Over the past years my practice of reciting the nitnem banis has been sporadic. It’s like any spiritual practice, it takes commitment and discipline to continue day in and day out. Sometimes I am on solid, and sometimes not. My challenge is to be stable all the time. In the past I had my daily routine of kundalini yoga, meditation/simran and Japji Sahib. I would sometimes do Rehiras and Kirtan Sohila, but that wasn’t always regular.
In my school days in India we used to have Gurdwara in the morning and evening and we would recite Japji & Rehiras. So I did not get familiar with the other Nitnem Banis till later in my life. We used to practice Gatka to an audio version of Prof. Sat Nam Singh Sethi reciting Jaap Sahib, so I knew a bit of that bani, but had never really practiced it. I remember reading Jaap Sahib, and it taking a long time since the words/language used was very different than what I was used to. Then after practicing Jaap Sahib it became much easier and I moved on to, Shabad Hazare. This is a short bani so was easy to add on to my daily routine. Then came Tav Prasad Swaya, and finally Anand Sahib.
While learning the new banis I found it very helpful to listen to audio recordings of someone else reciting the banis. This gave me a sort of "sound memory" of the banis and pronunciation, so that when I actually sat down and read the bani I would remember some of the parts and words. Definitely try this out if you are learning a new bani! (Sukhmani Sahib is next for me!)
Continue reading ‘Experiences Doing Nitnem Banis’
Today I was reading an article on SikhNet that was written by Amandeep Singh on the topic of Yoga and Sikh Dharma. It was quite interesting to read and think about his descriptions of how there used to be connections with Yoga and Sikhi. I know some might think this is "propaganda", since many Sikhs have little understanding of Yoga and think of Yoga as something "against sikhi".
Different things in history have changed how we as Sikhs live and the things that we do. In the video titled "Women and Turbans by Shanti Kaur" she talks about how Sikh women used to wear turbans and possible reasons why this stopped. In the same way in more recent times during the British Rule of India HUGE things were changed. (Our bana, our bani, practices, etc). In those times Sikhs were commonly considered a sect of Hinduism, which caused Sikhs to discontinue and stop any types of things that might be considered Hindu related. If you have been to Hazur Sahib (Nanded, South India) some of these practices have not changed with the rest of India, and you’ll notice that they do some things very different then you are used to.
Another thing which I think has been affected and changed is our bani. During the time of the British rule some of the banis were shortened and cut. For a Sikh, bani is his/her strength, so by taking/changing bani from us it is a way to reduce our "power". Just as keeping our uncut hair gives us more "energy", by cutting your hair you loose this "tool".
Continue reading ‘Losing Our History?’
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