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This past Sunday’s class was about Thirst or Pyass (in punjabi) and I invited brother Rubinpaul Singh to help the kids make a better connection with Gurbani and explore the concept of Thirst.

We changed things up this week by setting up the structure for the class as more of a Gurbani Vichaar and the shabad for this week’s class was as follows:

ਪ੍ਰਭ ਸਿਉ ਮਨੁ ਲੀਨਾ ਜਿਉ ਜਲ ਮੀਨਾ ਚਾਤ੍ਰਿਕ ਜਿਵੈ ਤਿਸੰਤੀਆ ॥

Prabh Sio Man Leenaa Jio Jal Meenaa Chaathrik Jivai Thisantheeaa ||

My mind is attached to the Lord, like the fish to the water, and the rainbird, thirsty for the raindrops.

(full shabad can be found here: http://searchgurbani.com/guru_granth_sahib/ang/703/line/30366 )

The class was broken up into groups and each group was given 1 line with the definitions of each word in the line. Then the group was told to make sense of the line and try to figure out what the meaning of that specific line was.

In this shabad, Guru Arjan Dev Ji talks about his thirst to be with his beloved God. He says things like:

” Whoever leads me to my Beloved – I would cut off my head and offer it to him, even if I were granted

the Blessed Vision of His Darshan for just an instant”

Guru Sahib is expressing how badly he wants to be one with his God and he explains his love and his thirst by comparing himself to a fish. He says, “My mind is attached to the Lord, like the fish to water”

We further talked about how that relates to us? How do we start to develop this thirst ourselves? What does it take to get to that level?

Perhaps we can conclude that short meetings such as the one we had last sunday are a good start. A group of youth sat together and actually LISTENED to what the Guru had to say to us. We all HEAR kirtan, some more frequently than others, but seldom do we actually take the time to register what the Guru is actually saying. I thought this week’s class was a good way to get a little taste for thirst.

We gave the example of imaginging yourself in the middle of a desert with absolutely nothing but sand in sight. Just the hot boiling sun, the sand and you. And as you can imagine, after a couple of hours, you would start to get thirsty….. but why? Simply because we KNOW what water tastes like and we KNOW that only water will be able to quench our thirst. In the same way, we need to taste Gurbani more and more often in order for us to develop more of a thirst for it…

The class ended with the quiet listening of the Shabad which we discussed above, this time actually letting it register wiith us and having more meaning than before…

More thoughts can be found on brother Rubinpaul Singh’s blog here:  http://spiritofthesikh.blogspot.com/2011/02/pyaas.html

The shabad can be heard here:

http://www.gurmatsangeetproject.com/Recordings/DharamSinghZakhmi3/Sun%20Yaar%20Hamaray%20Sajjan.mp3

Looking forward to this Sunday’s class! 11am-12pm. GNFA Gurudwara. Trailer # 9!

p.s. it is important to be noted here that Amitoj Singh was our beloved Champion Child this week. GUD JAAB!