Children of Khalsa

Jaap Sahib

2010-07-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.sikhnet.com/news/jaap-sahib-sound-vibration-kundalini-and-translation
Jaap Sahib, sound vibration, kundalini and translation
July 1, 2010 by Brijdeep Singh Bhasin Source: www.sikhsailor.com
Jaap Sahib morning prayer of Sikhs by Guru Gobind Singh, is an Ode to Ek Ongkar, One Divine light. These are my experiences and thoughts on the bani and recitation together with an attempt at translation and transliteration of it.

As Khalsa Sikhs we are advised to do certain prayers on a daily basis, some in the morning and some in the evening and night. For the longest time, bringing myself to wake up earlier than usual and reading the banis seemed like a major task and I would get lazy. More so, I considered it almost a chore, a ritual to be performed because it was “required”. However, a part of me always said that there was a lot more to bani or composition than is immediately apparent and it will take some sincere effort to figure it out. So, a little while back I started waking up earlier than usual and after the daily meditation, started reciting the Japji and Jaap Sahibs.

A lot of times I have seen that the bani is read or recited quickly without really understanding or even listening to the words and felt that this gave it a ritualistic flavor. Determined not to fall into that, I started reciting slowly, enunciating each word and letting the sounds linger. Not only was I able to grasp the meanings of certain words, the sound vibrations reverberated in my head, so much so that sometimes I could feel it for hours after the recitation. Now, I still don’t understand most of the bani, but figured it will come over time and in the meantime lets enjoy the sounds, tempo and rhyme. More details and description of Jaap Sahib can be found here. What I found interesting is that the introduction of each major part has a line which in my opinion partly indicates its rhythm, for example, the Bhujang Prayat Chaand which I think refers to the way a Snake moves or the Madhubhar Chand, or Sweet Honey stanzas that should be read lovingly. Then there are words where the tongue touches the palate creating the sounds of “tng”, “twng”, “bhng” etc. which I can feel have a special reason but haven’t fully understood it yet.

Also, I feel that this is one of the prayers, bani, path that needs to be read in it is original form to get its essence as the sounds and vibrations are so important. This is just personal experience and maybe other people have experienced this too. During and after the recitation of Jaap Sahib, I feel a heat wave through my spine and it varies based on my state of being that day and how engaged I’m in the bani. The closest I relate this feeling to is the movement of prana in Kundalini Yoga where it is said there there are 7 energy centers concentrated at different spots along the spine. A little while back, there was a feeling of intense heat at the back of neck, so much so that my skin developed a boil that lasted for weeks. The other downside is that I sweat more sometimes. Ok seriously, but I do feel a difference in my energy levels during the day when I did recite Jaap Sahib in the morning and the days I didn’t. An investment of 25 minutes in the morning probably saves me at least an hour during the day in thinking and action time. Again, I haven’t gotten this down to an exact science, but it seems all very rational and is getting there.

For people who don’t read or understand Gurmukhi or Punjabi, I do recognize that some words can however, be very complex and difficult to pronounce as they are drawn from languages like Sanskrit, Brij Bhasha, Urdu and Arabic. Below is an attempt to transliterate and translate the Jaap Sahib in easy to read English so that a wider audience can enjoy it. Please follow these rules, to aid in the correct, phonetic pronunciation of the transliteration from Gurmukhi to English below:

* The characters “tng”, “twng”, “bhng” are used to denote 'sound syllables' and not letters and are pronounced by touching the back of the tongue to the back of the throat and producing something like “anngg” sound.
* Some letters have no equivalent in English, for example, “adh” is pronounced by flipping the tongue by touching the palate and then slamming it down
* The characters “tt” signify a strong “Tea” like sound where the tongue rolls and touches the palate. However “th” is pronounced by touching the tongue to the teeth and not the palate.
This is just the beginning, I realized it will take me a lot longer than originally thought as I really want to make sure the translation is correct and have to consult with my Grandfather who lives in Delhi. Do let me know what you think, any feedback is welcome.

IIGS Holds Sikh Youth Camp at Sealy

2009-09-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.indiajournal.com/pages/event.php?id=8244

CAMP SEALY, CA - The one week 71st IIGS camp held at Camp Sealy August 16-22 in the San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California, left participants yearning for more, promising to come back next year and saying teary good byes to new and old friends. Over 150 new and old participants came from different states in the US. India, Japan and Canada.

In the morning and evening Dewans, campers experienced Nam Simran, enjoyed Kirtan and participated in various aspects of the service. Sardarni Gurpreet Kaur’s singing and Sardar Ranjit Singh’s tabla accompaniment regaled the campers with melodious and inspiring Kirtan.

During the day, a plethora of elective classes made it possible for attendees to explore areas of specific interest to them: Meanings and recitation of Nitnem baanies, Shabad Kirtan, Tabla, Punjabi, Sikh history, Sikh Art and Gatka. Mind- Body Fitness classes were also offered along with recreational swimming.

An entire afternoon was set aside for picnic where the Indian game of Pithu was a big hit amongst the older campers. It was a time to relax, enjoy and have fun and games galore. Kesh Darshan, an integral part of every IIGS camp designed to encourage campers to develop love and appreciation for beautiful long uncut hair, had enthusiastic participation. All counselors and campers washed their hair and attended a lecture on ‘Khande di Pahul’ and importance of the 5 K’s by Capt Harbhajan Singh, fondly called Papa ji. .

Senior participants attended inter-active sessions led by Sardarni Jessi Kaur (author of Dear Takuya) where they explored the concept of Mind according to Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the structure and significance of the Sikh Ardaas.

Guest Speaker Sardarni Ruby Kaur, a certified Covey trainer, presented a couple of modules from the Seven habits. Sardar Jagjot Singh of the Bay area gave an inspiring talk on Chardikala.

Dr. Jaswant Singh Neki, renowned author and Sikh luminary from India, addressed the campers on the importance of discipline and obedience in a Sikh’s life.

The lectures, interactive sessions and DOST combined with the elective classes made the camp a truly rich experience for all.

Sardars Ranjit Singh, Gurbux Singh, Ajmer Singh, Sardarnis Manjit Kaur, Prem Kaur and Sukhwinder Kaur, worked hard to provide delicious meals.

The Camp Administrative Team included Sardars K. Daljit Singh, Kavi Raj Singh, Tejinder Singh, Kanwarbir Singh, Karan Raj Singh, Sardarnis Payal Kaur, Guninder Kaur, Jaskiran Kaur and Manjit Kaur KBS.

While Sardarnis Leena Kaur, Sanjam Kaur and Prabhneet Kaur maintained the Camp Office, Drs. Gurpreet Singh, Jasjit K. Singh, Harsohena Kaur and Kaval Kaur, RN looked after the Medical needs of the camp,
The Camp’s 15 member Junior Counselors Team that worked most dedicatedly was led by Sardarni Birpal Kaur. Sardar Jasdeep Singh and Sardarnis Navi Kaur and Puneet Kaur performed the roles of Camp Adjutants. Sardars Harvinder Singh, Kavan Singh, Gurdayal Singh, Sarabdayal Singh, Monty Singh , Jaspreet Singh, Bir Ishwar Singh, Hunar Singh, Sardarni Manjeet Kaur and Amrita Kaur, Jyoti Kaur and Simi Kaur provided immense assistance.

As in all previous camps at Camp Seely, Coach expenses were borne by Sardar Arvinder Singh, who also escorted the campers to the camp. Sardar Ranjit Singh took care of the drinking water for the campers.

A special Camp Dewan (A sort of grand finale) was held on Sunday, August 23 at Gurdwara Buena Park, in which about 200 campers, counselors and their families joined the huge Sunday Sangat. In addition to Shabad Kirtan rendered by three newly trained campers’ groups and the main IGS Jatha, almost 20 campers shared their exhilarating camp experiences with the Sangat. This was followed by an impressive Nishan Sahib Salutation Parade, led by five Singhs and five Kaurs dressed in the traditional Khalsa attire. Anup Harji Singh played the trumpet. Anhad Singh, a UCLA Film School student who facilitated the Mind-Body fitness class at the camp, commanded the parade.

IIGS retreats are purely religious and are known for providing an environment that inspires, educates and, fosters Sikh pride and universal brotherhood!

In the past 37 years, IIGS has organized 86 camps - 71 Sikh Youth Camps, 10 Sikh Mothers/family camps, 4 mini camps and one local city camp in India at Vijayawada.

Letters from a Sikh kid

2008-09-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

http://indiapost.com/article/lifestyle/3802/

Letters from a Sikh kid

Sikh parents living in the Diaspora have for a long time felt the need of a book that would explain the message of Sikhi in simple terms to the friends and teachers of their school going children. Recently I picked up a lovely book, Dear Takuya, Letters of a Sikh boy at the local Gurdwara. The protagonist of the book Simar is a nine-year-old California kid who during his summer break shares his story as a Sikh boy with Takuya, a pen friend in Japan.

In sixteen, simple and tenderly voiced letters, Simar sums up his own struggle for acceptance as well as the principles of tolerance, forgiveness and love for everyone that he learns at a Sikh youth camp. Reading Simar's letters is like reading the journal of your own child. Jessi Kaur has shown a keen understanding of how young boys think. September 11th has changed United States in many ways. It has particularly impacted the Sikhs who live here.

Numerous Sikhs have been targets of misdirected hate and violence. Sikh children are particularly vulnerable to discrimination and bullying in schools. It is of utmost important to educate the students about cultural diversity and religious tolerance. Cultural awareness cultivates understanding and friendship between children. Simar, in one of his letters shares with Takuya that he was bullied by a big kid in the school playground.

A girl named Patty reaches out to him. She ties his patka and makes him feel cared for. Patty has felt the pain of being teased herself on account of being chubby. The author Jessi Kaur is not unknown to the community. She has often been heard at Darbare- E- Khalsa, the largest gathering of Sikhs in South land. Those who have attended the camps held by International Institute of Gurmat Studies have come to know Ms. Kaur as an inspired teacher and counselor. Perhaps it is her experience gained through her association with these camps, that has given her book an authentic voice. She is also a frequent speaker at Interfaith Conferences and a strong believer that multicultural understanding is the cornerstone of harmony in the world.

In 'Dear Takuya' Ms. Kaur's desire to share the basic principles of Guru Nanak's teachings to the Sikh children in the Diaspora is obvious. This book is not only a simple and powerful tool for the Sikh parents to meet the challenge of teaching their own children about Sikhi and instill pride about their heritage; but it also makes a wonderful gift to their non-Sikh friends to acquaint them with Sikh values and culture. In an exclusive interview with India Post Jessi Kaur said that it tears her inside out when she hears news stories of the harassment of Sikh boys. Recently in New Jersey a Sikh boy's patka was set on fire in by a fellow student.

In another incident in a New York school, a Sikh boy was punched in the face. "These assaults underscore the importance of educating the mainstream about the identity and history of the Sikhs, she said. As parents of Sikh boys, many of us have visited their schools and made presentations on Sikh Culture and history and even demonstrated the hair beneath the patka to demystify the appearance of our boys. (Kesh Darshan.)Dear Takuya will make the task of the parents on such missions easier. With reference to the letter format of the book, which incidentally, works beautifully, Ms. Kaur said that she wanted to have Simar's voice speak to the children at a personal level.

The success of Dear Takuya lies in the fact that it shares Simar's learning about his culture without getting preachy at any point. It comes across more as a dialogue with a friend. I mentioned to Ms. Kaur that I would love to hear the story of Jasmine Kaur, Simar's sister as a sequel to the book. She said that for right now she is putting her energy in spreading the word about Dear Takuya and hopes that it makes the passage of Sikh children in the Diaspora easier in their elementary years.

Nikki Merrick, a High School teacher's trainer and an erstwhile High School English teacher, is amongst several educators who have endorsed Dear Takuya as a valuable tool for teachers, "I think Dear Takuya would be a valuable addition to classrooms and libraries as it demystifies a culture that many people don't know much about.

Kids are quick to judge on outward appearances and make fun of what they don't understand; Dear Takuya provides insight and understanding." The beautiful illustrations by Brian Johnston and flawless editing by Manjyot Kaur make this book one that you will want share. As a parent of three children, I strongly recommend that each Sikh family buys multiple copies to give as gifts to their children's teachers and friends. All proceeds from the book shall go to International Institute of Gurmat Studies, a non- profit organization.
- Manjit Kaur KBS

Back to school or Back to schedule?

2008-09-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

Back to school or Back to schedule?

It is almost mid of September, schools have started and our families are settling in to this year's schedule. Two of our older children entered High and Junior High school. Even if our children are in the same school as last year, the timetable is always slightly different. Maybe classes start earlier this year, or later. Or maybe it's the before and after activities that are different.
For the 7th and 9th grader, the night before registration, I spent a chaotic evening filling out two cards each and several other forms, all asking for exactly the same information. It was just like last year, and all the years before, even down to the part where my fingers begin to hurt and I begin to talk to myself, "Don’t they have good programmers like me at this school district who print the auto filled forms for parents from the school system and have them make the changes if necessary?"
On the day of the registration, first I took my daughter to her Junior High. Everything was just perfect until I decided to go to attendance office instead of multi-purpose room where the registration was supposed to be. My daughter was upset for getting late due ot my early morning confusion & I was thinking how could I confuse the high with Junior high after doing all that hours of paper work just last night. The lady on the registration desk made my day when she carefully looked at the folder I was holding and smilingly said “You are too organized for me; wish I could be you”. My daughter looked admiringly on me and already forgave me for being late. Well, we were out of there in 15 minutes after checking out heavy books for her, which she is supposed to keep at home this year. That took my whole attention to re-organizing our children’s rooms so I can help them find the books and supplies when my dinner, their home work and some after school activity clashes. BTW that happens often under our roof.
Now it was time for my son to register as freshmen. As opposed to morning experience we stood in a long queue here in front of attendance office. His schedule did not show the Jazz Band and Tennis period. My son and I went to his counselor's office to modify his schedule for this year. He looked very pleased & made a quick change from PE to Jazz band, until my son announced that he wanted to play tennis in addition to all the required courses for Pre-IB program. The counselor commended him for having been selected on the Tennis Team and then adjusted his glasses to look carefully on the computer screen. After careful long thought he disappointed my son by suggesting that he has to drop Human Geography(which he can take in summer) in order to keep Tennis. I bombarded him with questions following that suggestion till he printed the final copy of his schedule. He explained to us the courses for his freshmen year, sophomore year as well as summers following those. After almost 30 minutes, I left the office thinking “I hardly had him home this summer, when is he going to have any summer vacation?’, though my son was very happy, hardly concerned about his ‘so full’ schedule. He quickly left for his band camp smiling on those who were so patiently waiting outside the counselor’s office but without saying a word to me. Is it all normal for a teen?
This school year is busier than ever. My youngest daughter though still in elementary school, but her school starts 10 min earlier than last year. Both the older ones go to zero periods staring 6:42 for Performing Band and 7:15 am for Honor Choir. So we all wake up at Amrit Vela…children to get dressed for schools and me to cook & pack lunches and enjoy school trips until 8am. How is your Amrit Vela?

THEN and NOW.....

2008-05-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

........so I took the plunge exactly 11 months ago. I remember those days like it was yesterday. I quit my career of 15 years and accepted the world's most splendid full-time job. While beginning his farewell speech, CEO of my company said "A person should only do what he/she likes the most and here we have Ms. Kaur who made her choice". I was not so sure if I made a choice or I ran out of options to continue to juggle through two full-time jobs. I said good-bye to all with tears, broad smiles, hugs and promises to stay in touch. It was beginning of June 2007, children were getting out of school for summer and here I was ready to welcome them home.

The beginning of my new job (Stay-at-home mom) was just like my first real job; enthusiastic, smashed with happiness and daily accomplishments. Just as in my then job, I often worked in my dreams through out night to figure out a new logic for my project and in the morning ran to work to put it in and feel my heart swell with pride when it worked; here in my this job I did something similar. I had made schedule for every thing that I have been setting aside due to my work. Children were as excited and they learnt all what I had to teach with equal fervor ...so in nutshell we had a ball through out summer.

Three months went fast, came along September, children were off to school, hubby went to work as usual and here I was left alone at home.......no where to go, no project list to start with, no schedule to follow. My house was mess, but that is not the job I did. It was house keeper's job who I did not have any more. It was 'reality check' time.I took refuge in front of computer, began to play with numbers to figure out our budget. To my surprise, we needed a big shift in our life style to make the things work for us. Well, that was the beginning of my withdrawal symptoms from my career. There were days when I simply wished to be in the quietness of my cubicle and then there were days when I wanted to quit this new job. I knew I could not be fired from this job as my new boss is a saint, so he put up with my 'not-so-good' performance for many months until one day when he gave me green signal to look for part-time job to fill in my 9am-1pm hours and fill my idle mind with the world's problems. He was so right in doing so, I soon found out that I was dreaming and I need these hours for my benefit and do justice to my this new job.

So spring followed the fall and we are near summer again or should I say, summer is already here. With all this I have successfully completed my probationary time in my new job and that makes me my kid's mom and my husband's girl-friend. Children are as happy as they can be. I can't begin to count their accomplishments of this year. I definitely would not dare to share their after-school activities that make me so tired that I look forward to my 4-5 idle hours of next morning to recuperate myself. My house is not a mess any more; we have learnt to live within our budget and always leaning on Waheguru ji who is The Provider for all.

My daughter's 6th grade teacher was praising my daughter's progress in this year. When I shared my secret with her, she told me to spread the word. So here it is for the moms/parents who wonder why they have to make this tough choice -

For you: Children are Waheguru's blessing, watching them grow is miraculous. You'll know your child better than anyone else. My chidlren in their teens often ask me personal questions. While I answer them so carefully, I often wonder what a child-care provider might have answered to that; had I not been there?

For your Chidlren: Having mommy first to roll out of bed every morning, ready for duty is a cozy setup for the children. Even the sweetest sitter can't replace that. There are no shifting gears in the morning, no daily anxiety if things are ready before mom leaves for the office, no confusing inconsistencies in routine. Children feel secure and happy when they know in their hearts that they have mommy to count on any time of the day.

Most importantly for your marriage: You and your spouse won't butt heads over whose turn it is to miss work when a child is running fever. And having all day to do chores and errands means that when he comes home, you can be off-duty, too.

Daughter of the Khalsa

2008-04-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sahib-e-Kamaal Sri Guru Gobind Singh ji adorned The Khalsa with 5 K's. These were the gifts that most of us value and protect with our life, though they mean different to different people. Here is the article from a 'Daughter of the Khalsa' that I found very inspiring. Please read on to relate to her sentiments on 5 K's.

********

The date of this year's Vaisakhi, April 13, makes it even more of a meaningful gurparab for me.

Not only can I participate in commemorating the Birth of the Khalsa - that incomparable moment when Guru Gobind Singh founded the Sikh nation - but I can also celebrate the first anniversary of my rebirth in the House of the Guru, when, exactly one year ago, I formally embraced Sikhi through the immense blessing of taking Amrit.

Becoming a daughter of the Khalsa was an essential way for me to make a solemn public commitment to living according to the tenets of the Rehat Maryada and trying my best to revere, understand, and incorporate into my daily life the teachings of Guru Granth.

Coming from a non-Sikh background, I felt that Amrit Chaknaa was absolutely necessary to my being truly considered, in both an individual and a corporate sense, a fully-fledged member of the Sikh people, legitimately and permanently linked with Sikh history and heritage, including that utterly pivotal day of 1699.

So, after having been an only child all my life, I finally got my wish for brothers and sisters fulfilled by becoming part of a spiritual family and benefitting immeasurably from the experience and insights of my "elder siblings" who walk ahead of me along the Path. They are my cherished Sadh Sangat, whose fellowship helps me to attain greater levels of love and devotion to Sikhi.
Like many small children, I try to be "just like Mom and Dad" - but in what I hope is a somewhat more serious-minded manner.

Regarding my spiritual mother, Mata Sahib Kaur, this entails my striving to even remotely approach her sense of total devotion to the Guru and her astuteness in knowing that adding a personal touch of sweetness is necessary in all experiences of life, even the ones that are most weighty and fraught with significance.

Emulation of my spiritual father, Guru Gobind Singh, is even more difficult and complicated for me. When I contemplate his immortal greatness and true magnificence, I wonder how I could possibly have the unmitigated hubris to think I could ever be even a bit like him.

Among the countless splendid attributes of the Tenth Master, the one that I most admire is his seamless blend of empowerment and humility. He evinced this trait to complete perfection on that first Vaisakhi, when he inducted the Panj Piare - those five brave Sikhs who volunteered to give their heads to the Guru - as the first members of the Khalsa, by giving them Amrit and, in turn, requested to be initiated at the hands of his disciples.

So, I have come to believe that perhaps it would be acceptable for me to think I might emulate him, albeit in an infinitely small way, through my own personal balancing act: consciously trying to experience the strength that comes from being a daughter of the Khalsa, while knowing all the while that it is not I, but Guruji who is great and important.

As I learn and grow as a Sikh, and find meaningful ways of being part of and serving the Panth, I try my best to keep in the forefront of my mind that my talents and accomplishments come through me, not from me: they are all manifestations of His Grace. I need to be ever-vigilant that my feelings of personal gratification never insidiously morph into smug and preachy self-righteousness.

And, speaking of gratification, although I know that becoming Amritdhari is a significant milestone along the Path but not its end or pinnacle, the events of that day, April 13, 2007, remain beyond compare for me.

Besides the exultation I felt when, during the Amrit Sanchaar, it became my turn to actually receive the Ambrosial Nectar, I will never forget the utter jubilation that filled me in the pre-dawn hours of that morning: the moment when I wore all of Guru Gobind Singh's "Gifts of Love" - the Panj Kakkaars - together for the very first time. I felt totally whole and complete, as well as, I must admit, quite tyaar-bar-tyaar!

This attitude is at the core of my conception of what being a Saint-Soldier is all about. I seldom think of this term applying to me in a martial sense, although I do derive tremendous inspiration from visualizing and reflecting upon iconic female personages such as the brave general Mai Bhago, the fictional Sundri of Bhai Vir Singh, and many other real-life Kaurs who fought heroically in the struggles that have marked our history.

Since I am light-years away from bearing the merest whiff of sanctity, and my meager attributes certainly do not include expertise in horsewomanship and sword-wielding skills, how do I think of myself as a Sant-Sipahi?

To me, being a Saint-Soldier lies in continually striving to uphold the ideals to which Guru Gobind Singh, in his divinely-inspired wisdom, gave tangible form in our five Articles of Faith.
Here is what the Kakkaars mean to me.

Keeping Kesh is accepting my body, with all its hair intact, as Waheguru's creation, and valuing it in the complete form which He deemed fit to give to me.
Having been born and raised as a non-Sikh and imbued since early girlhood with society's expectations of how a well-groomed woman should look, this acceptance requires frequent rejection of my previously-inculcated notions of femininity, in order to fully embrace a concept of inner and outer beauty that is in alignment with the Divine Will.

The Kara signifies my wearing His ring because I am His and He is mine. It is a visible sign of my desire to be inseparably attached and totally committed to Him. But, whenever I futilely attempt to make my own puny will be carried out as opposed to His, it turns from a "wedding band" into a "handcuff" that tells me (yet again!) who is truly in control of my life.

The Kirpan enables me to remind myself that, because I have been blessed to serve His purposes and do His Will, remaining on the sidelines with good intentions is not sufficient. I must be courageous enough to actualize them in concrete ways, and be willing to stand up for my beliefs, instead of just paying them lip service. I must remember that, while it is wonderful to think lofty thoughts, they mean very little unless they are actually put into practice in ways that serve His Creation.

With the Kangha, I acknowledge the importance of living a clean and orderly life (as well as the need to have neat and tidy hair!). Adhering to a lifestyle befitting a Khalsa is my active responsibility; I cannot mindlessly go along with the whims and trends others might indulge in, even "just once", if they do not correlate with what I believe is the appropriate behavior for me.

The Kachhera helps me to admit that constant vigilance is necessary over my all-too-human mind and heart, requiring self-control and self-restraint from thoughts and actions unbecoming of a daughter of the Guru. Since I have been blessed with the discernment to distinguish between what is right and what is not, it is my duty to make decisions for myself that are in line with this knowledge.

Through His Grace, I have never transgressed the injunction to keep Kesh, the pre-eminent Kakkar. However, I must confess that I often fall short of totally fulfilling all the other above ideals.
I feel that Waheguru, as our loving Creator, understands our human weaknesses and failings. I do not think it is a rationalization or an abdication of responsibility to believe He only expects us to always try our utmost to uphold these ideals, not that we must perfectly and perpetually succeed in embodying them.
As I celebrate Vaisakhi 2008 and begin my second year of "living in the House of the Guru", I hope and pray that I will always be worthy of the awesome privilege of being a daughter of the Khalsa!
by MANJYOT KAUR
April 9th, 2008http://www.sikhchic.com/article-detail.php?id=465&cat=12

Halloween: Today's beloved customs have roots far back in history

2007-10-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

Most of the stuff we think of when we think of Halloween – the candy, the outlandish costumes, the scariness – has a long history.About 2,000 years ago, the Celts lived in what is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France. They celebrated their New Year's on Nov. 1, a day they saw as a demarcation line between summer and winter. The last day of the year, (their version of New Year's Eve), was marked with the festival of Samhain (Sah-ween), their biggest and most significant holiday. The thinking was that during that night, the souls of everybody who died during the previous year traveled into the otherworld.These souls, in the form of ghosts, fairies and spirits, could be mischievous and play tricks on the living. Their presence, the Celts believed, made it easier for their priests, or druids, to make predictions about the coming year. Here's how some of their traditions became ours:

RELIGION

Halloween, Celt-style, was adapted more than 1,000 years ago by the Catholic Church, which lined up its holy days with native holy days as a way to spread Christianity. By establishing an All Saints' Day on Nov. 1, the church effectively assimilated an existing pagan rite as a Christian one. All Saints Day was called All Hallows because hallowed meant sanctified or holy.

‘HALLOWEEN'

So why call it Halloween? Well, depending on which history you read (or believe) the evening before All Hallows was called All Hallows Eve or All-Hallow-even or Hallow ‘Een or Hallowe'.

MASQUERADING

During the festival of Samhain, the Celts disguised themselves as ghosts, spirits or demons to avoid the risen souls. These masked villagers paraded down the main street to get the souls to move out of town. The church wasn't successful at banishing these parades, so they co-opted the tradition by encouraging people to dress up as saints, angels and devils. BONFIRESSacred bonfires during Samhain helped send the souls of the dead on their journeys. The Celts burned their crops and made sacrifices in the bonfire. On the morning of Nov. 1, they would relight the fire and use it to light their hearth fires for protection during the coming winter. Today, in some areas, bonfires remain a Halloween tradition. Sacrifices, however, are strongly discouraged.

TRICK-OR-TREATING

Food and drink was set outside the home at Samhain to placate unhappy souls and stave off their penchant for breaking and entering. The Catholic Church converted this tradition, getting families to make "soul cakes" for the poor. In return, the poor promised to pray for the families' dead. This was called "going a-souling.” And through the centuries – and the marvels of American consumerism – it became tradition for kids to pig out on candy.GHOSTSDo ghosts exist? The Celts though so. And ghosts still play a part in contemporary society. According to the Internet Movie Database, half of the top 10 moves with the highest box office receipts worldwide had ghosts and/or witches in them.

WITCHES

The early church associated pagan deities with the devil. Druids, Celtic priests, were considered evil worshippers and branded as witches. However, the witch costume found in many stores has been crafted by popular culture. Two famous Hollywood witches are the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and the witch in Disney's “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." APPLESDunking for apples at Halloween? The Celts were conquered by the Romans, who honored Pomona, their goddess of orchards (not the local city), with a Nov. 1 feast of apples, nuts and grapes. When the Romans conquered the Celtic territories, their celebrations merged. Apples and nuts became part of Samhein. Whoever could snag an apple from a bucket filled with water with their hands tied behind the back, were thought to be the next to wed.

PUMPKIN/JACK-O'-LANTERN

In Britain, carved out turnips with candles inside were used as lanterns. These lanterns were placed on posts or in windows to ward off evil spirits. But, in America, turnip carving gave way to pumpkin carving because pumpkins are bigger and easier to carve. The idea of carving faces on pumpkins goes back to the Irish legend of "Stingy Jack," a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking farmer who allegedly tricked the devil on several occasions. When Jack died, God wouldn't allow him in heaven, and the devil wouldn't allow him into hell. So a curse doomed Jack to wander the earth at night forever. And, to light his way, he carved a large turnip and put a lit coal inside it.
Source: http://www.ocregister.com/life/span-style-bold-1912286-font-weight

The Punjabi Garden - By Patricia Klindienst

2007-09-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

Patricia Klindienst is a master gardener and an award-winning scholar and teacher. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut, and teaches creative writing each summer at Yale University.
Excerpted from The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic America, by Patricia Klindienst. Copyright © 2006 by Patricia Klindienst.

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A California gardener used the farming wisdom of her native India to create a suburban paradise that restored her soil--and sustains her soul.

“I told my father, ‘I will be poorer in America, but my conscience will be free.’”
I write the words on a paper napkin and turn it to face her. “Is this right? Is this what you just said?”

“Yes. I did not come to America to trade my cultural heritage for money.”
I take the napkin back and write the second sentence as well. Her words are so striking that I do not want to rely on memory alone to record them. Ruhan Kainth is telling me why she left Indira Gandhi’s India in the late 1970s to come to the United States.

I first met Ruhan, a middle-school science teacher from Fullerton, Calif., and her husband, Atma Singh, an engineer, in New Haven. They were visiting colleges on a crisp and shining day in early autumn, and they were looking for a place to take their youngest son, Hunar, to lunch. From Atma’s turban and the steel bracelet on his right wrist, a kara, I knew that they were Sikhs. I tried to think where the nearest Indian restaurants were.

“My son would like some pizza,” Ruhan said.
The handsome boy with dark, shining eyes, his thick black hair pulled up in a rishi knot, looked up and smiled.
I explained their options—Naples Pizza, just around the corner, or Pepe’s or Sally’s, across town in Worcester Square.
“We would prefer to walk,” Ruhan said. “Would you join us?”
While Hunar enjoyed his pizza at Naples pizzeria, I asked Ruhan why she had come to America. She came for freedom of conscience, fleeing India during a period of intense political repression. And then I asked if she and Atma had a garden.

“Oh yes!” Ruhan said. “We have a beautiful garden. And I have a tree that is rarely grown outside of India. It is called the neem tree. In India, the neem is a sacred tree.There is a story to go with this tree,” she added, leaning toward me. “The emperor Ashoka, whose name means ‘without sorrow,’ converted to Buddhism. He was India’s first Buddhist emperor and led India on the path to nonviolence. He dedicated his life to promoting peace, prosperity, and health for all of his people. His edicts about how we should treat each other in every aspect of life were inscribed on stone pillars that were placed in every village. You can still see some of them in certain places. Among the things he recommended was that every village should have a neem tree, first for shade from the intense heat, then for all of its wonderful healing properties. You must come and be our guest, and I will show you the garden, and you will see our neem tree.”

Late the following summer I fly to Los Angeles to see Ruhan’s Punjabi garden. After a long, slow drive from the airport, the van drops me in front of the Kainths’ house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the sprawling suburb of Fullerton. Ruhan, slim and striking, her long black hair coiled in a chignon, comes out to greet me and introduces me to her two older sons, Koijan, a senior at Berkeley, and Daraspreet, a junior at Stanford. Both are members of the U.S. national field hockey team. When I arrive, they are unpacking new gear in preparation for an international competition. They step over the open boxes in the driveway, each extending a hand in greeting, then carry my bags into the house, where Ruhan offers me a glass of juice made from passionfruit and strawberries freshly pickedthat morning.
When we go out the back door a few moments later, the first thing I see, standing just beyond the terrace, is a pomegranate tree laden with huge dark red orbs. Native to southwestern Asia, the pomegranate is as familiar to Ruhan as an apple is to a New Englander. However extravagant the tree is in its beauty, though, it is by no means the most extraordinary citizen of this garden.

