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!)
While we are on the topic of Sikhi and Youth…there is always the issue of how as a parent we can teach and give our children an experience of Sikhi. How to give something that is more than history and facts, but something much deeper that they can experience for them self? I for one am traveling this path as a parent and figuring this out as I go. My six year old son Narayan Singh is quite a kid. We sometimes joke and call him "Narayan Lion Singh" because he is very much like a lion in his personality. He wants to be the leader of the pack and doesn’t like to be told what to do. He is fast and strong. He always wants to do things on his own terms. He is full of energy and can be very aggressive at times. He also can sometimes react strongly to things and get emotional easily when something doesn’t go his way.
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