I
mentioned a little bit about the idea of “freedom” in one of my recent posts. I
got to thinking about this because it’s one of the things I hear and read about
often from our Sikh youth, especially in the late teens/early 20s. It is a critical
time of transition as people change friend groups, transition into jobs or
university, and shape their futures. For some people it is a realization that
people live their lives in very different ways and we all make a choice on how
to live our lives. For this reason it is also a very vulnerable time.
Unfortunately it seems to be the time when people ask themselves why they are
the only ones living the disciplined life- “everyone else is enjoying life
freely, why can’t I?” We’ve all either heard this or said this ourselves at
some point. It seems like everyone else is enjoying every pleasure of the world
while suddenly your own way of living seems like a burden of rules. I think
parents struggle at this point too because some parents don’t know exactly how
to navigate increasing independence, or allowing children to find their own
way, in their desperate attempt to protect their children from what they see as
a wrong path. I have seen some families in which it can come across
forcefully, leaving youth feeling trapped.
I think one of
the problems is seeing Sikhi as external rules instead of a flowing way of
life. It is seen as static instead of something to be explored and learned.
Without an understanding of the purpose of life, of maya, of God, or a strong
relationship with our family (our main sangat), everything crumbles when we are
tested. Bhai Sewa Singh Ji Tarmala wrote in his books about how we are blinded
by maya, how we don’t hear anhad bani (the voice of God); and how we wander naked
with our hands and feet in shackles, suffering as slaves of the 5 thieves
because we don’t have Naam. In the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji it says, “Some are
self-willed manmukhs; they do not love the Word of the Shabad. Bound in chains,
they wander lost in reincarnation” and “O mind: without the Lord, whatever you
are involved in shall bind you in chains.” So while we may appear free to the
physical eye, we live as prisoners. We were royalty, God’s children, but we are
not awake to see that reality. So when we understand this and if young people
were to see the world from this lens, we no longer see “everyone else is free
and gets to do whatever they want.” Most people aren’t awake to the chains that
they are bound in that traps them into the cycle of reincarnations. I learned a
couple of years ago from mysimran.info’s kathas, that we can really only make a
choice on how to live, if we have experienced God and Naam. Otherwise, by
default, we are living the path of dhaat (path to maya). True freedom, liberation,
comes from God. Gurbani describes how the Gurmukh is free of disease, ego,
pleasure and pain, suffering, desire, fear, doubt, conflict, hatred, and the
list goes on. The Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji says, “The Guru has shattered the
shackles on my feet, and has set me free” (Ang 1002) and “One who realizes his
Lord and Master is set free, and not bound by chains” (Ang 937). This is jeevan
mukhti.
When I look back,
discipline has shaped my life, and yet this type of self-discipline is
undervalued in Kaljug. I learned discipline really young. I started Tae-Kwondo
when I was 4 and I quickly learned that not listening and not doing things
properly means a lot of push ups! My favorite scene in movies is usually when
the person works hard to achieve their dream. These days it seems like there is
a focus on doing things easily and effortlessly, as if it comes naturally. I
have seen people underplay how much effort they put in, or brag that other
people had to put in so much work to get there but they didn’t. It’s supposed
to look easy, even if it isn’t. No one wants to hear about
rules and discipline. Yet it is these things that have saved me from a path
that I’m glad I’m not on. I remember entering high school in grade 8, I thought
I knew everything (like we all do at that age) and it was really my family’s
way of living that way that saved me from sangat that was really a horrible
influence for me in my friend group. We don’t even know enough at that age to
make a real informed choice about most of our decisions, and I
think that’s why parents play such an important role in setting up a
disciplined life (they can't make those decisions for forever!), because it is about the way they live their own life as a
role model too. It is easy for us to say that this is an issue just in
childhood but its not. Like I mentioned earlier, many people never do realize
there are two paths- liv and dhaat, and
that’s God’s Will too: “With the mind caught up in playful
pleasures, involved in all sorts of amusements and sights that stagger the
eyes, people are led astray.” It is by God’s grace that we realize it.
