supreme over the others, the Sikh religion is the only one that confers equality to all and does not consider itself higher or lower than another religion. Besides the Sikh religion, all other religions squirm to admit equality because of their over-zealous ambition to dominate and claim of exclusivity. The Christians consider non-Christians as inheritors of Hell, the Muslims consider non-Muslims as kafirs (non-believers) and now the Hindus consider all religions as part of Hinduism. Sikhi is the biggest thorn in the flesh of these major religion because of its message of equality and distinct code of conduct.

The greatest weapons of the RSS and other Hindu propaganda groups are the splinters ‘sects’ of Sikhi – the Naamdharis, Radha-Soamis, Nirankaris and Darshan Das. Because they all claim the heritage of Nanak (through their references from Guru Granth Sahin Ji, they do not, however, believe in the Code of the Khalsa (Sikh Rehat) and this is the weakness of the Sikhs that the propaganda activists have taken advantage of and hijacked to turn the attention of the world and ‘proove’ to them that ‘Sikhs are no different from Hindus’. But try as much as they may, Nanak will remain what he was – neither Hindu, nor Muslim.

The point of this article is not to prove that as a Sikh, I consider my faith more beautiful than the others, but to emphasise on the respect we all deserve. When some group treds on insulting our Gurus, our beliefs and practices and then go as far as debunking our faith, then it simply crosses the limit and we need to awaken to what the people around us up to. All the other religions glorify themselves – Christianity, Islam and now Hinduism, but only the Sikh faith refrains from self-glory because the House of Nanak sees all as equal. Our greatest challenge is the rising apostasy, corrupted Sikh leadership and general apathy in regard to our heritage and teachings. Our strength is in disassociating with anyone Sikh or Sikh group that twists the teachings of our Gurus and belittle the authority of Guru Granth Sahib because they become enemies of the House of Nanak. We let them be, but do not allow them to interfere with our beliefs. Sikhs have never been known to speak against any religion, no matter what attrocities they may have committed on the Sikhs – that is the beauty of Sikhi.

The tragedy of our predicament is that we have not recognised our own selves and that is why we are victimised and we hardly even notice it. There was a reason for which Nanak was born and there still is a reason why we need to uphold the values of his teachings. When we forget them is when we become exposed to those that have been the enemy of the House of Nanak for the last 500 years. The enemy never dies but Truth never gives up either.

hi(n)dhoo a(n)nhaa thurakoo kaanaa ||
The Hindu is sightless; the Muslim has only on
-Bhagat NaamDev Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 874

It’s been a long while since I last posted on this blog, and even longer since I have been keeping unwell. In short, all I can say is that I have been in a state of unrest, dis-ease and constant inner battles that have defied me any understanding of what is happening to me. All this has been causing me immense anxiety, panic and depression due to which I have lost touch with many things in life. I can bare it all to my friends who read my blog, that I am no longer able to get up at Amritvela, do my paath and listen to Kirtan anymore. I know I still love to do all this, but something within has drained me away from all the things that bind me to my Guru. I no longer feel at ease due to which I feel no excitement about all the things I loved to do, and would still love to do. May be it is a spiritual message that Waheguru is trying to project (to an awakening, or enlightening) or it could all be due to the fact that I have burnt-out myself in all aspects of my life. I no longer find life that enjoyable divine gift and it is a scary thought every time I wake up in the morning. I have had friends and family tell me that I think too much and that there really is nothing wrong with me, but then I question myself further as to why then I would not be feeling better? I have cried and sobbed at the feet of my Guru but I feel little comforted, but nevertheless, I know that His Abode is the only one I seek to the last breaths of my life.

Every single day has been a battle with my mind, body and soul and they are all clashing. I simply do not know what is happening to me and that is what is causing all my anxieties. Prayer and paath I can no longer do because ‘something’ keeps pulling me away from it. I fight, every single moment and I feel I’m losing the battle. I sometimes like to imagine that somehow, sometime, my Guru will come and pull me out of my darkness. Until then, I feel dejected, defeated, abandoned, lifeless. I don’t know what phase of my spiritual life my Guru is taking me through and I pray and hope to come out of it soon.

