Roshan Thiran on Leadership

Dear readers and well wishers of Sikhs With A Mission, I was absolutely enamoured upon the appearance of the above article in The Star, 11 July 2009, STARBIZWEEK pg SBW9, by: Roshan Thiran. As I read it line by line, although it was published in the business section, word for word, it applied to our religion and community. No surprise really. People have been saying it for years – that religion has to be managed like a corporation. I have repeatedly pointed out that our Christian brothers have been so successful with their religion because they have been doing that for centuries. Over 2000 years, everything has brilliantly thought out, designed, packaged, branded and marketed.

So, it gives me great pleasure to study together with you this article, sentence by sentence, so that we can all appreciate its amazing message and teaching. First, let’s read the original document as scanned from the newspaper. Then, we’ll walk through it point by point. So, here goes.

SCIENCE OF BUILDING LEADERS

BY ROSHAN THIRAN – The Star, BIZWEEK, 11 July 2009

LEADERSHIP TODAY REQUIRES OBSERVATION AND WORLDVIEW SKILLS

Last weekend, while delivering an action-learning programme, I showed a video of two teams playing basketball. When I asked the class to count the number of passes being made by the teams, they all got the right answer. But no one spotted this big gorilla that walked into the court and danced for a good portion of the game.

These past few decades, we have witnessed numerous companies at the top of their industry get dispatched by unknowns from nowhere. Motorola, the ruler of cellular telephone, missed the shift to digital and was displaced by Nokia, a Finnish company producing snow tires and rubber boots a decade before they conquered cellular wireless. IBM, kings of the computing age, completely missed the PC revolution and was overtaken by Microsoft, Dell and a host of smart start-ups.

At the same time, innovative companies were replaced by others that just copied. Xerox invented the photocopiers but Cannon took it to a whole new level with the colour copier. Ford and GM had automobile leadership for years till the Japanese copycats came in with their high value economic cars and wiped them out. Why do all these companies get dethroned?

In recent times, the richest economy in the 16^th century was Spain but within 150 years it became more one of the poorest in Europe. Spain became more and more internally focused, moving from an open to a closed economy. A civil war, combined with its close-door policy, cost Spain its position of power.

Like Spain, many organizations similarly fall. Companies that close itself to the world and focus internally may miss the boat when change occurs. Just as Motorola missed the jump to digital, and IBM missed the PC revolution, organizations that stop looking outside, lose their way.

It’s the same in our personal lives. We are so busy in our work, our kids, our schedules and meetings, that we sometimes miss important changes that are taking place around us.

I recall a friend’s mother working as a secretary in the 1970s who was a great on the typewriter. But when computers made their debut in the 80s, she was made redundant and replaced by a savvier computer user. Companies face the same dilemma. When they are so busy with their internal operations and processes, they lose sight of the world and are soon replaced by new companies.

Just think of the products and services you use today. How many of these products are from companies that existed 15 years ago? We fly on AirAsia, buy furniture from IKEA, buy our computers from Delt, drink coffee at Starbucks, search for information via Google and we get leadership training from Leaderonomics!

Having a company byline that includes “established 1850” is almost a liability today. Reputation counts for nothing anymore. Shell has a home base in the UK and has a reputation as a producer of high-quality petrol. Yet, in its UK home market, the biggest petrol retailer is Tesco, a supermarket.

So, how do these companies lose their leadership positions?

One reason may be “social proof”, a theory developed by psychologist Robert Cialdini. The larger a crowd of people at the scene of an accident, the more likely no one will help the victims. If everyone is passive, everyone thinks that there is no emergency, Cialdini theory claims, “If a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t.”

Companies foolishly adopt this “follow-the-leader” attitude. Wang Laboratories, which established itself as a major computer force in the 80s, decided to follow industry leader IBM and forewent the PC market. Today it does not exist.

Another reason, asserts Charan and Useem, is that “a number of studies show that people are less likely to make optimal decisions after prolonged periods of success. Enron, Lucent, Worldcom – all had reached the mountaintop before they ran into trouble. Someone should have told them that most mountaineering accidents happen on the way down.”

Gary Hamel adds: “The seeds of failure are usually sown at the heights of greatness,” Once a company becomes an industry leader, defensive thinking seeps in and no one challenges the status quo. Many became insular and inward-looking. And miss changes taking place, becoming irrelevant to their customers.

Great leaders are always forward-looking and not basking in past glories or caught up in internal issues. Bill Gates constantly says “Microsoft is always two years away from failure.” Gates understands the need to be engaged with the world, its trends and market changes.