I remember the
day I made a choice to start doing simran and walk a new path back in the
summer of 2016. It was a life-defining moment. I was sitting at the kitchen
table at my uncle’s house at it was late at night. I was listening to a katha
from mysimran.info on my phone and taking notes in my journal. In the katha, I
don’t remember the exact wording but he said something about just try this and
see what happens in your life. I thought to myself, yes I can try this. If it
doesn’t go well, I just go back to my old life anyways. Believe it or not, I
was terrified to walk into the unknown because I knew that it was more than
just about simran… it was about understanding the journey of life in a way that
I had never seen it and I didn’t know if I had it in me to do it. It was those
words to “just try it”, that changed everything for me and redefined what is pain,
what is pleasure, what is suffering, why am I here. As Sikhs, we have been
taught to spend our time doing nitnem, sewa, working, and to balance our lives.
It is not possible without discipline, but it’s also not a set of rules if it
is a core value of our life. Sikhi flows naturally when we know why we are
here, because God does our work for us. I don’t think that you can do this for
anyone else very long- for your parents, or for other people, and I think
that’s where a lot of people go wrong. It’s not for someone else, its for us, and you can't force someone else, it happens out of love alone. Simran feeds you, kirtan feeds you, in a way that our mind has forgotten that it
is hungry for. God created this world for us to enjoy
it! The way to enjoy it is if we are not slaves to it.
In moments of
confusion from the illusion around us, it is easy to doubt ourselves and wonder
if everyone else indeed has it right. While writing this post I read an article
called “Self-Discipline or Just Uptight" (1). This Veer Ji describes his moment of
confusion, “Perhaps I am too uptight, conservative, insecure, narrow-minded, or
misguided. Maybe I am not having as much fun as the other guys and girls
because I place too much importance into my faith which may or may not even
exist. Maybe my moral compass is pointing to radically in one direction. The
question is not whether I am right or wrong, the question is whether I am
inhibiting many of life’s experiences by being too black and white. Am I
missing out on a fun life by being too traditional or ‘faithful’?” (1) He goes on
to describe an example of a young woman who asked him to go clubbing, “I told
her that clubbing was not my thing and that I would not be going. Little did I
know that this was going to open up an even bigger barrage of intrusive
questioning. She began asking me quizzically, so what do you do for fun?... She
had the guts to continue jabbing into my personal life in a sneaky manner, so
how will you please your wife when you get married. You have to have fun in
life, blah, blah, blah… otherwise, she will ‘boot your ass'" (1). He concludes how
he realized it is important to just be true to yourself and not swayed by other
people’s version of how you should live. It reminded me of the time an aunty
told me I was closed-minded for only wanting to marry someone of my own religion. I
solidly know that I want to spend my mind-journey with someone who has the same
core values of Sikhi and therefore understands the same purpose in life (!) and yet it
still threw me off because she said “closed minded.” Like Veer ji, I was disoriented. Because we will be challenged, we need to
be that much more certain of what freedom is, what fun is, what our direction
in life is. Life is supposed to be fun and joyful, and in fact maya is painful. In true freedom we have
broken the chains maya and the cycle of reincarnations, so let us not be fooled
by the illusion of freedom.
Lastly, to share
this shabad, “Har Jan Naacho Har Har Thayi. O humble servant of the
Lord, let your dancing be meditation on the Lord, Har, Har” and
continued into the shabad “It Rang Nacho rakh rakh bhao. So dance in
this love and keep the beat with your feet”
Words to the
shabads (go to display at the top to see transliterations): http://beta.igurbani.com/shabad/1432?verseId=16906 http://beta.igurbani.com/shabad/1375?verseId=16034
you can also
download it from (Delhi 2017 Rainsbhai)