If you do have a moment, please do an Ardas for your brother for I need all the Guru’s Sangat that I can get. I believe that the prayer done by Guru’s Sangat never goes unanswered.

I remain the dust of the feet of the Guru’s Sikhs and humbly seek to live in the Hukam of Akaal Purakh Waheguru so that I may be granted the gift of Seva, Simran and Sangat of the Sikhs of the True Guru.

WaheguruJi Ka Khalsa. WaheguruJi Ki Fateh.

The peoples of the Punjab have changed – amidst the few of those that still maintain their culture and religious values, the majority can hardly be recognised any longer. What was such a beautiful culture and religion has now been polluted with escalating apostasy, bipran ki reet (castes, fasting, astrology, following fake babas and gurus, inter-marriages, drug and alcohol abuse . . .) and apathy of its heritage and history. The Sikhs freed another faith from the clutches of slavery, now we have been made slaves of the very peoples our Gurus sacrificed their all to set free from tyrants. What a slow death of a beautiful and colourful heritage and the tragedy is that only a handful few care to do anything about it. With images like the one below, it’s sad to note that such aspects are getting confined to what was.

But the struggle to keep our heritage alive is being fought by the awakened, but the real difference will be made by you and I. We need to teach our children and our children’s children on what the heritage was and that it should live on because it was made nor for a single era, but for centuries more to come.

As for now, my heart bleeds for Punjab to see it shred from a beautiful coat of innocent folk dances, maboli, singing fields of wheat and sarson da saag, to a tattered one of apostasy, filthy television channels, vulgar music and filled with vermin that continue to nibble at the roots. O GuruJi . . .

charan gehae guradhaev kae sath sabadh dhae mukath karaayaa
Those who have caught hold of the feet of the Guru have been liberated through the true Word.
- Vaars, Bhai Gurdas Ji

Guru Baba Nanak travelled thousands of miles – much of them on foot. He trekked through heat, cold, rain and thunder. Spent nights under the blanket of stars and slept under trees in the thick of dark nights. With only a few clothes strapped to his shoulder, we cannot even begin to imagine how Baba went through these journeys not once, but three times over. He spent his entire life in travel, preaching the Word of Akaal Purakh. Welcomed by some, rejected by most, he nevertheless kept walking and kept meditating. Any mortal like ourselves would have collapsed under the strain of walking and mostly shelterless cold months. As I look at the painting below, I wonder, those blessed feet must be tired and sore, and yet his visage was aglow with the Divine Grace. Had I been there where Baba Nanak decides to take a breather by the roadside, I would have fallen at his feet and washed them with tears of a love he inspired. O my Nanak, had I been there, could your slave be blessed with the seva of washing your feet and soothing your sores? You have walked miles and miles on end, for me, to deliver me from this dark age and enjoin me to the Name of my Husband Lord . . .

sunee pukaar dhaathaar prabh gur naanak jag maahi(n) pat(h)aayaa
The benefactor Lord listened to the cries (of humanity) and sent Guru Nanak to this world.
charan dhhoe rehiraas kar charanaamrith skhiaa(n) peelaayaa
He washed His feet, eulogised God and got his Disciples drink the ambrosia of his feet.
paarabreham pooran breham kalijug a(n)dhar eik dhikhaayaa
He preached in this darkage (kaliyug) that, saragun (Brahm) and nirgun (Parbrahm) are the same and identical.
chaarai pair dhhara(n)m dhae chaar varan eik varan karaayaa
Dharma was now established on its four feet and all the four castes (through fraternal feeling) were converted into one caste (of humanity).
raanaa ra(n)k baraabaree pairee(n) pavanaa jag varathaayaa
Equating the poor with the prince, he spread the etiquette of humbly touching the feet.
oulattaa khael pira(n)m dhaa pairaa(n) oupar sees nivaayaa
Inverse is the game of the beloved; he got the egotist high heads bowed to feet.
kalijug baabae thaariaa saathanaam parrh ma(n)thr sunaayaa
Baba Nanak rescued this dark age (kaliyug) and recited ‘satinam’ mantr for one and all.
kal thaaran gur naanak aayaa
Guru Nanak came to redeem the kaliyug.
-Vaars, Bhai Gurdas Ji

