Sikhi? Does It Bring Kindness Into Your Life?

[spnadmin]

This is the way it is supposed to work on our journey to being Gurmukh.

ਪਉ ਸੰਤ ਸਰਣੀ ਲਾਗੁ ਚਰਣੀ ਮਿਟੈ ਦੂਖੁ ਅੰਧਾਰੁ ॥੨॥
Po Santh Saranee Laag Charanee Mittai Dhookh Andhhaar ||2||
Seek the Sanctuary of the Saints, and fall at their feet; your suffering and darkness shall be removed. ||2||


ਸਤੁ ਸੰਤੋਖੁ ਦਇਆ ਕਮਾਵੈ ਏਹ ਕਰਣੀ ਸਾਰ ॥
Sath Santhokh Dhaeiaa Kamaavai Eaeh Karanee Saar ||
Practice truth, contentment and kindness; this is the most excellent way of life.


ਆਪੁ ਛੋਡਿ ਸਭ ਹੋਇ ਰੇਣਾ ਜਿਸੁ ਦੇਇ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਨਿਰੰਕਾਰੁ ॥੩॥
Aap Shhodd Sabh Hoe Raenaa Jis Dhaee Prabh Nirankaar ||3||
One who is so blessed by the Formless Lord God renounces selfishness, and becomes the dust of all. ||3||


ਜੋ ਦੀਸੈ ਸੋ ਸਗਲ ਤੂੰਹੈ ਪਸਰਿਆ ਪਾਸਾਰੁ ॥
Jo Dheesai So Sagal Thoonhai Pasariaa Paasaar ||
All that is seen is You, Lord, the expansion of the expanse.


ਕਹੁ ਨਾਨਕ ਗੁਰਿ ਭਰਮੁ ਕਾਟਿਆ ਸਗਲ ਬ੍ਰਹਮ ਬੀਚਾਰੁ ॥੪॥੨੫॥੯੫॥
Kahu Naanak Gur Bharam Kaattiaa Sagal Breham Beechaar ||4||25||95||
Says Nanak, the Guru has removed my doubts; I recognize God in all. ||4||25||95||


Truth, kindness and compassion are the keys to finding God in All ! But how does this happen for better or worse?

Please share your stories of kindness found or kindness lost in Sikhi.

 

[Tejwant Singh]

Sikhi brings awakening to my life from which sprouts everything else, starting from the morning dew drops.

 

[findingmyway]

For me the interaction between Sikhi and kindness goes both ways. I am incresingly trying to use my Sikhi to nurture my compassionate side more and more (including when road rage would prev take over!!). Equally when someone shows me kindness, it strengthens my connection to Sikhi by restoring my faith in humanity. For example, strangers on a train sharing their food with us in Italy, being helped with my suitcase on the streets of Melbourne, a kind word from a random stranger, someone spotting how lost I was in Paris and stopping to help, a lift from someone working locally to another train station in NZ as the one I was at was not operating that day! The list goes on!!

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Sikhi? Does it Bring Kindness into Your Life?

FindingWay Ji Does Kindness bring life into your Sikhi ?

 

[Gyani Jarnail Singh]

Is it a coincidence that Guru nanak ji talked about DYA to the Brahmin when He asked about the REAL Janeau....and DYA RAAM was the First of the PANJ PIYARAS to walk up to offer his head to Guru Gobind Singh Ji in the Concluding Act of the Sikhi Play of the 10 Nanaks !! Dya in the Beginning and Dya in the Conclusion..Sikhi Gurmatt is incomplete if DYA is missing.:grinningsingh:

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Gyani ji Agreed Sikhi like DNA is made up four bases one of which is DYA.

 

[Ishna]

I just want to say that something as small as just the title of this tread has really got me consciously thinking about kindness in my day-to-day life. I didn't think about it too much before. So thanks Admin ji for bringing this into the front of our minds.