Intel is a great example of a company reinventing itself. Andrew Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive about how Intel faced competition from South Korea and Japan, which turned memory chips into cheap commodities. Intel quickly decided to exit the memory business entirely and become a maker of microprocessors. Grove came to this insight when he looked outside Intel and asked himself, “If I got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would the new CEO do?” The answer was clear: Focus on our strengths – high tech, and get rid of memory chips.

There were many internal Intel issues but Grove knew if he continued to play the same game, he would soon be another fallen giant. He observed that high-tech microprocessors had a premium and he had a stable of scientists which he could deploy into that space. His worldview enabled Intel to remain a giant, albeit in a different product line.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, writes: “The key sign – the litmus test – is whether you begin to explain away the brutal facts rather than to confront the brutal facts head-on.” By forcing himself to see from the outside, Grove recognized the brutal facts facing him and made the necessary change.

So what lessons can we draw from these stories?

Firstly, change happens all the time. That is not anything to be paranoid about. What we need to be vigilant about is to always be observing what is happening from the outside in. And it’s not just about in your industry but changes everywhere. Book retailers never quite understood how Amazon.com suddenly appeared and wiped them out as no one tracked the Internet revolution.

Secondly, we need to be wary when we start becoming so internally focused and consumed by tasks and to-do lists. Great leaders learn to reflect and take time off to notice the “dancing gorillas” that walk into their lives.

Finally, watch out when you become defensive and reactionary. This is the starting point of your fall from the mountaintop. Great leaders that stay at the top for long periods are usually ones who have humbled themselves to believe that learning and growth never end.

Back to my gorilla video – whether you are a leader or an individual contributor, take some time to be still and mindful of the changes that are taking place. There are many big gorillas walking into your industry and workplace and if you are too busy “counting passes” inside your organization, the gorilla may just consume you and make you an irrelevant dinosaur.

*Roshan Thiram is currently CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise focused on inspiring people to leadership greatness. Join his journey and become a fan of Leaderonomics and DIODE Camps at www.leaderonomics.com

Now, step by Step;

SCIENCE OF BUILDING LEADERS

BY ROSHAN THIRAN – The Star, BIZWEEK, 11 July 2009

Leadership Today Requires Observation and Worldview Skills

Last weekend, while delivering an action-learning programme, I showed a video of two teams playing basketball. When I asked the class to count the number of passes being made by the teams, they all got the right answer. But no one spotted this big gorilla that walked into the court and danced for a good portion of the game.

Me: Everyone of us seems to be so complacent with the state of affairs in the Sikh religion that no one has taken any notice of the Dancing Gorillas. They are dancing in front of our eyes. they are tweaking their noses at us. They are walking off with our 'grapes'. And all we could manage so far has been to say - "Aah, they were sour anyway". But the truth is - sour or sweet, they were grapes, and they were ours.

Article:

These past few decades, we have witnessed numerous companies at the top of their industry get dispatched by unknowns from nowhere. Motorola, the ruler of cellular telephone, missed the shift to digital and was displaced by Nokia, a Finnish company producing snow tires and rubber boots a decade before they conquered cellular wireless. IBM, kings of the computing age, completely missed the PC revolution and was overtaken by Microsoft, Dell and a host of smart start-ups.

At the same time, innovative companies were replaced by others that just copied. Xerox invented the photocopiers but Cannon took it to a whole new level with the colour copier. Ford and GM had automobile leadership for years till the Japanese copycats came in with their high value economic cars and wiped them out. Why do all these companies get dethroned?

Me: For years now, I have been advocating that in some ways, a religious community has to be managed like a large corporation. If you want to be successful, and if you want to grow, then one has to think like a successful industry leader. That means keeping our eyes open and learning from the successful ‘business models’ of others. I have also urged our leaders to copy whatever can be implemented within our framework. No need to re-invent the wheel.

Article:

In recent times, the richest economy in the 16^th century was Spain but within 150 years it became more one of the poorest in Europe. Spain became more and more internally focused, moving from an open to a closed economy. A civil war, combined with its close-door policy, cost Spain its position of power.

Me: Doesn’t that so much remind you of our situation right now? Internally focused, and obsessed with the Rehat Maryada almost to the exclusion of the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib. Just last weekend someone speaking to me made a remark that even startled me. “Everybody only argues about the rehat all the time. How many people in the Sikh community today, he said, can even tell you the meaning of the second pauri of the Japji Sahib?

(Boy, was that a conversation stopper. Just think about it. Twenty million Sikhs, and hardly anyone can explain the meaning of the second pauri. Staggering!)