asa(n)kh malaeshh mal bhakh khaahi
Countless wretches, eating filth as their ration.
-Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 4

Reading through a new book I picked up from a book store over the weekend, I was attracted to much of its content, which relates a lot to what anyone of any religion faces. This book is a Christian one, but I’ve replaced the Christian terminologies to Gurmat ones so that as Sikhs we can relate to the message. I found the folling passage extremely enlightening because it speaks indirectly and none of us can actually say we didn’t understand.

‘A man asked a wise Indian sage shy he always seemed to make the wrong choices. Even though he knew what was right, he chose to do what was wrong. The old sage looked at him and replied, ‘My son, there are two dongs inside you, a black dog and a white dog. One is good and one is evil. They are constantly at war with each other, fighting to the death. ‘Which one is going to win?’ asked the tormented man. ‘The one you feed,’ the wise man replied.

To satisfy a growling, growing stomach, and having no patience to wait, we reach out to those deep-fried junk food to dance deliciously across the taste buds and seductively make their way down to the stomach. I don’t know is many of you are willing to admit any of this. This hunger, I mean. Many os us are addicts with crazy cravings and a hunger we just can’t seem to fill. Secretly, we’re fat. Although we might not wear it on the outside, God sees it. And I think it makes Him sad.

Let’s be honest. Many of us wait until it’s too late to meet our needs in any other way. We wait so long that no one can see it and say, ‘There really is a better way.’ There in the hollow of our hunger we start our spiral down. And in the hollow of our hunger, it’s not long before we drown.

There in the darkness of yoru secret you pass a parade of junk food before your craving eyes. It may not even be intentional at first. You sit down to do some work and you realise that research couldn’t hurt. So you log on.

In a minute your mind wanders–it maybe just your hunger propelling you–but you think of an interesting word. Hmm…I wonder what sort of website this is? So you type www.bugerland.com and hit ‘go’. And away you go. That’s all it takes. In thevery first pop-up window is a juicy, airbrushed, professionally photographed piece of meat. Right there on the screen. How easy was that? There’s no more time to think. Now you’re hitting the ‘XXXs’ with fantastic strokes like you’re playing that gopher-pounding game at the carnival. You hit the x and another pops up somewhere on your screen. The sickness seeps in, but you tell yourself that you’re actually trying to stop the madness by minimising the images and the guilt–which just brings on more images and more guilt. You’re addicted. You know it, but for the moment, you just don’t care.

Finally, after indulging in a fruitless frenzy of lusty images of every perverse form of patry, poultry and meat, you’ve had too much. But you can never get enough. So you carefully clean up your history and crawl between cold and guilty sheets.

Dear God, I am so sorry. I will never, ever do that again. You promised in Your Word that You would forgive me, and I promise I will not repeat my sin.

God keeps His promise, even though He knows you won’t keep yours. You can’t keep yours. And as you fall into a desperate, hungry sleep, you realise that this was round 995,463. How many of us are willing to admit to being part of this scenario like the one described? You know the cycle too well. You fear the hunger even more than you fear spending eternity in hell. But guess what? All of us are hungry, and we all have a need. It’s how we choose to meet it and what that will mean.

