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This site is for anyone who’d like to share their experience with prayer and meditation.
It’s difficult to talk about one’s ‘favorite’ prayer. Still, at one time or the other, many of us have felt the power of this prayer. This is an attempt to share some such prayers. A true and heartfelt account of such an experience can help others.
You are welcome to contribute your prayer. Suggestion: You could include its gist or meaning, why it means so much to you, any life experiences that go to illustrate how it helped you, any other piece from literature or scriptures that says the same thing.
| WAHEGURU
Waheguru. It is the term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God, the Supreme Being or the creator of all. It means “The Wonderful Teacher” in the Punjabi language. ‘Wah’ translates to wonder and Guru is a term denoting ‘teacher’. Waheguru is the distinctive name of the Supreme Being in the Sikh dispensation. In Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, the term does not figure in the compositions of the Gurus, though it occurs therein, both as Vahiguru and Vahguru, in the hymns of Bhatt Gayand, the bard contemporary with Guru Arjan, Nanak V (1553-1606), and also in the Varan of Bhai Gurdas. The most common usage of the word Waheguru is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other:
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Usage in Sikh scripture “Waheguru”, and its variant “Wahguru”, appear only 18 times in Shri Guru Granth Sahib. Of these, Waheguru occurs nine times on Ang 1402 and six times on Ang 1403 (Ang translates literally as “limb”, but in this context is synonymous with “page”). Wahguru occurs twice on Ang 1403 and once on Ang 1404. Other words used in the Guru Granth Sahib to refer to God are: Onkar, Satguru (”true teacher”), Satnaam (”true name”), Rama, Rahman, Purushah among others. Indeed, a verse in Guru Granth Sahib just highlights the very fact that different people use different ‘words’ : (Pg 885, Sri Guru Granth Sahib) Guru Gobind Singh, Nanak X (1666-1708), used “Vahiguru” in the invocatory formula (”Ik Onkar Sri Vahiguru ji ki Fateh”, besides the traditional “Ik Onkar Satigur Prasadi”) at the beginning of some of his compositions as well as in the Sikh salutation (”Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa Vahiguru ji ki Fateh” or “Sri Vahiguru ji ki Fateh”). Bhai Gurdas at one place in his Varan (I.49) construes “vahiguru” as an acrostic using the first consonants of the names of four divine incarnations of the Hindu tradition appearing in four successive eons. Some classical Sikh scholars, such as Bhai Mani Singh, Bhai Santokh Singh, and Pandit Tara Singh Narotam, taking this poetic interpretation seriously, have traced the origin of the term in ancient mythology. Modern scholars, however, affirm that the name Vahiguru is owed originally to the Gurus, most likely to the founder of the faith, Guru Nanak, himself. According to this view, Vahiguru is a compound of two words, one from Persian[citation needed] and the other from Sanskrit, joined in a symbiotic relationship to define the indefinable indescribable Ultimate Reality. “Vah” in Persian is an interjection of wonder and admiration[citation needed], and “guru” (Sanskrit guru: “heavy, weighty, great, venerable; a spiritual parent or preceptor”) has been frequently used by Guru Nanak and his successors for “satiguru “(True Guru) or God. Bhai Santokh Singh, in Sri Gur Nanak Prakash (pp. 1249-51), reporting Guru Nanak’s testament to the Sikhs has thus explicated “Vahiguru”: “Vah” is wonder at the Divine might; while guru means a spiritual and devotional teacher. |
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Kids’ Stories
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- It's All WithinOnce there was a deer prancing around in the forest. All of the sudden she smelt something wonderful. The deer thought, "Where is this coming from?" She ran and ran and ran everywhere smelling everything. She smelt all the animals, all the plants, everything in the wind and everything in nature. She couldn't figure out where the smell was comi […]
- The Horse MindOnce a man went to visit an old friend. They had a fun time and when it was time for him to leave, his friend said, "I want to give you a horse, it's a gift to you, please take it." The man left with his new horse, but there was a problem. The horse wouldn't listen to him. No matter what he did, the horse just came right back to where th […]
- A Real KingOnce there was a great king. He didn't want to be king anymore, "I'm very bored being a king. I want something bigger." His adviser didn't understand why he wouldn't want to be king anymore, "It takes 100 days to ride from one end of your kingdom to the other. What could be bigger than being the ruler of a great kingdom?! […]
- Guru ji's ArrowThe Mughal emperor had sent his army so lay siege on Anandpur. Two generals named Wajir Khan and Zabardast Khan were camped two miles away from the Anandpur fortress. The two generals were playing a game of chess when an arrow came out of nowhere and hit the leg of the platform they were sitting on. "Who shot this arrow?!" they demanded. A local hi […]
- The EarthquakeThere once was a man who never prayed. One time he was eating with his family and the ground started to shake. It was an earthquake. The man felt that this would be the end of his life and he found himself praying, "Oh God save me! My Dear Lord show Your grace!" After the earthquake was over, all his family was hurt and his house was damaged. He ye […]