I started catching public transport this time last year with a colleague. In my city we have public transport tickets that you can use up to 10 times. My colleage gave me a really cool tip - she said, save a ticket that has 9 trips used, and carry it with you. That way, if someone tries to validate their ticket and it's expired and they don't have money for another one, or they ask you for money on the street "for a bus ticket" you can help them out by giving them the last trip on your ticket.

 

[Luckysingh]

I have realised that simple kindness is the first step in helping humanity.

If we can attend to the 'needs' of another, even if they are not requesting, then we have taken the first positive step towards an act of kindness.
Once you do this,you then realise that there is so much more that you can do in ways of help and acts of kindness.

We shouldn't feel obliged to help or act in kindness because we feel that one day we may have a similar moment of need !!
But we should feel obliged to act as a sense of duty.

 

[Brother Onam]

Kindness found:
Some years ago, I had brought my Ghanaian brother to Punjab for spiritual 'pilgrimage'. Most people in Punjab are, it turns out, quite isolated, as far as being tuned into the world at large. I was rather amazed to find that, in our week there, we found only one person who knew of Ghana, and the people who had ever heard of Africa you could count on one hand. (some had vaguely heard of a far-away place called South Africa, by virtue of the fact that this was some distant location where Indians sometimes travel. But as far as where it was, or that there is a continent attached to it, -unknown.) Few, if any, people there had ever laid eyes on an African. Also, in many places around the world, and we know India is not spared this, there is a subtle fear or prejudice against darker people.
In light of this, I was overwhelmed when we were in Amritsar, we met some Sikhs who invited him to stay in their village. I returned to the US; he went with them to their town (Sohalpur?), and lived with them for two more months. Not only did they not frown upon him, jet-black as he is, nor did they put him to menial tasks around their community, they virtually refused to let him work, and encouraged him rather to relax and spend as much time in simran as he could. That he remain in touch with Waheguru and steeped in simran was their only concern. When it was time for him to return to Africa, it was a parting with tears shed.
Sacred Love can conquer all.

 

[Ishna]

I just can't get over the effect this thread has had on my life.

I've been carrying grudges and being purposefully rude to colleages who've made work life difficult for me in the past and who I've decided aren't 'very nice people'. Since this thread opened up and I've been thinking about kindness more, I've started making a big effort to see beyond their past actions towards me and be nice to them anyway.

And you know what? It feels a lot better to be nice to people even when they've been mean to you. It changes the energy of the whole day. And you start to feel compassion for the other person, thinking why were they mean to begin with, hearing what other people say about them (that yeah their mean, they're rude, they're working the system, etcetc) and wondering how sad it must be for that person to live each day in such a pool of negativity. Maybe they'll be a bit nicer if they get a bit of niceness out of their day too.

In the back of my mind I've got a little voice saying 'why are you being nice to people who would stab you in the back and humiliate you again if given the chance?' and I just try to stay positive in the knowledge that I would have done my best and done the right thing, so it doesn't matter what they do.

How do others feel about being kind to people who 'might not deserve it' or who 'might bite the hand that is nice to them'?

 

[spnadmin]

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How do others feel about being kind to people who 'might not deserve it' or who 'might bite the hand that is nice to them'?

This happens on a regular basis at work and has for years. I have noticed it happens very often to people who try harder, do more than they are required, reach out, help more and are engaged in solving problems that affect everyone. It also has never failed that when managers go out of their way to cover or protect a subordinate in trouble, that very person will kick sand in their eyes given the opportunity. There will always be a critical mass of people who feel they are "entitled" to receiving good, and feel even more entitled to responding with meanness. And as you say, these are people who are in dire social, emotional and spiritual need and do not know how to help themselves.

There is an Africa American proverb: You know you are up in front, when they are shooting you from behind. That proverb carries a lot of hidden meaning, but another saying comes to mind: "doing the right thing is its own reward." So keep on doing the right thing.

