Bad Sangat

vwihgurU jI kw ^wlsw[
vwihgurU jI kI &iqh[

I have wanted to write on this for a long time now... A few years ago I was reading a post by a gurmukh payara about how the company of a manmukh can affect ones spirituality and can lead to an eventual downfall of ones awastha(spiritual state).

It was at the same time that I was working for a company in Richmond, this was late 2001 or early 2002. I used to carpool with this guy who was a supervisor at the company and he told me all these stories that he had the worst kind of company(sangat) of manmukhs imaginable. And he turned out fine. Not only that all of his friends quit alcohol and other vices one after the other.

I was impressed!

...when we were on Alex Fraser coming home he told me that for some reason he could not do daily seven banis. I was left stunned. I though very highly of this person. Suddenly it made a lot of sense when I put two and two together and realized that indeed the sangat(company) of people that don’t share sikhi values and don’t practice sikhi has a negative impact.

Since then I have seen this a lot. Examples of this have come before me time and time again. I can make a list of over 20 people that have drifted away from one aspect of sikhi or another.

It takes a great soul to withstand the negative energy of bad sangat. I think this CAN be accomplished. But at the same time it is very hard to do and depletes a significant amount of kammayee.

I had this kind of sangat in high school. I don’t think it was a TOO bad of sangat, but nonetheless it was not the right kind of sangat by any means. I can’t say that spending time with people who ate meat, listened to the wring kind of music, smoked weed, tabacoo, and waheguru knows what else benefited me positively in terms of sikhi.

It’s hard to measure how it drained me of spirituality because it’s been so long. If nitnem and bibek is a measure of a firm stand of sikhi then, I think I did better than what most people would have done if they were in my position. I remember even the days I had a fever I would do path sitting up. The sangat that I got at home was perhaps the biggest factor that kept me where I had been for a long time. It’s worth mentioning here the sangat of Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalsa Jee and his contributions for making me get up early and taking me to the Surrey Gurdwara, and eventually to Khalsa School for the Sunday Assa Dee Vaars.

One more thing that had a counter-effect to the ‘bad’ sangat at school was the constant current of kirtan at home and in the car(yes, I did have a car back then) I think with the constant bombardment of kirtan all the filth from school was washed away for good.

But I did make trips to the “smoke pit” 1-2 times just to see what goes on there. That was about the worse kind of sangat I ever had. I did get offered week many times, and I just walked away. There was this one guy, he was a son of a ragi, and that guy was alright when he first came in from another school. But soon in a few weeks he began to do everything the hardcore jakkay were doing. Since then I have seen him at bus stops smoking. So for some like me the effects of bad sangat are minimal, for others however, these influences carry on well into adult life.

I leave you with a very powerful pangati from gurbani try to understand it, its simple and yet deep. I had listened to this pangati many times over but only realized the meaning a few months ago. Here it is from 'Varran tai vadheek":

nwnkhukmuvrqYKsmkwmiqBvIiPrihclicq] mnmuKsaukirdosqIsuKikpuCihimq] gurmuKsaukirdosqIsiqgursaulwieicqu] jMmxmrxkwmUluktIAYqWsuKuhovIimq]66][

vwihgurU jI kw ^wlsw[
vwihgurU jI kI &iqh[