On less than one eighth of an acre, Ruhan Kainth cultivates 50-odd varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. The thick canopies of the trees and the densely planted beds of herbs and flowers dampen the drone of traffic and block the view of neighboring houses.
“For years, nothing would grow here,” Ruhan says. “The soil was dead.”
I turn to her in disbelief. Later, when I peer over the fences that divide one yard from another, I see why. On one side, a perfectly weedless lawn mowed to uniform height rolls from the house to a row of dark green shrubs lined up in strict symmetry against a stockade fence. Decades of use of lawn chemicals to maintain the iconic suburban American landscape have destroyed the structure of the soil here. What little grew when the Kainth family moved in relied entirely on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
To bring the soil back to life, Ruhan began to plant tiny trees, which was all she could afford. As the trees’ roots threaded their way downward, they loosened the soil and slowly began to add organic matter. “Then the earth around them would begin coming to life again,” she explains.
Until she came to America, Ruhan had never been able to make her own garden. How, then, did she know to plant trees?
In India, her family, members of an educated and prosperous elite, lived in Delhi, where they had a beautiful formal garden. They also owned a farm in the country two hours’ drive away, where sharecroppers worked the orchard and grew sugarcane. As a girl Ruhan would go to the village with her father, walking through the fields chewing cane, sucking out the sugar, then throwing the husks on the compost pile. She drank freshly made jaggery from the press worked by oxen; the juice was boiled in a great caldron to produce a crystallized brown sugar akin to maple sugar candy.

When Ruhan’s father became the private physician of the prime minister of Nigeria, which took him abroad for long periods, he put her in charge of supervising the farm, an unusual role for a woman. Her brothers were at Eton and Harrow in England, so the task fell to her. “Once a month I’d go out to the farm,” she says. “They all welcomed me, but they’d be very amused, because they were not used to seeing a woman coming to do that. But they were very respectful.” Even the fact that she drove there by herself made her remarkable.

As she learned to manage the farm, Ruhan studied the methods of the peasants who worked there. From watching them she learned the principle of returning everything organic to the soil. “Nothing goes to waste in those Indian villages,” she says. The lesson has stayed with her. As has something else. “Those were times of great peace,” she says, her voice soft as she remembers. On the farm, Ruhan stepped beyond the constraints of her caste, class, and gender.
At home in Delhi, the family garden was full of roses, fruit trees, and flowers. Peacocks roamed the grounds freely. Though she longed to work in the garden, Ruhan was expected to do no more than stroll and admire. She was not supposed to work with the soil. “We had a full-time gardener who would come to work in the evening. During the day he worked as the supervisor of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, which had once been the residence of the British Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten.” He became Ruhan’s mentor. “He would treat me like the little granddaughter. I would follow him around the garden, asking him how to do things. ‘Could you show me how you graft the roses?’ I would ask. ‘Little baby,’ he would say, ‘do you want to see this?’ And he would show me. I can still see myself standing there. He would say, ‘See, baby? See how you do this?’ I learned so much from him. He would say wise things. Once we saw a mother being very angry and harsh in her discipline. So he said, speaking very gently to me in Hindi, ‘A child is just like a plant. Just as a gardener might tie the branches to make it lean a certain way, the mother is like the gardener, and the child the plant. She directs her child.’”

Ruhan knew this man only as Mali, which means “gardener” in Hindi. He and his wife, who worked with him, were elderly. While he clipped, pruned, weeded, and grafted, his wife would carry the waste to the compost heap. Each evening, when their work was finished, they would take home some of the branches for firewood.
“He was of a caste who did not have the opportunity to go to British schools,” Ruhan explains. “He rarely came in the house. And when he did, he would not sit down.”
If he remained conscious of the expectations of caste indoors, she felt the strict limits of her gender and class in the garden. “I would go pick up the spade and maybe plant a seed or something, but nobody would ever see me digging.” Yet she longed to. It was not considered appropriate for her to mingle with gardeners. As a female, she was not supposed to do such dirty work.
“Was there any other way to learn what I wanted to know?” she asks. “No—only from gardeners, only from the laborers.

Sir Albert Howard, the most famous advocate of soil restoration in India, learned how to grow things from gardeners and laborers, upsetting British imperial presumptions about what constitutes knowledge. In two of his most famous works, “An Agricultural Testament” (1940) and “The Soil and Health” (1947), he describes his education on the land among the rural poor of colonial India. A contemporary of Aldo Leopold’s, he published one of the 20th century’s most important books on the relationship between agriculture and human culture two years before Leopold’s classic work, “A Sand County Almanac,” appeared in America.

Trained at the Royal College of Science in London and at St. John’s College, Cambridge, Howard was appointed mycologist and agricultural lecturer in the Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies in 1899. From 1899 to 1902 he worked on plantations in Barbados, a former center of the English slave trade, where he studied fungal diseases of plantation cash crops, including sugar. “In Barbados I was a laboratory hermit,” he wrote in the introduction to “The Soil and Health,” “a specialist of specialists, intent on learning more and more about less and less.” It was “contact with the land” and the people who worked the land that showed him the fundamental weakness in the hierarchical organization of academic agricultural studies. “I was an investigator of plant diseases, but I had myself no crops on which I could try out the remedies I advocated: I could not take my own advice before offering it to other people.” When he was offered the post of economic botanist at the Agricultural Research Institute in Pusa, India, in May 1905, Howard readily accepted. Having worked in labs far too long, he was eager to have land of his own to experiment on.

The chasm between science in the lab and practice in the field led Howard out the door and into the fields of India’s peasant farmers, whose crops, he observed, proved remarkably resistant to pests and disease. Yet the farmers were illiterate, had no access to advanced technology, had received no scientific training, and never used chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or fungicides. Though they were poor by every standard of modern industrialized cultures, their soil, their crops, and their animals enjoyed robust health. How was this possible? What were they doing that made their agriculture so productive?

“I found,” Howard wrote, “I could do no better than watch the operations of the peasants . . . and regard them and the pests . . . as my best instructors.”
Though he had grown up on a farm in England and had received the finest education Britain could offer, it took Howard years to become as proficient a farmer as the rural poor of India. “At the end of five years’ tuition under my new professors,” he wrote, “. . . the attacks of insects and fungi on all crops whose root systems suited the local soil conditions became negligible. By 1910 I had learnt how to grow healthy crops, practically free from disease, without the slightest help from mycologists, entomologists, bacteriologists, agricultural chemists, statisticians, clearing-houses of information, artificial manures, spraying machines, insecticides, fungicides, germicides, and all the other expensive paraphernalia of the modern experiment station.”

It was coming to understand the way in which living fungus threads in the soil invade the cells of plant roots, where they are digested, that helped Howard understand why rural farmers’ practice of returning the manure of their farm animals to the soil proved so effective. The mycorrhizal association, as it is called, is the process by which plants feed directly from the soil, deriving the protein necessary to support life. If we interrupt this symbiotic relationship or destroy it with chemicals that kill microorganisms like the healthy fungi responsible for the uptake of proteins, the soil dies and nothing will grow. “One simple principle,” Howard wrote, underlies the “vast accumulation of disease which now afflicts the world.” The “undernourishment of the soil is the root of all.” By 1940 he had concluded that “the slow poisoning of the life of the soil by artificial manures is one of the great calamities of mankind.”
Disease travels up through the food chain—the “biotic web,” the “chain of energy,” as Leopold described it—from soil to plants to animals to humans. So too does health. The power to resist disease, to confer health and contentment on humankind, Howard argued, lay in mimicking natural cycles of growth, decay, and regeneration by returning all organic matter to the soil. “The failure to maintain a healthy agriculture,” he wrote during World War II, “has largely cancelled out all the advantages we have gained from our improvements in hygiene, housing, and our medical discoveries.”

Our economy, in other words, was backward, because we did not understand that our life depends on the health of the soil beneath our feet. To the imperial mindset that dispensed Howard to teach the rural poor to garden, he replied with the news that the flow of wisdom traveled in the opposite direction—up from the poor to the rich, from the colonized to the colonizer.
* * *
Ruhan Kainth made the same discovery 40 years later. When she found the dead soil that chemical fertilizers inevitably produce in her backyard in California, the wisdom of her humble teachers in India helped her to restore it to life.

Before leaving India, Ruhan had pursued two kinds of education—one through the generosity of rural farmers and the family gardener, another at the university. In 1972 she was studying for her master’s degree in economics in Delhi. It was a period of severe political repression and fear in India. It was also the first year Ruhan was eligible to vote. When a woman professor asked her whom she would be voting for in the upcoming election, Ruhan said of course she would never vote for Indira Gandhi. “No one in Delhi would dare speak openly against her,” she explains. “You couldn’t trust anyone. You couldn’t speak. I knew university professors who disappeared. They were never seen again.

“In 1972 I decided to leave. I couldn’t live under those conditions. If you lived in a country where you had politicians like Mrs. Gandhi, who ruled with dictatorial power, then you could not be free, your conscience could not be free.”
It was then that Ruhan told her father that while she knew she would be poorer in America, she was determined to go. He had hoped she would become a government minister. “I told my father, ‘You have told me all my life how you have never compromised. It was you who taught me all this.’” Six years later, in 1978, she left her homeland to come to the United States.

Ruhan and Atma Kainth are from the Punjab, the Land of the Five Rivers. “The land I come from is right below the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. The Punjab has a very rich history, because it’s the crossroads of all cultures. The Greeks, the Scythians, the Parthians, the Mongols, the Arabs—just about everybody came by that route, trying to enter India. And the Punjabis had to meet them, sometimes had to fight them. That’s why most Punjabis are very open-minded, very liberal, very accepting of other cultures.

“It’s still very accepting. We’ve had all kinds of trouble, of course. When India was divided up in 1947, half given to Pakistan, which became a Muslim nation, all non-Muslims had to leave—overnight. The British, in dividing India and Pakistan, drew the political line that led to the exodus. The moment the orders were given, people began to cross borders. As they began crossing, let’s say a trainload is coming from Pakistan into India, full of Hindus and Sikhs. Along the way it would be stopped, and all of the people were butchered by the Muslims. Even though they were leaving, abandoning their homes and their lands, they were killed. And the trains going from India to Pakistan, likewise, full of Muslims, were killed. There was mutual slaughter. The rivers turned red.” Half a million people died in two weeks. “The few who were able to escape with their lives were lucky.”

“Most of our relatives were on the Pakistani side of Punjab, so they had to cross over. Some had to live in refugee camps in Delhi for a time. My parents were lucky—they were able to get out. They came to India. My father’s ancestral lands were left there in Pakistan, their house, everything. All of the Punjabis living on the Pakistan side were uprooted. It would be just like dividing California between north and south.

“My husband’s family was on the Indian side of Punjab, so they did not see this. My husband, Atma, came to America with his 25 dollars in 1972. He still has five of those dollars. He kept them as a reminder. You see, in the ‘70s the Indian government only allowed us to take 25 dollars out of the country. Now they’re liberalizing, but then you couldn’t sell your property there and transfer your wealth here. We got married in 1978, so I came here as the spouse of a U.S. citizen.

“Now,” Ruhan says with great ceremony, “you have to see this,” and she leads me out across the garden to stand under the canopy of a great tree whose branches are hung with fruit unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They’re the size and shape of kiwis, but the smooth skin is magenta when the fruit is young, turning a purple so dark it’s nearly black when they’re fully ripe.

“Not many people have this tree,” Ruhan says, with marvelous understatement. “It’s called a jamun in my language, which means ‘purple,’ but in the Fullerton botanical garden it is listed as a jambolan. I went seeking it. I finally found it with a Pakistani woman who had it as a two-year-old plant. This is the first time it has bloomed and made fruit. For me, it was like a baby being born when it bloomed.”

Ruhan has nursed this tree along for 11 years. “There’s a special story about this tree. In India, my father was given 20 acres of land in lieu of his ancestral lands lost to Pakistan. So he gathered the pits from all the jamuns we had eaten and planted them as a windbreak so that when the winds come at high speed—sometimes the wind blows at 80 kilometers an hour—it would not destroy what had been planted. So I grew up with these trees. I remember eating this fruit as a two-year-old. Oh, it just feels so wonderful to have it bearing.” She strokes the branches, whose bark resembles the drooping, wrinkled skin of an elephant’s legs. “All of my relatives who are in L.A. are so delighted. Now they wait for the fruit to ripen, and I will share it with them.”

Hunar suddenly swoops down, hanging by his legs from an upper branch, and holds out his hands, which are filled with dark purple fruit. He grins with pleasure to have startled us.
Ruhan smiles at her youngest son with great affection as she chooses the darkest fruit for me. I bite into the gorgeous sea-green flesh inside the dusky purple skin. It’s tart, with a hint of sweetness, surprising and delicious, unlike any fruit I’ve ever tasted.

A few yards from the jamun, Ruhan shows me the sugarcane she planted in the corner of her backyard—a tall, upright plant with strappy leaves, a link to the years she spent managing the farm. “This is not the same sugarcane that grows in the Punjab,” she says, “but it’s very similar. We cut the dried husks down to use as compost. Here is some of the sugarcane that we just harvested. See how it’s looking very messy and junky there right now?”
She turns around and points to the cherimoyas growing in a small grove beside the house. “I’ve noticed that since I’ve been putting the sugarcane husks under my cherimoyas, I’ve never needed to feed them. They are creating a soil web which keeps the plants healthy without my having to fertilize them or use any pesticides.”

From deep within the cherimoyas we hear a squawk. “Ah, my chickens!” Ruhan says.
Chickens roosting in the cherimoyas? In suburban Los Angeles?
“We eat their eggs,” she explains, smiling. And they help fertilize the cherimoyas and, when she lets them out, the main garden too.
Hunar leaps over the low fence that keeps them within the cherimoya grove, sneaks up on two, nabs them, and carries them back to us, one under each arm.

“These are Silkies,” Ruhan says, taking one into her arms and stroking it as it clucks. They’re huge, colorful beasts, with fearsome-looking spurs on the backs of their legs. “Then I have two Auracanas. They lay green-and-blue eggs.” She calls them the Mothers. “I love them,” she says, and it’s obvious. “I had a third one, a male, and he started crowing and the neighbors complained. He was a show chicken, so beautiful, but I had to give him away to a friend. Once, when the hens laid eggs, they sat there, and I knew nothing was going to happen, so I went to the Buena Park High School, and I got fertilized eggs and switched them. The hens hatched them and took care of them, so that’s why I call them the Mothers.

“These cherimoyas are my special babies. I have planted some of them from seed. Last year I had over three hundred pounds of cherimoyas,” she says, as if this were not at all unusual. “I ate them, I juiced them, I gave them away. We had lots of friends who wanted them.”

“You grew these from seed?” I ask, incredulous. They’re as tall as the house.
“Oh, yes. In India, when I was little, I used to eat custard apples. When I came here, I looked and looked for them. One of my gardening friends said, ‘Well, we have something similar we call cherimoyas. They grow up in Santa Barbara. They can’t grow here because we don’t have the bug that pollinates them.’ I said, ‘Well, how are you going to have the fruit?’ She said, ‘I’m going to hand-pollinate them.’ So I said, ‘Show me how to do it.’ She taught me how to do it, so I hand-pollinated for several years with a brush.

“The flower is female in the morning, and by evening it turns into a male flower. So the trick is to collect the pollen when it’s a male flower and then look for the next flower in the female stage, and then you pollinate them. I did that for many years, and I got a good crop. Then last year—can you see up there?—I got fruit at the very top of the trees, and I certainly didn’t go to pollinate those. So I said to myself, ‘Wait a minute. Perhaps I don’t even need to pollinate anymore, because somebody has arrived in my garden who’s taking care of the job.

“The custard apple I grew up with as a child is a cousin, a relative of the cherimoya. But for me, these will do just fine. They’re bigger than the ones that come from my country. I enjoy them, so I have adopted them.”
Just as I’m thinking about this garden as a biology lab—in the small triangle of yard that fences in the chickens and the cherimoyas, Ruhan has created a biotic community of remarkable complexity—she turns it into a kinship system. Adoption, not assimilation, is her model, a relationship of choice, and once you choose, you love what you’ve chosen as your own.

How do people respond to the botanical wonders of her backyard? Newly Americanized Sikhs as well as her American neighbors, Ruhan says, have been scandalized by her choices, each for different reasons. “People from my own country who came by and saw me back here working in the garden said, ‘Why are you digging?’ Why wasn’t I inside watching TV and doing American things?”

Speaking of her American neighbors, Ruhan says, “Tell me, is there some law that says I can only plant flowers in my front yard?” It takes me a minute to realize she’s not joking. The neighbors objected when she planted fruit trees in front of the house and strawberries and vegetables in the ground beside the driveway. It startled her to encounter such active resistance to her wish to use every available inch of her land to grow food. “I’m trained as an economist. I’m limited in my ground. I can’t afford more land, so why shouldn’t I be able to use every bit of it?”

To her Punjabi friends who wanted her to be at once more Indian and more American, she answered with energy. “I realized that I was offending people. But here, I don’t have my gardeners. I don’t have crop-sharers. I have only myself. I want to have a garden, a beautiful garden. And I am my only resource. The pleasure of planting a seed and making my own garden is a pleasure that should not be denied me.”

How complex, the negotiation of so many boundaries in the garden. Questions of who plants, what is planted, and where it is planted make plain a host of unspoken rules about the decorum of how one ought to present oneself in the garden. The landscape is such a powerful marker of nationality and class.

Ruhan is mixing it all up. An educated woman from a wealthy family in India, she cultivates a peasant’s garden in America, down on her knees, digging in the dirt. What her neighbors and friends from India cannot see is the act of faith in her labor, the patient devotion of her commitment, a healing of the land that comforts her and keeps her family healthy and strong.

As we walk the dirt paths that meander through her unplanned garden, we are never very far from the house or the back fence, never more than 30 yards or so from her neighbors’ property, but the thick planting, the ring of trees around the perimeter, the rhythm of the tall and rangy next to the squat and full, the beautiful happenstance of planting things as she found them, suggests an impulse so democratic that it borders on anarchy.

“These are my guavas,” Ruhan says, introducing me to the peerless Allahabadis native to the Punjab. Nearly seedless, this variety has a unique flavor comparable to the rich taste that sets basmati apart from all other rice.
When Ruhan first arrived in the United States as a new bride, she lived with Atma in a small apartment. The first thing she planted in America was a pot of mint. Next she planted coriander. When they were able to move to a house, it was wonderful, she says, remembering. “It opened up possibilities for me. I started looking for trees from my country. I wanted to eat a fresh guava so badly, so that was the first tree I planted. A friend who owned a factory knew that one of her employees, a Mexican, was a gardener.” Ruhan’s first seedling was the gift of another immigrant, someone also hungry for the foods of home. “I was so happy!” she says. “I would just look at it—I would watch it grow. These are things I need so badly,” she adds, her voice growing soft, remembering her early years of adjusting to America. “When I put each of these trees in place, I am being true to myself.

“Oh, Hunar, go get that,” she says, suddenly pointing to a ripe fruit, which he plucks and places in her hand. “This is a white sapote. Now in India, the one that I have is a brown sapote called a chikoo. This is the closest I could come to the brown sapote. It’s so good that now I have adopted this one.”
Hunar has fetched my dessert. After the homemade dal and chapatis and fresh yogurt, I will, Ruhan says, taste the sapote.
“Ah, here is my okra,” Ruhan says, and I am grateful to see something I can actually recognize and have eaten. “I was raised with it. We eat it all the time in Punjab. I wonder how it went around the world—do you know?”
“With the slave trade, most likely,” I say.
“Oh, really?” Ruhan says with a blend of sadness and surprise as we continue past it.

“This part of the garden is for my bees,” she explains, gesturing to the brightly colored annuals and perennials at our feet. “I’m trying to plant as many flowers as possible to invite them. The hummingbirds love this part too.”
Along one stretch of the back fence are her hives, square white boxes that seem odd in their neat, angular whiteness among the wild growth, the textured bark, the many shapes of leaves. So Ruhan harvests honey as well. To the trees, shrubs, sugarcane, herbs, spices, and chickens, she invites the great pollinators and orange-throated Anna’s hummingbirds.

We pause before a white mulberry from Pakistan, like the ones she grew up with in her garden in Delhi. Close by, the beige perforated shells of ripe almonds hang from the branches of a tree native to a region north of the Punjab, where the climate is colder. A bougainvillea has climbed through the almond tree, draping its slender branches with the vermilion paper lanterns of its flowers. Close to the almond, Ruhan has planted a plum and a peach tree, so that they might help each other attract pollinators. Close by are her papayas, and below them edible cactus. A swarm of four o’clocks, lemon yellow, grows at our feet—more bee food.

Along the back fence Ruhan’s loquats are in bloom beside a stand of tall Jerusalem artichokes lifting their bright yellow flowers to the sun. Beside them, hung with fruit, is another Allahabadi guava and jicamas, a root vegetable like the Jerusalem artichoke but sweeter. Her first jicama was a gift from a Colombian friend from the California Rare Fruit Growers Association.

“Here is a phalsa—it has a special berry,” she says. Like the strangely beautiful fruit of the jamum, the phalsa berry looks more like a jewel than anything you would want to eat. Ruhan fills my hands with the oval jet beads, whose sharp, sweet taste wakes the senses. When in flower, one variety of phalsa makes a stunning vermilion flower, the other a bright yellow. The phalsa is another of India’s medicinal trees. Ancient texts describe using its leaves, seeds, and flowers to treat a long list of ailments.

Hunar, who has come up behind us, surprises Ruhan with a passionfruit. She receives it gladly, then sends him off for more. “Find one that’s purple,” she calls to him, “and then I can make a drink with it.”
What, I wonder, will Hunar’s memories of this garden be? I think of this child of the 21st century foraging in his mother’s garden, thinking it’s normal to know the history of your food, to eat from the land you live on, to drink only fresh juices from exotic fruit you have watched ripen and learned to pick at just the right moment. He could not have this experience in Delhi any more than Ruhan could.

Our walk is nearly finished as we once again come up beside the pomegranate. Its huge dark fruits are awash in the honey-gold light of late afternoon, so that they glow against the dark green foliage of the tree’s great crown.
“This is one of the biblical fruits, isn’t it?” Ruhan asks. For her, every plant must have its story, its place in a culture. To eat is not simply to consume but to dwell in history. To garden is to cultivate a relationship of kinship—with the earth, with dead soil returned to life, with plants, bees, birds, and chickens. As tiny as this piece of land is, it is home to a vast and intricate world.
“Ah, and here at last,” Ruhan says, “is the neem tree.”

to be continued.......

IIGS Camp - rejuvenation of the spirit!

2007-08-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

Wow! this summer was really fast-forward for us. Between Marching Band practices and ASB meetings, my summer is already over. I have begun to follow the 5 Am to 10 Pm routine again to make the things work for all of us. During summer, most mornings went refreshing 'Punjabi skills' of children and evenings on the pool deck. It was full of fun for all of us. Last week came much awaited 67TH IIGS Sikh Youth Camp. It was another milestone in the journey towards self-realization! Even though each camp follows almost the same format, but each one has something new to offer, something new to learn. It was a great experience - once again. Today's kids never cease to amaze me with their love and understanding of Sikhi. There is so much to share from the inspirational stories that campers make in these camps, but I will keep it brief this time. Here is a poem by my son, AnupHarji Singh (Age 12) that says it all, about the camp and about the campers. Hope you enjoy it!

We all came feeling very enthusiastic
For IGS camp promised to be fantastic
We placed our bags around the bend
Then got back up to meet our friends
Into groups we were divided
By our leaders we were guided
In early morning we ran with speed
For the showers were of great need
We were told of Naam Simran, Waheguru in our prayer
The soft vibration and sweet chanting seemed to occur everywhere
Diwans were now regular, coming twice a day
With melodious kirtan the jatha would come and play
Everyone would sing as they tried to concentrate
Loudly we would do so, with our backs completely straight
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all very yummy
When each one came everyone would fill their tummy
In the lectures we learnt a lot
Some marvelous things we were taught
Quickly taking notes with a pen
Papaji’s lectures were something to attend again
Many duties we were told to complete
Even if it was in the burning heat
Responsibility was the lesson taught here
So to succeed you had to persevere
Discipline was shown with the formation of groups
With campers and leaders developing the parading troops
The whistle was blown leaving ringing in our ears
Some would shout through the noise, while others were left in tears
Gurpreet aunty taught vaja with the notes
Showing us how to clear our throat
Ranjit uncle shouting to start the Khalsa charge every night
Yelling “Bole So Nihaal” with all his might
We created noise like never before
Just like a lion’s roar
Washing our hair to keep it clean
It should become your daily routine
Showing our hair because we are proud
It shows our identity in a crowd
So much learning in this short week
Within a camp that is so unique

A Mother's work is never done!

2007-05-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was diagnosed with C. A. A. D. D. - Child Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to do the laundry. As I start toward the basement, I notice that there are cheerios all over the floor and my car keys are in the cereal bowl.

I decide to pick up the cheerios before I do the laundry. I lay my car keys down on the counter, put the cheerios in the trash can under the counter, and notice that the trash can is full. So, I decide to take out the trash.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the trash I may as well pay the bills first. I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left, my extra checks are in my desk in the office/playroom, so I go to my desk where I find a sippy cup full of juice. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I decide I should put the sippy cup in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the sippy cup a vase of
flowers on the counter catches my eye -- they need to be watered. I set the sippy cup on the counter, and I discover baby wipes that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back in the bathroom, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the wipes back down, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote, one of the kids left it on the kitchen table. I realize that after school when they go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote as they fight over who lost it, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills on the floor. So,I set the remote back down, get some paper towels and wipe up the spill. Then I head down the hall trying to member what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day: the laundry isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm cup of juice sitting on the counter, the flowers aren't watered, there is still only one check in my checkbook, I can't find the remote, I can't find the wipes, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.

Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming.

I will step out on the word of God!

2007-05-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

"My Mother would tell her family in particular and the world in general "'I will step out on the word of God". Because of her convictions, it wasn't difficult for me to have faith. I grew up knowing that the WORD of GOD had POWER." - Maya Angelou said it while sharing stories from her life. It is very true that a mother plays a very important role in shaping the destiny of a family, a society and the community at large. The strongest influence on children is that of the mother. Children mostly follow their mother’s example and look upon her as a role-model. A small daily effort by the mothers will help in molding their children to become good Sikhs and an asset to the society they live in. Yesterday was the day, that was celebrated in Gurdwara to pay tribute to great Sikh Mothers of the Panth - Mata Bhag Kaur, Bebe Nanaki ji, Mata Tripta ji, Mata Khivi ji, Bibi Amro Ji, Bibi Bhani Ji, Mata Sahib Kaur ji & Mata Gujri Ji who were great examples of daughter, sister,wife, mother and grandmother. There were many more sikh women warriors who were remembered for their endless strength and grace. Our daughters do not need to look for inspirations anywhere else but Sikh History, where there are unparallel examples of bravery, love and grace.

It was a memorable day for me personally. Here is the just the glimpse of out of many gifts that my children showered me with. I feel extremely blessed to be mother of these children, who never fail to show their love on day to day basis in general and on special occasions in particular.

Thank you! Mom

For being a Wonderful Mother
So gentle, yet so strong
The many ways you show you care
Always makes be feel I belong

Thank You Mom!
For being patient when I’m foolish
Giving guidance when I ask
It seems you can do anything
You’re the master of every task

Thank You Mom!
For being a source of comfort
Like a cushion when I fall
You help me in terrible times of trouble
Supporting me when I call

Thank You Mom!
For being helpful when I’m hurt
Very soothing when in fright
You are always there for me
Through the day and the night

I love you more than I can express
You have my total respect
If I had a choice on mothers
You’re the one I select!

-Your son

Ardas

2007-05-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

The word ‘ardas’ is derived from a Persian word ‘arzdasht’ which means a petition or an address to a superior authority. Our ardas is addressed to the Almighty God and to our eternal Guru, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. When we stand in front of Guru Granth Sahib with folded hands, individually or in a congregation, we are pleading for Gurus’s blessings and forgiveness for our shortcomings. Ardas is not written in Guru Granth Saheb. The format of Ardas has evolved over many years. After Bhagauti ki Vaar, the remaining wording of the current Ardas was decided by a joint body of Sikh Scholars in 1932-33 and was published by SGPC (Shiromini Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee – organization that manages the Sikh Gurdwaras).

TU THAAKUR TUM PEH ARDAAS, JEEO PIND SABH TERI RAAS
This shabad is from the fourth Ashtpadi (collection of eight stanzas) of Sukhmani Saheb is recited before starting the Ardas. In these verses, Guru Arjan Dev ji says that our body and soul, and everything we have, are blessings from God. We are His children. Therefore, we must relinquish our ego and plead to Him for our needs like a child pleads to his / her parents.
Ardas can be divided into three main parts. First part is vaar Siri Bhagauti Ji Ki, composed by Guru Gobind Singh ji., in which he invoked the almighty God and the first nine Gurus.

IK OANKAAR, WAHEGURU JI KI FATEH, SRI BHAGAUTI JI SAHAAE ………….. TEG BAHADUR SIMARIAE, GHAR NAU NIDH AAVAE DHAE, SABH THAAEE HOE SAHAAE

After the vaar, we invoke the tenth Guru and Guru Granth Saheb.
DASVEN PATSHAH, SIRI GURU GOBIND SINGH JI, SABH THAAEE HOE SAHAAE DASAAN PATSHAHIAAN DI JOT SIRI GURU GRANTH SAHEB JI DE PATH, DARSHAN DIDAAR DA THIAN DHAR KE BOLO JI WAHEGURU

PANJAAN PIAARYAAN, CHOHAAN SAHEBZADYAAN……………. PANJAAN TAKHTAAN, SARBAT GURUDWAARYAAN DA THIAAN DHAR KE BOLO JI WAHEGURU.

This part of Ardas essentially encapsulates the entire Sikh history, recounting the dedication and sacrifice by the Sikhs, and reflecting upon the memorable acts of the Sikh martyrs and heroes, who upheld their faith unto their last breath.

PRATHME SARBAT KHALSE JI KI ARDAAS HAE JI, SARBAT KHALSA JI KO WAHEGURU, WAHEGURU, WAHEGURU CHIT AAVE………………… SIKHAAN DA MAN NEEVAAN, MAT UCHI, MAT DA RAAKHA AAP WAHEGURU.
In this part of Ardas, we seek the gift of meditating on the Divine Name ‘Waheguru’, which brings peace and happiness. We seek Waheguruji’s blessings for the well being of the whole Khalsa Panth, and the gift of leading a disciplined life according to the Sikh Code of Conduct.

HE AKAAL PURAKH, AAPNE PANTH DE SADAA SAHAAEE DAATAAR JEEO, SIRI NANKAANA SAHEB TE HOR GURUDWAARIAAN GURDHAAMAAN DE, JINHAAN TO PANTH NU VICCHORIAA GAYAA HAE, KHULE DARSHAN DEEDAAR TE SEVA SAMBHAAL DA DAAN KHALSA JI NU BAKSHO………………….. NANAK NAAM CHARDI KALA, TERE BHAANE SARBAT KA BHALAA
In this part of Ardas, we pray to God to allow us free access to our holy Gurudwaras that remained in Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. After this, specific wording is used to suit the occasion for the congregation (e.g. regular divan, birth, death, wedding etc.) and Waheguru ji’s blessing is sought for the fulfillment of the purpose for which the congregation was done. At the end, we prey for the well being of all, irrespective of their race or religion.

AAGYA BHAEE AKAAL KI, TABHI CHALAAEO PANTH
SABH SIKHAN KO HUKAM HAE, GURU MAANEO GRANTH
GURU GRANTH JI MAANEO, PARGAT GURAAN KI DEH
JO PRABH KO MILBO CHAHAE, KHOJ SHABAD ME LAE
RAJ KAREGA KHALSA, AAKI RAHE NA KOE
KHWAAR HOE SABH MILENGE, BACHE SHARAN JO HOE
BOLE SO NEHAAL, SAT SRI AKAL
WAHEGURU JI KA KHALSA, WAHEGURU JI KI FATEH
After the Ardas, the above couplets are recited which are not written in Guru Granth Sahib or the Dasam Granth. These are written in a document called “Tankhahnama”, written by a devout Sikh and a great poet named Bhai Nand Lal ji, and are believed to be questions by Bhai Nand Lal ji and answers by Guru Gobind Singh ji.

