Why Desire to End Reincarnation?

Findingmyway ji,
For sure, I have thoughts about conscience: the sense of what is right and wrong that governs somebody's thoughts and actions, urging him or her to do right rather than wrong.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/sikh-sikhi-sikhism/26496-why-desire-to-end-reincarnation.html

To me, conscience is where our hukam orders from Waheguru come from. I’m not talking about dramatic, world changing Divine Commands, although Waheguru certainly does select His devotees for those too. I mean the ‘learning hukams’ that ordinary people get. Every day, we make small decisions about seemingly insignificant and mundane things . . . like choosing to give up a seat on the bus to and elder, but these small matters of choosing to act selflessly add up over a lifetime. We become what we practice.

Here’s a Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji sloka how we transform our soul through actions:
kir kir krxw iliK lY jwhu ]
kar kar karanaa likh lai jaahu ||
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496
actions repeated, over and over again, are engraved on the soul.
Guru Nanak Dev Ji
Jap 4
Source: http://www.sikhitothemax.com/page.asp?SourceID=G&PageNo=4

All in all, I think the conscience is the study guide for learning how to live peacefully with self and others. We seem to have a built-in teacher of life-lessons and to me His Name is Waheguru. What’s more is that if you take the training course seriously and apply your conscious will to every test question, you feel – by the presence of absence of peace in your heart – whether you did the right thing and even whether there is more to do to complete the lesson.

To me, the conscience is the Other, the Presence, the Satguru who is patient, but persistent in encouraging and guiding us to become a better people. I suppose I feel the ‘otherness’ of the conscience, because – despite being very good at rationalizing self-interest – I just can’t find peace within myself if I do something even just a little selfish.

Here’s an example. . . let’s say I’m packing lunches and one portion is just a little bigger than the other. I will either have to make the portions equal or give the bigger one to someone else. The other person won’t know the difference and they’re still getting enough, so why can’t I take the bigger one for myself? I’m doing the lunches. I deserve it. My rational thinking mind says, ‘Hey! It’s OK. I can do it. Who cares, anyway?’ But my conscience sneaks up on me and whispers, ‘But that would be selfish, regardless of whether anyone knows or is unaffected.’ So there, I want to do one thing, but my conscience tells me to ‘do the right thing’. Where does this secondary attitude about the situation come from? It’s just a completely harmless act. So what’s the big deal? Why would I debate with myself to take care of myself first?

What is the conscience to you? Do you think it’s just self-talk? What’s your opinion about the cause and effect of insignificant little internal debates, like the example above? Where do the sentiments of guilt and remorse come from?

I’ve focused on selfishness vs. selflessness, but we could just as readily look at deceitfulness vs. truthfulness, or cowardice vs. courage, or any of the many vice-virtue pairs to see what kind of consequences result from either obeying or ignoring the conscience. . . maybe we could set out some objectives for what we want to learn from this discussion. So far, I have described the behavior of ‘my’ conscience and gave my perspective on what it is to me.

What are your views? How does the conscience behave in you? In your opinion and through your experiences, does it seem like a natural or supernatural (spiritual) phenomenon?

Chardi Kala!
t

 
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Narayanjot Kaur,
OK. . . OK. . . I'll get back to pulling references from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. But how could I resist Findingmyway's questions about conscience? : )
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496

The way I see it, conscience is one of those things that make humans 'freaks of nature'. . . that and incessant thinking and the creative urges.

Sat Sri Akal,
t

ik-jivan ji

I hope you don't think I was being critical. I was not. My question was for some additional content in order to get another thread started on a very interesting topic.

Narayanjot Kaur ji,
No. No. I understood you fine. It’s just that you echoed exactly what my conscience has been nagging me to do all week – research references to the soul. I actually got caught up about organising slokas by theme. . .

I have a strategy. I want to sort ALL of the references I find in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and then we can summarise the conclusions for each theme. E.g. origin, purpose, nature, et cetera. However, there are a lot of references. Is there some place to put pages and pages of reference, so that they can be reviewed, like an index, but not have them clutter the discussion? Is there any way to use them for footnotes, but keep them out of the main discussion?
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496

Sat Sri Akal,
t

Usually all of the major search engines make it possible for you to post a link to the verse or pangatee, so you see one small part of the shabad with the reference, and then above it the link to the Ang and the entire shabad.

I am not aware of a way to set this up like a table or chart with columns for page, origin, purpose, etc. because the forum software does not support tables. So the best you could manage would be an outline standard for each entry. If that makes sense?

We have some learned readers and writers here who know the shabads and the significance of each. They might want to debate your schema for organizing things based on their personal understanding. And that would then mean there would be many digressions about how things should be organized, and away from the topic of the thread. Frustrating.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496

Whenever I have uploaded a chart it was actually a jpeg file after it was taken as a page grab from a larger file or document.

A table or chart is a good way to marshall a lot of information. At the same time a table or chart can lead to some heated discussion because an entire shabad often leads one to a completely different conclusion from a single line. The entire shabad gives the total message intended by the Gurus, whereas single lines tend to sound/look like kernels of wisdom that one might find on a greeting card. So here I recommend caution.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496

Why not go with a standard way of presenting the basic information for one entry, followed by a complete shabad, and then your personal interpretation. Keep your table at hand so you can pick up with the next entry and be organized. But we generally do not like it when the shabad is omitted.

Findingmyway ji,

Guru Fateh.

Interesting take on conscience. I have a question or two about it.

How about intuition and subconscious?

Are these three things co-related and do they intermingle with each other without any conflicts?

Ik Jivan ji,

I would also urge you to pitch in.

Thanks & regards

Tejwant Singh

Ik-Jivan ji,

Guru Fateh.

You have quoted 1/3 of the whole verse which is on page 47 of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, in search for the word soul.

Can you please enlighten us which word in the following partial verse means soul.

Can you also please give your personal take on this?

We also know that the shabad that has the verse of RAHAO in it shows us the central idea/message of the whole shabad. Does your take compliment that verse?

Thanks and I must say, I quite enjoy your posts.

Regrads

Tejwant Singh

Narayanjot Kaur ji,
There's a solution. I've attached an incomplete 'draft only' of a structured PDF file. . .
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26496

OK, now I know how to upload a PDF. I'm removing the draft. It's incomplete.

I can guess it is taking a long time. This kind of work - the model for organizing information that you have proposed - could be the framework for a master's thesis for a university program in religious studies. But once you have a draft, you will have something that will take you a long way into the future because you will be able to add to it and develop it.