Article:

Like Spain, many organizations similarly fall. Companies that close themselves to the world and focus internally may miss the boat when change occurs. Just as Motorola missed the jump to digital, and IBM missed the PC revolution, organizations that stop looking outside, lose their way.

Me:

Is it possible that Sikhs are also ‘missing the jump’ here? All others are growing. Sikhs are shrinking.

Article:

It’s the same in our personal lives. We are so busy in our work, our kids, our schedules and meetings, that we sometimes miss important changes that are taking place around us.

Me:

All this should be sounding real familiar to many of us who have been watching the slow but sure decline of the Sikh religion, especially over the last three decades.

Here I include a piece from ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Evangelical Christianity’. It is so interesting how the divine Guru has been literally pushing into my hands the books and the passages that He might want me to read, that are so relevant to the issues I am talking about in my blog. This book I would never have dreamed of getting, even in my wildest dreams. But just this June, my wife and I were in Sydney at the invitation of the organizers to facilitate at the university students camp. Having the last day off, we went downtown to visit bookshops to buy some books for our school. Being of a religious disposition all my life, I first went to the section on religions. I spotted this. I picked it up, and have had trouble putting it back down. These guys have perfected the game. Read and see how. My commentary begins from page 298, from the section called- Redefinition and Revolution. Text is scanned. Highlights and underlines are mine.

298 Part 5: The Future of Evangelicalism; The Emergent Church

Further, how do shepherd/entrepreneurial leaders learn the skills of what is perhaps the most important leadership trend of recent years-team leadership? Evangelicals, because of their core value of community, have a unique opportunity to show the rest of the world-business, nonprofit, and government alike-what team leadership really looks like.

But again, it all depends on starting the conversation.

Redefinition and Revolution

By definition, evangelicals are out to change the world. So ultimately, how does that "revolution" take place?

Thinking out of the box? Embracing constant change? Driving forward with undaunted entrepreneurial spirit? Spending countless hours in prayer?

Overall, if they are going to be effective for the next millennium, evangelical/emergent expressions of Christianity are going to have to be redefined and/or revolutionized for a new, changed culture. Maybe an old story will help provide some guidance.

It is the story of a university that was building a new campus. As the last blueprints and proposed campus maps were being reviewed, the university president noticed a key omission: no sidewalks had been planned for the school. So the president made an unusual decision-instead of redrawing all of the plans, he simply let the school be built without sidewalks.

After the school was completed, and the students made their way through the cam­pus, the president watched where they walked. Before long, paths began to appear, as the natural flow of the students wore down the grass in certain areas of the campus. After a year, the president ordered the sidewalks put in-along the pathways that the students had already created.

Perhaps this is a picture of how Evangelicalism can operate as it moves ahead­watching where God is laying down pathways through people and culture, and partnering with him by laying down ministries, strategies, and structures that com­pliment what is afoot. This, of course, requires listening to both God and culture.

And listening, as we all know, is the foundation of good conversation.

Me:

I can hardly believe what I was reading. These guys are already the fastest growing religion in the United States. Its mind boggling that yet they are talking about : “if they are going to be effective for the next millennium, evangelical/emergent expressions of Christianity are going to have to be redefined and/or revolutionized for a new, changed culture.” Is there any doubt left as to why these folks are so successful. Do you still believe that we will be able to compete for our survival? Is it in any way possible that there are times where the majority should be allowed a say?

Relating to that article, we too have designed the University (the institution of Sikhi) and been running it for 500 years. Now we should be looking to see how it is being used and utilised. We may have to look for the ‘footpaths’ and see how we can to the best of our ability accommodate the ‘students’ while preserving the greatness of the institution. Is it possible we need to realign some of our pathways? I mean it’s been 500 years since we built the university. THE FOOTPATHS MUST TELL A STORY BY NOW! You can look for the footpaths and re-align your sidewalks, or you can ‘lose’ your students to those institutions that are constantly upgrading.

If for example, it was the university’s rule at its inception that all students must wear a neck-tie, and you found that over the years, 95% have stopped wearing them, is it possible that you may have to reconsider your rules. Is it possible that you can yet accommodate and include all as your good and patriotic students, even those who don’t wear the neck-tie’s any more? I don’t have the answer. You decide.

Article: I recall a friend’s mother working as a secretary in the 1970s who was a great on the typewriter. But when computers made their debut in the 80s, she was made redundant and replaced by a savvier computer user. Companies face the same dilemma. When they are so busy with their internal operations and processes, they lose sight of the world and are soon replaced by new companies.

Me: We too have many still working with their type-writers, refusing to give them up, and wondering why we can’t go back and force those who have stopped, to return to their typewriters.

