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Summary of Question:Help In praying
Category:Meditation
Date Posted:Thursday, 11/04/1999 11:27 AM MDT

Hello. I am a 15 year old Sikh Indian male born in the USA. My family is

from Punjab, India near Ludihana. I am writing because I have questions that
I believe that you can answer. I often feel that I make large mistakes
because i don't pray or praise gods name much. However, I do read A LOT on
the Sikh gurus. In fact at times when i have nothing to do at school I often
write about the life of a Guru. So, you can say that I am a person that
believs in GOD and the Guru's. However, I do not make it up to my
"standerds." What i mean by this is that i don't feel that i did good when i
tryed my best. Also when i take serious actions i take them because i want to
see what happens not condidering the future after making that decision. I am
a what i think a "lost person on this huge planit" I need help to get down to
earth and change my ways of doing things and consider tghe feelings of others
more than mine. I want to start to pray but I dont understan the holy
writings of the gurus. My parants bought me an english book on the holy
writing and prayers however I find myself quickly reading throug it so i can
do ANYTHING else. If I love GOD so much than why can't I sit down and pray to
him normally. I beg you to please read this letter over and help me. I am
very despirate and in need of help. If you cant help me than would you please
forward this letter to someone else who could. My e-mail is
[email protected] Thank you and may the Gurus and GOD bless you.

***************
REPLY
***************

Dear Born in the USA,

First of all stop being so hard on yourself. Praying is not about pressuring yourself into something. When I was fifteen I felt the same way you do, but I was fifteen. I'm not going to try to make exscuses for you, but, when you are fifteen you generally have a short attention span, you want to be somewhere else and the idea of prayer and and being spiritual just doesnt seem that cool. The fact that you care about it so much speaks volumes about your love of God and your desire to be a spiritual person. Did you ever hear the story of the meanest man in the village. There once was a man who lived in a town full of very bright and happy people who prayed and did good things and were just your every day nice people. In the same town lived a man who every day sat outside of his house and cursed God all day long. When that man died the Angel of death came straight away and carried him off to go back to God. The villagers who saw began to question the Angel of death; "why does he go straight to God all he ever did was curse at God" and the Angel replied " every day his only focus was on god, and so we make no distinctions, you people live normal lives but you only pray to God when you go to the Temple and so your focus is elsewhere."

The fact that you spend your time thinking about god is wonderful. That you think about it and you want to honor God is even better. The Guru's always said that if you meditate on the NAM and always keep on the reflecting of God then you are on the right path. So listen keep thinking of God and keep that desire to pray to Him and it will come to be. My suggestion and what I think will help you is to remind yourself to repeat Wahe Guru in your head. This is prayer and meditation on the Wahe Guru that is important, start your own personal relationship with God as he is a part of you and you demand it he will answer your call. Just trust in God, trust that he will take care of you and you will be fine.

Now if you really want to read and understand the Guru Granth Sahib ji , then I have a suggestion. for a long time I too could not understand the Guru. I did not understand alot of the ideas and the way they were said or written was very difficult for me too get an idea of. Well one day someone suggested that I read the History of the Sikhs as written by a man named MacAullife. He was an english man who travelled all around the Punjab and Spoke with the Gianis of the times. While on his travels he wrote a history of the Sikhs and their Gurus. He also did this, as I said, with the help of the gianis. He was able with their help to point out on which occasions parts of the Guru Granth Sahib were written. Therefore he was able to point out what caused the Guru to write such and such line or stanza and why. This was extremely important because it allows us to understand not just the meaning of some of the passages but also what it pertained to. What is really interesting is that MacAuliffe was at fisrt quite negative about the whole thing and later his respect and admiration grew and it is obvious in his writing. Anyway this series of books helped me to come to my understanding a little bit better. I'm not quite sure where these books are available , however you can ask around and I'm sure you will find them. I think it would be a great idea for you to read something like that it gives you great pride in our religion and way of life.

Anyway I hope that I have answered your question well enough. Just need to stop being hard on yourself and let it come to you. Remember not to feel guilty about anything and Keep Up, you will great.

WAHE GURU JI KA KHALSA WAHE GURU JI KI FATEH



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