Source: Gurbani101

GIFTS: Teachers Appreciation Week

2007-05-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

My father was a Primary School Teacher all his life, who has retired from the profession many years ago but never stopped teaching. Education was the most important gift that he gave to me and my siblings. My father’s example instilled an awe and respect for the profession. I realized that, next to parenting, teaching is the most compelling and the noblest of professions. Every young mind needs a spark to light the way to a brighter future through learning and teachers are that spark. In 1984, National PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week - the first full week in May-to honor the dedicated men and women who lend their passion and skills to educating our children. While it is supposedly the opportunity for the parents and students to convey their thanks to the teachers, at grade schools, parents are expected to give gifts to their children's teachers. For many families, there's a fine line between showing appreciation and wrecking family budget. Finding just the right gift; at just the right price can be challenging at best. With the end of the school year looming on once again, here are some ideas for often inexpensive teacher appreciation gifts.
It is a common knowledge that every teacher appreciates school supplies. Often teachers spend a lot of their own money stocking their classrooms. Pencils, markers, dry erasers, construction paper, anything for the classroom: games, electric pencil sharpener, writing equipment, books, rulers, things to decorate or theme objects, whatever you can get inexpensively or in volume. After dividing these between your two or even three children, it will cost less than $2 per gift. So stack up shoe-box sized plastic storage box full of school and classroom supplies that you can collect throughout the year at sales, clearance stores, etc. Don’t forget to add the most important part of the appreciation - A letter from the student (and/or parent) telling what they enjoyed about the year or the teacher's input into the child's life.

The other more personal gifts can be – Gift certificates from Baskin-Robbins, a bag of popcorn and a flavored salt sampler, a Gift certificate for a DVD rental, Movie Theater passes, a small basket of lotions or soaps, homemade fudge in take-out meal containers or flavored coffee/tea mixes. If you are an artist print teacher’s name on pencils; give coffee and a cup decorated by your child, handmade items from your child e.g. potholder, pencil holder, A small plant potted in a thrift store coffee mug or tea cup.

As we celebrate Teacher’s Appreciation Week, there are too many people who get left out, such as the principal, the secretary, long-term substitute teachers, P.E. teacher, the kitchen lady who serves your child every day, the teacher's aide, the Girl/Boy Scout leader, the Sunday School teacher, and the private teachers like sports coach, karate sensei, Art Class teacher, piano and dance teachers. I know a parent can't possibly buy gifts for all these people. I suggest that you send a personal e-mail or card to each individual telling them why they were so important to your child & thank them in most unique way by donating a book to the school or the public library in their name. Let them know how this gift will help other children as much as he/she helped your child. Another great way of acknowledging their contribution to your child’s life is to invite them to dinner at your house. This is also your chance to get to know them on more personal basis.

Basically, showing appreciation to the dedicated people who've touched our lives and given of themselves to our children should be an expression of heart-felt thanks, in any manner that does not pressurize any parent to go broke.

A Journey of a Sikh Woman

2007-05-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

A Journey

by MEETA KAUR

It's nap time and my mother's hair becomes a world of my own. Mama unpins her bun and lets her hair fall, rushing down her back. She combs through the tangles with her fingers. Her long, shampooed tresses are thick pieces of rose-smelling silk. Her shiny hair is black pashmina, an endless journey toward the heart of a dark sky.

I lie perpendicular to the length of the bed, on top of tangerine and gold embroidered pillows, flexing my feet and wiggling my toes. Mama lies down next to me. I proceed to thread her locks from the crown of her head through my big and second toes. Her hair fans out like a thousand silk threads suspended in air. Nestling both of my feet into the nape of her neck, I doze off warm, happy and safe.

I wake up to my mother combing out the knots. My father is coming home soon. I am only five years old, but somehow I know I will live my life joyfully. Mama is my light. She is home.

Mama teaches me how to take care of my hair during hair-bath days on Saturday mornings. I sit in our white ceramic tub waiting for my shampoo to commence. When the water reaches my waist, I crouch forward and push myself off the front of the tub. I sink under, and under is where I stay. The waves ripple over me as I hold my breath - one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi. I release tiny air bubbles with two seconds in between rounds and watch them float to the surface, then hover and pop.

"Meeta, beti, please get up so I can wash your hair." My mother places a plastic cream-colored stool next to the tub and squats down with her knees bumping up against the tub's side. I surface, a humpback whale disrupted from its southern migration. Mama's fingers sink into my scalp as she begins a relaxed massage.

"Close your eyes, urrahhh, close your eyes so it will not sting you." Mama piles the strands of hair atop my head and squeezes out more shampoo. She beams as she sculpts my hair into a temple. I tilt my head back for the rinse.The weight of the shampoo washes away, leaving me light as a feather. She towel-dries my hair and draws a line down the middle of my head with a comb.

She combs each section of my hair the way she combs her own - carefully, patiently. Mama's slow hands tell me how much respect she gives my body and me. At school, I romp with fluffy, tangle-free hair through recess.

As a child, I never question why all of my family members have long, thick hair - we just do. It is a natural extension of who we are. I do not realize until later that hair-bath days only exist in our family household, and that the brothers and fathers in other American families do not have long hair.

My mother silently declares an allegiance to a homeland that is rooted from our heads and connected to our hearts. As a Sikh woman who migrated from India to America, she carries the strength and solace of spirituality in her hair. It is a light that provides a sense of place and home between any borders, on any soil, whether she is in India, America, or any other country.

Although I didn't realize it then, my mother has been stoking the same guiding light in me since my childhood - a light that shows me the illuminating life that extends through my thoughts, out of my head, into my hair, and into the world, a light that shows me the path to who I am becoming, a light that sparks with subconscious knowledge and holds a steady glow.

When I am older, in middle school, Mom sends me on solo trips to India during summer breaks. My first trip alone leaves me jet-lagged and anxiously awake in the deep Indian nights.

After riding the Shatabdi train from the Bombay airport to Poona, Jeeti Masi and Uncle Ji greet and escort me to their home. Their daughter and my cousin, Baby, is married and has moved away to live with her husband and in-laws in Hyderabad. In her dusty pink- and-bronze room, the night's cool breeze chases the day's humidity out of the room through the half-opened windows. I sit up on the bed not knowing what to do.

I slink downstairs and head for the front door and quietly unlock the steel bolt to step outside. I step toward the custard apple tree in the lawn and pick one off. It looks like it has been glazed with green bottle glass. I carry it back upstairs, set it on the wooden nightstand, and wait for sleep to arrive.

The next day, jet lag leaves me drowsy on the velvet maroon sitting-room sofa with a set of my cousin's old comic books. They are dog-eared and have broken spines. They tell the spiritual stories of the ten Sikh Gurus, divine mortals sent as teachers to deliver the wisdom of a new faith, Sikhism.

As I read, I travel back in time to the 16th-century Indian subcontinent. Mughal soldiers force Hindus to convert to Islam or suffer death. The ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, dons a navy blue turban and a golden robe and has a long silky beard. He declares, "All people have a right to practice their own religion."

The Mughal leader sarcastically responds, "If you are so interested in defending these people, are you willing to die for them?"

In the next scene, Guru Tegh Bahadur is beheaded by a Mughal soldier.

Another comic book illustrates the story of Mai Bhago, a great Sikh woman warrior who challenged forty deserters of the Sikh army to return to their posts and fight on behalf of Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Master, against the tyranny of the Mughals and the Hill Rajas, and to protect the principles of the nascent faith.

As I read the comics, I realize that if there are no people standing at the end of these battles, there will be no principles, because they live within the people. The need to live with dignity and freedom becomes greater than the need to just live. To me, the sacrifices these Gurus made for future generations seem fantastical and out of this world, but in reality the Gurus had compiled scriptures that captured their direct conversations with God, the enlightenment that centered on equality, while also drawing from the most progressive Hindu and Muslim tenets to create a just society.

On the comic page, the Gurus wear regal turbans that protect their hair. Their long black beards flow freely. They look different from everyone else. I am familiar with the way they look because they remind me of my family, but I also see that they are different. We are different.

I spend the next two days reading through each of the one-hundred comic books. I learn that my hair is referred to as kesh. My kesh represents an outward identity I am required to preserve as a Sikh woman.

The comic books fill me with information and history. I learn, in preserving this natural uniform, that I commit to the equality between men and women, rich and poor, black and white, Muslim, Hindu, Christian ... Kesh is a commitment to a loving state of mind, to self-control, to faith in humanity, and to the protection of individual and communal rights.

Through daily meditations; a commitment to just thought, speech and action; and faith in the One Supreme Being, a Sikh can reach a state of rapture right here on earth. A Sikh can live in utter bliss through serving humanity. What amazes me is the capacity to care enough to protect the rights of even those who I disagree with or who are intolerant of me.

I have a hard time developing the discipline it takes to fulfill the destiny that is laid out for me. To me, these spiritual prophets are political ideologues. I dismiss their faith as jargon. I do not see it, cannot feel it, and have no evidence of it existing around me, so I follow my pleasures and passions as a young adolescent American girl who has bought into the illusions of this world: standardized beauty, romantic love, and the power of money.

I want the attention of friends. I want the attention of boys. I want to be picture-perfect stepping out of the swimming pool with styled hair. I want to swoon with my classmates over our class pictures, squealing in delight about how cute we look. I want to date Rick Springfield.

But all of this is not going to happen with all of this long, frizzy hair. I muse: Maybe if I imitate my classmates' hairstyles - Stephanie's bangs, or Laura's bouncy blond bob, or Mindy's perm - I'll have a chance.

In my freshman dorm at the University of California at Davis, I am surrounded by young women fawning over their tresses all day and night. Deep conditioners, natural dyes, wave relaxers and mousse are must-have helpers. Fraternity parties, house parties and international parties call for one- to two-hour sessions in front of the mirror.

But my choices are limited: a ponytail or pigtails, wearing it down with a part in the middle or to the side, a tight or loose bun. Okay, there are choices, but something about my hair feels stale, like old bread. It is ancient, musty, and tired.

In my hair, my mother, aunt and grandmother nest with their stories, their histories and their spirits. They sit on my head waiting for me to hatch into a woman who makes a difference in the world, who makes a habit of acting fearless in moments that demand it.

The women in my family believe that my hair will purify my thoughts. They believe I can expand my thinking with my hair; all the positive energy in the world will be transmitted to me through my hair. Midnight tresses are rolled up into buns at the napes of my mother's, aunts' and cousins' necks. My grandmother wraps her salt-and pepper hair into an acorn of a bun, nesting her love for God and her ancestors' heritage into her hair.

But I am convinced that this is not for me. I am convinced that I belong to the world and the world is a better source of authority for me. The distance between my parents and me grows with fewer conversations and an ocean of misunderstanding. I decide it is time to push forward with something new - defined by me - something I can call my own.

I step into Select Cut Salons on Fourth and C Streets in downtown Davis. I am convinced that this decision will alter who I am and carve out an entry into my real life, a life waiting to be defined. Inside the salon, peroxide mingles with the receptionist's cigarette smoke.

"Who are you here to see?" The receptionist smashes her cigarette into the ashtray and scans the appointment book. Her sandy blond hair is cut like that of a choirboy who does not own a comb.

"I'm here to see Tiffany for a hairstyle ... um-m, a haircut," I tell her. It is no big deal, I try to convince myself. Everyone gets haircuts. Relax.

"Tiffany, your four o'clock is here!"

Tiffany greets and ushers me over to a hot-pink leather chair that competes with the black-and-white checkered floor. Cotton-candy-colored vanity lights line the individual station mirrors. The spritzers, mousse, hair relaxing serums and alcohol-free finishing-hold sprays confirm that hair care is a commitment that cannot be taken lightly.

Tiffany lifts my thick braid of hair over my head and lets it drop. Her hands are careless, unlike Mama's.

"Wow, what thick and curly hair you have."

For Tiffany, my long rope of a braid is just hair, humdrum strands hanging out of my head.

"Okay, so do you have any ideas?" she asks.

Her clumsiness makes my heart pound faster. I feel my hands quivering, so I sit on top of them and attempt to look genuinely interested. I scan the top of the mirrors for all the European cuts: pageboys, what looks like a Cleopatra cut, and simple unassuming bobs. It's exciting to think about how I might change, but something keeps grabbing at me, telling me to leave this place, to just get out of here.

But I won't. My head pounds, weighing heavier and heavier as I take in all the pictures. I survey Tiffany's red, curly, turn-up-the-volume hair. It hangs an inch off of her shoulders. I have to answer her, but I don't want my hair to look like hers.

"Umm . . . a bob looks nice, or maybe a Cleopatra cut, or . . . I don't know. What's the difference? Just cut it."

Tiffany's eyes widen and her eyebrows bob up and down looking like she is going to skip the Are you sure? or Wanna think about it?

My heart is thumping, and I see the entire Sikh army falling off their horses as they ride into battle - sliding off cliff edges, pierced by arrows, losing control of their purpose, their direction.

Just shake it off, I tell myself, it is just a head of hair, and everyone gets a haircut. Well, everyone except for Sikhs, Rastafarians some Native American tribes - and my entire living family.

Maybe I'm not a Sikh, or don't have what it takes to be one. I am the weakest link. I'm the soldier falling behind, barely able to carry my backpack, late for daily prayers. I'm the one who cannot get my act together, so what does it matter?

Tiffany's steel blades skim my neck. She struggles to cut off a lifetime of hair in one snip; it will have to be severed off, decapitated. Half of my braid is disembodied from the back of my skull. I close my eyes and wait for it to be over.

"There you go, hon," Tiffany says, holding my thick braid in her hand, like a dead animal. "I'll put it in a bag for you so you have a souvenir to remember it by."

When Tiffany hands me the bag with my braid, I gingerly set it on the floor. I hear her mumbling something about styling my new hairdo, but my mind is somewhere else.

I really did it. What did I do?

Tiffany uses smaller scissors to "style" my hair. Her glossy lips smack together as she talks, but I can't make out a single word of what she's saying until she's finished with the scissors.

"Okay! A quick blow dry and we are finizio."

She blow-dries my hair and asks me to do a quick flip of my head. I see myself in the mirror with tussled hair surrounding my face. I had expected something different. I thought it would be different.

Later, I get together with my roommate, Martha. She holds her hands to her mouth when she sees me. She looks like she is going to puke.

"Oh my God! You look so cuuuuu-ute!"

Cute? I am empty. Cold. I run my fingers across the shaved patch on the back of my neck and wonder about this cycle of growing out my hair, cutting it again, growing it out again.

What purpose does this serve? To be cute?

Three weeks after my haircut, I go home to Yuba City to visit my mother. On my way to the house, I pull on my hair at the back of my head trying to tug it to its original length. I ring the doorbell and wait. The lock clicks open and I throw my arms around her.

"Mom! Hey!" She throws her hands around me and they search for my head, for my hair. I freeze.

"Meeta!"

She whips me back where she can see my face; my hair jostles around near my neck, settling down two inches above my shoulders. Her face crumples and turns red. Her eyes well up. I see the pain denting her face, contorting it into something she is not.

She runs toward the kitchen, pleading with my grandmother to enter the prayer room. My mother wipes her face with her dupatta and starts her prayers before she even enters the sanctum. She is whispering into God's ear.

She does not speak to me for four months.

I call my mother on the phone and try to explain to her that it is just hair. My mother swallows her tongue in her attempts to explain that it is not just hair.

"It is identity. It is your commitment to an honest life, to a compassionate life. It is your character, your credibility. Why would you give up your own credibility?" she asks.

I want to cry, swallowing the sobs stuck in my throat. The smell of flowers in my shampooed hair makes me nauseous.

I reach for my childhood memories, but they slip away quickly, running away from me.

The next few months, I enter into the ritual of growing my hair out, trimming it, cutting it, and growing it out again. I become indecisive about my school major, and my grades falter. I find studying too overwhelming to deal with. I grow silent. I do not know who I am anymore. I drift and float through my sophomore year of college.

I develop an identity through a guy I date and transform myself into an accessory for someone else's life.

There is a constant gnawing at my insides for something concrete, something that grounds me. I have no center, so I drift out to sea without direction or guidance. I lose my connection to myself and to the world. I lose my connection to a deeper sense of who I am.

I do not realize that I had put that much faith into my kesh, into my long wavy hair, the hair I blame for my problems.

Mama accepts me into her house again, but she cannot hide her disappointment. She dismisses me during family conversations. She questions my pride at the dinner table. She tells my younger cousins to follow the example of my cousins in India: "The girls in India know who they are and where they come from."

I know my mother doesn't mean India when she says this to my cousins. She doesn't pledge an allegiance to the geography of India or even America, for that matter, but to the spiritual homeland of Sikhism. She stamps my passport: Deported. I am exiled from my family's homeland. I am a foreigner in my family's home.

The border between my mother and me expands. She sets up a front line to protect the sanctity of her life against the impiety of mine. I hold on to my illusions, declare my mother narrow in her thinking. We never talk about it-the hair, the kesh, the identity I abandoned.

A few years after graduation, I join Narika, a South Asian women's hotline that supports survivors of domestic violence. The hotline serves women from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. There are quite a few counselors who know Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu and communicate with the women on the hotline in their native languages. I stick with English because it is essentially the language I understand best.

I attend two counseling training sessions in the summer and prepare to wo-man the hotline. We receive a directory of domestic violence resources ranging from legal help to emergency room phone numbers.

Shoba, our counselor, suggests we prepare a hot cup of tea to keep at our side during our shift. She tells us that we will receive a range of calls: from women who may hang up, merely content with having heard a soothing voice on the other end of the line, to professionals asking for the names of good divorce attorneys.

It's Tuesday night, and I'm naively excited about my first hotline shift. I dial into the hotline and pick up one voice mail. I call the woman back. I listen to her pauses and hesitations when she speaks. I let her know it is okay to talk about what's happened to her, that it is okay to speak her truth.

She tells me he has hit her. We rest in the silence between us after she speaks. In this moment, I am humbled by my own history of Sikh women charging into battle, leading communities to fight oppression, and try desperately to pass on this historic courage, this timeless fearlessness through my lips into this woman's ears - down to her heart.

Eleven voice mails, three cases, and some court appearances later, the world has turned inside out for me and the distortion of it all hurts my eyes; these women's stories leak onto my pillow night after night. The counselor-training sessions ring true. Violence transcends class, education and race. Even though these same realities exist within Sikh communities in America and abroad, the scriptures state unequivocally that mothers, wives, sisters and daughters deserve the highest respect from their families and the society around them. Anyone who dares to harm them is violating sacred law.

I begin to question the world I am living in. I recall how quiet most of the Sikh girls were at school, how much they held in. I remember my mother demanding that my father respect her as an equal partner in those moments he lost sight of her right to make decisions in our household. I remember my own ability to dismiss myself because I had the ability to shrink, become invisible, smothering my own light because I am scared of where it could take me.

I walk the streets imagining that every man passing by is preparing to go home and beat up his wife. I lose two or three nights of sleep during any given week. On weekends, I'm in a deep slumber coma, not waking up for the sunlight, lunch, or even early-evening tea. The slumber pushes the days crammed with hotline calls into a semi-distant past, but the women's voices continue to scream in my head.

I help one woman secure a restraining order against her husband who consistently molests his youngest daughter. On the morning of her court date on the way to the courtroom, she shields me with her hands when she sees her husband. She turns to me and says, "I will not leave you alone with him."

She sees her daughter in me. I put my arm around her shoulder and let her know that I will not leave her alone with him either.

Colleagues and friends see me absorbing these women's lives and making their pain my own. The daily hotline calls push me into daily meditation and prayer. I practice rising early in the morning with the sun. I brush my teeth, bathe, and then have a cup of tea.

I recall my mother's and grandmother's practice of sitting down to pray, to clear their minds of any disturbances, to reach a solution or relief from a situation.

I return to my bedroom, sit cross-legged on my bed, and cover my head with a dupatta. I reach for my Nitnem bound in red velvet. The small book holds Sikh prayers in Gurmukhi on the right side of the page and gives English translations on the left. In concentrating on these prayers, I ask for peace of mind and strength, a calming of my nerves that will sketch a decent mind-size portrait of a sane world. I ask for guidance - grounded, firm guidance.

The meditation becomes a daily practice I cannot live without. Little by little, I chase fear out of my body to make room for more light. Three months of heavy meditation help me create a healthy detachment from the women without sacrificing my compassion for them.

The prayers center me. I realize that all the little hells created on this earth are what the Sikh Gurus fought against. I realize there can be no peace or rest if members in a society suffer or are denied their basic rights.

My hair has grown three inches longer. The meditation increases and with it my hair expands in length. I focus on the strength of my mother's hair and the strength and safety she gave me as a child, the comfort I find in my spiritual homeland.

I feel a crack in the older self that I mummified when I cut my hair into that Cleopatra bob three years ago in college. The new growth of my hair is the outgrowth of my new mind. I see the world for what it is and realize that faith and my contributions toward realizing the vision of a socially just society are what I have to hold on to.

I protect my mind's thoughts with my long wavy hair, warding off the severity of the world, nurturing my ideas and visions for my bright future. I realize all will not be resolved overnight, but I see a spark of light flicker from the steady glow of childhood.

The thick plaster of the bandages breaks off, and I return to the original homeland of myself, with the gift of kesh.

My hair becomes witness to all the love and atrocities in the world. My hair holds the strength, pain and love of these women on the hotline who I will never forget, cannot forget. I realize that I, too, am on a battlefield similar to the ones I saw in the comic books, even though the landscape is different and I'm not holding a sword.

The guiding light I inherit from the women in my family finds a way to penetrate me at my core and transform me from the inside out. I am duty-bound to the world around me according to the kesh I reclaim.

I rise daily to my original locks, which are now younger than me. My hair has grown back out to its former length, and I no longer question preserving it until I die.

I am on the path to becoming the woman my mother and grandmother prayed I would be.

http://sikhchic.com/article-detail.php?id=127&cat=6

[From Journey By Inner Light, by Meeta Kaur. Published in an Anthology, "Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Place, and Time", edited by Patricia Justine Tumang & Jenesha de Rivera, Seal Press, California, 2006. ISBN-10: 158005188X; ISBN-13: 978-1580051880. US $16.95 ]

GOODBYE, SUPER MOM

2007-05-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

I have exhibited super powers from an early age, when I had to compete with three older brothers. Determined to leap tall obstacles in a single bound; I did manage to rack up national scholarship beginning high school until I graduated with Master’s Degree in Science. I grabbed my degree and tunneled into my career. Followed again my brothers to US, established my career & life in pardes. I married man of my choice as opposed to arranged marriage for Punjabi girls. Before we celebrated our first wedding anniversary I birthed a baby boy without fear, because if anybody could make the Super Mom thing work, it was me.

…………………………..And that’s when all the wheels fell off my steam engine. Children are energy consuming creatures, they can suck every last tad of energy you’ve got and leave you in a pile on the floor. It’s not their fault, of course. If they were all we had to do, it would still be a full-time job. But as any Joker will tell you, most women are playing more than one hand at a time.

Convinced with my organizing skills, I figured I would simply ease my new little one, Harji, into my agenda. It wasn’t long, however, before I learned a different universal truth – babies don’t like scheduled events. As you can imagine, I cried a lot during those first parenting years. After Harji’s sister, Sukhmani, arrived, there were times we all three would blubber like babies. When Sukhmani turned two and baby Harjap came along, I finally threw my Day timer against the wall. I no longer desired a lifestyle that moved like a speeding bullet…….so I wanted to be full-time mommy.

Finally, my dream is coming true and I am counting days at my work, cleaning up computer, cleaning up my desk drawers, dusting files that were piled for more than a decade in the drawer above my head. I wish to make my presence at home wonderful for every one at home, including me. Since I have cleared my schedule, I have a chance to rest up and concentrate on my family. My husband is thrilled with the thoughts of having me around more, and the kids are glowing with adoration for a mom who finally will have time for them free of excuses.

I promise I will not let my old enemy weasel his way back into my household. I refuse to be Super Stay-at-Home Mom, perfect wife, perfect mother, and perfect volunteer, perfect all-around person. Since I will no longer be heading to the office everyday, does not mean that I will have all this spare time. I will not work like a dog, just like I had to since I was employed outside the home.
If I forget this promise of mine to myself, I will have only one thing to blame - my wicked alter-ego, that has been feeding me this list of must-do’s. In turn it is - Me.

……….But it is not me only; I have seen every mother doing the same what I did whether she is working in home or outside home. I have learnt from my own flight down Misery Lane; that a lot of the striving comes because we’re unsure of who we are or where we’re going. So we rush from project to project until we wear out, never truly accomplishing anything of value. When I look at the Sikh History and see how Gurus & great Sikhs of those times lived their everyday lives, I’m amazed at how applicable their messages are to my own routine. I’m a sturdy gal, and it probably took longer for me to get His message than most, but I finally unfastened my cape and let it fall to the ground. I’ve got a new veil draped around my shoulders now, one that encourages me to make choices based on Guru’s example, not a demanding schedule. I want to walk humbly with my SatGuru. But from now on, I’m not going to obsess over it and will let hrIPul AjImYN ] rzwiek XkInYN ] The Perfect Friend and Surest Provider of Sustenance – Waheguru Ji lead the way.

Rantings of a Working Mom

2007-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

I felt comfort of fresh air filling my lungs this morning as I picked my car keys to go to work. There was no notes to leave for my husband; who have happily taken morning stress on his shoulders for many years now so I could go to work early & spend my evenings with children (in other words I could attend to my second full-time job at home in more relaxed manner)……there was no calls to make to the boss while dreading that intimidating talk, how my poor attendance at office is affecting projects’ progress & how I could be terminated on the basis of this poor attendance record…as if HR notification of all this was not enough.
This may sound like height of craziness, but last week I needed a place to go where there was not any craziness without actually getting away. I wanted to turn on my computer and go to my on-line happy space where other people who understand life as a working mom balancing a successful career with trying to be a good parent, loving & beautiful wife, calm & happy woman, you name it....in short, women trying to be the best of everything and evolving into the 21st century mothers or Corporate Moms. But it was not so.
Monday morning, as if being Monday at work was not enough, just about 3 hours into sorting projects and responding e-mails; I got call from my daughter’s school. She was running 100 fever (which I know is 102 for her normal body temp being at 96). It gave me anxiety symptoms, wishing to be there right that moment but knowing that I was 40 miles away from her. I took immediately off from work, but this was the early morning when traffic is heaviest & I was not driving against it…..so it took me 75 mins (as opposed to my normal drive of 45 mins) to get there. To keep my mind off from all the bad thoughts; I turned on Sukhmani Sahib da paath in car; so I calmed down by the time I got to the school.
Well, then started my struggle to control that fever…alternate dozes of Motrin/Tylenol, cool baths, wet washcloths on the forehead…all that kept me on my toes for 3 days and 2 nights. I took her to doctor believing her sore throat is a case of strep…but doctor simply did throat culture & sent me home with instructions that I already knew about the fever control. She has had rash developed on her upper body on Tuesday evening right when her brother was expecting us to go to his long-awaited open house at school. After making consultation calls with advice nurse and making yet another appointment on Tuesday night, I left her in dad’s care & went with my son to his open house. It was only after the effect that I realized that ‘Mom knows the best’…I should have switched places with my husband on these tasks. Well that appointment was in vain too, doctor told us nothing more that advice nurse did…give her benadryl. It may be allergy. Change the Motrin with Advil. That night again was the longest night; just checking on her condition and planning my next day if I could go to work.
Her fever began to stablalize on Tuesday night…meaning she could go on Advil for 6 hours at stretch, but rash was increasing to lower body. I knew it was not allergy, it was not heat rash (which it looked like)..but I was feeling very helpless. The HR notification that hangs on my refrigerator was pushing me to go to office and show my face for few hours while daughter was in dad’s care in the AM; but my mother heart wanted to just e-mail my resignation than to face that intimidation at work again. Hubby was not of much help; as he could not understand that only corporate moms can. In tears I left the home; leaving instructions for dad to give her medicine. As I feared, got call from dad only after 2 hours at work that her rash is worsening. Again had the miserable one and a half hour drive back to pick her up from school & wondering what exactly drove me to come to work, when my daughter needed me to be on her side? Why could I not risk being terminated? Is it hurtful to my ego to get terminated from the company who I served for 15 years or is it loosing control on making my own decision to quit my career? I still don’t know the answer but a corner of my heart is still resenting the fact that only moms are expected to make such choices.
Well, I had open talk with my boss that Wednesday morning before I got the call; basically choosing to be mother first & everything else later. I told him that I may or may not come to work for rest of the week & even offered to write a resignation letter if so required. I guess, boss realized the seriousness of the matter & did not want to loose the opportunity to get my help training the new software engineer before I quit my job in June. He even returned my call next day just to inform me that I need no ‘off-work’ slips from doctor in order to use personal leave (as opposed to what HR wrote). So I stayed home with my daughter in peace after that. Saturday again, I took her in for re-evaluation. As I suspected before, she now had obvious symptoms of Scarlet Fever. Finally she was put on antibiotics & is recovering well. Thank you Waheguru ji!

Happy Feet!

2007-03-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

Happy Feet and Sikhi!

by MANPREET KAUR SINGH

If you want to begin a conversation about Sikhism with a child and don’t quite know where to start, just go to the cinema and watch "Happy Feet".
I think Mumble - the central character of the animated movie - is the ideal Sikh, and someone all kids should strive to be. He is different from the rest; and not just that, he is proud to be different. He doesn’t want to follow the pack, even under immense peer pressure. More than that, he is always happy, even when up against heavy odds; moreover, he gallantly risks his life to save the colony - demonstrating the concept of “sarbat da bhalla”, as embodied in Sikhism. Although the movie is primarily a love story, you don’t have to look too deep to discern the real message.

If you haven’t watched the movie yet, Happy Feet is an enchanting musical about a penguin colony, where everyone is a singer….or at least tries to be one. But Mumble is different, because he can only tap dance! Even though no one appreciates his dancing, he keeps at it, and feels happiest just being himself. His singing is woeful, but he doesn’t let the sneers and jeers bother him. He finds friends who like his dancing, but the elders of the colony perceive him as a threat - because he questions the established norms and the pack mentality. They blame him for the depleting stock of fish in the water because of which the colony is slowly but surely dying.
Mumble is given the choice to conform and stay within the colony or leave his family forever and go with his friends. He refuses to buckle under the pressure, and chooses the latter. Even though he is ostracized, Mumble vows to find out why there aren't enough fish in the water anymore and he goes to live in another colony.

There, he questions the local demigod, ‘Lovelace’, and sees through his charade, realizing that Lovelace couldn’t really “predict the future” as he claimed, but people worship him merely because he has something strange around his neck. It pans out later that it is a plastic six-pack can-holder (from polluting flotsam and jetsam) which is also slowly choking Lovelace to death.
Mumble sets out to help Lovelace and also to figure out the fish conundrum. His friends accompany him on a dangerous journey and finally they are able to cut the plastic stuck around Lovelace’s neck. Having set him free, Mumble leaves him and his friends to embark on a risky mission alone.
He follows the strange monster in the sea (a fishing ship, using nets to catch fish) to check if that is what causes the fish to disappear. In the process, he himself is caught in the net and is placed in a zoo - for humans to admire a ‘live Antarctica exhibit’. Despite the circumstances, when everyone around him is losing their sanity, Mumble hangs in …and begins to tap dance!
Suddenly everyone notices him and the humans feel that the tap dancing penguin is trying to communicate with them - and give them a message. In the end, he leads the humans to his penguin colony and under immense pressure from the media, governments world-wide ban fishing ships in the area.
So Mumble, keeping his head - and his ways - saves the whole of his colony, which lives happily ever after….. Isn’t he just the perfect example of what a Sikh should be – full of self-belief, not daunted by anyone, not succumbing to any pressure, questioning heresy, living happily in adversity and above all, risking his own life for the greater good of all? Perhaps the only thing he is missing is a patka!!

Well, Mumble Singh, thanks for telling us what we should be – let's hope more of us can dare to be different like you……..and proudly so!
Footnote for all the Sikh men: The movie shows female penguins going to sea, to catch fish for the family, while the men stay at home to look after the eggs and the babies in the nest. Can we extend the metaphor to our men as well……please?
http://sikhchic.com/article-detail.php?id=104&cat=2

PRIORITIES

2007-03-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Today is the day, when I needed to read and beleive the following...it came in our District News letter....I thought of sharing it with all...may be someone else needs it too, so I am posting for all my friends who visit my blog faithfully. Thank you all :D

20 Suggestions for Living Wisely and Well

1. Teach by example.

2. Bless every day with a generous act.

3. Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

4. Do something every day that maintains your good health.

5. Take family vacations whether you can afford them or not.

6. Stand up for your principles even if you stand alone.

7. Judge your success by the degree that you're enjoying peace, health, and love.

8. Be there when people need you.

9. Be devoted to your spouse and dedicated to your children.

10. Be of service to your community and your country.

11. Have courage when things go wrong.

12. Tell the truth.

13. Maintain a grateful heart.

14. Manage your resources wisely.

15. Don't overlook life's small joys while searching for the big ones.

16. Discover the power of forgiveness.

17. Love people more than things.

18. Look for the good.

19. Search for the truth.

20. Hope for the best.

Poorble Karam(Deeds of Previous Life and Gurmat)

2007-03-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

Every person reaps as he sowed in the previous life. According to Hindu Mythology; if a person did good deeds(karma) then he lives good life in this birth and if he did bad karma he suffers in this life. No deed is unsuccessful. If this is true than every person makes his life himself, based on the deeds he does. But this is half-truth; because Brahmins took advantage of this principle of deeds and created caste system. So taking this principle as whole truth actually makes a person atheist; because he does not recognize the power that Waheguru ji plays in making a person’s life – good or bad.