Article: Just think of the products and services you use today. How many of these products are from companies that existed 15 years ago? We fly on Air Asia, buy furniture from IKEA, buy our computers from Dell, drink coffee at Starbucks, search for information via Google and we get leadership training from Leaderonomics!

Having a company byline that includes “established 1850” is almost a liability today. Reputation counts for nothing anymore. Shell has a home base in the UK and has a reputation as a producer of high-quality petrol. Yet, in its UK home market, the biggest petrol retailer is Tesco, a supermarket.

So, how do these companies lose their leadership positions?

One reason may be “social proof”, a theory developed by psychologist Robert Cialdini. The larger a crowd of people at the scene of an accident, the more likely no one will help the victims. If everyone is passive, everyone thinks that there is no emergency, Cialdini theory claims, “If a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t.”

Companies foolishly adopt this “follow-the-leader” attitude. Wang Laboratories, which established itself as a major computer force in the 80s, decided to follow industry leader IBM and forewent the PC market. Today it does not exist.

Another reason, asserts Charan and Useem, is that “a number of studies show that people are less likely to make optimal decisions after prolonged periods of success.

Me: Is it possible that we have a lesson to learn here too. And to think that we haven’t even reached the top!

Enron, Lucent, Worldcom – all had reached the mountaintop before they ran into trouble. Someone should have told them that most mountaineering accidents happen on the way down.”

Gary Hamel adds: “The seeds of failure are usually sown at the heights of greatness,” Once a company becomes an industry leader, defensive thinking seeps in and no one challenges the status quo. Many became insular and inward-looking. And miss changes taking place, becoming irrelevant to their customers.

Me: Defensive thinking? Ok. That’s new. Ever heard some saying – we only interested in quality, not quantity. Nice slogan. Helps us psychologically, so we don’t have to feel so bad about our bad shape. But we all forgot to ask why is it, that others can have both - quantity and quality, enough for them to keep growing. Problem is it is hard to admit we are failing and to fix our problem, and it is easier to hide behind slogans.

The other ‘feel good’ defensive thinking we love to use is – We are the fifth largest religion in the world. It is good to use such descriptions for public relations exercises as I myself might do. But for introspection, that statement is only technically correct, and it hides a glaring shortcoming, as I have stated in my previous blogs. All the other religions have more than 1 billion adherents. We only have 20 million. The closest we can get to making any claim is to state that ‘we are the fifth religion of the world’. That way, we still get to wonder why we are so far behind the fourth. It will save us from the syndrome described earlier as Robert Cialdini’s ‘Social Proof’ ie, since no one is doing anything, there is no emergency. So, since we are the fifth largest religion in the world, no need to do anything!

Article:

Great leaders are always forward-looking and not basking in past glories or caught up in internal issues. Bill Gates constantly says “Microsoft is always two years away from failure.” Gates understands the need to be engaged with the world, its trends and market changes.

Me: That really has to be a Wow statement. No better way to keep on your toes, with eyes wide open.

Intel is a great example of a company reinventing itself. Andrew Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive about how Intel faced competition from South Korea and Japan, which turned memory chips into cheap commodities. Intel quickly decided to exit the memory business entirely and become a maker of microprocessors. Grove came to this insight when he looked outside Intel and asked himself, “If I got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would the new CEO do?” The answer was clear: Focus on our strengths – high tech, and get rid of memory chips.

Me: the high tech taught by our Gurus of Naam, Dhaan and Ishnaan – Remembrance of God, Purity in thought, and Charity in action. Any chance we can go back to that to consolidate. That will also divert us from the never-ending debates over the Rehat.

There were many internal Intel issues but Grove knew if he continued to play the same game, he would soon be another fallen giant. He observed that high-tech microprocessors had a premium and he had a stable of scientists which he could deploy into that space. His worldview enabled Intel to remain a giant, albeit in a different product line.

Me: Where and what is our worldview?

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, writes: “The key sign – the litmus test – is whether you begin to explain away the brutal facts rather than to confront the brutal facts head-on.” By forcing himself to see from the outside, Grove recognized the brutal facts facing him and made the necessary change.

Me: More reminders on the dangers of ‘Defensive Thinking”.

So what lessons can we draw from these stories?

Firstly, change happens all the time. That is not anything to be paranoid about. What we need to be vigilant about is to always be observing what is happening from the outside in. And it’s not just about in your industry but changes everywhere. Book retailers never quite understood how Amazon.com suddenly appeared and wiped them out as no one tracked the Internet revolution.

Secondly, we need to be wary when we start becoming so internally focused and consumed by tasks and to-do lists. Great leaders learn to reflect and take time off to notice the “dancing gorillas” that walk into their lives.

