9.6 Third Antidote for BandgiNama by Raghbir Singh Bir

Bandginama

S. Raghbir Singh ‘Bir’September 3, 2001

Contents

I Foreward 5II About the Author 8III Preface 10

1 Introduction 132 What is a Sikh? 243 GURBANI - Guru’s Word 28

3.1 The Place of the Guru’s Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293.1.1 The Supremacy of the Guru’s Word . . . . . . . . . . . 303.2 The Guru’s Word is a panacea for all mental ills . . . . . . . . 303.2.1 How to judge the spiritual state . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313.2.2 Self-contradictory Views in the Book? . . . . . . . . . . 313.2.3 Self-effort and God’s will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323.2.4 Patience and Effort essential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.2.5 The Guru’s Word the Kalpatru Tree . . . . . . . . . . 333.2.6 Material and Spiritual Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.2.7 Mental Attitude During Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.2.8 The Guru’s Word and Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343.2.9 The Magic of the Guru’s Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

4 The Congregation 36

4.1 Man’s Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364.2 The company of Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364.3 The Company of Good Souls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374.3.1 The Glory of Great souls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384.3.2 Diﬃculty in recognising a genuine saint . . . . . . . . . 391

CONTENTS

24.3.3 Who is a saint? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394.3.4 Knowledge and Intuition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404.3.5 How to Associate with a Saint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414.3.6 The Congregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414.3.7 Association of the Soul with the inﬁnite Soul . . . . . . 41

5 Prayer 43

5.1 The ﬁrst stage of prayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455.2 The Second Stage of Prayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475.2.1 Physical and Mental Ailments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495.3 Third Stage of prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505.3.1 The Furtive Inroads of Lower Self . . . . . . . . . . . . 515.4 Fourth Stage of Prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515.5 Fifth Stage of prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535.6 Sixth Stage of Prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545.6.1 Need for Prayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

6 Simran - Rememberance of God 58

6.1 Nam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

7 Simran - Its three stages 67

7.1 The First Stage: Audible Repetition of the Divine Name . . . 677.1.1 Guru’s Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707.2 The Second Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717.2.1 Mental Simran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717.2.2 The Practice of Nam with our Every Breath . . . . . . 727.3 The Third Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727.3.1 Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727.4 The State of Sahej . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727.4.1 My First Illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737.4.2 Second Illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747.4.3 The Fruit of Sahej . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757.5 Centres of Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767.6 Daswan Duar, or Tenth Gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

8 GYAN: Divine Knowledge 80

8.1 First Stage of Gyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 838.2 Second Stage of Gyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 848.3 Third Stage of Gyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 858.4 Fourth Stage of Gyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888.5 Fifth Stage of Gyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93