Guru Sahib revealed to us that both are prevalent in making a person’s life – karma of previous birth as well as Akal purkh’s hukum. Guru Sahib asked us to do Naam Simran to wash our karma of previous births, to seek His Kirpa. Good karma makes the human mind clean and hence helps in Naam simran and that is dooway to salvation.
Let us contemplate on what Guru Sahib says on getting out of this vicious circle of past misdeeds.

ਕਰਮੀ ਆਵੈ ਕਪੜਾ ਨਦਰੀ ਮੋਖੁ ਦੁਆਰੁ ॥
karmee aavai kaprhaa nadree mokh du-aar. By the karma of past actions, the robe of this physical body is obtained. By His Grace, the Gate of Liberation is found.
(Japji Sahib, SGGSJ Ang 2)

In this life one does Naam-Kamai according to one’s previous good karam, it is not due to one’s own efforts(uddam).
They act according to their pre-ordained destiny, which no one can erase.
ਪੂਰਬਿ ਲਿਖਿਆ ਕਮਾਵਣਾ ਕੋਇ ਨ ਮੇਟਣਹਾਰੁ ॥੩॥
(Sri Raag Mahalla 3 SGGSJ ang 27)

The pre-ordained destiny, based on our past deeds determines how long we are going to live, how much we will be honored in this world and when/where/how we are going to die. Not a single moment can be altered by one’s efforts.
ਲਿਖਿਅੜਾ ਸਾਹਾ ਨਾ ਟਲੈ ਜੇਹੜਾ ਪੁਰਬਿ ਕਮਾਇਆ ॥ (SGGSJ ang 582)
The call of our pre-ordained destiny cannot be altered; it follows from our past actions.

Guru Sahib says, one has to pay back for one’s karam, no one can erase that from his forehead.

ਨਾਨਕ ਕਿਰਤਿ ਪਇਐ ਕਮਾਵਣਾ ਕੋਇ ਨ ਮੇਟਣਹਾਰੁ ॥੨॥ (SGGSJ ang 594)
O Nanak, he acts according to the karma of his past actions, which no one can erase.

It is not in human’s control to erase past deeds & under influence of previous misdeeds, he continues to commit bad deeds and that is how the circle of death and birth continues. That is how soul goes through never-ending journey. Then who else is to blame for this?

ਪੂਰਬ ਜਨਮ ਕੋ ਲੇਖੁ ਨ ਮਿਟਈ ਜਨਮਿ ਮਰੈ ਕਾ ਕਉ ਦੋਸੁ ਧਰੇ ॥ (SGGSJ ang 1014)
Mostly we see if a person has worldly prosperity then he thinks that it is result of his hard work but when there is disease, suffering or accidents; the same person blames it on Waheguru. But Guru Sahib says that why blame anyone it is result of your own past actions. There is reaction to every action.

ਨਾਰਾਇਣ ਨਿੰਦਸਿ ਕਾਇ ਭੂਲੀ ਗਵਾਰੀ ॥
ਦੁਕ੍ਰਿਤੁ ਸੁਕ੍ਰਿਤੁ ਥਾਰੋ ਕਰਮੁ ਰੀ ॥੧॥ (SGGSJ ang 695)
Why do you slander the Lord? You are ignorant and deluded

Let us take an example of monkey. A monkey is captured by putting chhole in the pitcher with small neck. Attracted by the smell of food, a monkey squeezes its hand through the neck, grabs the food, and then discovers it cannot pull its enlarged fist out of the neck. The greedy monkey doesn't want to let go of the food and gets captured. Like the monkey, we can become prisoners of our own greed, slaves of our own addictions. We've got to learn to let go of greed that gives birth to moh-maya.

ਜਿਉ ਕਪਿ ਕੇ ਕਰ ਮੁਸਟਿ ਚਨਨ ਕੀ ਲੁਬਧਿ ਨ ਤਿਆਗੁ ਦਇਓ ॥
ਜੋ ਜੋ ਕਰਮ ਕੀਏ ਲਾਲਚ ਸਿਉ ਤੇ ਫਿਰਿ ਗਰਹਿ ਪਰਿਓ ॥੧॥ (SGGSJ ang 336)
The person who came in this world is bound to leave this world one day. The ever-existent Waheguru has written one’s destiny according to one’s deeds.

ਸਿਰਿ ਸਿਰਿ ਸਚੜੈ ਲਿਖਿਆ ਦੁਖੁ ਸੁਖੁ ਪੁਰਬਿ ਵੀਚਾਰੋਵਾ ॥
ਦੁਖੁ ਸੁਖੁ ਦੀਆ ਜੇਹਾ ਕੀਆ ਸੋ ਨਿਬਹੈ ਜੀਅ ਨਾਲੇ ॥ (SGGSJ ang 581)
He does those deeds which the Creator Lord causes him to do; he attempts no other actions.

Mostly people ask for wordly wealth from Waheguru ji and Guru Sahib says that one can attain it too as per one’s deeds

ਸੰਪੈ ਕਉ ਈਸਰੁ ਧਿਆਈਐ ॥ ਸੰਪੈ ਪੁਰਬਿ ਲਿਖੇ ਕੀ ਪਾਈਐ ॥ (SGGSJ ang 937)
For wealth, some meditate on the Lord. By pre-ordained destiny, wealth is obtained.
Where as Gurbani talks about not altering past deeds by one’s efforts, Guru Sahib also tells us how one can erase one’s past deeds. No one can get rid of one’s karam without Guru. Only Guru can wash those misdeeds.

ਬਿਨੁ ਗੁਰ ਕਰਮ ਨ ਛੁਟਸੀ ਕਹਿ ਸੁਣਿ ਆਖਿ ਵਖਾਣੁ ॥੭॥ ਸਭਿ ਗੁਣਵੰਤੀ ਆਖੀਅਹਿ ਮੈ ਗੁਣੁ ਨਾਹੀ ਕੋਇ ॥
Without the Guru, they are not released from their karma, although they speak and listen and preach and explain. 7
They all call themselves virtuous, but I have no virtue at all.

Women's role in promoting Turban

2007-02-27T10:42:00.000-08:00

Womanforlk can play a vital role in reviving the glory of sikhism viz a viz the hair and turban. They can rear their kids in the fine atmosphere of Sikh way of living, educate them about the salient principles of the faith and practise them by doing special efforts day in and day out. These concerted efforts would defintiely strengthen the foundations of the kids as far as sikh way of life is concerned. Once they are firmed in their sikh routine, they become strong enough to bear any adverse storm unhesitentily.
Similarly, the sisters and wives can impress upon their brothers and parteners not to discard their Sikhi Saroop which we received by the great
Gurus who did every sacrifice for us and for our glorious living as a proud sikh.
If any mother under the whim of fashion cuts the hair of her young son, she is not less than of a Wazir Khan, Ahmad Shah Abdali, Zakria Khan, Massa Ranghar or Meer Mannu. If they wanted to annihilate Sikhs through their swords, their 'sister' in the garb of 'Sikhi Saroop' is doing the same role through her scissors. So young fashionable mothers of sikh kids in no way should indulge in destroying their own nation with their own hands. History would not pardon such murderers. Save the community, save the pious traditions, save the spiritual richness by saving Sikh dignity and form. Help raising sikh standards.
Guru Gobind Singh would definitely bless all of us if we take care of his Sikhi which is so dear to him, to us and to the world at large. Our this action would keep at rest this taunt which is being said and heard everywhere that Sikhs have a magnificient and glorious past, confused and shaky present, uncertain and wavy future. Therefore, every sikh should keenly adopt strong and solid measure to save Sikhi in his own home so as to weaken the impact of the onslaught of apostasy. This is the only way which can save turban, signifying pride of Sikh way of life and sikh existance.
We should also keenly rise above our fads and whims, personal gains and glorifications and unite under the command of Akal Takhat. Everyone of us should eanestly act and pray that all the sacrifices made by the nation since its inception, all the selfless services rendered globally for the last five centuries, and all the dynamism shown by the towering turban and sikh traditions and all the glory, royality instilled within the fibers fo the grandeur of a turban may serve to unite the sikh nation towards the highest and noblest service to the huninity. No more lethargy, sluggishness or slackness is acceptable because every moment lost is lost forever, which simply aggrevates the already deplorable state of affairs.
We should clearly bear in mind that multifaceted pollution is engulfing the human existance veru rapidly. If the inhabitants of present century want to counter act this dangerous tendency quite effectively, everyone of us irrespective fo religious commands and other considerations should realize the HAIR POWER and develop a living and vibrating sence of HAIR CARE and protection of hair through turbans.

Source: 'The Turbans' by Dr. Sarup Singh Alag Phd., D.Litt, U.S.A.

Bhai Mardana

2007-02-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

In last Sunday’s Diwaan; a renowned Guru's Kirtania and Kathakaar Bhai Ajit Singh Ji Alankari told touching saakhies of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji’s great Sikhs – Bebe Naanaki, Bhai Mardana and Rai Bulaar. I would like to share what I learnt about Bhai Mardana ji.

Bhai Mardana, who has known to spend 54 years of his life in Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s company, belonged to a cline of BARDS known in those days as MIRASIS. They commanded a very high respect in all communities throughout the Northern India. A 'Mirasi' was supposed to be the custodian of 'MIRAS' i.e. The Heritage. They would orally recite long poems about the ancestral heritage of a particular family at the time of birth, marriage and death and indeed on all occasions of celebrations both locally and widespread. The cultural degeneration of Indians, especially Panjabi heritage defamed the title 'Mirasi' and reduced its connotation to a beggar poet.

Mardana was born in 1459 at the village of Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, district Shekhupura (Pakistan). This makes him ten years older than Guru Nanak His father's name was 'Badra' and mother's name was 'Lakho'. It is said that Lakho had six (or some say five) children who had died during birth, and she named this seventh child as 'Marjana'( the one who dies), but Guru Nanak started calling him 'Mardana', meaning 'Marda - Na'(the one who wouldn't die). This is the mystery of this name. Principal Satbir Singh wrote that his name was 'Dana' but after meeting Guru Nanak, Guru Ji named him 'Mardana', gives another version of his name. He was very pure of nature; hence Guru Ji loved him very much and always kept him alongside.

Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji established the 'Rebabi' tradition in Sikhism. It is written in the 'Janamsakhi', that after a considerable search for the 'right sounding' Rebab, which could not be found anywhere, Guru Nanak sent Mardana to the house of Bhai Firanda of Bhairowal (Kapurthala). Bhai Firanda was an accomplished musician and was a carpenter by trade. He presented a special Rebab to Guru Nanak, which sounded like 'Tu hi Nirankar, tu hi Nirankar" (a divine melody in grace of the Almighty). Guru Ji was very much pleased with Bhai Firanda and bestowed upon him His boundless blessings.

We all know a number of very interested 'Sakhis'(stories) connected with Bhai Mardana on Guru Nanak's four Divine journeys. In short it can be said that Mardana was a most fortunate soul who benefited the heavenly presence of Guru Nanak, who according to the Bhatts (SGGSJ) was the re-incarnation of the Almighty. Mardana was not a mere musician but also a spiritually elevated soul.

This is where I got little confused when Bhai Sahib mentioned that three of Mardana’s hymns are included in the Adi Granth under Raag Bihagra. Mardana is the only Sikh disciple who was permitted to use Guru Nanak's name in his hymns. These hymns denounce drink that engenders evil passions and upholds meditation of the Divine Name that creates a spiritual inebriation.

For my understanding of Gurbani, on daily basis I read Guru Granth Darpan Teeka by Prof. Sahib Singh ji. I happened to read Raag Bihagra only a few days ago. Professor Sahib mentions that these are NOT hymns of Mardana but of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji as Bhai Mardana could use word ‘Nanak’ in his hymns. Let us see what sangat has to say about these saloks.

ਸਲੋਕੁ ਮਰਦਾਨਾ ੧ ॥
salok mardaanaa 1.
ਕਲਿ ਕਲਵਾਲੀ ਕਾਮੁ ਮਦੁ ਮਨੂਆ ਪੀਵਣਹਾਰੁ ॥
kal kalvaalee kaam mad manoo-aa peevanhaar.
The Dark Age of Kali Yuga is the vessel, filled with the wine of sexual desire; the mind is the drunkard.
ਕ੍ਰੋਧ ਕਟੋਰੀ ਮੋਹਿ ਭਰੀ ਪੀਲਾਵਾ ਅਹੰਕਾਰੁ ॥
kroDh katoree mohi bharee peelaavaa ahaNkaar.
Anger is the cup, filled with emotional attachment, and egotism is the server.
ਮਜਲਸ ਕੂੜੇ ਲਬ ਕੀ ਪੀ ਪੀ ਹੋਇ ਖੁਆਰੁ ॥
majlas koorhay lab kee pee pee ho-ay khu-aar.
Drinking too much in the company of falsehood and greed, one is ruined.
ਕਰਣੀ ਲਾਹਣਿ ਸਤੁ ਗੁੜੁ ਸਚੁ ਸਰਾ ਕਰਿ ਸਾਰੁ ॥
karnee laahan sat gurh sach saraa kar saar.
So let good deeds be your distillery, and Truth your molasses; in this way, make the most excellent wine of Truth.
ਗੁਣ ਮੰਡੇ ਕਰਿ ਸੀਲੁ ਘਿਉ ਸਰਮੁ ਮਾਸੁ ਆਹਾਰੁ ॥
gun manday kar seel ghi-o saram maas aahaar.
Make virtue your bread, good conduct the ghee, and modesty the meat to eat.
ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਪਾਈਐ ਨਾਨਕਾ ਖਾਧੈ ਜਾਹਿ ਬਿਕਾਰ ॥੧॥
gurmukh paa-ee-ai naankaa khaaDhai jaahi bikaar. ||1||
As Gurmukh, these are obtained, O Nanak; partaking of them, one's sins depart. ||1||

ਮਰਦਾਨਾ ੧ ॥
mardaanaa 1.

ਕਾਇਆ ਲਾਹਣਿ ਆਪੁ ਮਦੁ ਮਜਲਸ ਤ੍ਰਿਸਨਾ ਧਾਤੁ ॥
kaa-i-aa laahan aap mad majlas tarisnaa Dhaat.
The human body is the vat, self-conceit is the wine, and desire is the company of drinking buddies.
ਮਨਸਾ ਕਟੋਰੀ ਕੂੜਿ ਭਰੀ ਪੀਲਾਏ ਜਮਕਾਲੁ ॥
mansaa katoree koorh bharee peelaa-ay jamkaal.
The cup of the mind's longing is overflowing with falsehood, and the Messenger of Death is the cup-bearer.
ਇਤੁ ਮਦਿ ਪੀਤੈ ਨਾਨਕਾ ਬਹੁਤੇ ਖਟੀਅਹਿ ਬਿਕਾਰ ॥
it mad peetai naankaa bahutay khatee-ah bikaar.
Drinking in this wine, O Nanak, one takes on countless sins and corruptions.
ਗਿਆਨੁ ਗੁੜੁ ਸਾਲਾਹ ਮੰਡੇ ਭਉ ਮਾਸੁ ਆਹਾਰੁ ॥
Gi-aan gurh saalaah manday bha-o maas aahaar.
So make spiritual wisdom your molasses, the Praise of God your bread, and the Fear of God the meat you eat.
ਨਾਨਕ ਇਹੁ ਭੋਜਨੁ ਸਚੁ ਹੈ ਸਚੁ ਨਾਮੁ ਆਧਾਰੁ ॥੨॥
naanak ih bhojan sach hai sach naam aaDhaar. ||2||
O Nanak, this is the true food; let the True Name be your only Support. ||2||
ਕਾਂਯਾਂ ਲਾਹਣਿ ਆਪੁ ਮਦੁ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਤਿਸ ਕੀ ਧਾਰ ॥
kaaNyaaN laahan aap mad amrit tis kee Dhaar.
If the human body is the vat, and self-realization is the wine, then a stream of Ambrosial Nectar is produced.
ਸਤਸੰਗਤਿ ਸਿਉ ਮੇਲਾਪੁ ਹੋਇ ਲਿਵ ਕਟੋਰੀ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਭਰੀ ਪੀ ਪੀ ਕਟਹਿ ਬਿਕਾਰ ॥੩॥
satsangat si-o maylaap ho-ay liv katoree amrit bharee pee pee kateh bikaar. ||3||
Meeting with the Society of the Saints, the cup of the Lord's Love is filled with this Ambrosial Nectar; drinking it in, one's corruptions and sins are wiped away. ||3||

The True Love - Love of Guru

2007-02-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

We all talk about ‘Love’ but what is ‘Love’. Is love, affection and attachment are transposable in our lives? While contemplating on this most frivolously used word I entered Gurdwara this Sunday, where Bhai Sahib Ajit Singh ji Alankari was doing Katha on the Vaar (Vaar 35 Pauri 20 ) of Bhai Gurdas ji . It was as if Guru himself was talking to me. Gurbani can only be understood fully through love. "Sach kahon sun leho sabai jin prem kio tin hee prabh paio." (All should listen to this truth that only those who love God can realize Him.)" and this ‘love’ is ‘Divine Love’ it is Truth; it is unconditional, it is ever-lasting.

pIau dy nwNh ipAwr quil nw PuPI nw ipqIey qwey]
peeo dhae naaneh piaar thul naa fufee naa pitheeeae thaaeae||

Bhai Gurdas ji talks about the depth of ‘Love of worldly our father’. He says that the love of a father is so in a child’s life that a child will always feel emptiness in his life if a father dies untimely death. This love can’t be replaced by love of Bhua (who is father’s real sister); Chacha (father’s real younger brother) or Taya (father’s real older brother). So there is no parallel to father’s love for his child.

mwaU hyqu n pujnI hyqu n mwmy mwsI jwey]
maaoo haeth n pujanee haeth n maamae maasee jaaeae||

Of All Worldly Loves, The Love Of The Mother Is The Highest. If one wishes to find out the meaning of love, ask a child who has lost his mother. Mother’s love can’t be comensated by love of Massi (who is mother’s real sister); Mame (mother’s real brothers) or their off-springs.

AMbw sDr n auqrY Awix AMbwkVIAW jy Kwey]
anbaa sadhhar n outharai aan anbaakarreeaaan jae khaaeae||

Bhai Sahib further equates mother’s love to love of mangoes (only those who have sucked on them till the seed is white can understand this example). If we are eating something and after chewing it for sometime we spit it out. If we are asked to put it back in our mouth and eat it, we woun’t. But mango fruit is the only thing that we take out of our mouth again and again and keep sucking on it. The taste(love) never ends.

Mother’s love is like a mango, which can’t be compensated by eating kachiyaan ambiyaan (unripe mango fruit or tamrind).

siqguru quil n imhrvwn mwq ipqw n dyv sbwey]
sathigur thul n miharavaan maath pithaa n dhaev sabaaeae||

ifTy sBy Toik vjwey]
ddithae sabhae thok vajaaeae||

Bhai sahib at the end of this pauri warns us that none of these relations and their love holds any value in front of love of kind and generous SatGuru. If one does not believe it then one may put the all kinds of love to test. Rare are those who pass the test of love for Guru, yet He loves unconditionally. His love is constant.

Love without expectation (True Love) does not exist in worldly life. Mother’s love being the highest is still is a relative love subject to increase and decrease, and has its limitations. True Love does not increase or decrease, but worldly love does. Only Divine love is constant. Real love can never be found in this worldly life. Real love is divine. Real love begins the moment one begins to understand the Self. Pure love, real love exists where there is no selfishness; when there are no feelings of ‘yours-mine’. It is because of this ignorance of the self, that people have feelings of ‘this is mine and this is yours’. When one acquires Giyaan (knowledge of the Self), one ceases to have feelings of ‘mine and yours’. However, this is difficult for one to understand. There is no love in the external world. What the world calls love is nothing but infatuation and attraction. Real love resides within and near the one who has known the Self in all splendor and glory. This love is God and God is love.

Month of Love

2007-02-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

February is a month of love and what better way is there to celebrate this month than to realize the awesome power this ‘love’ beholds. Love can turn our lives around, makes us do things we would never dream of, and forces us to give away our entire lives. Few years back I wrote the 10 reasons why my husband is the love of my life; those ten reasons revolved around him just as a husband. But with Waheguru’s apaar kirpa he is more than just a husband – he is a son that every mother is proud of, he is a brother that every sister counts on, he is a husband that every woman dreams of, he is friend that any person needs, he a sangat that every Gursikh seeks company of, he is the daddy that every child deserves. So I dedicate this month to him. Here are 51 reasons (out of endless reasons); why I love him so deeply.

God and family are his top priorities.
He has been sent by the Waheguru ji in so many ways to make me a better person.
His hugs are the warmest, most genuine hugs ever given.
He thinks I’m beautiful no matter what state I’m in.
He encourages me to be my best.
He is the constant in my life.
He loves me more than I deserve.
Only he can fix my broken heart.
He is handsome and irresistible.
He is never stinky...he takes second shower before evening Nitnem
He is not afraid to cry or become vulnerable in my presence.
He is extremely intelligent, but doesn’t take himself too seriously.
He has put up with me faithfully for 13 years.
And that makes him a Saint!
He is great both with money & me.
He is the first one to ask “Ki haal hai?” when we meet after work.
He promises to cook aaloo-gobhi on every mother’s day.
He never fails to compliment what I cook for the family.
He actually wears the clothes I purchase for him J
He does dishes without me asking/requesting him.
He has a great sense of humor.
He is very supportive.
He takes wonderful care of us.
He smells good. Oh, I already said he is never stinky
He is my memory bank, when I don’t have any
He is tender.
He works really hard.
He has an incredible work ethic.
He is sensitive
He reads my ever-flowing in e-mails (during his precious time at work) and even my blog….occasionally.
Takes good care of his health; means healthy eating and exercise.
He is definitely "manly".
He is a great Daddy.
“He loves my mommy, my sisters and me” ( I got that from our son’s journal)
He teaches by example.
He is gentle in speach.
He has a dimple that our daughter inherited
He is great with kids in problem-solving & making them laugh.
He is very protective.
“He is my Hero” ( got this from our daughter’s journal)
He loves to bike with our children.
He helps with the children in any and every way; more than any other dad I know.
He helps with their education...(great with Math and Science)
He does not watch football/cricket on Sundays.
He is a wonderful role model to our son.
My older daughter looks just like him and she is beautiful.
My younger daughter got his eyes & dimple…and she is beautiful too!
He is indispensable for our family.
I love him more than I did the day I married him.
He has called me "Prabhjot" since we met...LOVE that!!!
I keep this one to whisper in his ear.

Homework Issues

2007-01-31T09:39:00.000-08:00

I have had it all; as one of our three children entered Kindergarten every other year in span of 5 years. The oldest one was fully organized and shared it all – from what happened at school, what teacher said, what mama has to see and sign….to what that little girl with purple jacket did in the class. He would not eat or play until the homework was finished and that reminded me of my childhood. I thought I gave birth to my replicas. Well that dream of mine was broken soon when our middle child, daughter, entered her kindergarten. She was not only distracted with short attention span but also treated class room as park where she could catch butterflies if one came along. Boy! I still remember those evenings when it took me an hour to have her sit and have her complete her 10 minute homework. This bundle of my joy ruled over my all winter vacation when we learnt and tried all methods in the world to harness her energy and put that creative mind into doing academic work. She is fifth grader now! Thanks to all teachers & friend’s tips that we are in a routine where all home work gets done in the early evening; leaving enough time to do rope skipping, riding bike, playing tetherball and playing house with Carley(the 4 yr old girl next door). With the third one entering kindergarten; I guess I was experienced mother or stopped to panick over small stuff; may be learnt many relaxation techniques to avoid heart attacks. The youngest most was born ‘budhi’ (aged woman). She certainly understands a hell of a lot more than other girls her age. I truly believe Waheguru ji knew that I could not survive motherhood if this one joined her older sister in all the creative things distracting her from the goal. Sure I have to think of ways to encourage her to go out and play; when she quietly transition from home work to her art work or little notes that she often writes to warm my heart every day.

Here are some tips that worked for these little tornadoes in our home -

Have a set time and place (well lit, quiet and away from the television) for homework. (I used kitchen table (for one needing mom’s help while she is preparing dinner), study room (for the Mr. Independent ) and family room (most organized who is not distracted with mom’s occasional trips there with laundry loads).)
Have your child do his homework early enough in the evening so that he/she will have some down time before bed. (Playing after home work also gets them ready for dinner, they eat well and sleep well)
Be available to help your child with his homework if he has questions, but don't do your child's work. Appropriate homework is a lesson in responsibility.

The amount of homework assigned varies greatly from school to school and from teacher to teacher. As a rule of thumb, the National Education Association and the Parent Teacher Association recommend that children in elementary school spend approximately ten minutes of homework per grade. For instance, a first grader would be expected to do 10 minutes of homework while a fifth grader would spend 50 minutes. However, the time it takes to complete homework will depend on a child's ability to buckle down and concentrate; his ability to do the work, and his level of perfectionism.

While it's difficult for parents to see their child frustrated by inappropriate homework, doing too much of your child's work is likely to lead to an overly dependent child who may be convinced that he cannot accomplish anything on his own. If you feel as if your child is unduly overloaded with homework that is either too difficult or lengthy, don't try to solve the problem by doing his work.
If your child has problem completing the homework, or is a perfectionist who spends an undue amount of time doing it, work closely with your child's teacher. One of the purposes of homework is to begin to teach responsibility and for it to serve its purpose, a child must receive appropriate homework assignments.

In the upper elementary grades, other issues may determine the amount of homework a child brings home. Also, teachers begin to give their students longer assignments, expecting children to budget their time and work all week towards completing it. This leads to problems for a child who procrastinate and attempts to complete a week-long assignment in a single night.

If your child has a tendency to put off his homework until the last minute, you need to be aware of his assignments. That way, you can help him to consistently chip away at a large project.
Don't allow excessive homework to interfere with your child's sleep Remember, getting a good night's sleep is the most important assignment of all!

The Spiritual Strength of Woman

2007-01-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

The Spiritual Strength of Woman

In this article Shanti Kaur Khalsa assesses the spiritual position and strength of Sikh women. Drawing from both Sikh philosophy and personal experiences, she demonstrates the importance of being a Sikh woman in today’s world…

"As we enter the change of the millennium, the role of the woman has changed and will continue to change dramatically. Striving to maintain ourselves in the age of technology, we find years pass with such speed and anxiety that sometimes we do not know what maintains us except the blessing of God’s companion. A woman carries the responsibility of the physical, mental and spiritual well being of her family. This is a serious job that can reap great rewards, but also carries dire consequences when not done successfully. In addition to that, many women have added the weight of work and career. When there is constant pressure and no relaxation, when there is no outlet, when there is a constant deficit in our mental and physical capacity, it results in a shattered mind and the loss of happiness and inner peace. We suffer as women, and our generations suffer as a result. This is a dilemma that is shared by women in every country, of every religion, on every continent.

With the tri-centenary of the Khalsa, we find that Guru Gobind Singh gave us the answers to these modern age problems more than three hundred years ago. Woman is strong by nature. Woman is spiritual by nature. By fine-tuning our uniquely feminine attributes with the Guru’s Rehat, Guru Gobind Singh assures us purity. We become not women, not men, but something far and beyond…we become KHALSA! In these difficult times, it is required that a woman should not only be pure. She needs to be purifying. Her very presence should create an effect on her surroundings that uplifts and illuminates those with whom she comes in contact The formula is clear, the solution is simple in nature, and success is guaranteed. This is the simple strategy of Bana, Bani, Simran, and Seva.

BANA (The Khalsa Uniform)

Bana is our own flag. Bana is our nishan that states unequivocally who we are. If we have the dress and fashion of a movie star, that makes a statement as to who we are. If we wear the clothes of a beggar, that also tells the world what our status is. And if we wear the bana of the Khalsa, this makes a statement of strength that cannot be ignored by the hardest of hearts. Bana is the image and dress of grace. Bana is the five K’s of the Khalsa: Kesh, Kacherha, Kanga, Kara, and Kirpan. Each one of these beautiful accoutrements gives us strength and beauty. Bana is a statement that says, with a look, that I belong to Guru Gobind Singh, and He belongs to me.

I belong to the Khalsa and Khalsa belongs to me as the drop of water forever merges into the ocean. - Guru Gobind Singh

I would like to share with you my own story and experiences in relation to the bana of the Khalsa. When I first became a Sikh, twenty-three years ago, I had never seen an Indian Sikh woman. I knew only American Sikhs, and in fact, very few of those. But I knew that Kesh and Dastar were part of the 5-K’s of Guru Gobind Singh. And I knew that Guru Gobind Singh promised:

If the Khalsa maintains the distinct path, I shall give them all my strength. But if the Khalsa leaves this path, then I will withdraw my recognition. -Guru Gobind Singh

Well, as a young woman of 18 years, full of the spirit of life and the excitement of discovering the teachings of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, it never occurred to me to not wear a turban. The Khalsa of Guru Gobind Singh wore the dastar, and that was who I wanted to be. So it was with great sincerity that I tied my first turban.

As you can imagine, the most dramatic effect of wearing a turban is not physiological, but rather it is social. Wearing a turban gave me pride and confidence. My parents and my friends were stunned. They thought they had lost me, but of course they had not; Rather the experience of being distinct has made me more committed to the welfare of those around me, because everything I do is highlighted and examined by others.

Now that I have lived my life experiencing the benefits of the turban, I can tell you honestly that you are missing a great advantage by not doing so. I have been given the respect and the status of a spiritual woman, even when I myself have been filled with self-doubt and misgivings. This I see as Guru Gobind Singh Ji fulfilling his promise, giving me strength even when I do not have strength myself. This beautiful dastar proclaims to the entire world that I belong to Guru Gobind Singh and that is a reality I will never deny.

BANI (The Word of God)

By the Grace of God, we are Sikhs of the Shabd Guru. We bow to no man. We worship no images. We bow to the Word, the Shabd, the sound current As women, we cannot underestimate the power of our own words and language. Our words contain the power of love and hate, and we should be mindful of how to communicate with all of God’s children. How do we do this? Through exercising the daily recitation of Nitnem and Gurbani. The daily prayers of the Sikh are a beautiful form and format that rearranges our neurological processes to provide us with a direct connection with the infinite creative energy of the universe. This is the heart of the Guru’s teachings. And if we do not experience this ourselves, we will most likely deny this experience to our children.

Siri Guru Amar Das ji tells us about the power and projection of the Bani:

"Great! Great is the Bani, the Word of the Formless Lord. There is no other as Great as He is."

This is why we say that our Guru is the Shabd Guru. The Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is not a "book," it is not a "bible;" it is a ‘living Guru’ that guides us, protects us and enlightens us. The whole science of Gurbani has the power to make a person divine just in its recitation. It does not require a deep and scholarly understanding or interpretation for an impact on our consciousness because Bani is understood by the heart, not the head. The entire Siri Guru Granth Sahib is the calling out of the Beloved. A woman does not need to be dependent on sants and preachers, being led around like a donkey with a string in her nose. All that is needed is the inner experience of God that can be brought to us from our own Guru, the Living Guru, the Shabd Guru. That is the miracle, the science, and the blessing of Bani.

SIMRAN (Remembrance of GOD)

In the first line of Sukhmani Sahib, Sin Guru Arjun tells us:

To the one who meditates on Him, there comes a perfect peace. And all pain and sorrows depart. Meditate on Him, who contains the universe. Whose Holy Naam is the whisper on the lips of the entire creation.

