A spiritual person is when their mind becomes one with the Creator God. Then, the mind absorbs the qualities of God and acts like a spiritual master. He is no more under the effects of Maya, which is another of Gods creation in which the mind is prisoner and to its five vices (lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego). It becomes calm, quiet, peaceful, acts to the Will of God and is in bliss always. It happens when the Mind is meditating on God and thinks about God always. For this spiritual mind, everything happening in the world is OK as its happening to His Will. He lives a life of truthful dealings with other persons, earns an honest living and shares with others. He becomes pure in thoughts, words and deeds. His mind becomes pure like its Creator, Himself. He is the most dependable friend and reliable companion. The above qualities can be achieved by one who only lives for the service of people and to whom everybody is the child of God. This person has no desires for him and lives for his family and others. His happiness lies in service and the welfare of others. Such a person has no desires and attachments in this world and lives a worry free life; always content with his/her lot. This book tells how to achieve such a state of mind. The mind is Gods child and we here, on Earth, to play in the hands of God as per destiny written by Him. If we accept Him, pray to Him and meditate on him in the way this book guides, there is a chance to win freedom from the cycle of births and deaths and live with him in peace and bliss forever. The path to bliss and peace is fully explained in this book.

The first to appear in Curzon's well respected 'Popular Dictionary' series.

This volume offers a comprehensive overview of Sikhism, which originated in India's Punjab region five hundred years ago. As the numbers of Sikhs settling outside of India continues to grow, it is necessary to examine this religion both in its Indian context and as an increasingly global tradition. While acknowledging the centrality of history and text in understanding the main tenets of Sikhism, Doris Jakobsh highlights the religion's origins and development as a living spiritual tradition in communities around the world. She pays careful attention to particular events, movements, and individuals that have contributed to important changes within the tradition and challenges stereotypical notions of Sikh homogeneity and stasis, addressing the plurality of identities within the Sikh tradition, both historically and within the contemporary milieu. Extensive attention is paid to the role of women as well as the dominant social and kinship structures undergirding Punjabi Sikh society, many of which have been widely transplanted through Sikh migration. The migration patterns are themselves examined, with particular focus on Sikh communities in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Finally, the volume concludes with a brief exploration of Sikhs and the Internet and the future of Sikhism.

Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair unsettles the politics of knowledge construction in which the category of "religion" continues to be central. Through a case study of Sikhism, he launches an extended critique of religion as a cultural universal. At the same time, he presents a portrait of how certain aspects of Sikh tradition were reinvented as "religion" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. India's imperial elite subtly recast Sikh tradition as a sui generis religion, which robbed its teachings of their political force. In turn, Sikhs began to define themselves as a "nation" and a "world religion" that was separate from, but parallel to, the rise of the Indian state and global Hinduism. Rather than investigate these processes in isolation from Europe, Mandair shifts the focus closer to the political history of ideas, thereby recovering part of Europe's repressed colonial memory. Mandair rethinks the intersection of religion and the secular in discourses such as history of religions, postcolonial theory, and recent continental philosophy. Though seemingly unconnected, these discourses are shown to be linked to a philosophy of "generalized translation" that emerged as a key conceptual matrix in the colonial encounter between India and the West. In this riveting study, Mandair demonstrates how this philosophy of translation continues to influence the repetitions of religion and identity politics in the lives of South Asians, and the way the academy, state, and media have analyzed such phenomena.

This text presents an overview of Sikh history and religiosity by firmly placing it against the backdrop of other religious traditions of the world. It includes a basic introduction to the faith, its history, beliefs, practices and modern developments.

Sikhism's short but relatively eventful history provides a fascinating insight into the working of misunderstood and seemingly contradictory themes such as politics and religion, violence and mysticism, culture and spirituality, orality and textuality, public sphere versus private sphere, tradition and modernity. This book presents students with a careful analysis of these complex themes as they have manifested themselves in the historical evolution of the Sikh traditions and the encounter of Sikhs with modernity and the West, in the philosophical teachings of its founders and their interpretation by Sikh exegetes, and in Sikh ethical and intellectual responses to contemporary issues in an increasingly secular and pluralistic world. Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed serves as an ideal guide to Sikhism, and also for students of Asian studies, Sociology of Religion and World Religions.