Internet junk food can never meet your need. It just makes you feel better that you haven’t done the dirty deed. The meat stayed on the screen. You think no one will know you are fat if you consume it only on a screen. No one, but the Guru watches you and He remains discreet. But you are fat. You are addicted. And once you’ve gone a bit too far in, it seems there is no choice but to embrace more sin. You’re hungry and your’re dying inside. Your hunger may be different from the one described; but the brand of junk food you have chosen to view, buy or eat has caused you to lose a lot of sleep. But you just can’t help it. You have been raised as a Sikh of the Guru, and you know how bad all this seems, yet also how trapped we all seem. So you keep your secret safe, while you continue to die from the heart disease that comes from being inactive and obese. You can hardly be active when you can’t even sleep. Many of us are dying from a heart disease that began a long, long time ago. We were wounded, abandoned, or forgotten by those that should have cared.

So we’ve learned that instead of being honest with each other and with God, it’s alot easier just to lie to ourselves and to each other while we smile away and say, ‘I’m doing just great, and you? Oh, Waheguru di Kirpa’. But we’re not doing just great. We’re dying inside, and the longer we keep quiet, the more certain we are to die. We keep telling each other lies, and we keep being lied to. You are not fat. You are a child of the Guru. A child with a hefty bones. You just need to grow into the Guru, and the fat will disappear . . .

Maybe, but that all sounds queer. We’re addicted. Pure and simple. Our hearts are aching; we’re hungry and in need. We may be fat, but we are Sikhs of the Guru. Even when we have continuously asked for forgiveness and help, we are still hungry, addicted and fat. Now God, what are YOU going to do about that?

Are you sick of being fat? There is no more time for telling lies, and there’s no more time for being fat. It’s time to take God at His Word. God’s Word (Shabad) will release us from addiction, heart disease, and death. Soon your heart will not be diseased. It all begins with honesty. Instead of drinking diet soda, drink milk.

Once He begins to free us from being fat, there are some old patterns we may need to break. Because we all hunger for intimacy, and acceptance and love, we need to plan ahead and have the refrigerator stocked with the right things before the hunger hits. This a ver long race, and the longer it is, the more hurdles we have to clear. The harder we run, the more pain we will feel. We need the Guru, we need Sadh Sangat, and we need to be free.

But the most important thing we need is a heart transplant, because the old one is just too diseased to be healed. We have become whores, and whatever our addiction, we’re living a real-life horror story. We have embraced junk food and a hideous list of other things that have eclipsed our love for God. We have only to ask Him for the transplant. Just ask. Once you do that, hunger will cease and our need. There goes our junk food, fat and bondage–and there goes our heart disease.’

The internet is only the only food store. We also go shopping to video, magazine and book stores to try and satisfy the dogs of kaam (lust). While we act according to our pre-ordained destinies designed by deeds of past lives, Guru Granth Sahib Ji offers us the sole hope of reforming our beings and become pure so that we may be worthy of meeting the Lord in His True Court. The smallest of efforts in helping yourself go a long way to produce results of freedom. Through Naam, Shabad of the Guru, read, listen, contemplate and live the Word. You can only do that if you begin to shut out the doors that let in the black dogs – dirty songs, videos, movies, internet, books and fantasies. Ask yourself, are these things helping you get closer to the Guru? In fact these open doors draw you further and further away from the Guru to a point the black dogs drag you to their darkness. Come into the Light – abandon the paths of dark alleys and follow the Eternal Light – the Word of Guru Granth Sahib Ji.

bhareeai math paapaa kai sa(n)g
But when the intellect is stained and polluted by sin,
ouhu dhhopai naavai kai ra(n)g
it can only be cleansed by the Love of the Name.
pu(n)nee paapee aakhan naahi
Virtue and vice do not come by mere words;
kar kar karanaa likh lai jaahu
actions repeated, over and over again, are engraved on the soul.
aapae beej aapae hee khaahu
You shall harvest what you plant.
naanak hukamee aavahu jaahu
O Nanak, by the Hukam of God’s Command, we come and go in reincarnation.
-Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 4