Simran provides us with the answer to maintaining our balance and equilibrium. Naam Simran is the use of the Gurmantra; the meditation and recitation of Waheguru. How do you do simran? There are as many answers to that question as there are people to ask. The simply answer is: simran is not a technique but a process. At any time that is peaceful, but especially in the early morning before dawn, sit and concentrate on the Holy Naam. Project out with focused clarity. If you beam the signal out, you will get a clear signal back. This cleanses the subconscious mind, clarifies the conscious mind, and gives us the experience of bliss and peace. In the divinely human experience, we understand our depth and dimension, gaining access to our inner strength, direction and intuition.

Don’t you wonder about yourselves sometimes? You are born with no claws, no hoofs, and no superior strength. As a human being it appears we have been born with no defense mechanism. Have we been created by God as the only defenseless creature in His creation? No. Our strength lies in our intuition. When you can intuitively sense what is going to happen, then you can avoid entering a wrong sequence and you will not end up with an unwanted consequence. That is the best defense we could possibly have. And what gives us intuition? The mind. How does the mind develop intuition? Through meditation. Intuition works when there is no fear involved, no greed involved, no attachment involved and no lust involved. The subconscious mind has to be a clear channel and then the conscious mind perceives the information that is coming from the intuition.

We all have that power as human beings because every mind is part of the universal mind. However, women are created with an enhanced subtly, an accentuated sensitivity, which gives us great depth and dimension. For women, simran is an essential tool of life, a quintessential feminine strength. To ignore this aspect is to not water the most beautiful flower that grows in our garden. Simran gives us the key to know ourselves and the ability to know and love God.

SEVA

If the strength of one is great, the strength of the many is even greater. Seva is the knot that ties us to each other, ties us to our Guru, and transcends us from our own individual consciousness to the expansive nature of universal consciousness. No matter how great our stature, no matter how vast our authority, if we separate and isolate ourselves through the definition of ego, then we are far less than what our potential could be. Service to each other and service to Guru Ji, when done with a loving heart, with no desire for reward, breaks the bonds of ego and frees the soul.

Fruitful is the True Guru’s service, if anyone performs it by engaging his mind in it Heart desired boons are attained and ego departs from within.- Guru Amar Das Ji

Throughout Sikh history, women have displayed a seemly endless capacity for seva. Service to others is in our nature, the very bones of our being. It is part of our beauty and part of our strength. By doing seva, we lose the limitations of our finite self, and expand into the infinite strength of the body of the Khalsa. Through seva we remain humble, for seva is an activity that is not recognized as an individual action. The heavy and enormous burden of appreciation and recognition is not a factor in the performance of seva. It is personal, anonymous and deeply expansive. We become part of a whole that is unbreakable and unparalleled. Seva is actually our physical link to the Guru. By serving the Khalsa, we have the experience of serving our Guru, touching that great wisdom with our own hands.

Of all the things I have learned in this life, of all the things I wish to teach to the children of is the blessing of living the Rehit (Code of Conduct). This beautiful path, laid down by the Tenth Master, will carry us into the 21st Century with direction and strength. It is the this way of life, and that I pray that they will teach to their children, the most important key to the future, the solution to today’s problems, and the answer to tomorrow’s questions. As women it is our sacred responsibility to understand it, live it, enjoy it, and teach it to our children - the next generation of Khalsa!

Waheguru Jee Ka Khalsa Waheguru Jee Kee Fateh

by Shanti Kaur Khalsa

Source: MrSikhnet Blog

Mai Bhag Kaur

2007-01-12T13:46:00.000-08:00

In her childhood, Mai Bhag Kaur was called Bhag Bhari, which means “fortunate”. On being baptized, she was named Bhag Kaur. In the Sikh history, she is known as Mai Bhago. She was born in a well known village, Jhabal, near Amritsar. She was the daughter of Malo Shah, son of Bhai Pare Shah. Her grandfather and Pare Shah’s brother, Bhai Langaha, had served under Guru Arjan Dev and Guru Hargobind. Bhai Langaha had helped Guru Arjan Dev in the construction of Harmander Sahib and was one of the five Sikhs who accompanied Guru Arjan Dev when he went to Lahore for martyrdom. It shows her two generations were closely involved with the Sikh Gurus.

As a young girl she had heard about the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev, the wars of Guru Hargobind, injustice done to the Sikhs and their harassment by the Mughal army These left a deep impression on her tender mind. Sad news of the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur and his companions —Bhai Dayala, Bhai Mati Das, and Bhai Sati Das – touched her heart. She made up her mind to stop such injustice and violence against the Sikhs. She had inherited from her family ideals of bravery and courage. Faith, truth, and fearlessness were her ornaments. She had a well built body and looked like a soldier.

She, along with her family, visited Guru Tegh Bahadur twice. She also visited Anandpur with her father in 1699 when Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa and was baptized along with other members of her family. She wanted to stay there to learn the martial arts and become a saint soldier, but her father brought her back because she was a woman and women did not take part in the Sikh army in those days. However, she longed to join the Sikh army and started learning the art of warfare and horse riding from her father. She made a top knot of her head hair and covered it with a small turban. She had a spear in one hand, sword in the other, a shield on her shoulders and other small arms in her belt. She had fiery eyes on her bright face. In the beginning she aimed at small bushes outside the village with her small spear. Then she started piercing trees with her spear and learnt horse riding. Soon she became a staunch saint soldier.

She was married to Bhai Nidhan Singh of village Patti near Amritsar. She came to know that some Sikhs of her area had deserted Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur Sahib and renounced his guruship in writing. The Mughals had betrayed Guru Gobind Singh and the governor of Sirhind was planning a big attack on Guru Gobind Singh at village Dina where he was staying after the Battle of Chamkaur. She could not hold herself, as she was zealous to serve the Guru. Boiling with rage, and moved by love for the Guru, she, the great heroine, said to her husband, “Guard up your lions and let us lay down our lives for the Guru who has sacrificed his father, mother and four sons for the Sikh faith. We must not sit idle when innocent lives are being bricked alive.” She was determined to wipe out the badge of infamy from the face of her area.

She, along with her husband, went from village to village and told the people the reality of deserters to them. Ladies of the deserters did not talk to them when they came back, cursed and taunted them. These ladies dressed themselves as soldiers and wanted to proceed with Mai Bhago. She said to the deserters, “Guru Ji has sacrificed his family and comforts for our freedom. We must stand up and protect our rights and faith. We should not hide ourselves like cowards. Everybody has to die. Why not die like a brave person? If you don’t join me, I shall take a party of women and die for the Guru.” She exhorted the ladies not to entertain the deserters and not to allow them to enter their houses. Her sharp and frank words pricked the conscience of the deserters and awakened their souls. She challenged their vanity and made them regret. She displayed manly spirit and courage.

They, along with their leader, Mahan Singh, marched to help the Guru and seek his forgiveness. They got armed and they took the oath to die fighting and not to retreat from the battlefield. They meant to make amends for the apostasy.

On their way, they came to know that the Guru was camping at the lake of Khidrana, near Mukatsar. In those days, the whole area was a desert and the full control of the lake was very important for the fighting forces. They were also informed that the Mughal forces, under the command of the governor of Sirhand, were proceeding towards the Guru. Mai Bhago and the party decided to check the army proceeding towards the Guru. They realized that the Mughal army was huge and they were only forty. She thought of a plan and asked the Sikhs to spread their white shirts on the bushes so that they look like tents of the Sikh forces. A shrine called Gurdwara Tambu Sahib, or the Place of Holy Tents, stands on that spot even to this day. They raised slogans of Sat Sri Akal – Bole So Nihal to overawe the enemy.

A battle with the Mughal forces took place and Mai Bhag Kaur fought in the front lines. The mercenary soldiers could not face the devoted Sikhs. The Guru from the mound near the lake supported the Sikhs with showers of arrows. The army generals took to their heels and retreated to save their lives. They even left their wounded and dead soldiers back. It happened in 1705.

After the battle, the Guru came down from the mound and found that every member of Bhag Kaur’s party was either dead or wounded. He took care of them. Mai Bhag Kaur was lying badly injured. She was treated and soon she recovered fully. Bhai Mahan Singh was dying when Guru Ji reached him. Guru Ji put some water in Bhai Mahan Singh’s mouth and said to him, “I am proud of you all. What is your last wish?” Mahan Singh requested the Guru to forgive all the deserters and restore the snapped relationship so that they might die in peace and obtain salvation. The Guru agreed before Mahan Singh could breathe his last. The city of Mukatsar (Pool of Immortalization) was built at that place. ‘Mukat’ or ‘Mukti’ means salvation and ‘sar’ means a pool. These forty Muktas are remembered daily in the Sikh prayers (Ardas). Later on, a Gurdwara was built at the site of the cremation of these martyrs. A great fair Maghi is held every year in January in memory of the Guru’s arrival there and redemption of the disunited. Pilgrims come from all over the country and attend that function.

The Guru praised the bravery of Mai Bhago. She told the Guru how the forty deserters had fought bravely and laid down their lives. The Guru asked her to go back to her village as her husband and brother had also died in that battle. She expressed her desire to become an active saint-soldier and stay in the service of the Guru. Her wish was granted and she stayed with the Guru as a member of his bodyguards. She accompanied the Guru to Damdama Sahib, Agra, and Nanded, a city in the South of India, and lived there until the Guru left this world. After the Guru’s death, she left Nanded for Bidar, an important city nearby. She lived there for some time and preached Sikhism. She died at Bidar. There is a Gurdwara built in her memory near the main Gurdwara Sachkhand at Nanded. Her spear is still preserved at the Gurdwara along with the arms of Guru Gobind Singh. She was a symbol of bravery and courage. Her life story and skill in organization against odds will always be a milestone in Sikh history. Her example inspired many brave Sikh ladies to face death with honor. She is really the Joan of Arc of Sikh history.
-By Sawan Singh in his book 'Noble and Brave Sikh Women'

Sikh Virsa in Western Countries

2007-01-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

Disturbed by the News in Outlook India, back in October of 2006, I kept looking for something positive that somehow erases the memory of that picture in the news.
With His Kirpa; since then I have witnessed so much positive going on in US Sikh community that now I can read this news without my eyes getting wet and in my heart I know that it is the Guru's will. One of events I recently attended is 'Sahibjada Rememberance Day' observed by Gurdwara Riversidein which children of IIGS school participated. I consider myself blessed for being able to do sewa of teaching these students. Here are the pictures and small report on these children's Chardi Kala.
Los AYNjls (AmrIkw) iv`c is~K ivrsw sMBwldy hoey b`cy

dsMbr 2006- Los AYNjls dy b`icAW ny 23 dsMbr, 2006 nUM swihbzwdw fy iek vwr Pyr, srihMd dy swky nUM Xwd krdy, cmkOr dI gVHI nUM isjdw krdy, swihbzwidAW nUM SrDwjlI idMdy hoey mnwieAw [gurduAwrw irvrsweIf dw ieh qIjw swl sI, ijs iv`c vIh swl qoN Coty 140 b`icAW ny, v`K v`K mukwbilAW iv`c Bwg ilAw[ ieh mukwblw sn - gurbwxI kIrqn (ivAkqk qy j`Qw); qblw, gurbwxI kMT; spIc qy kivqw; is`KI svwl jvwb Aqy dsqwrbMdI [ cwroN swihbzwidAW dI Xwd iv`c 500 fwlr nkdI cwr skwlriS`p vI auhnW b`icAW nUM id`qy gey jo ik gurU srUp nUM kwiem r`Kdy hoey, Awpxy skUlW qy kwljW iv`c A`vl AwauNdy hn Aqy kOm-syvw iv`c vI ih`sw pwayNdy hn [ies mOky qy iek AmrIkn isMG, fwktr s. gurjoDw isMG ny b`icAW nNUM nw isrP ienwm hI id`qy, sgoN is`KI-srUp nUM kwiem r`Kx dy gur vI d`sy[

iehnwN Bwg lYx vwly b`icAW iv`c sn – AweI. AweI. jI. AYs sMsQw dy b`cy jo ik AwpxI inSkwm syvw nwl ies pIVHI nUM gurm`q nwl joV rhI hY [AweI. jI. AYs skUl dy b`icAW dI tIm ( AnUphirjI isMG, blmIq isMG, AsIseISvr isMG Aqy AWcl kOr) jo ik 9 qyN 12 swl dI aumr dy hn, ny is`KI svwl jvwb mukwbly iv`c, s`q tIMmW iv`coN, dUjw ienwm ij`iqAw[is`KI svwl jvwb mukwbly iv`c sRI guru AMgd dyv jI Aqy sRI guru qyg bhwdr jI vwry svwl pu`Cy gey[

gurbwxI kMT mukwbly iv`c A`vl Awx vwly AweI. jI. AYs skUl dy b`cy sn - AnUphirjI isMG (aumr 12 swl), joqsuKmnI kOr(aumr 10 swl) Aqy hrjp kOr(aumr 8 swl) [AnUphirjI qy joqsuKmnI nUM, siqgurU dI mhwn ikRpw duAwrw, ies CotI aumr iv`c hI, inqnym dIAW swrIAW bwxIAW kMT hn[ieh donoN BYx-Brw ny 10-12 swl dI kYtygrI iv`c pihlw qy dUjw ienwm hwisl kIqw [ AweI. jI. AYs skUl iv`c gurm`q klws dOrwn, iehnW b`icAW nUM gurbwxI sMiQAw Aqy gurbwxI ivcwr nwl joiVAw jWdw hY [ ieh hI kwrn hY ik b`cI hrjp nUM nw hI isrP sMMpUrn jpjI swihb, qv pRswid sv`Xy, sMMpUrn rihrws swihb Aqy soihlw dy pwT kMT hn, blik ausny AwpxI spIc ijsdw ivSw sI “gurbwxI dI rozwnw ijOdgI iv`c shwieqw”, inqnym dIAW bwxIAW iv`coN hvwly dydy ky, sMgq nwl Awpxy ivcwr sWJy kIqy[ ieh b`cI XkInn hI ienwm dI h`kdwr bxI[AnUphirjI isMG ny gurbwxI, is`KI svwl jvwb mukwbiLAW dy nwl nwl kIrqn iv`c vI pihlw ienwm ij`iqAw[

Birth centenary of Guru Gobind Singh Ji

2007-01-05T09:47:00.000-08:00

"Na Baat Kahoon main ab ki
Na baat kahoon main tab ki
Agar Na hotay Guru Gobind Singh
Tau Sunat hoti Sab ki"

Quizzical Eyes

2006-12-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

………Nihung aa gaye………Nihung aa gaye………Nihung aa gaye. She heard these loud voices of children and she ran as fast as she could to get to the firni (dirt road around the village) to watch Nihings. In fact to watch the almost never ending strip of horses on which the singhs came to their village every fall. The echo of the Jaikaras was so melodious that she did not leave her place for hours, not until the last horse passed by but until she could not see the last horse either due to dusk or due to dust of the firni or both. It was the yearly event of her childhood that she looked forward to; each year. Nihungs stayed in her village for about two months and these months were full of festivity.

And Nihungs came this year too. She was no longer a little girl; something changed about her. She could tell because her mother would ask her to come home before the sun set. She was not supposed to play gulli-danda or kanche with boys any more. So this year she stood next to bunch of other girls and came home as soon as she realized it was getting dark. Jaikaras sound was still pulling her to stay there longer. She spent whole night tossing side to side. She could not wait to go see the next door neighbor who looked like and visited Nihungs. She had so much to ask, but she did not know where to begin. So next morning she quickly disappeared in neighbors home before her mother could give her chores to do.

She was leaning against the door, her head and face half-covered with her chunni, only exposing her big brown eyes. It was hard to tell, whether she was wondering about or admiring the middle-aged Guru’s Sikh who just adorned his beautiful turban with Khanda, wore kamar-kassa around his waist to secure the Kirpan that he was wearing on his blue chola. Puran Singh left in hurry without noticing this little girl, whose quizzical eyes followed him in vain.

She remembered the past years, when mother took her to Dera of Nihungs. She remembered the sound of Gurbani Akandpath, even though it did not make much sense. It was pleasure to sing dohra after Rehraas Sahib, receive the parsaad and many times stay back there for night time katha; while cuddling in mother’s shawl. She remembered faintly about ‘Amrit’ ceremony on last few days of Nihung’s stay, many boys of the village took Amrit, wore Bana like Puran Singh. She wished she could too but somehow never expressed her desire to anyone. She began to hum some dhadi dian varaan that she heard in the Diwaan. While thinking all this, she came back home. Mother was making missi roti for breakfast. She quickly took a perha in her hand, sitting next to mother, blowing air in the chulha she asked mother “Beji, shall we go to Nihung’s Dera today?” To her amazement mother said ‘No’. She could not dare to ask more questions & hence she left the kitchen & hid her face in books to hide her tears.

That same fall, she noticed ‘Chachi’ (Puran Singh’s wife) did not look too happy. Chachi was the most beautiful woman she ever saw (well….next to her own mother). Chachi was getting big each day. Though her face glowed more than ever but salwar-kameez did not fit on her any more. Puran Singh Chacha spent all his time at Dera; he was not even coming home in the evenings.

Then one day Nihungs left…..Puran Singh Chacha too. Chachi was crying all day. Women were sitting around her as if someone died. Few weeks & then months passed. Mother helped chachi with chores and often recite Gurbani in the afternoons with her. Chachi changed from a meek woman to a tigress; she not only handled house hold chores but also went to farms to oversee the farming. After few months chachi gave birth to a beautiful daughter. She named her Diler Kaur.

This was an important series of events that taught this little girl the strength that Waheguru blessed women with. Her mother taught her power of Gurbani that helped Chachi to take care of business in absence of her man. She learnt the importance of Sangat from the entire village woman, especially her own mother, who provided moral support to Chachi in her distress.

After the birth of Diler, Chacha Puran Singh came back. Chachi’s world was happy again until I came to know that Chacha Puran singh left to U.P. along with her family…. forever; leaving many of my questions unanswered; that by now moved from my quizzical eyes to my heart and made it their permanent home.

The New Women’s Movement: We’re Coming Home

2006-11-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

By Mrs. Wayne E. Hunter

Adultery, pornography, broken homes, domestic abuse, abusive children, poor mental, physical, and emotional health, illness, disease, dysfunctional schools, heart disease now killing one out of two women; these problems plague our families and nation. These things break women’s hearts, literally. They not only break our hearts, but our nation. They are of profound seriousness. Families and nations don’t thrive under these conditions, and despite law after law being passed to try to alleviate these problems, they still grow and grow. America, we have hope. The New Women’s Movement holds the key and the cure to these problems. This hope, key, and cure stand to affect us all in more ways than can be imagined. America, your wives and mothers are coming home.

Freedom

Today’s wives and mothers have found their total freedom. Freedom from tyrannical bosses. Freedom from unfair wages and promotions. Freedom from dividing our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls between work and family. We’ve found our freedom by coming home. Here we are truly free: financially, emotionally, and creatively. Our hearts are free to love, free to give, free to be and become who we really are, free to get to know who we really are, and free with our schedules. We manage all of these freedoms with perhaps more skill, professionalism, and resourcefulness than ever before, and it’s healing us, our families, and our nation.

We find much mental happiness in our freedom to create within the household. It doesn’t take a menial laborer to become one of the New Women’s Movement’s wives and mothers; it takes a genius, which just happens to be what American women are known for. For example, we don’t just decorate the inside of our homes, rather, we study the subject, then we observe our family members to decide which colors, fabrics, art, and décor best suits the growth of their personalities and development. We then shop around for the highest quality at the best prices to implement our plan. And if we can’t find what we’re looking for, we make it ourselves. We are expressing ourselves, we are treasuring our family members, and we are all growing healthier in every aspect.

Not just anyone can love the way a round-the-clock wife and mother can. Here, in our profession, we know that love is reciprocal – we have to give it to receive it – and the more we give, the more we get. We need it, we share it, and we grow in it. We are finding happiness that can’t be found anywhere else in the world, and that is in our very own homes.

Substituted, but Never Replaced

The feminist movement gave us the “liberation” to face life outside the home. We were given the means to find and provided with substitutes for the care that wives and mothers traditionally gave their families, such as daycare, earlier and later compulsory age requirements in schools, three-meal-a-day daycares and schools, fast-food restaurants, and quick-fix-it boxed meals to replace home-cooked meals. School teachers took over character training for our children, therapists took over teaching our children to play and get to know themselves as well as interacting with others, counselors took over the wise counsel and understanding that once only a mother could give, and tax-funded social services for families and communities grew astronomically.

All of these substitutes and services have cost and continue to cost our nation incalculable amounts of money both publicly and privately--but were once provided for free to our families and society from devoted, round-the-clock wives and mothers. What we’ve learned through our “liberation from the home” was that these substitute services can’t hold a candle to what we can provide. We are irreplaceable. When people are paid to give these services, they do it for money; when women choose to give of themselves by providing these services, they do it out of and for love. Love: that’s the missing ingredient, and the best kind of love is love that gives freely. There’s only one way to develop this love, as today’s wives and mothers have found out, and that is through the devoted day-in/day-out care of our own families. We’re here, we’re on the job - though be it at home - and we’re excelling. We’ve tried the substitutes; now we’re all ready for the real thing. We’re indispensable, irreplaceable, and we’re in love with our families. The New Women’s Movement wives and mothers are truly liberated by living as God created us to live – and this pours out into our society in a most profound way.

Our View of Our Husbands and Children

Perhaps here, more than anywhere else, is where the greatest avenue of change lies. When “the battle of the sexes” began, we couldn’t just leave it in the workforce, but it, unfortunately, came home with us. It has grown and grown until domestic abuse dominates many American families. Women are statistically more abusive than men, and we don’t like it. We refuse to live this way. We refuse to be abused and we refuse to abuse. We have found the golden keys to prevention. We have reexamined the attributes of men and women and studied their undeniable differences. We have stopped believing that men and women’s functions in the home and society are interchangeable, but now know that these functions, while very different, are of equal importance. In this New Women’s Movement, we have removed the battle lines, laid our weapons down, and are making peace in our homes. We choose to speak in kindness and wisdom to our family members. We refuse to continually put them down and treat them as if they are of little importance. We love them, and they love us. If there is to be peace on earth, it must begin at home. We’re here. We’re today’s peacekeepers, and not only are we living the ways of peace, but we are teaching our children these ways. We are encouraging our husbands in these paths of peace by offering them the love, understanding, and intuition that only their wives can provide them, and we just happen to be lowering our blood pressures, stress levels, and agitation in the process--not to mention giving these healthful gifts to our families.

We are Confident, Educated, and Resourceful

Like our foremothers long ago, we devote ourselves completely to our cause, and thanks to abundant opportunities for learning, confidence, and resources that we have access to in our nation, we can do our job with unmatchable expertise. No one can love a woman’s husband and children the way she can. Combining our hearts with our confidence, education, and resources makes a New Women’s Movement wife and mother a woman who exceeds excellence. We don’t just feed our children sugar-laden cereal in front of a TV every morning, but serve them home-made meals created from healthful, whole ingredients--while discussing current events or holding character-building conversations with them. We don’t just make do; we do well.

Today’s wives and mothers have found that the best quality for their families most often happens to be from their own hands. We garden, we preserve what we’ve grown, we sew quality clothing for our children at a fraction of the cost of low-to-mid quality clothing, and we find ways to save while increasing our family’s quality of life. Our husbands make the living for our families and we make our families lives worth living. The two halves really do make a superbly workable whole.

We’ve been in the workforce with men and know the kind of women there are out there, and thus we know how to prevent other women from destroying our marriages. We’ve observed what works and what doesn’t work as far as what men really want. We know that men, at least our husbands, view us as respectable, dedicated, honorable, selfless rather than selfish, and magnificent. We don’t have to worry quite so much about our husbands leaving us for other women or walking out on us, leaving us with no means of support, because our husbands are supported, loved, appreciated, admired, and respected. It’s all mutual. Both we and our husbands know that we are two halves of an intricately beautiful whole, and it’s a rather divine way to live. We’re happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise.

The Incalculable Economic Impact of the New Movement

This is a most significant impact of this New Movement. While we are no longer in the workforce contributing to our national economy, we are actually repairing it from the inside. We give of ourselves to our family’s total well-being, including their health, welfare, and character. This has astronomic implications for our economic future. Everything that we do for our families we do with not just today, but tomorrow, in mind. Breastfeeding is an excellent example. We know that we are giving our children physical, emotional, and spiritual nutrition that can’t be found anywhere else on earth. We know that not only do these benefits affect our children today, but that they will continue until their dying day. We bring this level of intelligence, dedication, nurture, and foresight into all we do in our homes. This means a healthier nation today and tomorrow, which also means a dramatic decrease in the amount that the government, through tax dollars, must spend trying to repair health and homes.

We are smart, excited, motivated, and dedicated. We love to share what we learn, and we do so freely in many ways, such as with websites, community or online classes, and sharing great resources. All of these things save our nation tremendous amounts on health and social services both today and in the future.

Another big movement inside the New Women’s Movement is that many of our families are working together to get out of debt and stay out of debt. These wives and mothers are master gardeners, seamstresses, and hard workers, and we are saving our families bundles. We know how to live within our families’ means but to not sacrifice quality and comfort. We are saving our husbands the wear-and-tear of trying to live above our means, and this leads to healthier hearts, minds, bodies, and souls for not only them, but for us and our children. We love our husbands, and we will do whatever we can to ensure that they are around for a long, long time. Our women are learning to be much more resourceful and frugal, and we are passing these lessons on to our children. Our children are tomorrow’s citizens and policy makers, and if they know well the art of managing money and avoiding debt, they can lead our nation to economic freedom and stability.

The Bright Future of Our Families, Nation, and World

By God's grace, we will have loving, secure, healthy, happy, capable adults due to this movement. Every American citizen will see the marvelous fruits of the New Women’s Movement in the years to come. We all win: America’s round-the-clock wives and mothers because we are being restored to a place of honor and dignity in our society; America’s husbands because they are being welcomed back with open arms to their roles of honor, strength, and provision; America’s children, because they are being valued as treasures, the greatest of all our national resources; and America’s society as a whole, because a nation is only as strong as its families, and in our families lie the strength and character of our nation. In the future it is suspected that we will see with a mighty force the truth in the saying, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” Welcome home, Momma, and thank you!

Why Some Gurudwaras are Failing

2006-11-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.sikhsangat.org/publish/article_1524.shtml

By SSNews, Lakhvir Singh Khalsa
Nov 16, 2006, 16:24

The Hindus have their Mandirs, the Christians their Churches, the Muslims their Mosques and the Sikhs their Gurudwaras. All these congregational centres were meant to unite people of faith and help each other grow in spirituality and stick together in times of trials, tribulations and joy.

Though Gurudwaras began to be built much after our Gurus, they have nevertheless played a great role in becoming centres of Sikh teachings and in bringing communities together. Over the past few years, however, an unfortunate trend has begun to come to the fore-front. Majority of Gurudwaras around the world no longer inspire new Sangat, mostly because of the wrong people with incorrect ideas are put in charge of the House of the Guru.

There was a reason why our Gurus did not establish Gurudwaras and the foresight of Guru Gobind Singh Ji was spot on. Guru Ji’s decision to pass the Guruship to the Word of God (Guru Granth Sahib Ji) has saved the Panth from destruction at its own hands. Even today, one can witness the number of sects, deras and self-professed gurus that continue to grow in the same attempts that were made in the times of our Gurus by Prithi Chand, Ram Rai, Dhir Mal, Dattu and the massands. Our Sikh Gurus were appointed by Akaal Purakh to lay the foundations of the Sikh faith and that is why when Guru Gobind Singh Ji, as the last human Guru of the Sikhs, installed Guru Granth Sahib Ji as the final and eternal Guru of the Sikhs, we need to understand the reasons behind that decision and Hukam.

Humans, as proved through history, are prone to failure because of their selfish nature and are likely to be corrupted by maya. Guruship is a huge power which can drive anyone to the brink of doing anything to lay claim for oneself. Our Gurus were appointed by Akaal Purakh and it was within His Divine Will to end the human Guruship with Guru Gobind Singh Ji and rest the destiny of the Sikh Panth in the Shabad of Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Shabad is what humanity needed but very few accept the Word of God as their leader. No wonder we have all other religions clamouring for leadership and have failed the message engrained within their scriptures. Sikh faith is the only organised religion that has conferred Guruship to the Spirit of the Word and need no human Guru to take its place. The Sikh Gurus’ mission was to reveal the Word and record It for time eternal as no human will be able to match its Wisdom and Instructions. Those that have strayed from this principle have contradicted the very message the Gurus taught and have condemned themselves into squabbles which is their downfall. Over the centuries, men have fallen but only Guru Granth Sahib Ji still stands above all, pure and unadulterated as it was prepared by the Sikh Gurus. Guru Gobind Singh’s instruction to his Sikhs to consider Shabad as Guru has proved its reason. Those that do consider Guru Granth Sahib as Guru and following its teachings can never be conquered by any human force. They are the Sikhs of the True Guru and they have survived the centuries, and will survive for centuries to come. That is the power of the leadership of Guru Granth Sahib.

When Sikhs treat Guru Granth Sahib Ji as a mere formality and to extract from it what is of use to them and ignore what their manmat doesn’t agree with, they fall and take down along with them those that support or promote them. This is what is happening in Gurudwaras today. By treating the Gurudwara as a business, all the committees ever take seriously is their chairs, their turbans and their big fat egos and treat matters of the Panth as a secondary issue. It is a known fact how it takes minutes to approve a budget running into millions that has to do with expansion of the Gurudwara’s properties and will argue for hours on the relatively petty expenses to invest in Parchaar and Gurmat.

Just last night, a dear Gurmukh friend of mine, who is a vice-chairperson of our local Gurdwara here in Nairobi was lamenting that their Gurudwara no longer has any money in the banks and is struggling. Ironically, they have huge amounts in fixed deposits. He was really heart-broken that a Jatha that is to come to Kenya sometime in November has been given a very tight, but miniscule budget while they are approving expansion programmes for their Gurudwara. He felt so hurt that these committees have such little hearts for Parchaar. I comforted him by saying that a Gurudwara like that was bound to run out of money because it is run like a business, and not like a Guru Da Ghar. Business are vulnerable to bankruptsy, not Guru Da Ghar. These kind of people, who have little respect and regard for their Gyanis, guilty of disrespect kesh, eat and drink and corrupt voters to gather their seats of power . . . how can such people ever be custodians of the Guru’s Treasures? They are gambling away their own treasures (Sikhi) and will run the very House of the Guru into ruin. These are the modern day massands. Now we know what Guru Gobind Singh Ji had to face with the massands. The tragedy is that today’s massands are elected by us and we have no guts to tear them off from their chairs.

I have heard much about the treatment our Gyanis are given by these shameless committees. They literally man-handle them with words. How outrageous to speak to the custodians of Gurmat in such a pathetic manner! How do we expect Sikhi to flourish in such conditions? These Gurudwara committees don’t even care a dime. They expect the youth to come to Gurudwaras and adopt Sikhi yet they themselves are hollow inside. They are doing more damage than the massands of puratan times because we elect these massands. Like our Guru taught us, more guilty than the oppressor are those that do nothing against it. We will be held accountable in the Court of the True Guru, for not doing anything about it. Of all those sacrices give by our Gurus and we have confined them to frames in the Gurudwaras. Who needs the Babar the invader to conquer the people? Our own Sikhs are our greatest invaders. We don’t invade another’s territory, but we are certainly shredding our skin to expose the flesh for the flies to feast on.

An ideal Gurudwara committee should have a Gyani as an advicer on matters of faith and the leaders should al be at least complete keshadhari and the Chairman an example of a complete Gurmukh who is Amritdhari and Nitnemi. These days, we may even come across some keshdhari or Amritdhari leaders, but they still fail the Panth in one way or another – examples of which are as vast as the human mind can conceive. Were our Gurudwaras led by Gyanis and men and women of a Gurmat living, Sikhi wouldn’t have been taking a beating it is today. Who can dare bring down Sikhi if Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s Khalsa was to live on His Hukam of a Niyara Khalsa? People like the leaders in SGPC, RSS, fundamentalist preachers of other religions and governments would have nowhere to hide were it for the Sikhs to deal with the issues affecting their Panth. Our leaders are sold-out to maya and drunken in the wine of power and have little care for the House of the Guru.

While the wrong people continue doing their dis-services, the right people do little to nothing. We will both be in the same Court when we are presented before the Guru. The fruit which we will be handed will be of our own asking and there will be no chance to turn back and correct what we had the powers to do.