Me: How many of our leaders are there looking out for the ‘Dancing Gorillas’? Things are happening out there to us, and nobody’s looking out for the dancing gorillas.

Finally, watch out when you become defensive and reactionary. This is the starting point of your fall from the mountaintop. Great leaders that stay at the top for long periods are usually ones who have humbled themselves to believe that learning and growth never end.

Me: Defensive thinking. Another word for ‘nice excuses why we’re not doing so well’.

Article:

Back to my gorilla video – whether you are a leader or an individual contributor, take some time to be still and mindful of the changes that are taking place. There are many big gorillas walking into your industry and workplace and if you are too busy “counting passes” inside your organization, the gorilla may just consume you and make you an irrelevant dinosaur.

Me: Did I just hear someone mention the ‘D’ word. But hang on. This time it wasn’t me. It was Roshan Thiran. And I want to say to him that his words are so apt and so clear and so timely for me. This article in the Star could not have come at a better time.

I am well confident that people who read these articles are discerning and well capable to understand where I am coming from. If anywhere there is an oversimplification, it is only to emphasize. I am sometimes staggered by the failure of some to understand the simple logic I offer in my articles, which is actually re-affirmed time and again by every motivational and personal trainer that is in the circuit today, as clearly demonstrated by Roshan Thiran. Believe me, this stuff that I write is tough on my nerves too. And I keep repeating, again and again, that I don’t have the answers, only the pain, and some ideas. The dilemma of the Panth is much too big for just individuals to resolve. Institutions and organizations have to take it on.

Conclusion:

It is my perception that we are not looking out for the dancing gorillas. We are just stuck with the ball. We are just tossing the ball from one pair of hands to the other, within our little court. We are too content with little victories and nice words, like being the ‘fifth largest religion in the world’. And just like Thiran’s video, we’ve got people counting all the passes. How many have noticed the gorillas?

The events of the past few months surrounding my life have clearly showed that not many of us are looking out for them. Some years ago, I used to think that my generation might pull through and it will be our kid’s generation that will be the one that will have to face the dire consequences. Now, I believe that I may have to brace myself for what’s coming. Because it looks like it’s about to happen in my own lifetime.

The Answers do not lie in the Past…….

Sikhs in the west always talk about their children caught between two cultures, the Indian, and the western. When they go to work and school, they are expected to conform to the western culture. When they come home, they have to suddenly switch to Indian culture. We hear of many instances where the children eventually run out of stamina, living this ‘double life’. They collapse from the immense stress, and fall out, discarding their Indian-ness. Also, a tiny minority flip on to the other side. They reject the western instead, and join ethnic or religious fundamentalist groups or organizations. Then, they attack those who have taken a modern view, declaring them to be traitors, apostates, ‘fallen’, etc

I think the very same thing has happened to me. I live in an ultra modern world. All the time, everyone in this modern world is looking forward and, projecting and preparing strategies FOR THE FUTURE, including every single person in my religion. They want to be highly successful in their business ventures and careers, acquiring the latest ‘tools’ in the business world.

But when it comes to the religion they practice, they are seemingly incapacitated. All capacity to act on their own wisdom and judgement becomes removed from them. They feel dis-empowered and powerless to make even the most trivial conclusion for themselves. So those of us like me are expected to live two lives, one with the blinkered world-view of some conservative co-religionists, and the other, the life influenced by our professional, modern and universal exposure.

For example; men who may solve the world’s greatest mathematical problems, invent the most fascinating gadgets for their corporations, will go to a ‘religious person’ to ask him if it is ok for them to do paath from a romanised English gutka. Is it still ‘counted’ or not? They keep going from one person to another, each time getting a different answer, further adding to their confusion. They are so dis-empowered when it comes to their religion that they cannot even answer simple questions for themselves, and it has to be sanctioned by a priestly figure.

On a community scale, many seem unable to find the answers and make the decisions they need on their present issues for themselves. They are shakled to the past and chained to history. They keep turning to look behind into the past for answers to their religious queries and dilemmas. Fear, cripples them. They can run huge corporations, but cannot act in religion, until a man dressed in white tells them so. When it comes to their life and career, they can make the most outrageous decisions that will allow them to surge forward, without consulting anyone, nay, actually telling others that they. They will probably be able to give that same priest advice on every other matter. But when it comes to religious life, they suddenly become incapacitated!

It seems to me that religion seems to dis-empower and take people’s power to think and act for themselves, away from them. This is actually the ‘yoke’ that Guru Nanak wanted to remove from our necks, the power of the mullahs and the pundits over our minds. They controlled our minds then. Today, that is not the case. Yet we are only too eager to look towards other persons for guidance, rather than think for ourselves!

