The Golden Temple Meditation - A Spiritual Journey
The Golden Temple Meditation - A Spiritual Journey
S.S. Guruprem Kaur Khalsa, Eugene OR, U.S.A.
The Golden Temple and its surrounding tank of healing waters are well known for having wonderful healing effects. Yet, like many other people, I had never been able to visit Amritsar or personally experience its miraculous powers. That is until now, when, by the Grace of the Guru, I have been shown that this journey is profoundly accessible to all people through a simple, effortless meditation.
On a chilly Sunday morning in January 1996, I received a call from a friend, beseeching me to pray for her. She complained of severe bronchitis and heart pains that had been plaguing her for several months. She had tried herbs, acupuncture, antibiotics, and healers, yet nothing had helped.
I told her I would soon be going to Sunday Gurdwara, truly the best time to pray. An hour later, entering Guru Ram Das Ashram, I bowed as the miracle shabd of Guru Ram Das was being sung, and sat beneath a painting of the Golden Temple depicting a black crow emerging pure white from the Tank of Nectar.
Going within myself to pray, I immediately found my friend and myself standing on the walkway which surrounds the Golden Temple. A voice encouraged me to guide my friend into the water, and then to completely submerge her until she was relaxed and comfortably breathing the water in to her lungs. Although it was a visualization, my friend so resisted putting her head under water that I had to forcibly hold her down!
When I called her the next day to see how she was doing, she exclaimed that it was amazing -- her lungs were absolutely clear, and her heart pains were gone. And, when I told her how it happened, she laughed and told me she has always been afraid to put her head under water!
Within a week I shared this story with an elderly woman who was visiting the ashram. She went home and tried it herself, and, at a routine doctor’s checkup, learned she no longer had high cholesterol and arthritis. The ease of effectively sharing this meditation gave rise to Golden Temple workshops, which I have now been teaching for 1 1/2 years, in a variety of places, with blessed results. Golden Temple meditations engage all of our senses to create the experience of being at the Golden Temple. They are an intimate and sacred way to allow people who have not been to the Golden Temple (or for those who have a longing to return) to experience the sacredness of this special place, and use its miraculous powers to compassionately understand and heal both themselves and others, friends and foes alike.
Each workshop includes stories of others’ healing journeys, a yoga set or meditation to create a sensitivity to the etheric realm, a slide show (when possible), and then a guided journey to the Golden Temple. I engage the senses of the journeyers by continuously playing "Dhan Dhan Ram Das Gur" or chanting to Guru Ram Das, showing a single slide or video image of the Golden Temple, and by describing the nature of the "flight" to India. The students are guided to imagine seeing the Golden Temple in the distance, and then to feel the cool marble as they step onto the walkway around the Golden Temple, and into a realm of dazzling, golden light. People then continue on their own, each being blessed with a unique and profound experience.
After the journey is over, I allow time for journeyers to share their experiences with each other. Those present have deeply experienced the breadth and wonder of the Golden Temple’s power to heal body, mind and soul. In closing, photos of the Golden Temple are distributed, and on some occasions, water from the Nectar Tank has been shared as well. The response has been wonderful, in that every person, no matter how new they are to Sikh Dharma, is blessed with an intimate relationship with the Divine.
I would be happy to share this workshop outline in more detail with anyone who would like to offer this experience to their community. You can write me at Yoga West, 3635 Hilyard Street, Eugene, Oregon 97045, or email me at [email protected]. I am also compiling a book on people’s experiences while journeying to the Golden Temple, and I invite you to send your write-ups to me for this book. Together, by Guru’s Grace, we can spread the inspiration and healing power of the Golden Temple to those in need around the world.