Chazsingh ji I am losing track of what you are postulating here.
Can you please perhaps help and clarify specifics as,
- Are you repeating words, lines or parts of Gurbani from Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and please share exact unless you are doing all of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji from start to finish or any other way!
- How you plan to read or relate to rest of Gurbani in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji aside from your Simran?
- If Simran is supposedly creating freedom why are you at the same time identifying dependencies and almost show manifestations of fear in bad dreams, etc., when you miss Simran?
- Did you have difficulties sleeping before that the current plan helps you with and what was your 8 hours of sleep like without Simran and do you do any physical work or exercise in normal living?
- Reason is that a laborer carrying bricks all day will use a brick as a pillow and sleep without all this modern world mind bender perturbations!
- Why would what you achieve with what you do any different from a laborer of pious and simple mind tiring through labor and toil?
I am sorry I will not comment on Yogi Bhajan stuff as he is not here to defend himself and there is no question many people felt or got lot of good through his teachings. I personally would not have found much use for his teachings as Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is pretty simple to understand if you approach it with love.
Sat Sri Akal.
Ambarsaria ji, I understand your point and comment.
It's a very good point indeed.
I can say from my own personal self that the simran can help one to relax and focus more so on the message. I say 'help', meaning someone may get the message without it.
I have lived life in the fast lane for too long. To be doing something like simran to help me calm down and think has itself worked.
Then again, if I had done something else physically relaxing, i'm still sure that would have helped.
The meditation and simran is a very
physical thing at first that does help you relax and then to get in touch with your true innerself and the creator within you, only then does it become
spiritual. I can vouch for this and say that it has helped me here. But it doesn't mean it's the only way. But with my lifestyle, it seemed the only way, as I never had any space for spirituality.
Your point about learning the gurbani and messages from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib by approaching it with 'love' is very valid.- This 'love' is very important.
I can only speak for myself here- Sadly, I'm not sure if I could have approached it with love before as my life was very much in the fast lane, 24/7.
I really needed to break away in some manner and only then could I achieve the 'love' to approach the gurbani. So, in my case the physical meditation and simran helped me with this and now I can read shabads with much more love and understanding that i can't remember having before.
So, if one can approach gurbani with 'true love' without having to find yourself by relaxing and meditation, then very good. Unfortunately, I couldn't and I needed it to gear me up.
I hope that makes you understand it a little better.
Besides the well being and experiences you encounter whilst doing simran, I can say that it has definitely helped me conquer the 5 vices much better than before even though I never intended. It just happened and is happening all the while.
For a while, I actually felt that my whole personality was changing as I couldn't quite understand why I had done such things in the past. (simple things like sacrificed my health just to earn more money). -Then later I realised that I had simply began to conquer desires, attachments and ego etc...
So, I can say and feel that it has definitely put me more in touch with the creator within me.
What Yogi Bhajan says about not dreaming, Chaz ji has mentioned a couple of times before. I do recall reading or seeing a video where he stated this, BUT I never actually bought it all then or now because scientifically we ALL dream. We cannot always remember what we dream, but our mind is dreaming all the while, it is active when we are asleep.
In a night most of us will have several dreams but we wake up and can only recall 1-2, and some of us cannot recall any.
I don't want to talk too much about this here as it will go off topic, but if someone says they don't dream- then they are in fact saying that they don't remember dreaming- Bottom line.
You are correct when you point out if the focus should be just be on 1)simran/meditation or (2) to be reading and studying the Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji and contemplating the creator.
Well, the focus should be on Both.
It's just that for many of us it helps to do 1 and then 2, but that doesn't mean that someone can't do 2 without 1.
For me, I needed to do 1, and now find it beneficial doing 1 and 2.
In this same manner if I were to be teaching a novice, I would just like Yogi Bhajan recommend that they first try 1 and then 2 and then both. My valid reason would be my self experience. Just as a student learning physics would be recommended 1-2 text books due to the teachers self experience, in the same way I would recommend meditation as an aid.
Remembering this, that there would be a few students that wouldn't need to read the physics book in great depths compared to others as they may grasp the theories and concepts first hand without the need for reports and experiments.- A few students can do this quite well.
I have not encountered any nightmares or negatives as such, but I think this is more to do with physiological and biological functioning as well as inner fears that you may not be aware of.
It is nothing to do with the fact that you didn't say waheguru the night before or such. GOD LOVES YOU, HE DOES NOT PUNISH AND CAUSE HARM AND SUFFERING if you are too busy to say waheguru.
So Chazji, I don't think your nightmares are related in this sense, but then again anything, I mean absolutely anything that you
think or feel happens and it helps bring out the good in you (which is simran in this case), then that is a personal benefit and
good thing. There is nothing wrong if you actually feel this way and it helps you to jap more naam.
So even if eating unhealthy cakes, helps one to jap more naam, then so be it- carry on.
We are all different and no matter what the approach, as long as we understand and feel the ultimate love for the ultimate almighty, is what really matters every living day until our death.
I try to avoid reading about spiritual experiences of simran and meditation, as this way I actually feel it more personal and it stops me looking or expecting for things to happen.
It has been more than amazing at times with feelings of immense love for God Almighty that I can't really explain, but the biggest factor is that it has definitely helped me to become a better overall person. I actually feel and know what my purpose for life is and what I should be doing.
I know just how much of my life I have wasted chasing the rainbows. But it is ALL about learning and experiencing.
Only through experiencing do we truly learn.
In my case experiencing fast lane life and then giving it all up with the help of the lord through simran and learning from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji, I feel I have learnt, only upto now though, As I have the rest of my life to learn even more, we carry on learning every day.- One can never know it all.
Tomorrow I will know a little more than today and tomorrow I hope to have more immense love for creator and creation than today.
As Sikhs, we have the perfect name for learners.
Learning the truth is never ending,as I said, I or anyone will NEVER know it all.
We should try to learn more and more each day until the very last day.
The simran is a nice tool for me that can help me learn and love much more.
Today there is more immense love for creator and creation than yesterday and tomorrow there will be more than today. This is how I want the rest of my life to carry on. This is from what I know now, at this moment, as tomorrow I may feel and know different and want my life another way.
Waheguru