Guru Nanak wanted to liberate the human spirit to soar, fearless, ie, Nirbhau, and at eh same time to be Sai-bhang – self-creating and re-newing through self-illumination and self education. In the presence of all his relatives, very important guests, and his outraged parents, Little Nanak told the pundit to keep his precious janayoo. Would any of us be here today if He had turned back to look at history, like we do all the time, to see if there was any such precedent of any other kid having done that before?

The answer is - No. Though still a child, Nanak did what needed doing. It did not concern Him whether it had been done before or not, or whether the Hindu Rehat Maryada, the religion of His family and relatives, allowed Him to do that.

He could have looked back at history too, like we do all the time, and then said – “I guess I better put on this janayoo, since in history, everyone has been doing it and no one has ever questioned it before. It must be the right thing to do and I should not question it. That’s what my ancestors have been doing for centuries! So why change it.

How many of us would have had the guts to do what Baba Guru did? We are disciples of Baba, Father, but we have benefited little from what His life stood for. Guru Nanak went to Hardwar and in the presence of millions standing with Him in the Holy Ganges, turned His back to the sun that was sacred to the others around Him, and started to make His water offering in the opposite direction. Did He turn to look back at history, to find a precedent and a justification for what He had to do to move people forward? If He had, He wouldn’t have found any at all. He stood alone. He was alone. And He did what He had to do, because the times needed it. Because the times had changed, people’s thinking had changed, people’s understanding and world –view had evolved, He said it was time to move forward and make His point. It is up to the people to decide for themselves if that was right for them or not. Many decided it was. ‘This ‘man’ is making sense’. They became Sikhs. Many more refused.

He then marched off to Mecca and lay down towards the “House of God’. Baba always looked forward. He wanted to move people forward. You can’t do that if you keep looking to History for precedents and justifications. He looked at ‘the way things were’ and ‘the way that things should be’ IN THE FUTURE. Whereas we always keep looking backward, for historical justification. Whenever we don’t find a parallel example in our history, we are thrown into confusion. We start groping around for justifications. We start calling a person a heretic. We forget completely, that that is exactly what every Brahmin and pundit called Guru Nanak, because He refused to look back at history for precedents –

SGGS pg 991, line 6

koeI AwKY BUqnw ko khY byqwlw ]

Some call him a ghost; some say that he is a madman.

ko-ee aakhai bhootnaa ko kahai baytaalaa.

koeI AwKY AwdmI nwnku vycwrw ]1]

Some call him a mere mortal; O, poor Nanak! ||1||

ko-ee aakhai aadmee naanak vaychaaraa. ||1||

How different, really, are we today from the people of Guru Nanak’s time? No different actually. In those days, our ancestors lived in fear of the Brahmins and the pundits. And anyone who did not conform or agree with the general view of that time, they called a heretic. Today, we live in fear of our ignorance, and rush to get everything sanctioned by a priestly looking figure, just to be sure we don’t end up in hell. It exactly the same thing. We are no different from those people hundreds of years ago!

So what have we gained from having a Father and teacher like Baba Nanak? Ignoring the wisdoms taught us by Guru Nanak, all we have done is just transferred the source of our fear, from one to another, from the pundits and the mullahs in the time before our Gurus, to whatever it is that cripples us from action today. Even though we are Sikhs by name, it appears that Sikhi has not empowered us enough. We are still at the mercy of ‘Fear to Act’, since there are no ‘precedents in history’. Better not change anything until the Gurus come back and “tell us what to do”, since we can’t think for ourselves. Well, the Gurus ain’t coming back. That’s why they left us their wisdoms in their history, their sakhis, and in the Guru Granth Sahib, for eternity. If we still feel paralysed and can’t think, and have to keep looking back at history for ‘What shall we do now type of questions’, I can see a lot of trouble ahead.

One may recall that today, no one seems to know what to do when a person of Sikh faith wants to marry someone from another faith. It’s anybody’s guess. Nobody knows what to do, because there are no precedents from the Guru’s times. So, what do we do? Simple. Don’t do anything. Let the people wander from gurdwara to gurdwara, trying to find one where they might do something to help them. Sometimes they get lucky and someone helps them. Sometimes, they get so sick of getting the run-around that the marriage eventually takes place in another religions place of worship!

Todays life skills trainers teach us this –

Yesterday is in the tomb. Tomorrow is in the womb.