In conclusion, I’d like to quote what the famous boxer Muhammed Ali once said: “Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong.”

Gurdwara: A Place to Recite and Discuss Gurbani

2006-11-21T10:34:00.001-08:00

Gurdwara : Guru Dwara
A Place to Recite and Discuss Gurbani

(www.iuscanada.com)

Prof. Devinder Singh Chahal, PhD

INTRODUCTION

One of the outstanding characteristics of the Sikhs is that wherever they settle in the world they build a Gurdwara. Because to build a gurdwara is considered by them as their biggest achievement in their settlements.

WHAT IS A GURDWARA?

The irony is that the term 'Gurdwara' is not understood properly by many Sikh scholars and Sikh theologians. Gurdwara is a shortened version of Guru Dwara used by Guru Nanak in his bani (words, verse). However, nowadays some Sikhs have replaced the word Guru Dwara with Guru Ghar without paying any attention to the differences in the meanings of these two words. Although both words have 'Guru' in common, replacement of 'Dwara' with 'Ghar' makes lots of differences in their meanings. When Guru Nanak used the word 'Guru Dwara' in his bani he referred 'Guru' to the Guru (the Almighty) and 'Dwara' to the gateway, thus, 'Guru Dwara' means the 'Gateway to the Guru (the Almighty)'. But when one uses Guru Ghar it means the House of the Almighty. In fact according to Gurbani, there is no gate or house wherefrom the Almighty controls the universe and the life in it:

So dar keha so gar keha jit beh sarb smalae (AGGS, Jap 27, P 6).

Thus, to call Guru Dwara or Gurdwara as Guru Ghar is not justified because one cannot confine the Almighty to one place (ghar/house). Because the Almighty pervades everywhere in the universe. Some Sikhs who have coined the word, Guru Ghar, might argue that Guru Ghar means where the Aad Guru Granth Sahib (AGGS) resides. This argument is not valid because many Sikhs keep the AGGS in their homes and such homes cannot be called Guru Ghars under any circumstances. Nevertheless, I must add here that Bhai Kahn Singh (1) has used 'Guru Dwara' and 'Guru Ghar' as interchangeable terms. I do not agree to his interchangeable use because Guru Dwara cannot be Guru Ghar according to Gurbani.

Now let us look into the word 'Guru Dwara' used by Guru Nanak:

ਸੂਹੀ ਮਹਲਾ ੧ ॥
soohee mehlaa 1.
Soohee, First Mehl:

ਭਾਂਡਾ ਹਛਾ ਸੋਇ ਜੋ ਤਿਸੁ ਭਾਵਸੀ ॥
bhaaNdaa hachhaa so-ay jo tis bhaavsee.
That vessel alone is pure, which is pleasing to Him.

ਭਾਂਡਾ ਅਤਿ ਮਲੀਣੁ ਧੋਤਾ ਹਛਾ ਨ ਹੋਇਸੀ ॥
bhaaNdaa at maleen Dhotaa hachhaa na ho-isee.
The filthiest vessel does not become pure, simply by being washed.

ਗੁਰੂ ਦੁਆਰੈ ਹੋਇ ਸੋਝੀ ਪਾਇਸੀ ॥
guroo du-aarai ho-ay sojhee paa-isee.
Through the Gurdwara, the Guru's Gate, one obtains understanding.
ਏਤੁ ਦੁਆਰੈ ਧੋਇ ਹਛਾ ਹੋਇਸੀ ॥
ayt du-aarai Dho-ay hachhaa ho-isee.
By being washed through this Gate, it becomes pure.

ਮੈਲੇ ਹਛੇ ਕਾ ਵੀਚਾਰੁ ਆਪਿ ਵਰਤਾਇਸੀ ॥
mailay hachhay kaa veechaar aap vartaa-isee.
The Lord Himself sets the standards to differentiate between the dirty and the pure.

ਮਤੁ ਕੋ ਜਾਣੈ ਜਾਇ ਅਗੈ ਪਾਇਸੀ ॥
mat ko jaanai jaa-ay agai paa-isee.
Do not think that you will automatically find a place of rest hereafter.

ਜੇਹੇ ਕਰਮ ਕਮਾਇ ਤੇਹਾ ਹੋਇਸੀ ॥
jayhay karam kamaa-ay tayhaa ho-isee.
According to the actions one has committed, so does the mortal become.
ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤੁ ਹਰਿ ਕਾ ਨਾਉ ਆਪਿ ਵਰਤਾਇਸੀ ॥
amrit har kaa naa-o aap vartaa-isee.
He Himself bestows the Ambrosial Name of the Lord.

ਚਲਿਆ ਪਤਿ ਸਿਉ ਜਨਮੁ ਸਵਾਰਿ ਵਾਜਾ ਵਾਇਸੀ ॥
chali-aa pat si-o janam savaar vaajaa vaa-isee.
Such a mortal departs with honor and renown; his life is embellished and redeemed, and the trumpets resound with his glory.

ਮਾਣਸੁ ਕਿਆ ਵੇਚਾਰਾ ਤਿਹੁ ਲੋਕ ਸੁਣਾਇਸੀ ॥
maanas ki-aa vaychaaraa tihu lok sunaa-isee.
Why speak of poor mortals? His glory shall echo throughout the three worlds.
ਨਾਨਕ ਆਪਿ ਨਿਹਾਲ ਸਭਿ ਕੁਲ ਤਾਰਸੀ ॥੧॥੪॥੬॥
naanak aap nihaal sabh kul taarsee. ||1||4||6||
O Nanak, he himself shall be enraptured, and he shall save his entire ancestry. ||1||4||6||

* 'Guru Dwara' (Gateway to the Guru) is a metaphor of the 'Teachings of the Guru'. It has also been referred so at other places in Gurbani (AGGS, M 3, P 919 and 922).

The main theme conveyed in this verse by Guru Nanak is as follows:

The polluted body (mind) cannot be cleansed by washing the body. However, it can be cleansed when one follows the "Teachings of the Guru" through which one gets wisdom to cleanse one's mind.

Now the question is how does one gets the wisdom?

When one recites the Gurbani and discusses (vichar) it with the sangat (congregation) then one finds the wisdom to get one's mind cleansed. Guru Dawara, therefore, means entering the gateway of the Guru, i. e., the understanding of the "Teachings of the Guru". Therefore, the place, where one can recite and discuss Gurbani (Teachings of the Guru) with the sangat to find out the truth, contentment and realize the Almighty, is called Guru Dwara.

HOW IS THE GURBANI UNDERSTOOD?

A great importance of vichar (discussion/deliberation) has been given in the Gurbani at many places in the AGGS. For example:

Nanak sabd wichariae payiae guni nidhan. (AGGS, M1, P 59)

Nanak says: "By discussion/deliberation one gets the treasure of wisdom."

The vichar has been interpreted differently by different writers. At some places in Gurbani Vichar means the philosophy of the Gurus. In general the meanings of vichar in Punjabi and given by Bhai Kahn Singh (1) are: The method to find out the truth. The method to find out the truth is by discussing/deliberating the subject matters thoroughly in a group. The meanings of the word 'discuss' in English dictionaries are: To investigate by reasoning or argument; to discourse about something to arrive at the truth or to convince others of the validity of one's position (2). Thus, discussion/deliberation of Gurbani is the most important characteristic feature of Sikhism and of Gurbani. The Gurbani also advises that in case there are doubts that can be decided by discussion/deliberation while sitting together:

Hoae ikatar mil maerae bhai dubda dur karo liv lai. (AGGS, M 5, P 1185).

Get together, Oh my brothers, to remove the doubts while attuned to the Almighty.

Since so much importance is given on the vichar (discussion/deliberation) in the Gurbani then why it has not been adopted in the Gurdwara? It means the word, Gurdwara, was never understood properly before. It is never too late to amend and adopt the right path. Today, we should promise ourselves to use the Guru Dwara or Gurdwara as explained in the Gurbani. On entering the Gateway of the Guru it becomes imperative for every Sikh to vichar (discuss/deliberate) the Gurbani with the sangat to find out the truth and to achieve the contentment and ultimately to realize the Almighty.

REFERENCES:

AGGS = Aad Guru Granth Sahib. 1983 (reprint) 1430 p. Publishers: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar. (M = Mahla, i.e., succession number of the Sikh Gurus to the House of Guru Nanak, P = Page of the AGGS).

1. Singh, (Bhai) Kahn. 1981. Mahan Kosh (Punjabi). Bhasha Vibagh, Punjab, Patiala.

2. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. 1991. Thomas Allen & Son Ltd., Markham, Onatario

OBSERVATIONS:

Presently the Gurdwaras are being used for reciting Akhand Paths, celebration of Gurpurbs, Barsis of different sants, sant samelans, birth days of some Bhagats, martyrdoms of Gurus and of some Sikhs mostly recent ones, solemnizing marriages, birthdays of children, and political conferences. Most recently celebration of New Year Eve has been included as one of their functions. Organization of Kabadi and other supports have been also introduced in some Gurdwaras as one of their important duties. But no gurdwara is known to me that arranges discussion of Gurbani with the Sangat (congregation) as recommended in Gurbani.

Youth involvement in the Gurdwaras

2006-10-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

hmrY msqik dwgu dgwnw hm krj gurU bhu swFy ]

hamarai masathak dhaag dhagaanaa ham karaj guroo bahu saadtae ||

My forehead has been branded with His brand; I owe such a great debt to the Guru.

Guru Raam Daas Ji (SGGSJ Ang 170)

To encourage, promote and instigate Sikhi in the youth is the responsibility every Gursikh. It is the mission of each Gurdwara to promote this everywhere in general and specifically in the western world. We should also be aware that as parents, we must strive to be good working role models for our children; not only to teach them the ideals of Sikhi, but also show them how to not just practice Sikhi…but to live it. This topic is dedicated to the Sangat by the Sangat.

Academic Education is the main thing that is being drilled in the mindset of Sikh children all over the world. Very few are lucky ones who also get spiritual/religious knowledge from their elders at home. The core problem of our youth not being attracted to Gurdwara, I believe, comes from the fact that, we, as a Sikh community are lagging behind in building a solid foundation for Sikhi by lack of spiritual/religious education. There is a need for continuous education in this area, throughout the grade-school years of a child.

In most Gurdwaras the Punjabi Schools are set up to teach Gurmukhi. It is known fact that without being able to read Gurmukhi, children will not have the ability to read Gurbani. But limiting these children to learn Gurmukhi is not enough; hence there is a need for some recommendations to improve upon the religious education of our children/youth. These recommendations are based on many ideas already put forth by the Sangat and used in the Gurdwaras around the world; but there are still many more that can take advantage of these ideas.

TEACHING OF GURBANI

It is also important to understand that Dhan Dhan Sri Guru Angad Dev ji, our second Guru Sahib, construed the Gurmukhi alphabet thus we become automatically obliged to learn the language of our Gurus. Sikh children should be taught Santhiya (expression of bani), by a person learned in the art of reading it in the proper manner. Yet still the problem exists in attracting youngsters to the classes. Parents have a crucial role here. They must encourage their children to not just go to Punjabi classes but also to Gurbani Santhiya classes. The whole image of learning in a Gurdwara must be changed. People involved in educating these children should have a positive attitude and be optimistic about their objectives. Simple techniques like announcing the class should take place in every Diwaan and visual encouragement like posters should be utilized.

I congratulate those parents who came to this country, are working and earning by the sweat of their brow whilst also trying to balance out cultural and religious education of their children. However increasingly, there are also some parents who block their children from walking the Sikhi path. I have heard of many instances in Sikh youth Camps; where a Sikh youth has approached me and explained that they are trying to keep their Kesh, however their parents totally discouraged it. Many girls are discouraged from taking Amrit by their own parents. Preventing someone to become a Gursikh is a massive blasphemy. The sad part in all this is that Sikh community does not want to intervene in these situations. Some Gurmukh members of the Sangat should get together and form a domestic problem committee that helps resolve these kinds of family disputes. Gurbani makes reference to Bhagat Prehlaad whose father Harnaksh prevented him from meditating on the one creator and sustainer of the universe – Waheguru. Harnaksh met an awful fate at the end. Non-practicing Sikh parents must not forget that ‘working hard to earn money’ is important, but sowing the seeds of Sikhi in personal farm will allow their children to reap the goods long after they are gone.

Peer pressure is another problem that we must not ignore. Many Sikh children at high school/universities sacrifice their ‘Sikhi Saroop’ in order to assimilate with the mainstream. It is natural to waiver one’s mind when there is no inner strength and no outer support. Guru’s answer to this is ‘Saadh-Sangat’ and keeping up with recital of Bani. With Guru’s kirpa, High Schools/Universities experiences will also be positive when we lay strong foundation of Sikhi in the grade school.

At University level, Organizations of Sikh Students are making lot of positive efforts. However there is a continuing contest for the attentions of student’s minds between the organizers of Sikh events and Bhangra organizers. The positive side of this is that at least there is some attachment to the Punjabi culture and language. Most of these youth are left usually confused when it comes to religion or culture. Confused about what is being a Sikh or a Punjabi. Most of these students are people who are eager to learn. Yet their main criticism about Sikhi can be narrowed down several issues:

When they do attend the Gurdwara, the majority of the youth do not understand what is being said by gianis, ragis, or what Maharaj ji is trying to tell them.
They cannot stand the politics of the Gurdwara and the constant ramblings in the place of Guru, which undermines worship.
When they do understand someone, they cannot understand why they are being talked down to.

It becomes difficult to explain to students at this stage the concept of Miri and Piri (Spiritual and political power). The reason being their spiritual growth has been stunted.

Thus education of the youth is the key to establishing Sikh leaders of the future. The solution is to provide Santhiya to youth once they have learnt Gurmukhi. Then explain or have youth research the meanings of the Guru’s word. Every Gurdwara should invest in a teacher of Gurbani.

UNDERSTANDING OF GURBANI

There is a gigantic lack of Sikh preachers who can communicate with youth in English language. Thus the youth miss out on understanding the Guru’s word. So the main problem for the Sikh youth is the lack of understanding of Gurbani. How can be bring a change there?

Firstly, there is availability of Technology that can be put to use to understand Gurbani in translated and transliterated form; while it is being sung by the raagies. With the use of software created by Sikhitothemax it can be projected onto a screen with the projector and a laptop; for the sangat to read along and understand the meanings.

Secondly a ‘Weekly Youth Diwaan’ in which young people do all the services; should be organized in all Gurdwaras. The program should be well advertised in and around the Gurdwaras in the city. It should open to everyone regardless of age, but should be conducted by the youth; under the loving guidance of the Gurmukhs. In such Diwaans or even in regular Sunday Diwaans, after the Granthi Sahib takes the Hukamnama from Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj, a volunteer should be called forward from the youth to come and read out translation of the hukam. This will help shed youth’s anxieties in taking lead roles later in Gurdwaras and it will build their understanding of Gurbani.

RAISING PAATHI SINGHS/SINGHNIAN

All Gurdwaras has Akhad paths, but youth normally do not participate in it due to hesitation. To overcome this hurdle, Sehaj paths should be started, in which only young people participate. Granthi Singhs of the Gurdwara or other Gurmukhs should sit side by side with these children when they recite path to make any corrections.

Following this it will be great to reward these children with prizes and Sirapaos. This will increase the confidence of these children to come forward in future. These types of events are essential for the continuing development of Sikhi and the youth.

RAISING LEADERS

As mentioned earlier, there is a genuine lack of young Sikh leaders today. We need many organizations that train leaders of tomorrow. Gurmat Camps held by IIGS are doing great job since last 50 years in this area. Also another organization called the Fellowship of Activists To Embrace Humanity, FATEH is doing great Sewa of the Sikh Community. FATEH runs a Change across Borders (CAB) program, where the individual travels to Chandigarh in Punjab and undertakes a 9 month course in the different skills of human development inspired by the teachings of the Sikh gurus. Classical kirtan tuition, Gurbani Santhiya, Gurmat, field trips to places of historical and cultural interests, gatka, Sikh History, talks by eminent Sikh scholars are amongst many other priceless activities under the curriculum. After 6 months of study, the participants spend a further 3 months on a field project. This project could be in the villages or at the FATEH office. The CAB program is aimed at creating ‘ambassadors and catalysts’ who will return to their home-country to inspire other youths. At an individual level, CAB aims at helping the participant to become useful citizens.

In addition to above, there are other courses available. Sikh Missionary College provides a 2-year Missionary Correspondence course. Thus the youth can study at their own in the comfort of their home. Damdami Taksal in Punjab also accepts students to learn Gurbani and take lessons on discipline of the Gursikh. Degree graduates or youth with genuine love for Sikhi should be encouraged to go on these programs. These courses are invaluable products that should be sold to the public. The Gurdwaras committee should make it their responsibility to encourage and motivate parents and youth alike to consider these courses.

Our local Gurdwara has been involved in preparing & distributing langar to the homeless people. It is a highly satisfying and pleasurable experience for the participants. Involvement of youth in such altruistic leanings will not only lead them towards the Guru but also will improve the standing of the Sikh youth both spiritually and worldly manner.

Many Sikh students live away from home at university level. The Guru’s home is mankind’s abode. Gurdwara committee should consider setting up funds aside for students. For example, if a student is enduring financial problems, the Gurdwara may be running discretionary award on the condition that the student involved, must be able to perform some kind of sewa (administrative, sewa of older people or volunteering in the Punjabi/Gurmat school) whilst at university in their spare time.

At the end I would like to add that for the suggestions to work to their complete effect; there is a need for a plan of action. Each Gurdwara; for being on various stages of development as far as youth involvement is concerned; needs to adopt their own strategies with the youth involved in their set-up.

We Are Not Symbols

2006-10-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

'We Are Not Symbols' is a letter from a Sikh Father to his son facing identity crisis at college. Hope the visitors at this blog would like to read it once again. (http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/archivedf/feature-feb2001.html )

The centipede was happy, quite

Until a toad in fun

Said, 'Pray, which leg goes after which?'

This worked his mind to such a pitch,

He lay distracted in a ditch,

Considering how to run.

THE earth on that day was parched and brown, the roads were unusually deserted of the traffic and even the construction workers, otherwise so busy and undaunted by the heat, were looking for a shade to rest in. It was a very hot and humid day. In the well manicured lawns of an elitist college in the Delhi University, many students were stretched out on the grass or sitting on the worn out wooden benches, under a cluster of Banyan trees. They were taking cold drinks and gasping for fresh air. The clouds were gray, there was not even a whisper among the tired trees, and the earth itself seemed to have failed in its rotation. You could touch the heat, feel it, smell it and it seemed to trap you.

To fight the heat, and the sweat, everyone in the college lawn was busy talking, except for Jaskirat Singh who was sitting all alone, contemplating under the thatched roof of the motorbike shed. He was tall, well built, sharp featured and looked very distinctive with his bright red turban, bearded chin and a jet black cavalier mustache. One could hardly imagine, what his imported jeans must have looked like when he first wore them two years back because now they were held together by a series of patches of various dimensions ranging from a triangle to a hexagon.

Jaskirat was from a fairly affluent family of Punjab and had been residing in a hostel for the last eleven years, going home only for the summer and winter vacations. From his school days he had been very interested in his studies and was always among the first three, in his class. A voracious reader, an excellent sports-man, the most sought after orator in his college, a member of the college students' union, he always strives for perfection in whatever he tried. But now in his final year of M.A., though still quite young, he felt he had lost the spark of life. He carried on his work almost mechanically, going through the monotonous routine with boredom there was no longer any zest in what he did and the drive which he had once felt, was completely gone. He was confused, lonely and almost angry with himself.

His friends did not consider him to be enough Hip (a slang word often used by students for one who is completely westernized in his manners, values of life and is well experienced in psyche-delic experiences, in short a product of the Hi-Fi culture), and this was certainly a drawback, as it was the degree of hipness which an individual could imbibe, however artificial the attempt or the result might be, which provided the key to the all-night parties and was a measure of the upward social mobility among the student community. Jaskirat's flowing beard, his untrimmed mustache and his refusal to join his friends in drinking bouts and smoking joints of Marijuana earned him the nickname of "Sant Maharaj ji"! "Don't you smoke?" was a query which he was often faced with and before he could reply he was told "Come on, you must be smoking in your room, all Sikhs do. Go ahead,we are not going to write to your old man".When Jaskirat, told his friends that he did not smoke, they were not pleased with him and were not ready to take his word. They called him a "hypocrite" at his back. But his ostracisationin the campus did not end here; the pressures were increasing every day. Amrita Kaur popularly known as "Miss I.Q.", a classmate of Jaskirat and a good friend of his was unwilling to accept his invitation for a party, because he insisted on carrying a Kirpan with him to the party, which for her was a sign of cultural shallowness and crudeness of the mind. Such behavior for her was certainly an obstacle in her endeavor to be one with the "In-Crowd". She was in no mood for a compromise this time and was determined to put him in a tight spot. In her intellectual anger she tersely told him, "You claim to be progressive in your views, you talk of the natural law of development to higher forms of existence, but still you carry a sword like a feudal hero, who is not ready to give up his obsolete armor. If it is for self defense and honor, which you are so fond of claiming, in that case an ack-ack gun would be anytime more efficient to do the job. Live in the present, do not be a priest of the past". A note slipped by her in Jaskirat's room in the hostel offered him a job of a, "Moral Science teacher in a Convent School ".

The harder Jaskirat tried to untangle his problems, the more he was convinced of the futility of his attempts. Once he had been proud in his capacity of employing logic and reason to unravel the mysteries of life, but now even this powerful and convincing pair, betrayed him. Unable to carry on with the ever increasing pressure of his tight rope walking, he decided to write to his father who had always been keen to see his son happy, at peace with himself and above all, a Guru ka Sikh. Jaskirat was fortunate to have as his father a famous poet, who had been honored with several coveted awards both within and outside India. During the past thirty years,he had steadily become known through his many books as one of the most stimulating and unconventional poets of our time. He had been a guest lecturer at Cambridge, Harvard's, Michigan and had spoken before various international associations and institutions.

The correspondence between the father and the son had always been a great source of inspiration, courage and confidence for Jaskirat and he always used to read aloud, to his friends the letters from his father. When his books, friends and teachers failed him, he invariably turned to his father. This had been a regular feature with him since he was six and had learnt to write English. When he was seven years old, he had wanted to know how he could run faster, at twelve he wanted to know, how he could develop a sharper memory and now at twenty-one he wanted to know why he should be duty bound to keep long hair and carry a sword? It was this dilemma which seemed to be eating him up and leaving him in a paralyzed state. The cure he knew, if there was one, was only available with his father, to whom he must write about his ailment. In writing to his father he felt like a rebel, an insult to his family and a traitor to his community. But the jigsaw puzzle had to be solved whose pieces he himself was in no position to put together.

My dear Dad,

Sat Sri Akal.

It is with extreme pain, conflict and misery that I am writing to you. I feel utterly empty, almost naked, my heart weary, dull and isolated. This could have been another one of those nice and happy letters, which we both have been writing to each other, all these years. But all those nice things seem to be happening no more. Happiness which completely ravished my heart once, has gone and now I have only the empty memory of it. I seem to have lost the intimate contact with life. I must apologize, for suddenly bursting forth like this and for not having written about my problems, all these months. But till about a week back I was confident of finding a solution to my questions. It was only when the books which I so patiently read, all those self proclaimed gurus I went to see, and hear, and my own experience and reasoning failed me, that I resolved to write to you Dad, my inability to accept the 5 K's, which all my life till now, seemed to be so crucial for me in my effort to be a God-fearingman, a religious man, a dutiful son and above all Guru ka Sikh.

I have no doubt and question about the efficacy of these symbols three centuries ago when they were essential in times of war to maintain the identity of Sikhs and give them a common denominator of unity and togetherness. It was a good strategy for fighting against an enemy bent on destroying the very seeds of Sikhism. But for the present these symbols have no justification, no meaning or any convincing explanation. Not only has it become difficult for me to explain the relevance of a kirpan or a kara, but also for those who sermonize in the gurudwaras or those who so zealously write in the religious magazines. Sardar Gajpartap Singh wrote a five page article on the utility of the 5 K.s, but when I met him at the club last month, he was definitely not carrying a kirpan. He is no exception in these double standards.

It is not me alone who has felt this lacuna, but most Sikh boys in my college (Rajbir, Sachet, Madness) are also unable to accept these symbols and their validity for everyday life. They can establish no coherent connection between a kirpan and the human effort for communion with God. In no way can I convince them that these symbols make me more of a Sikh than them. They are as much recognized as Sikhs as I am. In fact more so because they are seen in tune with the modern times and I so much of a romantic fatalistic idiot who sees in the idealistic past and in a set of 5 symbols a stepping stone for my liberation in the future. The belief in God, the need for a deeper consciousness, the harm in smoking, the ill effects of drinking, the daily reading of the Japji; all these I have no objections to and fully agree with, but the 5 symbols do not fit into any logical framework. A happy and contented life -- 5 symbols seems to me to be such an absurd and illogical equation.

Dad, you teach to a certain extent because you are getting paid for it, I go to the university because I expect my education to provide me with a suitable career and it is the same story with everyone else. All of us are engaged in something which is significant, useful and meaningful to us. But these symbols, seem to have no practical utility; spiritual, physical or monetary. They have become like the dead skin which must be removed. That which cannot be made use of and understood, has no life in itself, it is superfluous and dead. Our life is full of unhappiness, with few moments of peace and joy. So anything that promises us a haven we readily subscribe to it. Some see the futility of the daily existence and consequently take recourse to religion, which turns out to be an effort to find hope and security in dogmas, in superstitions and in ritualistic symbols. As beliefs shape experience, these symbols become an inescapable reality. Once the mind has experienced the pleasure which identification through these symbols brings, the mind is firmly entrenched in this deceptive pleasure and nothing can shake it, the end result is that we are slaves of this false identification. Resistance against this identification breeds fear. A fear which is the very antithesis of creativity, sensitivity and an integrated life. It is fear, conscious or unconscious, that makes us respect these symbols. We are never educated or helped to think for ourselves, to explore, but are always required to adhere to the given rules. The religious magazines inform us what is to be done, the priests tell us what is life and our inward fear compels us to obey, because if we do not conform we shall be confused, we shall feel lonely and lost.

So we take to these symbols because we are very scared without them. We do not want to question them because that would not be honorable. And the older generation does not want us to inquire: they do not have the courage to face our questions. They are too busy with their own idiosyncracies, with their do's and don'ts of bourgeois morality and respectability. The acceptance of these symbols with them has become the means for gaining status in society. The end result is that we are no different from a monkey who is imitating all the time. An imitation which springs out of our effort to be safe, to be enclosed and never be confronted with unhappiness. Not to imitate but to search for yourself -- that is living, is it not? We are told that freedom to search comes only when we are old with experience but Dad, there must be freedom to live while we are young, freedom to grasp our own instincts and act accordingly. Why can't I free myself from this structure of imitation? It is constantly building up fear in me and this fear is further strengthening this structure. To be my myself, I must break these imposed symbols.

Putting on my 5 symbols -- is that religion for you? These symbols may give me a certain pleasure; identification; but that is not religion. Accepting certain rituals, dogmas and symbols -- has all this got any link with religion? My belief in God is not bound to my hair. These symbols are not religion, they are only the result of our being forced to conform to war conditions, for the selfish interests of the present society. Is not religion something much finer, much purer and deeper than these symbols? We may put on an outer garment, but the inner essence of what we are is always the same. We must learn to live without these symbols and face reality. These signs have to be discarded and life has to be seen as it is.

So far I have merely written of what my own feelings were on these symbols, but even those who emphases on the absolute necessity of these symbols for my claim to be a Sikh have no consensus or a profound understanding of these symbols. They have nothing concrete to offer and one writer is as apart from the other in his explanation for these symbols, as two political opponents. Every Baisakhi, a new addition is made to the already innumerable explanations. Where could a young Sikh boy or girl anchor his or her boat? They are left to their own training for compass-reading to find the correct bearings and directions. In such circumstances it is not surprising that a wrong reading is made of the latitudes and longitudes and very soon the young one finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into this bog of multiple explanations. The best way out for him becomes to be rid of these explanations altogether and of what they seek to explain.

While trying to find a logical explanation for these symbols, I came across no shortage of methodological approaches, which range from efforts made to demonstrate the significance of the 5 K's, by drawing parallels with other religions and the lives of the great men of these religions, to the sociological method which seeks, "to relate the rite and the social occasion of its performance, to the total social system of the group or category of the persons who recognize the obligation, to perform it." Incidentally the basis of acceptance of any explanation, in academic circle is the quantity of jargon used by a scholar, instead of a qualitative analysis. One sociologist claims that his approach is more suitable because he is adhering to explicitly formulated rules of method and the others are not probing in the right direction because they draw easy inferences from deductive reasoning and because they neglect the significant relations of opposition.

We are told that cultural, military, psychological, social, political, economic, spiritual, physical and sexual factors were the main considerations, which made Guru Gobind Singh endow the Sikhs with 5 K's.If I accept one set of these explanations, the next set contradicts the former. My despair with these historical constructs, is not isolated, it has become a common feature with thousands of Sikhs and I don't have to write the solution which they find for this despair. The picture can be very well illustrated if we take up, these symbols one by one look at what significance is attached to them:

The Kesh (Hair)

The explanation and the significance attached to them in most contemporary works starts from the instructive Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, as told in the Old Testament, which is made as a confirmation of the virtue of remaining unshorn. Many similar examples are also cited from the classical Hinduism. Mannu the Hindu law giver lays down,Q"Even should a man be in wrath let him never seize another by the hair, when a Brahmin commits an offense for which the members of other castes are liable to death, let his hair be shaven off as sufficient expiation." The keeping of the hair is regarded as an indicator of living in accordance with the way of nature. The shaving of the hair it is maintained is an interference with the natural law of the growth of hair. A latest book published on Sikhism by a premier university of Punjab, emphasizes that the keeping of the hair was a part of the Sikh ritual which was life affirming, an indicator of the Sikh's commitment to a social and worldly life in contrast with the Hindu sanyasis and jogis who cut their hair, because they professed to the creed "I am no one's and no one is mine". The Sikhs in contrast were to be a part of the world and to affirm this worldly existence, they were instructed to keep long hair while the sanyasis shaved their head, beard and moustache, before entering the new ascetic phase of their life. The cutting of the hair is thus seen as a social death. The Sikh community on the other hand was an affirmation of the normal social world, "As the battle ground of freedom". The meaning of being unshorn, therefore, signifies according to this book. "The permanent renunciation of renunciation".

Various articles emphasize on the hair being a living organ of the body and to cut them is seen as depriving the body of an essential source of vitality, the hair seen as a contact point with the sun, the basic source of universal energy. One author cites the authority of C.G. Jung and claims that the Guru Sahib was a great psycho-analyst and he asked the Sikhs to keep hair so as to confirm the instinct of masculinity, from which man at time deviates. To convince the, youth, some influential speakers stress on the scientific validity of hair, but without any empirical data to substantiate their statements. Others see the hair as a symbol of virility, honor, power, aggression and so on.

The Kanga (Comb)

The Kanga is explained in utilitarian terms, as a means, to keep the hair neat and clean. It is also seen as a symbol of the discipline of mind. In a flight of imagination, one author writes in a magazine published from Calcutta, that by wearing the comb, the Sikh should be reminded to keep his mind under control, his thoughts should not be allowed to wander aimlessly, his mind should be kept orderly, methodological and well disciplined. The Kanga is seen as a fetter to excessive anger or excessive attachment. (It is not explained how?) Most writers dismiss its significance is one line and see it as a twin of the long hair.

The Kachha (Underpant)

The case of Kachha is even more interesting. An eminent writer, writes in a book sponsored by the Government of India, that the I Kachha is for a smart wear as against the loose unstitched dhoti worn t I earlier. Strangely, reading the mind of Guru Sahib, it is claimed that the loose dhoti represented to the Guruji a loose mentality. By providing the Sikhs with the shorts it was intended to symbolize the spiritual I and mental breakaway from traditional dress and thought. The mind was to be freed from the bonds of superstitions and the people were thus to be released from immature and effeminate submissiveness. They were destined to become mature, solid and active soldiers. Hence the symbol of the Kachha was same for the Sikh women, they were also intended to develop the same qualities as a Sikh man. (I fail to understand why the same qualities were to be developed through the medium of the Kachha). The Kachha is also seen as a symbol of control over excessive sexual indulgence.