My own way is to seek out the people who are kind and make an effort to be more often with them, soaking up their goodness. That in turn gives me the energy I need to be positive even when others are not. From these people I have learned true morality all the days of my life.

 

[Tejwant Singh]

A personal story:

If I am not mistaken, I have shared this earlier here many years ago, but it deserves re-telling.

In Sept.1998, I bought a gas station in Henderson, NV, just on the outskirts of Las Vegas, the most famous place of pilgrimage for the nice to become naughty. Where the emperors and emperoresses declothe themselves from the inside out in all aspects. It is a place to loosen yourself amongst the neons in order to get lost.

I was new to this business. After two days, a lady by the name of Barbara in her late 60's shows up. She told me that her SS check would arrive in three days but she was out of cigarettes and if I could give her credit for that long. She also said that she had a sick mum at home.

To give credit to the unknown makes no business sense but that was not the thought that came to mind. My mind said to me that if this lady does not have cigarettes, it means she has no food at home either. I told Barbara that I would only give her credit if she also took eggs, milk, bread and anything else she needed for her mum to eat. Tears started flowing through her eyes. She was startled by my reaction. She came for a $10.00 credit and I was ready to give her a lot more. She took the stuff, came after three days, paid me back and took some more things. This routine continued.

She had 2 sons Pete and Mark whose father was an Alaskan Indian by birth and had died. The natives from Alaska get money from the oil revenues which these 2 kids never shared a penny with their mum but spent on drinking cheap booze. As Barbara was not Alaskan, she depended on her SS check to survive.

Two weeks after the first incident, Barbara comes to the store, pays for what she owed, buys some more stuff and then hands me a bag and tells me it is for me. I opened it. It was a beautiful crochet blanket which she made for me. I thanked her and hugged her. Her sons told me that she worked for hours a day to finish it. She wanted to do that for me.

I got it dry-cleaned and still use it after Sukhasan on the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Here, one can also talk about jooth and such because she was a smoker and how dare I use the blanket on SGGS. I show it with great pride to all who come and re-tell the whole story again and again feeling gleeful with every word that comes out.

Unfortunately, she had to move from the neighbourhood but she used to take 3 buses just to come to see me.

She passed away some years ago and I was able to arrange a fundraiser for her funeral where I had the opportunity to share this wonderful bond created by her love and caring nature.

Only a few people like Barbara can possess this type of kindness and gratitude and I am the lucky one to get a bit of its fragrance.

It makes me think of her with a wide smile every night while I am doing Sukhasan.

Tejwant Singh

 

[findingmyway]

I just can't get over the effect this thread has had on my life.

I've been carrying grudges and being purposefully rude to colleages who've made work life difficult for me in the past and who I've decided aren't 'very nice people'. Since this thread opened up and I've been thinking about kindness more, I've started making a big effort to see beyond their past actions towards me and be nice to them anyway.

And you know what? It feels a lot better to be nice to people even when they've been mean to you. It changes the energy of the whole day. And you start to feel compassion for the other person, thinking why were they mean to begin with, hearing what other people say about them (that yeah their mean, they're rude, they're working the system, etcetc) and wondering how sad it must be for that person to live each day in such a pool of negativity. Maybe they'll be a bit nicer if they get a bit of niceness out of their day too.

In the back of my mind I've got a little voice saying 'why are you being nice to people who would stab you in the back and humiliate you again if given the chance?' and I just try to stay positive in the knowledge that I would have done my best and done the right thing, so it doesn't matter what they do.

How do others feel about being kind to people who 'might not deserve it' or who 'might bite the hand that is nice to them'?

Ishna ji, In my limited experience responding with anger or meanness even when called for leads to more anger and meanness and it becomes a never ending circle! Mean ness often stems from fear, jealousy or ignorance. Anger often stems from ignorance or personal issues that an outsider can never know. Kindness in response is hrd but much better in the longterm as it will often change a person's response (eventually) and break the cycle! Easier said than done......