The past is in the grave. Yesterday lies buried. It is over. Tomorrow is still in the making. There is much you can plan and think and bring into existence for tomorrow. Stop worrying about the past. Solve your problems that are coming towards you in the future. You may look to history for your answers. But if you don’t find them, don’t be afraid to act. All leaders teach that ‘a BAD decision is still better than NO decision!’ which is where we are standing today.

History only defines where we come from. It cannot be allowed to define where we have to go, and what we have to do to face the future. All companies and corporations have pictures of their humble beginnings hanging in their sprawling modern and spanking new buildings. But that’s not where they go to look, to see where they have to go in the future. To do that, they have to look at the future, towards the future.

Do we only tell sakhis to our kids just to have fun and entertain ourselves bashing up the bad guys in history and making our Gurus and our heroes look cool? Or is there something we are supposed to learn from there, from how steadfastly they acted at a time that needed action.

Another one I heard was; “But Nanak was Guru. We are not Guru Nanak. We cannot change anything”.

If we believe that, we actually confirm my earlier analysis; Religion dis-empowers people instead of empowering them. What is the point of religion then?

I remember a joke that went around in the nineties. It was about a priest who was ship-wrecked. As he is drifting in the sea, a boat comes up alongside, and the people ask him to climb aboard. He refuses. He tells them that since he has been praying to God all his life, God will come to save him. Then comes a huge ship, and everybody is calling out to him to grab the rope and be pulled on board. He waves them on, saying the same thing. Then the Search and Rescue helicopter comes and they want to winch him up. He waves them off too. Soon of course, he drowns. When he is brought before God, he angrily accused God of not coming to his rescue even though he had been praying all his life. God said,

“You silly man, who do you think sent the boat, the ship and the helicopter!”

This exactly is our problem. We are sinking in an ocean of problems that we are surrounded in. the answers to our problems are clearly visible. But we are waiting for God to come and save us! There is a hole in the boat. The boat is sinking. But all the passengers, are looking for God above to come down and save it, when all they have to do is take a little rag and plug the hole. This is what I mean when I use the phrase ‘religious paralysis’. If we are afraid to act because of fear, then has religion liberated us or has it actually chained us and deprived us of our ability to act? If this is the case, then what, have we benefited from having liberating Gurus like those we had?

Today, at universities across the world, people are doing doctorates, studying the reasons why the thousands of giants like IBM have gone the same way as the dinosaurs, into extinction. Every seminar you go to on leadership, these are the case studies being presented; from the extinction of the Egyptian and Roman Civilizations to the sudden demise of mega corporations from the face of the earth. Yet we are not aware that the same fate awaits us. Unless we can decide to change tactics, change methods, change systems, change paradigms.

Part 2 will contain the startling revelation of how another religion has on the 22 July 2009, changed one of its strictest rules that for 2000 years condemned people to hell. Need time to scan the newspaper cuttings from the Daily Mail, UK.

Satnam

Look What the Numbers are Telling us!

A Snapshot

First, let’s look at this simple graph. It’s not to scale.

For the purpose of this discussion, please ignore the column of numbers on the left. At the bottom, you will see important years. 1469 is the year of birth of Holy Baba Nanak. Sikhi is introduced and people start to take the Charan-Amrit and become Sikhs. (Some people like to say that Sikhi does not believe in conversion. Strange statement, when our Holy Gurus had initiation ceremonies, gave Amrit to millions and accepted them into the Sikh faith!).

This trend continues in larger numbers up through 1699, when a new form of Amrit was introduced by Guru Gobind Singh called ‘Khande dha Amrit’. Membership of this religion continues to grow because of the leadership and charisma of the Tenth Master. But in 1708, upon the departure of the Guru, there is a dip due to the leadership vacuum. Then along came Baba Banda Singh to take up the leadership of the Khalsa and growth is resumed, maybe at a lesser rate. Upon his departure, growth is still sustained because of the desire and determination of the people of Hindustan to drive out the Mughals and end their tyranny. So people were still converting to the Khalsa panth. Then came the great Sikh Maharaja, Ranjit Singh. He secured the first Sikh kingdom and there was still a lot of energy in the Khalsa movement. But upon his death in 1839, the Sikhs were left without a leader, a conquered people, and without a vision. The British government kidnapped the young Sikh Maharaja, Duleep Singh, leaving the Sikh nation leaderless. Thence began the decline in the momentum that had sustained the growth of this new religion. Until today, with no country to call our own, we are yet to find a way how to revive the flagging fortunes of our religion.