The Kirpan (Sword)

The Kirpan is made out to be a symbol of royal authority and of freedom from oppression and servility. Its obvious meaning is stated to be of self-defense and the individual freedom and self respect, embodied in the right to bear arms. The sword it is said, cuts at the root of evil and worldly attachment and destroys them utterly. The primary significance is said to be that of self-defense, with a word of caution that it is not an instrument of aggrandizement but self protection.

The Kara (Steel bangle)

A Sikh journalist, in his account of the Sikhs, writes that the Kara was a symbol of humility as well as a charm worn before going to the war. On the other hand a senior Sikh historian feels that the Kara denotes the universality of the new religion. In very appealing reasoning it is also argued that the complete unbroken circle, symbolizes the Buddhist wheel of life. The spiritual reality of life exists continually, free of both time and space and the Kara is an appropriate symbol of such eternal existence. The human soul, it is instructed, must become as strong as steel used in the Kara which has been tempered in the furnace. The other day a priest in the gurudwara, insisted that the genius of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji was reflected in his providing us with a steel Kara, which can protect us from lightening. A student speaking on the relevance of the 5 K's felt that the Kara was to protect the arms in the battlefield from the sword cuts. It was an excellent shield for the arm, according to him.

The explanations for K's are a paradise of pick and choose. One may choose the one which fancies an individual the most, very much like a nice trouser in a show window. It is not strange if some think, that the choice is still not wide enough to appeal to their senses. So they come out with the choice of discarding these symbols. If I take the view that the Kirpan is for self-defense, can I discard it, if I have twenty bodyguards with all the latest equipment for protecting my life? Again if an individual feels that if the Kirpan is for self-defense, as is so often told to him by the historians, in that case he can hypo-thetically argue that he should be allowed to do away with it, because he feels that the state has made adequate arrangements for his protection.

Daddy, I am utterly incapable of understanding, the value, the justification and the imposition of these symbols. I am deeply hurt but am unable to find any medicine for my wounds. The cures which have been suggested have further aggravated my malady. The numerous explanations given for these symbols seem to be like so many needles pricked into my body. The books, the priests, the glossy magazines, the well meaning speakers, have all failed me and I turn to you not only because you are my father but also because of your deep commitment, understanding and love for the Sikh way of life.

I understand, it is going to be a long, weary and difficult way to a deeper understanding of these symbols, but I am prepared to jump into the arena and take the challenge and I give you my word that in case you can show me the way and the significance of these symbols, I will not hesitate for a moment to go to Sri Anandpur Sahib and be a Amritdhari Sikh.

With lots of love.

Your loving son,

Jaskirat.

Dearest Jaskirat,

Sat Sri Akal.

I must thank you for the deep confidence and the love you have for me. It has always been a joy to read through your letters as they manifest, the sensitivity of a seeker of truth. I am very happy that you had the courage and conviction to express so openly the things that seem to have been distressing your heart. I somehow felt all this brewing up in you, for the last two years, but had never allowed myself to face it directly, till you wrote the present letter. It is a pleasure to hear it all, so plainly stated, and I hope, I shall understand and calm your mental anguish.

When you leave the university and face the world it seems to me that what is crucial in life is not to succumb, not to bow your head to various pressures, but to know and feel them as they are, in a gentle spirit, with a great inward strength, so that these pressures, will not create conflict in your life. You may question what is given to you or what many of your age assert is being forced on youQ: but this also means that you must question yourself. You must not merely, question, what you call the significance, the need, the value of your own life. It is only with such an integrated total approach, that you will understand not only the Kirpan, the Kara, the Kanga, the Kesh and the Kachha, but also appreciate the agonies, the joys, the pain, the pleasure, the vanities and hope of living.

In your letter, the one word which has overpowered you, the one emotion which drives you on, is significance. Over and over again, you want to know what is the significance of the 5 K's? The word certainly is not out of place in our materialistic and individualistic existence. In our efforts to be practical individuals, we want to imbibe only what is of utility and significance, the rest we want to discard. The search for significance in everything is a curse of the present century. It is a form of self-enclosure, self-killing and therefore it breeds the fear of living. The whole world, all your friends, your relations, everyone is struggling for significant and useful things. But what might be significant for you might not be so for your friends. If you go to a man who has ill-health, he will undoubtedly say, what is significant is good health. If you go to a man who has not had enough wealth, in all his life, he will say what is significant in life is money.

If you go to a mother she will say the significant thing is to have a son. This is the reason you find an intricate web of explanations, for the significance of the 5 K's. Every one views it from his own angle of significance.

The first step in your questioning of the 5 K's should be to be free of this yoke of significance. It is this illusionary search for significance, which has made many young ones and their seniors, discard their Kesh, because they see no value in them. It is a pity that we went to reduce Sahib Guru Gobind Singh ji, to our own mundane level of thinking and view all his actions in light of practical animal utility. If he was in search of merely objects of practical utility, he could have made a truce with Aurangzeb, when the latter made the offer. Shivaji did so at one stage, because his search was different, his life was different. If the rider of the dark blue steed, wanted the 5 K's to be reflections of practical use values, he could have very well added not only more weapons, but instead of a sword, he would have given us a gun, as guns did exist at that time. A gun would have been more efficient and better suited for self-defense and for war too. But he was not inspired out of a hunt for weapons of self-defense or practical value, as we would make it out, reflecting our own thinking backwards, in History. The Guru Sahib was not a novice in the ways of the arms, if he only wanted his Sikhs to be armed for war, through these 5 K's. He would have rather equipped them the way He did Banda Bahadur at Nander, when he gave him 5 arrows and a bow. The sword, anyway, in the battlefield would have been useless without a shield.

The Kanga, the Kesh, the Kara, the Kirpan, the Kachha, were all delicate gifts of love and beauty to the Khalsa from a man who desired nothing for himself, but everything for the Khalsa. These gifts were from a Guru who garbed not the gifts of his disciples but instead he totally surrendered everything for the cause and love of the Khalsa. A .way of total love which was to be unique for the Khalsa: "jau tau prem khelan ka chao sir dhar tali gali meri ao" (Guru Nanak Dev ji). "If thou art zealous of playing the game of love, then enter upon my path with thy head on thy palm." It was out of such love that these gifts were presented to the Khalsa and not out of any attempts to carve out soldiers. When there is total love there is action, there is sacrifice, is there not? The love of the Guru for the Khalsa was not the result of mental vibrations, and there was in his life no gap between love and action, as there is between our thinking and action. It is only we who want to be one sided in our love and make claims of loving the Guru in our ideals, in our heart and consequently we reason out that we don't have to express our love for Him in action, in the Kesh. But can there be love without total commitment and action? No. The total love of Kalgidhar Guru Gobind Singh ji for the Khalsa becomes apparent in the book titled the Sarbloh, where, He becomes one with the Khalsa and portrays the Khalsa as his highest love:

Khalsa is the breath of my body,

Khalsa is the very soul of my life,

Khalsa is my real pride and glory,

Khalsa is my own personal self,

Khalsa is my life's sustainer,

Khalsa is my body and breath,

Khalsa is my creed and karma,

Khalsa is my conscience keeper,

Khalsa is my perfect satguru,

Khalsa is my brave friend,

Khalsa gives me intellect and wisdom,

Khalsa is my object of meditation.

The mind that loves the Sikh way of life is a religious mind because it is in the movement of living, of action, of truth, of God and it is only such a mind that can know what is the beauty of the gifts the Guru gave to us. The 5 ornament that we wear are the gifts, from a Guru, whose two younger sons, seven and nine years old faced death in Sirhind in a manner which is unequalled in the long annals of human history. These two innocent children were walled alive because they refused to bow before the sword of hatred. The Guru's mother expired at Sirhind out of shock, over the death of the small children. The two elder sons of the Guru died fighting in action for us. Guru Sahib, himself fell a victim to the dagger of two cowardly Pathans at Nander in Deccan, who stabbed him in the back.

Could such a man whose whole family was destroyed for the total love of the Khalsa, be looking for practical utilities of an animal existence? He was not the person to endow us with gifts of mere practical value, but gifts of love, which knew no questioning, no bartering, no deals and no betraying. His was a total sacrifice and a total love, in both thought and action, for the happiness of the Khalsa and these gifts had their pangs of birth in a sea of human blood. It was not out of any practical benefit that the evil genius of the Mughal government announced awards for the hair of the Sikhs. It was because they knew that without these gifts, without these embellishments of the Guru's love the Khalsa would disintegrate.

All the children of the Khalsa are to always wear a sword, in no way, their own private possession or property. The Kirpan is a gift from Guru Gobind Singh ji to the Khalsa. It is not to be judged and measured as a weapon of war or peace, it is a gift activated by the love of the Guru. Even a whole army of bodyguards or the best police state in the world cannot make it redundant. It shall always remain attached to me, the bodyguards cannot make it obsolescent. The sword is the love wherein the Guru resides. A Guru who in his love saw no difference between human beings and fused all of us in one creed of devotion, service and sacrifice, in an age when common men were hanged for even drawing water from the same well, as that of the higher castes. The lower castes were beaten to death if they as much as touched the kitchen utensils of a Brahmin.

A Kalal --wine distiller -- once came for the Guru's darshan and stood at a distance, for the caste of the Kalals was considered low in the social hierarchy. When Guru Gobind Singh ji, saw him, He said, "Come in and sit with all of us in the tent". The man quivered, hesitated and said, "How can I, the lowliest of the low, sit in the assembly of the gods? Guru ji, I am a kalal whose mere sight pollutes". On hearing this, Guru Sahib instructed His musicians and bards, to welcome the man with music and songs and coming down from the couch to bless him, He said, "You are not a kalal, but a "Guru ka-Lal' "A Ruby of the Guru". Who has such love for us? The sword which we have, is an ornament for all of us, the rich and the poor, you, me and the whole humanity. To wear a sword which was once a privilege of the few high born, under the dictates of the Mughal aristocracy, with the Guru's blessings became a gift which any-one could carry, without fear of being persecuted, because now it was in love from the Guru to the Khalsa, "dan dio iniko bhalo avranko dan na lagat niko" (Guru Gobind Singh). "To bestow gifts on them alone is worthy, to make gifts to others is not kind."

When his hands stroked our hair, washed them, combed them, l dressed them, knotted them and placed in them the invaluable Kanga, how can we, his sons and daughters, bear our hair to be cut? The Guru Sahib saturated our hair with Amrit. He left the imprint of his blessings and joy in our hair. Our hair are like the untouched pearls in the deep oceans not yet disfigured by the fortune hunters. You say it is inconvenient, frustrating, impractical to grow our hair long. But more frustrating is an existence of no inspiration, no effort. Our superficial hollow life is no way less discouraging. The day to day fragmentary living, the everyday struggle for food, the daily pain, suffering, distress, torments and headaches are in no way less discomforting. But inspite of all this do we cease to exist? No, on the contrary we strive all the more and struggle for pleasure, gratification, comforts, and joy. If we can reconcile ourselves to such an empty living, can we not grow our hair long which is so inspiring, creative, fulfilling and above all a gift from our Guru, a gift whose rejection would be a rejection of our existence, the negation of the very purpose of our life.

In the West, the children love so much the gifts made to them on Christmas by the mythical Santa Claus, they hungrily search their stockings for the gifts placed in them by their parents and after receiving their gifts feel so elated and we so ungrateful, that we fight, throw away, kick at the gifts of our living father, who kept nothing for the future of his House and gifted to us everything he possessed -- physical, spiritual and material.

The elegant Kachha we wear everyday is the very same as the one worn by Guru ji himself, by his disciples and by his lovers. Clad in it, we are one with him. The exotic wooden comb he tucked in our hair, also combed, danced and swung in His hair. The Kanga, is the new born babe, playing in the lap of the loving mother, whom we so brutally want to strangle. It was these very same presents for which tens and thousands of my brothers laid down their lives. Have you watched the tears in eyes of a sheep when she is being sheared as against many of us so happy without our hair? We for sure, have traveled a long way from the animals!

The Kara has to be received by us as a present from our Guru, which is not comparable to our wealth, our intelligence, our achievements. It comes to us as a manifestation of His love and benediction. It is strange behavior indeed that we constantly argue about it. He put on our wrists the Kara, from that day it was forever ours, no one could separate it from a Sikh. And we still advance reasons for it. He loved me. He made me His own. He elevated me from the darkness of ignorance to light of spiritual consciousness. Can I not even make His gifts my own? We, his children, have to wear these gifts, carved out of infinite love. One with these gifts, we blossom, separated from them we wither. The decay in the Khalsa is apparent.

Each of us wears the hair and beard of Guru Gobind Singh ji, exactly as he wore them. We are created in his majestic image. jab lag rahe Khalsa niara, tab lag tej dio rnai sara, jab eh gahain bipran ki riti, rnai na karo in ki partit" (Guru Gobind Singh) "So long as the Khalsa retains its identity, I will bestow on them full glory; but the moment they adopt Brahmanical ways, I will not protect them". Our significance is in Him, and not anywhere without Him and His gifts. In these gifts we are reminded of his Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence.

Jaskirat, do not make our presents into dead symbols, they are the gorgeous ornaments of the living. We are the "Wedded Women" of the God. They are the wedding gifts from our Bridegroom. He gave all of them to us and they are God-sent -- imperishable, indispensable and , indestructible. You may object and say all this is irrational, unacceptable, superstitious and fatalistic. But the waves of pure love always have i their own logic, irrationality and fatalism. I love the Guru's irrationality -- if you want to call it so. "sev kari inhirnan bhavat, aur ki sev suhat na jiko. " (Guru Gobind Singh) "To serve them pleaseth me, service of any other is not dear to me." I don't have the courage to reject such devotion.

Does a would-be-wife question the intrinsic value of the engagement ring, she is gifted by her husband? No, never, even if it is made of copper or a shell. Today, you want to discard these gifts, because gold has more value. Yes, iron was poor in worldly goods. A wealthy merchant, Hargopal, once grudgingly brought for Guru Gobind Singh, two gold bracelets studded with precious jewels, not because he loved the Guru, but because he felt that in doing so, he would please his own father, who was a devotee of the Guru Sahib. One of these expensive bracelets accidentally fell into the Jamna river from the hands of Guru ji. At this, Hargopal was very displeased and when his attempts to recover the bracelet proved futile, he asked Guru ji to point at the exact place where he had dropped the bracelet, so that he could take it out. To indicate the place in the river, where the bracelet had fallen, Guru Gobind Singh ji took out the other gold bracelet, from his wrist and throwing in the river, he told Hargopal, "It is there."

You want to question the utility of the iron bangle of the Guru, but not of the gold bangle which is so much in vogue at Sikh engagement ceremonies today. You are ready to discard the Guru's bangle for the yellow metal. But do not forget your first marriage, out of whose womb you stand today, aspiring for these worldly gifts. The body can be made the basis of either animal incontinence or a divine temple. The choice is yours, the consequences are yours. The bliss of love is yours, the solitude of separation is yours. These gifts are not to be stored in the darkness of the cellars; drink deep into them, if you want to live in spiritual grandeur.

The head of a Sikh, the Kesh of a Singh, having been once offered and accepted, became for ever of the Guru. It is in unceasing trust with Him. It is therefore, imperative for a Sikh to carry his head high and not to bow it before a mortal barbar. It shall only bend and bow before the Guru. Once a new musket was brought as a present, for Guru Gobind Singh ji. He said, to test the love of his disciples, that he wanted to try the aim of the musket on someone's forehead. He looked around and asked if any of his Singhs would offer himself for the trial. Quick came up scores of unflinching Sikhs, each pushing the other one away, regarding it as a boon to meet death at the Guru's hand. And we today so uninspired, sleeping beauties, that except for empty words have no deeds worthy of our name.

Every day we recite in our prayer, "Nanak das sada Kurbani" "Nanak thy servant is ever a sacrifice to Thee". But what is it that we sacrifice everyday? Guru Gobind Singh was the purest sacrifice. We may never reach his height, but some sacrifice we can do. But instead we sacrifice our S K's. Shocking is our spirit of sacrifice. If the Khalsa today is hollow, it is because we forget our tradition of sacrifices, it is because we forget the love of a sacrificer, it is because we regard his gifts as mere symbols. "balhari gur apne diohadi sadvar. " (guru Nanak) "I am sacrifice to my Guru myriad times a day". Are we the worthy inheritors of this heritage? After drawing on his blood, now we want to stab him in the back!

Jaskirat, one kilometer, from the Lahore railway station stands a gurudwara, sacred to the Sikhs in the loving memory of Bhai Taru Singh ji. It bears the name of Shahid Ganj, the Abode of Martyrs. Bhai Sahib was resident of village Poola, where he had a small piece of land. The wheat and the maize that he produced and the humble mud hut he had, he happily shared with all the weary travelers who passed through the village and needed a shelter to sleep for the night. He belonged wholly to the Guru's hymns and early in the morning, under the stars, while on the plough, with a white turban and a blue cho7a, a poor toiler of the earth, he recited the Japji The Japji which has in it the inimitable cosmicness of life in nature. The villagers loved Taru Singh for his fellow feeling, harmlessness and spiritual purity.

But being a Sikh, Taru Singh was not destined to live any longer, his life of love, free from the hatred of caste, color and region. The authoritarian Mughal government of medieval India, was not willing to appreciate the way of life of the Sikhs, which drew no dividing line between man and man, between Hindus and Muslims, between Brahmins and the Shudras. "manas ki jat sab ek hi pahchanbo". (Guru Gobind Singh) "All men are the same", was a creed which cut at the very root of Mughal establishment based on human distinctions. To extinguish this smithy of love, the government offered to its subjects numerous monetary awards for the heads of the Sikhs and they were declared outlaws. The greed for gold tempted Bhagat Nirangi to lodge a complaint against Bhai Taru Singh, with the Subedar (governor) of Lahore, stating that he gave shelter, to dacoits, the Sikhs, and the property of Muslim and Hindu subjects of His Gracious Majesty, was unsafe. Such a complaint was unnecessary for the very living of a Sikh, was a reason enough for the state armed forces, to go and imprison Bhai Taru Singh, who was bound in ropes and brought before the Subedar.

When the Subedar, saw this young man of 23, he was overwhelmed and shaken by his presence. He felt himself transposed to another world. There was a radiance around him which made the Nawab exclaim: "Khuda! What a divine Noor (glory) on his face. I pray that he should be a Musalman!" Addressing Taru Singh, the Nawab said, "0, graceful Sikh, I feel sorry for you and I wish to give you a new lease of life".

Taru Singh with tears in his eyes, responded: "Reward me with a new lease of life? Why stain me with such dishonor while my brothers and sisters are being martyred here before me, everyday, every hour."

The Subedar said, your presence is resplended with a heavenly light. Somehow my heart does not permit me to have you killed, but you must cut and present me your tress-knot".

Taru Singh replied, "The Sikh and his hair are one. I will be pleased to give you more than you ask me, my head with my tress-knot". These hair are the eternal Gift of love of immeasurable beauty to the Khalsa by our Guru, they cannot be separated from a Singh's head, without separating his head. The one who just looks at them can never understand them. It is like looking into a mirror, but you are not one with the mirror. The observer is only capable of experiencing, he is never the mirror, the experience, the state itself. These hair are the fountain of joy, the spring of life for us.

The Subedar, still confident of bribing him, then said: "Taru Singh, you are too young. You have not yet experienced the beauty and joys of life. I will make arrangements for your marriage with a woman of your choice. You will be awarded with a high mansab (office) in the Mughal army. You will be endowed with a hereditary jagir, I promise you all sorts of luxuries but you must part with your way of life and accept the Muslim religion".

A Guru ka Sikh can never be tamed and now his tears mingling with a smile of joy, Taru Singh replied, "Having been sent by Him they come (into the world) and recalled by Him they go back", said Guru Nanak. "It is the right and privilege of the brave to die," sayeth He. "For a Sikh, life has beginning and no end- it is both death and life. Neither my life nor my hair are for bargaining in your court which views beauty, life and religion in weights of gold. The value and beauty of our hair cannot be measured in terms of luxuries and jagirs. Your thinking is materialistic and is therefore negligible, but an integrated living is always spiritual".

The Subedar could no longer bear this song of truth and he cried out, "Stop him, for he disturbs the law and order of our province. Kill him at once, but cut his hair before".

The Mughal soldiers caught hold of Bhai Sahib's head and chin, but the barber found it impossible to bring his hand near his head. With a stroke of his head he would push back his captors and make them whirl on the ground. A cobbler was then sent for, to try his skill with his tools and scrap off Taru Singh's hair, but his attempt too proved abortive. At last the help of a carpenter was asked for the foul deed. With a stroke of his adze, he cut off Bhai Taru Singh's head (1743 A.D.) but failed to cut his tress-knot.

Thakur Rabindranath Tagore, a great mystic-poet of Bengal has beautiful song of this episode:

Prarthona Atit Dan -- "More than asked For"

For a Sikh to cut his tress-knots

Amounts to discarding his dharma.

The Pathans brought,

bound hand and foot, the Sikh prisoners,

Shahid Ganj earth turned red with their blood.

The Nawab addressing Taru Singh,

said unto him:

'I wish to spare thy life'.

Taru Singh retorted: 'Spare my life!

why thou dishonors me?

Said the Nawab: 'Thou art bravest of the brave?

I don't wish to wreak my anger on thee.

Taru singh replied: 'O Nawab thy request

with my heart I comply and liberally grant thee

more than what thou beg'est of me:

`My head with my tress-knot.'

Jaskirat, if Bhai Taru Singh had looked for practical utility, significance and relevance, wouldn't he have exchanged his hair for a jagir, for beautiful women and the power he was offered? But all these he regarded as worthless when he weighed them with his way of life. If the hair were mere symbols for him, would he have staked his life for them. The term, symbols can never express the depth of these gifts. You will never find even a most dutiful policeman leaping to death, to uphold a short circuited, burning, traffic light signal, because it is a sheer symbol for the cars and lorries on the road, it is an external factor to his life. But our 5 K's are much deeper and profounder than symbols and this is the reason we find not only Bhai Taru Singh, but a whole galaxy of martyrs in our history-- Bhai Mati Das, Dyal Chand, Bhai Mani Singh, Bhai Bota Singh, Sardar Mahtab Singh, Sukha Singh, and Subeg Singh -- all playirg with their lives, which appears to us so irrational and fatalistic.

Son, you merely read about the 5 symbols in isolation, meditate on them as links with lives of your ancestors, it is only then that their meaning will be apparent to you. In themselves the 5 K's might appear to be mere symbols, show windows, but it is only when they are knit with our lives, woven in our existence, painted with our daily sorrows and joys that their value, justification and significance emerges. They are inseparable from our life and if you perceive of them as separate, it is not surprising that they appear to be frivolous, unjustified and a burden of the past. If you are wounded and in agony it is because you want to separate, from yourself, what is vital for existence.

Unfortunately, you visualized only a part in segregation from the whole. You are looking out of a small window set in the wall, from which the outside may appear to be attractive and convincing for sometime, but it does not allow you to view the beauty of life. Without linking these ornaments of love, with your daily existence, you can never have perception of the whole, therefore you will always be sad and when the end comes, you will still be groping in the darkness of your cell; you will have had nothing but hallucinations and a lot of empty words. But if you fall in love, now with these unique gifts, if you love your Kesh now, the Kirpan you wear, then, son as you grow up, you will not remain in your dungeon with its dark windows, but will leave it and love the whole way of life. If you don't constantly have a passionate love of these presents of the Guru, then you are like a flower without fragrance, withered and Lying in the dust, being crushed and kicked by every pedestrian. Only he can have love for God, who abandons his ego, forgets himself completely and thereby brings the state of creative consciousness. The "me", the "I" from its very birth is constantly building a barrier of knowledge around itself, around its actions and ultimately leads to isolation and despair. A life of the dead.

Knowledge is only a minor part of life, not the totality and when this assumes all consuming significance, as it is now, then your life becomes artificial, an empty cup, from which man tries to escape, through superficial escapes with disastrous results. Knowledge is like a kerosene lamp on a dark night, but it can illuminate only so long as it has fuel. Life is much vaster and deeper, it cannot be lived with the aid of an extinguishable lamp. Knowledge is essential to everyday existence, as money is to buy your food, but it cannot grasp the reality of love, of God, of living. Love is not to be hooked in the net of intelligence; if you use knowledge to grasp love, it will die as the fish does out of water. Knowledge must be left behind for love to be. Burdened with mechanical learning, you will never understand what is beauty, what is measurable. The light of knowledge is a covering under which lies a realm of truth, which knowledge cannot penetrate. The worship of knowledge is a ritualistic pilgrimage, which can never dissolve the contradictions and miseries of life. Mere knowledge, however earnestly learnt and cleverly assembled, will never resolve the meaning of the S K's, to assume that it will, is to invite frustration and misery. You may know all about the working of the earth and the functioning of the skies and still not be free from sorrow, envy and pain.

To know these gifts, to value truth, to be one with God, you must have no claims, to beliefs, no speculations "sochai soch na hovai je sochai lakhvar. "(Guru Nanak) "Mortal cannot comprehend Him by thought." If you have gathered the knowledge of living, the knowledge itself becomes more important, not your living. If you want to understand these gifts, everything will come right. Live in them and there is understanding, "hukmai andar sabh ko bahr hukam na koe. Nanak humki je bujhai ta haumai kahe na koe". (Guru Nanak) "Nothing at all outside His will, is abiding. O Nanak, he who is aware of the Supreme will, never in his selfhood utters the boast: It is 1". The Supreme Will was to live in the glory of these embellishments of ours and so shall it be.

These gifts of ours are not symbols of a religion, or compulsory rites of a religion. The Sikh way of life is not to live on any set of rituals, formalism, talismans, penances, austerities, pilgrimages or symbols. The Sikhs were rebels against all this and more. The gurbani abounds, in hymns against ritualism and symbols. Guru Nanak Dev ji said in one of his compositions "Yoga lies not in wearing patched garments, nor in carrying a staff, nor in smearing one's body with ashes, nor does it lie in wearing earrings, nor in cutting one's hair, nor in playing on a singi." (Suhi 1). Could anyone have said something more against the irrelevance of symbols? How strongly he felt against empty symbols may be gauged from these lines, "With tikka (the sacred mark) on their foreheads and dhoti wrapped around their loins and legs, they look pious, but in fact they are the world's butchers carrying daggers in their hands." (Asa-di- Var) The shallowness of ritualism and symbols was exposed thoroughly by Guru Gobind Singh ji, in the Akal Ustati:

Some worship but stocks and stones,

while others suspend the lingam from their necks.

Some look out for God in the East, other in the West.

Some worship but idols, some are unwise enough to worship the dead;

All these are involved in a false show, and they find not the Mystery, that is God.

After the victory of the battle of Bhangani, Guru Gobind Singh ji blessed Pir Budhu Shah, with no treasures and no elephants, for his services, as was the custom of that time, but a kirpan and a comb with some broken hair of his.These gifts are still preserved as sacred relics in the former princely state of Nabha This very jewelry, he presented to all of us, inspite of the fact that our lives were not wrought in the furnace of sacrificeQa jewellery which no craftsman, no intellectual, no jeweler is capable of imitating. These gifts of ours are the constellation of super consciousness, the very essence of breath of God in us, of which our tress-knots are the spiritual crown of humanity.

Jaskirat, ask not from me, the significance, the value, the power of our tress-knots, for I am incapable of describing it. In the meadows, dales and mountains of our tress-knots, the bliss of perennial joy flows, in the beautitude of our tress-knots, the lovers are fired. In our mystical tress-knots, insipid mankind is inspired; in the holiness of our pristine pure tress-knots, the Sun chariot rides high in eternity; in the infinity, of our tress-knots; the melting snow caps of the mountain peaks, wash away all sorrow; in our sublime tress-knots, the rapturous winds roar; in the sanctity of our-tress-knots, the ecstatic brooks soar; in our august tress-knots, the frenzied rain torrents pour; in the creativity of our transcendental tress-knots, his nakedness is robed anew in the effulgence of these gifts.

Live in the eternal joy of your tress-knots and you will know what it is, to be. Men collect the ashes of the departed soul and pray for him, in the church and the temples and you want to discard, this living soul, this living temple! People build monuments for the dead, you want to uproot the living monument, the Guru gave to you. If you want it to disintegrate you may, but you shall forever be buried under it.

The love shall still come your way because you are one of the descendants of the ancient lore, you will still flex your muscles when the song is of your forefathers, but you would have converted the garden of the living into the weeds of the dead. The gardener will shed his tears but no more will you grow. Soon, even his tears will dry as he tends new gardens. A time comes when no one knows, of the long ruined monument. It passes back into the womb of agony and is possessed by the serpents, jackals and chameleons.

Jaskirat our 5 K's are beyond the realm of rituals and symbols, they are the timeless ones. Can you and me enclose with your intellects what is not measurable? Can you and me enclose with our intellects what is not of time? Can our constant hatred, anger, ugliness, lead us to the unknown? ~o we have an instrument to gauge, what has no beginning and no end? Can the truth of these gifts be trapped in the cage of our logic? What we may capture by our mechanical knowledge and logic, is superficial, never the cosmicness of these presents. Many of us spiritedly respond to tranquilizers, but living in love, needs no tranquilizers.

The beautiful, the loved can never be dissected and summed up. For these gifts, we can reach no conclusions, no morals and no judgments because they are not symbols, but pieces of art. What would the cuckoo's song mean to you, if you want to take down its notations and analyze them? What would your mother be for you if you want to know her by analysis? Only a biological skeleton for procreation. You have so much trapped yourself in a net of words, of speculations that the feeling itself, which is the only thing that is deep and vital in us, is lost. The significance or the insignificance of these gifts is not important. The highest art in life is to be beautiful. And these gifts are the force that creates the beautiful, the artist, in us. It is one in a million, who has the beauty of these ornaments.

The Kesh, the Kachha, the Kara, the Kanga and the Kirpan, are the gifts, chiseled out for the Khalsa, by the divine artist. These are the I gifts endowed to us for ever, by the Divine Bridegroom, on the day of our marriage to Him, on Baisakhi, in 1699, at Anandpur Sahib (The City of Bliss). They are the true embodiments of art and any one looking at them, can have his bosom full of meaning, ecstasy, inspiration, love, joy and what more can we wish? In them we have the treasure, mines, in them is the beauty and we are so ignorant of it. We the cosmic brides will carry His gifts of love, in honor, purity and splendors of glory, and our love will blossom in all climes, in all times and in all continents.

May the blessings of Waheguru ji be with you forever.

Your loving father,

Harcharan Singh

The Four Agreements

2006-10-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

From "The Four Agreements" By Don Miguel Ruiz

BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD

Speak with integrity. Say what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love

DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering

DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

We Are Doing It!

2006-09-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

Carol Evans, the CEO of Working Mother Media in her book, ‘This Is How We Do It’, shares

“Today, as CEO of Working Mother magazine, I'm often asked how we working mothers manage to juggle motherhood and career, life and work, self and job. And I always think of Dr. Wan. (My doctor who delivered my second child; encouraged me through ‘pushing’ when I almost gave up) Because sometimes being a working mother feels overwhelming, and some days we're convinced we just can't do it. We want to yell at someone, "I can't do it!! I want to go home!"

And then I see Dr. Wan's smiling face in front of me saying, "But you are doing it!" And I realize that we are. Twenty-six million mothers—more than 72 percent of all moms in the United States today—work full- or part-time. We raise strong and happy kids. We fuel the economy. We earn money that keeps our families safe and secure. And we get a ton accomplished in a day at work.
Still, most of us draw a blank when friends and family ask us, "How do you do it?" Nine times out of ten we laugh (or cry) and say, "I don't know. I just do." But in our hearts, we know that response doesn't do justice to the real answer. How do we do it? We do it with old-fashioned elbow grease, with humor, with sleepless nights. We do it with the help of family and friends who pitch in, with great babysitters and caregivers, with husbands who learn how to support us (or not!!). We do it by cramming more into a weekday and into a weekend than should be humanly possible. We do it by finding confidence in our own choices. And increasingly, we do it with the support of our workplaces and our husbands. However, my husband, Bob, now a devoted partner and father, wasn't always that way.”

