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Summary of Question:	Ginetic Diseses
Category:	General Sikhism
Date Posted:	Sunday, 5/26/2002 11:31 AM MDT

Sat Shri akaal,

I have a question i would like to ask the because i am going out of my mind for the past 4 years arguing with myself internally and slowly losing all faith in the almighty god. I will give you an insight in to my family life, we are a very gursikh family with the majority of the family amritshaka. Only the childeren 9 of us and 2 uncles and 1 aunty have not taken amrit (and i do not think we ever will). We have been brought up as though we had taken amrit buy then given the choice that if we do or not want to. We have intergrated into the western society but have never lost our identity. Now the two points

1) There is a ginetic disese that has affected my cousins from the day they were born 1 was born 4 years ago and the docters said that it would not affect any other child if my aunti and uncle had any, buy it did she is 1 years old. So i have this ginetic disorder which may have affected my family generations ago but no one knows. However, these two have it the doctors have given them 10-15 years each to live. My uncle and aunty have both drunk amrit and are religious but this is taring them apart it is also taring us apart i know that god does things to test the amount of religious perceverance we have but i am scared but but i do not go to god and console for there lives i think i am losing faith in god. I am a scientist and and have always tried to live with science and god but it is becoming hard. I have never asked anything from god ever as i have always had everything in the world provided, but have been thankful to god for the happiness he had bestowed on my family. Now i don not know i am losing faith and am scared to truely ask from my heart the first thing from god which is for there lives. I am afraid that if it is not granted i might lose all my faith in god.

2) I do not know to the full extent how if they die it will effect my family, my grand parents have become very ill in thier old age but they have fought cancer aned many other diseses and are fit and healthy. My grandmother is being eaten up by their ill health each day and sometimes her health does worsen. I am not sure what i can do as my scientific knowledge is useless as genetic research is not that asvanced yet, and a cure may not be ready for another 20-30 years. I know in my heart only i can sort out my predicament and nobody else but sometimes i just go crazy thinking about how useless it all is. My mother says have faith in god, but i do not know anymore i just do not know!!!

Thanks for any reply

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Sat Siri Akal.

My heart goes out to you and your family because I know this must be a difficult trial for you. Let me share a few thoughts and maybe they will be of some use.

The Siri Guru Granth Sahib is a very scientific teacher. It is my own experience that faith isn't required when going to the Guru-just an open mind to see the simple truths that He teaches. Guru doesn't teach anything that you can't, ultimately, observe with your own mind-although some things require a more meditative mind than others. And the Guru talks a lot about the fact that life is impermanent, that it is part of God's play that something gets created, then destroyed-but really-the Spirit never dies.

So-in some ways-your scientific mind is a help for you. Because God is a very practical reality. On the one hand, doctors have told your cousins they only have 10-15 years to live. On the other hand, your cousins could die in a car crash tomorrow or could be the exception to the rule and live for 30 years. What's causing you and your family pain is attachment to life as if death is something to be sad about. The words of the Guru can give you very excellent council on these matters and ground you in the "facts" of what it means to be alive, to be human-and the very real precariousness of the entire situation.

In Japji, Guru Nanaak thanks the Creator for all the gifts and says, "Even when you hand me thousands and thousands of terrible tortures-still-this is Your gift to me." And this dillema is a gift. It's a chance to get real about God. Go to the Siri Guru Granth Sahib and just start reading. Read with a mind to fight with It, read with a mind to tear It apart and try to understand It. The wisdom of the Guru is the wisdom that can guide you and your family through this time. It isn't about believeing what you don't understand. The human awareness was meant to understand God. It's about being willing to give yourself that chance, in the midst of the pain, to try and see this all from a more transcended position.

Because the truth is, your cousins will die inevitably some day, AND they will never die at all. And that is the truth of all of life, from the perspective of the Guru.

You and your family are in my prayers and I may God and Guru be with you.

All love,

GPK