If it was not for photographs; I would have had hard time believing that it ever happened – pregnancies, babies, toddlers, kindergarten and so on. My children are now almost teenagers and memories are already fading. Raising children at first seems like a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, we realize that it is an endless essay. No parent knows everything. Being mother of three, I can reassure you that they not only look different but they respond differently too to the same loving mother. One child responds well to positive reinforcement while other can only be managed with a stern voice and/or a timeout. One of them is toilet trained at the age of three but the other at 2. One likes bottles of baby food, while other wants to eat daal-roti out of your plate. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself; learn to lean on Waheguru for all the decisions you make for and about your children. One such decision I made to continue my job after the babies arrived. As Carol puts it; I also believed “We earn money that keeps our families safe and secure” but to my dismay I can open journal of my memories and write a novel about the guilt moments. Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, we all learn through our mistakes. Now when they are not babies any more I wish I lived in the moment at that time. I wish I wasn’t in hurry all the times; wish I stopped and captured the moments in my heart. Once, when they were 4, 2 and 4 months, my husband was gone for work-related trip for a week. Though I had nanny at home during the day while I was at work; I was left alone with the munchkins before and after my work hours. One evening while I was busy with the baby; the older two found box of ‘Aatta’ (wheat flour) in the kitchen & played in it like sand. When I turned around, I could only see their big black eyes in the flour covered body. Our family room carpet was all white. While giving them bath again, vacuuming the carpet that evening; I was in tears. It did not even occur to me to laugh with them and take few pictures before cleaning it all up. I was so much attuned to the clock; doing everything by the clock and if anything ever fell apart like this, I would be all tensed up. Over the years I have learnt to relax but now relaxing is not enough. They need my time to hear their school's stories, to ask all kind of questions that arise in pre-adolescence and during adolescent years. No, I strongly differ with Carol; we can still ‘push’ ourselves but this time it will be at the cost of well-being of our babies . Sometime s it is absolutely necessary to do Caesarean and cuttin g second job outside the home is that c-section fo r me .

2006-09-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Three Little Kittens

There are three little kittens
Living in this house,
None of them is bigger
than a little grey mouse,
But they sound like cattle
when they romp down the hall or they run through the house.

While chasing a ball
These three little kittens
Can make so much noise,
When they play with the pots and pans
As if they were toys.

These three little kittens
Now nested in my lap,
Are so cute and sweet
When they finally take a nap.

- poem by a budding poet

Artwork storage

2006-09-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

School has started for our as well your children. These sweethearts bring home more not only brighter smiles and fresh knowledge but also fill up our homes with more paper! I can’t find an empty corner in a week on my refrigerator if I do not treasure my young Picasso’s art work.
Are your walls almost wallpapered with that art work? Do you have difficulty finding that important phone number that you posted on your refrigerator last Monday? Wait!!!!! Don’t start looking for a bigger house just yet - I have used couple of quick solutions to solve my display dilemmas that take up very little space and requires very little time out of your busy schedule as well (if done routinely).

* Create a simple art portfolio using two pieces of poster board taped together on three sides. Leave the third side/top, open for dropping in artwork as it is received. You can use this same principle for other schoolwork as well. Each day, or week, when your daughter or son brings home her treasured work, write the date on the back and drop it into the portfolio for safekeeping. You might want to replace the "display of the week" with the new one, and file the old one away.At the end of the semester or quarter (ok, could be every summer if you are busy mom like me ), it will be time to purge your portfolio. Begin by sorting by type of art: paintings, drawings, collage, mosaic, seasonal, writing samples, tests, awards, etc. Then choose a sampling from each category, perhaps several scattered throughout the school year.File the keepsakes, and get rid of the rest. (I have been doing that religiously since my first born went to kindergarten seven years ago.) If you can't bear to throw them away, recycle them by giving them to relatives. Scan the artwork, email it to relatives, and throw away the original. You can also turn that scanned graphic into note cards, stationary, or greeting cards.If your child can't bear the thought of you tossing any of her artistic samples away (well who does?), DARE to delegate this task to her. Move the storage into her room with her things, and let her be in charge of sorting, dating, stashing, and even purging. Amazing how they will decide they can actually bear to part with things when their closet is filling up faster than they can find storage containers!

* Purchase a stackable cardboard storage chest from your favorite organizing company. These sturdy units have removable drawers to fill with archived treasures, then stack vertically to conserve space. Use them as your sole art storage system, or for "keepers" only with the portfolio system as mentioned above.

* Someone has wisely said “A picture is worth the thousand words.” If storage is really a concern, take photographs of your daughter's artwork and discard the original. Either take individual pictures, or line them up for a group shot. A disposable camera kept on hand is a perfect solution for this task, or you can use a Polaroid camera and take them individually.Dedicate a special photo album or box for these treasures to be shared and enjoyed.

Encourage your child’s creativity, and eliminate the terror you once felt as you saw them dragging an oversized self-portrait out of their backpack. Create a home in which these masterpieces can safely and securely reside for years to come. Share them with friends and family, preserve them, and relish the creativity of your blooming Artist….save the wallpapering job for another day.

Uh jo chhote han na vaade

2006-08-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

“………….but I want to do what I want to do”. The loud voice of ‘once’ sweet son, came from the family room as I asked him to turn the TV off and ‘practice’ that he learns after school and on weekends. I was not only shocked but almost in tears as this was not my same son who religiously followed the evening routine and took everything seriously that he learnt in extra curricular activities, along with his learning at school. Above all that he has been ‘Mama’s helper’ in tutoring his younger sister, passing on all the good stuff that he learnt to his sisters. Like his first-grade teacher still says about him "They don't come in better package than this one". I had no complaints and said prayer of gratitude for these children every morning and before going to bed. But what happened this last week? I don’t know except that I know he is going to celebrate his 12^th birthday in few weeks and he is growing.

I think that is what they call adolescence. If I remember it right it is the time in life when a child is entering youth and waives good-bye to childhood. It is the time when parents’ authority begins to blur in child’s life. As young adult he tires to figure things out himself, he begins to search within for answers to his own questions. That is the mark of growing up; but how do I deal with this ‘change’?

As I was taken back with his answer, I took a deep breath to compose myself and called him to kitchen where I was cutting vegetables for the dinner. I handed him gently a beautiful pen that he gave me on mother’s day and my personal note pad. Bringing a broad smile on my face & hiding my real emotions, I said “ok, fine with me, just write on this paper what exactly you want to do; so I know your priorities. If they are good enough for a 12 yr old young man, I will respect them.” Well that took him away to study room for 15 minutes and I tried to sooth myself in the aroma of tarka of Aaloo-gobhi. As he brought the paper back to me, he had this big smile on his face. I was so relieved as what he wrote was even better schedule that we had before; assigning proper timings and days to his ‘practices’; TV time and free play time. I thanked Waheguru ji once again. That night we had discussion how learning Gurmukhi-reading, kirtan, karate is important to a Sikh along with perusing worldly education. We have always wanted our children to learn all this for the joy of it; and just hope that they begin to love it as they move up in their training.

I spent quite a bit time thinking and realizing that he is entering adolescent years. Now the question is how does a parent deal with it? The answer is not as simple as we would like it to be but also not as difficult as I thought. Now I know that the main answer is that old word “communication.” But what does this boring word really mean when it comes to your teenager? It means encouraging your son or daughter to not just talk to you about facts of his/her life but to tell you things that are important to him or her. You can accomplish that by being non-judgmental but good listener.

Experts agree that if your adolescent can trust you with feelings, attitudes, and values, parent/child problems are workable. So, put yourself in your child’s shoes; try to remember what it was like to be that child’s age. Yes, teens try to manipulate mom and dads. But they are imploring for guidance even when they are unable or unwilling to express it. After listening you will have your chance to be heard. Don’t lecture but discuss. Be open to your teen’s opinions that indicate the struggle to mature. And, in the end be true to yourself by being firm with your decisions. Your adolescent may pout and complain but down deep will respect and honor you. Wouldn’t you if you traded places?

The Intruder

2006-08-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Our house is very often visited by relatives who come from out of town and spend two or three weeks with us. Most of them are very nice but it is still an inconvenience to have all of these extra people in your house. Recently, we had a relative come to our house late one evening. It was a young lady. She came about three and a half months ago and is still with us. We are very much inconvenienced with this young lady as her habits are very different from ours. She likes to sleep during the day and at night she keeps us awake to amuse her. We must always keep her in good humor as she becomes cross at the slightest irritation. She has her meals regularly enough but they are not at the same time as ours and this is a big problem. She also doesn't eat what we eat. She has her own special foods. She smiles when in good humor with such a broad and pleasant smile we can't help but smile back at her even though she has disrupted our lives completely. In spite of all of these things, we hope that she never leaves for we love our baby sister very much.

- By a 12 yr old brother about his 3 month old sister

Kee Kahiyee!

2006-08-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

Fauj of Mai Bhago

2006-08-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought that the ones who gave their head to Guru forever were only ‘five’ and the ones who wrote ‘be-daava’ (disclaimer) and deserted Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, were eight times more than five? Why is there any wonder that today more young sikh boys and girls are apostate than rahatvaan? There is again pressing need for Mai Bhago….not just one but Fauj of Mai Bhago to awaken the youth.

When Mai Bhago came to know that some Sikhs of her area had deserted Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji at Anandpur Sahib and renounced his guruship in writing. She could not hold herself, as she was zealous to serve the Guru. Boiling with rage, and moved by love for the Guru, she, the great heroine, said to her husband, “Guard up your lions and let us lay down our lives for the Guru who has sacrificed his father, mother and four sons for the Sikh faith. We must not sit idle when innocent lives are being bricked alive.” She was determined to wipe out the badge of infamy from the face of her area.

She, along with her husband, went from village to village and told the people the reality of deserters. Ladies of the deserters did not talk to them when they came back, cursed and taunted them. These ladies dressed themselves as soldiers and wanted to proceed with Mai Bhago. She said to the deserters, “Guru Ji has sacrificed his family and comforts for our freedom. We must stand up and protect our rights and faith. We should not hide ourselves like cowards. Everybody has to die. Why not die like a brave person? If you don’t join me, I shall take a party of women and die for the Guru.” She exhorted the ladies not to entertain the deserters and not to allow them to enter their houses. Her sharp and frank words pricked the conscience of the deserters and awakened their souls. She challenged their vanity and made them regret. She displayed manly spirit and courage.

They, along with their leader, Mahan Singh, marched to help the Guru and seek his forgiveness. They got armed and they took the oath to die fighting and not to retreat from the battlefield. They meant to make amends for the apostasy.

It is duty of every mother, every sister and every wife to become another Mai Bhago and form a ‘fauj’ to bring back these apostate youth in Guru’s feet. I know it will happen when each Sikh woman looks at herself in Mai Bagho’s image.

Women and Work

2006-08-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Maxed out. Stressed out. Worn out. I am out and out ready for a change. Well, after years of planning, gathering the much needed courage to ‘quit’ I am ready….so I began to clean up the mess of 14 years from my file drawers, reading, deleting and of course ‘saving’ e-mails in archives. Majority of my e-mails consisted of e-mails exchanged with my beloved husband about our munchkins….some are heart-breaking…to recall those mornings when a wailing toddler wouldn’t let go of my leg…those teething days when my child depended more on Tylenol than my warm lap…shuffling between baby-sitters and pre-schools. It made me think hard on ‘why did I continue to work?’ It is hard to pin-point one single reason but I will share my thoughts on it from self-experience as well as gathered from having conversations with different mothers who I worked with over the years.

Yes, I enjoyed working, but that is before I was reincarnated as mother of our three children. There are lots of women who hold two full-time jobs, one at work and one at home; but I always have had trouble finding the elusive balance between work and family.

The two worlds waged a daily tug-of-war over my attention and devotion. As time went on, my maternal instincts began winning out over my long-range plans at work. As holding down the two full-time jobs, is wearing me down; becoming a stay-at-home mom is looking real attractive. Nonetheless, here are my observations from the experience of work-life for 17 years as a woman, as a wife and as a mother.

Although today’s women are still assigned responsibility for the family relationships, many women's satisfaction does not correlate highly with care giving.

Women need to understand and develop both aspects ‘pleasure and mastery’ of well-being, to feel good about themselves. Women who work hard at a challenging job are doing something positive for their mental health. Marriage and children do not guarantee well-being for a woman.

Doing and achieving are at least as important to the lives of women as are relationships and feelings. Being able to generate some income is critical for self-approval, growth, security, and development. Monetary rewards and interesting careers are definitely confidence builders for women. If that side of a woman's life is neglected, her self-esteem is endangered.

Developing self-interests of and close relationships help to balance woman's life. A woman needs her own time, space, and her own life. To be totally dependent on a male and/or her family for fulfillment is perilous.

Today's woman is encouraged by some to be independent and career-oriented. While it is true that more women are developing careers, it is also true that many have a long way to go to catch up with men. Most women say they would like a career along with successful relationships and happy families. However, for many females, timing is a problem.

The phase of life devoted to forming relationships and establishing families is also the period of life when career-oriented individuals devote almost exclusive attention to developing their careers. Since many women in the workforce also carry the primary responsibility for children, this responsibility is often a time-and-energy restriction to career development.

Because in many circles, women are expected to be home makers, they find it difficult to take the time necessary to acquire job skills. However, without adequate work skills, a woman must be cared for financially. This fosters a child-like dependency on the "caregiver."

Women without their own assets are at risk of losing their financial support from separation, divorce, death, or their partners' loss of employment. They are also in danger of losing the financial support of their children. Therefore, job skills, far from being selfish, are extra insurance, both for her children and herself. In fact, in today's times, many people consider it selfish to have children without the job skills necessary to support them. Whether in or out of the job market, women often suffer feelings of guilt. If a woman stays at home, she thinks, "I should be contributing financially." If she works, she worries, "I should be at home with my children."

This generation of women has been prepared to enter the workforce and have actually done so in record numbers. But all too often the woman, husband and even segments of society itself believe in this selfless, all encompassing role of motherhood. Such an image leaves women bearing most of the responsibility for child rearing. It also leaves them guilt ridden and filled with fear.

Overwhelmed with guilt, some women quit work entirely, a solution that can leave women economically vulnerable and depressed. The choice should not be whether to work or stay home. Couples should share the responsibilities of parenting; when a woman is emotionally insecure in quitting her job. Mothers need to let some of the responsibility go to fathers and respect that men have equal say in parenting decision. Yes, men are capable of nurturing as much as woman and sometimes even more; when given the chance. Women may have to make some material and/or career sacrifices in order to spend more time with their children. In fact, for many mothers the greatest luxury is time. So from what I have observed around me, for many women, stopping employment altogether is not a reasonable answer for the years of motherhood. Having faith in One Provider Akaal Purkh, careful planning, setting priorities, commitment and support form the bedrock for a family to obtain parenting freedom.

Sewa

2006-07-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

To be a Sikh, a follower of teachings of Ten Sikh Gurus which are incorporated in one and only Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, means to do Sewa - care for others selflessly. Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji says (SGGSJ p1342)

Selfless service and intuitive awareness come by reflecting upon the Word of the Shabad.
Chanting, intensive meditation and austere self-discipline come by subduing the ego.
One becomes Jivan-mukta - liberated while yet alive, by listening to the Shabad.
Living a truthful way of life, one finds true peace. ||7||

With Guru’s apaar Kirpa; I possess reasonably good health for my age and the amount of work load I carry on my shoulders. Well some of the health problems just are part of all moms. So I was not spared; after years of living with this problem; I decided to take care of it once and for ever. So I decided to go under the knife this last Friday. The pain was sharp; so sharp that I learnt why it is called ‘pain in the butt’ for excruciating pain. I looked at my face in the mirror & could tell that it is visible in my eyes.

Now I had two options – take a Viccodine and sleep it off on the weekend or take my mind off the pain…somehow. The other day I was telling my friend; who is first-time pregnant and is afraid of injections; “Waheguru da dhiayaan dharo; dard mehsoos nahi hovega”. Now it was my turn to take my own advice….for sometime I was so tempted to open that prescription bottle and take it down the throat; but then looked at my chidlren’s faces whom I promised to take swimming just a day before, without realizing that I will be in so much agony. I took a deep breath, thinking still about the above advice and began Simran in my mind; nonetheless it did not relieve any pain immediately …. I continued with this one remedy I knew of…picked the children from Summer Day Camp; gave them snack while I prepared the swim bag & off we went swimming.

It was one and a half hour lesson for three of them. I sat beside the pool, watched them play in water; listening to their instructor that how good is my older son who can be a winner on swim team; watching the middle one, my daughter; doing successfully breast stroke and crossing the pool, the younger daughter bubbling with pride as she dived to pick ten rings from the floor of the spa; enjoying the breeze by the pool while temperature was still three-digit outside….I almost forgot my pain.

When Singh Ji came home, he was little upset; knowing that I put myself through unnecessary pain; when things can wait….but I had learnt that taking my mind off my pain through Sewa and Simran; is the only remedy for me…so I continued with regular chores for my family…that night and then on the weekend. Did I give in to Viccodine? Yes, when it was too hard to fall asleep at night in the hot, muggy weather along with excruciating pain, when there was nothing else I could do but lie down and do simran (not a best position to concentrate & quiet the mind).

During the day, through caring for others, I forget myself; my pain. I realized we are never left all alone to care for another (do SEWA). Waheguru cares. Waheguru’s concern for the other person’s well-being was there long before I became interested. Waheguru’s care is stronger, wiser, and more enduring than ours can ever be. But people often understand and experience Waheguru’s care most deeply when it is transmitted through caring human beings. The loving Waheguru cares for us all. HE healed me not only physically but also in my heart where I learnt the new meaning of SEWA. Waheguru calls us and empowers us to care for others.

Dad's Brownies

2006-07-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

Do you remember telling you teenage 'No' and loosing the battle? If so, please read the following, this may be another weapon that you can use next time. Good Luck!

A father of 3 teenage kids had the rule that they could not attend PG-13 or R rated movies. His teens wanted to see a particular movie that was playing at local theaters. It was rated PG-13. They asked friends & some members of their church to find out what was offensive in the movie. They made a list of pros & cons about the movie to use to convince their dad that they should be allowed to see it.

The cons were: it contained 3 swear words, the only violence was a building exploding (& you see that on TV all the time), & you actually didn't "see" the couple in the movie having sex, it was just implied sex, off camera.

The pros were: it was a popular movie, a blockbuster. Everyone was seeing it. If they saw the movie then they would not feel left out when their friends discussed it. The movie contained a good story & plot. It had some great adventure & suspense in it & some fantastic special effects. The movie's stars were some of the most talented actors in Hollywood. It probably would be nominated for several awards. Many of the members of their church had seen it & said it wasn't "very bad". Therefore, since there were more pros than cons, the teens said they were asking their father to reconsider his position on this 1 movie & let them have permission to go see it.

The father looked at the list & thought for a few minutes. He said he could tell his children had spent some time & thought on this request. He asked if he could have a day to think about it before making his decision. The teens were thrilled thinking; "Now we've got him! Our argument is too good! Dad can't turn us down!" So, they happily agreed to let him have a day to think about their request.

The next evening the father called in his 3 teenagers, who were smiling smugly, into the living room. There on the coffee table he had a plate of brownies. The teens were puzzled. The father told his children he had thought about their request and had decided that if they would eat a brownie then he would let them go to the movie. Like the movie, the brownies had pros & cons. The pros were that: they were made with good chocolate & yummy walnuts. They were moist & fresh with chocolate frosting. He had made the brownies with an award-winning recipe & by his own loving hands.

The brownies only had 1 con: He had added a little bit of dog poop. But he had mixed the dough well; they probably wouldn't be able to taste it & he had baked it at 350 degrees so any bacteria or germs had probably been destroyed. Therefore, if any of his children could stand to eat the brownies which included just a "little bit of crap" & not be affected by it, then he knew they would also be able to see the movie with "just a little bit of smut" & not be affected. Of course, none of the teens would eat the brownies & the smug smiles were gone. Now when they ask, permission to do something he opposes, he asks, "Would you like me to bake some brownies?"

Look Who Is Watching

2006-07-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

I didn't know Banni was paying close attention to me one ordinary evening. I did know that nothing slipped past my bright, inquisitive second-grade daughter. Like all mothers, I bragged about my child's brilliance, but once again I was caught off-guard by her insight into adult behavior.

From the time I picked my munchkins from after-school day care at 4 pm after my work, that particular Tuesday evening until after our family dinner, she observed me prepare a snack for her , her older sister and brother, comb their hair into beautiful braids and Joora, help them with their homework, cook dinner, wash dishes, and sweep and mop the floor. And I began the daily laundry routine during all these chores. When her dad walked in the door from his day's work, she observed him stretching out on the sofa, checking mail, watching television, eating dinner and retreating to the backyard to play catch with her brother.

"Ummm," Banni wondered what was wrong with this picture. In her mind, the score wasn't quite even. She decided this issue demanded immediate resolution.

As I checked a load of clothes in the dryer, Banni approached me with a puzzled look.

"Mom, is it hard being a mommy?"

"No, dear," I moaned as I trotted to the family room with a load of hot sheets and towels to fold. "I love being a mommy."

"You do?" she asked in amazement.

"Yes, I do, sweetheart," I moaned again, as I gathered up a pile of smudged play clothes to start yet another washer load.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, to me, it looks like mommies get all the hard work and daddies get all the fun."

"This is what moms do. It's part of my work. You didn't see Dad working hard all day at his office. Now it's time for him to relax and have fun with his family."

"Oh, okay," Banni conceded. "So, when is it your turn to have fun?"

Good question. I wondered if I had a good answer. Before I replied, my son called for Banni to come outside and play ball. As I folded and stacked towels, it occurred to me that as Banni observed me that evening, she didn't see a contented mother, happy to be home and care for her family by maintaining an orderly home. What my daughter watched was a stressed woman frantically rushing about the kitchen preparing meals. She witnessed an impatient woman who thought the story in the second-grade reader would never end. She saw a weary woman who seemed to prefer scrubbing sticky pots and pans to skip jump rope in the backyard.

This wasn't the picture of motherhood my daughter needed to model. She deserved better. (I deserved better, too!) She needed not a picture of perfection, but one of joy and contentment in a mother doing the same old household chores again, and again and again.

In her daddy, Banni noticed a man who took time out for himself and his family. It was my turn to try that approach to life as well. I decided immediately that the laundry could wait to be folded. I joined my family by the swing set. My relaxed, new and improved outlook on life paid immediate results. My family watched in amazement as I started counting at jump rope….ek…do…tin….char….panjaah….aassii….sau……...

Setting Boundaries

2006-07-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen the signs "Dog contained by invisible fence." in the neighborhood and wondered about this incredible invention? I did and found out more about it.

The fence company dug a narrow four foot deep trench around the perimeter of dog owner’s yard and bury a small wire. This wire is attached to a control box mounted mostly on garage wall. A dog is then fitted with a collar sporting a special little box with two small prongs that rest against her skin. The dog trainer then places white flags all around the yard, marking where the underground fence was buried. As The Dog nears the flags, she hears a quiet warning sound clicking from the box. If she kept going and crossed over the boundary marked by the flag, she gets a shock and came back.

These white flags decorating the perimeter of of dog owner’s yard do not stay forever. So, you might wonder, how does The Dog know where the boundary is? It is simple. For the first week, white flags line the boundary of the yard. On the second week, every other flag is removed. On the third week, more flags are removed and the process continues, until eventually, they are all gone. We don't see the flags, but The Dog remembers where the boundaries are. She also learns that the warning clicking sound is her friend and keeps her from getting in a “shocking” situation.

I've realized that the flags are great picture of the boundaries we set for our children. When they're young, we mark out clear boundaries, and as the child matures into adolescence, we begin pulling up those flags, just a little at a time. As they graduate from high school and move into college, most of the flags marking the boundaries are gone, and we pray with all our might, that they remember where those boundaries are.

Just like when The Dog hears the warning sound when she move too close to danger, I believe that Waheguru taps on our children's hearts, and warns them not to cross the boundaries set by their parents. Sometimes they will proceed and cross the boundary anyway. That's when the shock comes in. It might be in the form of discipline and it might be in the form of living with some very unpleasant consequences. When they are young, we have to spell out the boundaries for our children and point them in the right direction. But as they head off to adulthood, we desire that the boundaries will be written on their hearts and they won't find themselves in shocking situations.
And what about for our own lives? Yes, God has set boundaries for us, just as we have set boundaries for our children. Guru Sahib called it Sanjam (self-discipline).

jath sath sa(n)jam sach kamaavai gur poorai naam dhhiaavaniaa ||3||

Celibacy, chastity, self-discipline and the practice of truthfulness are obtained from the Perfect Guru, by meditating on the Naam, the Name of the Lord.

Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Page 129

sach sa(n)jam karanee so karae guramukh hoe paragaas ||1|| rehaao ||

Practicing truth, self-discipline and good deeds, the Gurmukh is enlightened. ||

Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Page 26

The self-discipline in Sikhi can only be practiced with both inner and outer-rehat side by side. Inner-rehat helps us become Gurmukh that Guru Amar Das ji talks about, and outer-Rehat (Five K’s) helps us preserve our inner-rehat. They both go hand in hand; without outer rehat, inner rehat is like a ripen crop without a fence. Let us pray for His Bakhshish to bless Panth with outer-Rehat of a 'Khalsa' while strengthening our inner-rehat day by day.

Compassion for poor and suffering

2006-06-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

Young Sikh Girl raises money for Canadian Red Cross

Few children make a point of catching the latest edition of World Vision on television. For most kids, the dire circumstances of others their age living without food, water and shelter, and suffering the horrifying effects of AIDS, in the Third-World nations, don't register.

But Japnaam Kaur isn't like other children.

Since age four or five, she has asked her parents to choose channels that are playing World Vision when they sit down to watch TV.

And once the program ends, she always says the same thing: "I want to help them."

With the help of her parents, her school and other children in her neighbourhood, the seven-year-old set up a lemonade stand and recently raised $290 for the Canadian Red Cross.

"I wanted to raise money so that those children can have food, and so that not a lot of people will die from AIDS anymore," Japnaam said.

But she never imagined that her little lemonade stand, along with other stands some friends set up in support of Japnaam's efforts, would be such a hit.

"We sent notes home with kids at Lester B. Pearson school and St. Luke school, asking other people to help out," Japnaam said. "But I only thought we'd make about $50."

Mother Nature had other ideas. A hot, sunny Saturday recently enabled the children to collect boxes upon boxes full of coins.

"We charged 25 cents or a donation," Japnaam said. "One person liked the lemonade so much they had five cups."

It was a lesson for all the children who helped out that day-- as well as some adults.

"We are so proud of Japnaam," said her mother, Sukh. "This is something she's wanted to do for a long time - every summer she's become more and more determined."

Sukh also enjoyed watching her daughter learn what it takes to put a plan in motion.

"You could see every brain wave - like when she figured out that the more people she could get to help, the more money they would raise," Sukh said. "It was amazing to see her make that connection."

And when the sale was over and it was time to count the donations, Japnaam came up with a little routine.

"After she counted each coin she said thank you," Sukh said. "She realized that every little quarter made up such a big pot, and she was grateful for that."

Sukh explained that she and her husband have stressed to Japnaam how lucky she is to be in Canada.

Japnaam's father was a refugee from India 20 years ago, and witnessed the death of countless Sikhs in India.

"We haven't sheltered her from that," Sukh explained. "We've taught her to never turn a blind eye to others' pain."

And that's a lesson Japnaam thinks of every day.

"The people in Africa work a lot harder than we do and all they have is a small hut," she said. "We have big houses and they have nothing.

"I do a little prayer for them every night."

WAHEGURU!

2006-06-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

The name of the Parm-Aatma “God” is proclaimed by Guru Nanak Dev ji as WAHEGURU. It is made up of three words –

Wahe – wonderful, magnificent, superb, astonishing, fantastic, brilliant, great, breathtaking etc. etc.

Gu – darkness, dusk, gloom, night, obscurity, absence of spiritual illumination i.e. spiritual ignorance

Ru – light, spiritual illumination, enlightenment

So altogether it means “Oh Wonderful God, you are the spiritual enlightener and dispeller of ignorance.

ABC of Parenting

2006-06-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

A is for accountability. Hold your children accountable for their behaviour.
B is for boundaries. Set specific limits and make clear what the repercussions will be if those limits are exceeded.
C is for consistence. Hold to the same principles and practices.
D is for discipline. Make the punishment fit the crime. Never discipline the anger.
E is for example. Children are in greater need of models than critics. Set a good example.
F is for forgiveness. Practice it and teach the importance of forgiving.
G is for giving. Teach the joy of giving, not only to family and friends, but to strangers in need.
H is for sense of humour. Keep your sense of humour. Promote laughter with your children.
I is for imagination. Be creative and play with your children. Make up stories of songs when you read and sing with them.
J is for joy. Let your kids know that they are a joy to be with.
K is for knowing. Know your children’s friends and their parents as well as their teachers.
L is for listening. Listen to your children. It will teach them how to listen to others, and their thoughts will give you insights.
M is for morals. Be sure your own standard of conduct is sound.
N is for no. Use it and mean it.
O is for outdoors. Provide as much outdoor activity as possible. Teach respect for nature.
P is for pressure. Reduce the pressure on your children but insist they maintain high standards.
Q is for questions. Pay close attention to their questions and give simple answers unless they demand more.
R is for respect. Show respect, teach respect and earn respect.
S is for source of strength. Share your own faith or beliefs with your children. Faith will be their port in the storms of life later.
T is for togetherness. Have special designated times to be together as a family-but know when to let go too.
U is for uniqueness. Understand the uniqueness of each child and let that child be who he or she is.
V is for voice. Tone of voice can convey more to a child than the words spoken.
W is for words. Keep your word. Promises broken destroy trust.
X is for eXamine. Examine constantly and be aware.
Y is for you. Take care of yourself mentally, physically and spiritually. A happy parent helps a child to be happy.
Z is for zowie! Who would have thought they would grow up so quickly?

Meeting the beloved against all odds

2006-06-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

fareedhaa galeeeae chikarr dhoor ghar naal piaarae naehu ||
chalaa th bhijai ka(n)balee rehaa(n) th thuttai naehu ||24||
bhijo sijo ka(n)balee aleh varaso maehu ||
jaae milaa thinaa sajanaa thutto naahee naehu ||25||

Fareed, the path is muddy, and the house of my Beloved is so far away.
If I go out, my blanket will get soaked, but if I remain at home, then my heart will be broken. ||24||
My blanket is soaked, drenched with the downpour of the Lord's Rain.
I am going out to meet my Friend, so that my heart will not be broken. ||25||

Bhai Sahib was reciting this shabad when I entered the Darbar this weekend. Freed Ji’s shabads have always touched my heart. Once I began to read on Freed Ji’s life and could not continue as after each line my eyes welled up with tears.

I always thought that the ‘muddy path’ that Freed ji is referring to is the ‘Maya’ in the world, that keeps us from remembering God; but it is much deeper than that. It is the mud in our ears to listen to our own praise and Ninda of others. It is the mud in our eyes to admire beauty of other’s spouse. It is the mud of greed, lust and ego in our minds/hearts. It is the mud of ‘AnRas’ in our toungue. Freed Ji says that this muddy paath becomes even more powerful if I try to fight it just like a man caught up in Daldal, when he tries to get out, goes under it more. So what should one do then? How do one reaches the beloved Lord? Then Freed Ji answers to the question in his next verse; the only way to clear the path and rising above the five chor is do uddam. Uddam of remembering Him who is always Ang Sang; who is creator of ‘muddy path’ He, himself removes that mud from the indriyaan and frees one to meet with the Lord.

Bhai Sahib further explained on the ‘Uddam’. Uddam to wake up in Amrit Vela, Uddam to come in the Saadh Sangat, uddam to recite and sing Gurbani. These are all ‘Karam’ we all do with the hope and desire to meet with the Lord and these Karam give birth to ‘Dharam’. Dharam is what helps us on the journey of spirituality & hence seeking God.

Giving – an expression of love or ego?

2006-06-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Giving is our way of getting by in the world. Many of us think –“if I give; the others will like me. Better yet, they may even come to need me. Then I won't be so alone in the world.” Giving becomes a kind of haggle to belong; a proffer for love, rather than an expression of it. This kind of giving does not allow for egoism of any kind, and yet it is excessively egotistic.
Selfishness is vigorous when one knows one’s limits, and sets those limits; meaning prioritizing self-care over caring for others. It insists that you express your feelings, even when it is inconvenient to others. It includes the ability to rest when tired, and to ask for what you want and need, when you want and need it. It is the healthy expression of power. By doing so, we identify the course we take, making it much easier for the blessings of life to come to us.