I have used this little story-line only to demonstrate that it appears that our decline started round about 1839. I felt a need to show readers that we’ve been in decline for such a long time. We are at present, the only world religion that is in negative growth. Christianity is growing and Islam is multiplying. More and more westerners are flocking to Hinduism and Buddhism. And we, are in a spiral dive, and busy attacking anyone who still hasn’t given up and is still thinking of how to revive our fallen spirits or at least survive the next few years!

Whereas Punjabis as a race are growing just like all other races and will continue to spread throughout the world, But Sikhy as a religion has been shrinking for the last 100 years, and shrinking drastically in the last 30 years. Very soon, if nothing is done, we will lose the ‘Critical Mass’ required to sustain the remaining Sikhs. If we only end up with ten men in turbans in a whole city gurdwara, it’ll be ‘Game Over’ for the religion. Like those who stayed back in Pakistan during the partition, those who remain will simply run out of stamina and feel the futility of carrying on. They will simply do away with their religious practice or worse, start converting to the majority religions for their survival.

Just last month, when a Sikh panthic worker and writer stayed over with us on her way to India from the US, she told us that almost all the keshadhari Sikhs she spoke to in the US clearly stated that they do not want their children to go through what they have had to endure because of their different appearance. They will be cutting their kid’s hair. Period!

And these words are not unique to Sikhs in America. They are words you will find echoed all around the globe from Sikhs of all walks of life. Right here in Malaysia, it is normal to see young families where the parents or at least the father is a full keshadhari, but their children are not.

The reason I write all this is because I despair about the situation of the Sikh religion today. But it is clear to me that there may be some Sikh leaders and others in leadership positions who are still struggling to understand the reality, and how fragile our situation is if there are less than 5% Sikhs left in the world today (those who do not cut, trim, or shave, be they men, women or youngsters, and who have taken the Guru’s Khandeh dha Amrit! They are still in denial. They cannot come to terms with the fact that we are in deep trouble and bordering on extinction, if we keep on insisting that the only way one can be a true guru-ka Sikh is if we don’t remove any hair from our entire body. They cannot seem to fathom that there were thousands of the Gurus followers who were Hindus and Muslims. Along these ‘Lines of Purity’ that they keep re-drawing, hell bent on making the Sikh religion exclusive for them selves and to exclude all the good people who are so devout and fill our gurdwaras with their devotion. It is because of their attitude of being ‘Holier than everyone else’ that the actual number of Sikhs is diminishing daily as more and more Sikhs are being excluded because they are trimming or cutting their hair or their beards.

Something has to be done to include all persons who profess the worship of the one God, Akaal Purakh Waheguru, and the divinity of the Sikh Gurus, as Sikhs!

Today, we have thousands of Sindhis, Gujeratis who love our Gurus and who come to gurdwara. Some even have Guru Granth Sahib parkaash in their homes. As a matter of fact, I found out when I was in Hong Kong that the beautiful Sikh Gurdwara there was built by our Sindhi Sikh brothers. Isn’t that wonderful? In the Karachi and Sind area of Pakistan, we were told by Bhai Baldev Singh of Leo Travels that there are more than 100,000 Sindhis who still practice the Sikh faith. In 1988, he even brought a 5 member delegation from that community in Karachi to Malaysia for a meeting with the Sikh Naujawan Sabha Exco to see how we in Malaysia could help them build their first gurdwara.

Around the holy Sikh shrines in Pakistan, you will find till today, many Muslims who still love our gurus and recite gurbani. On my yatra there, I saw a Pakistani Muslim woman reciting by heart the Sukhmani Sahib in Nankana Sahib. Upon my enquiry, she said that many people in that area read the Sukhmani! Are we going to declare all these people as patits? Who are we to do that anyway? As Jesus said to those people who had come to stone to death a jewish sinner, “Let that person who is without sin cast the first stone”. And all those purists who had come to put another man to death dropped their stones in shame. Bhai Mardana’s decendants, the dear and lifelong companion of none other than the Holiest Baba Nanak, until today still perform kirtan in their home country of Pakistan. And since we are on the subject, allow me to say here that they were recently denied permission to perform kirtan at the Golden Temple, because ‘they are not Sikhs’! How sad, the way we judge people who come to the holy feet of the Guru.

On my first flight duty to Madrid, Spain when I used to fly the Airbus 330, I was literally swept off my feet in the downtown area by a young ‘Gujerati’ Sikh brother. He was so thrilled that he had met after so many years in Spain, a sabat surat Sikh of the Guru. He insisted on taking me home for dinner. I was so overcome by what I found in his car. It was unkempt, but for this amazing reason; Starting from the dashboard, every bit of vacant space in it was covered with kirtan cassettes and CDs, of every known jatha and ragi. When we got to his home, every wall was adorned with pictures of our Holy Gurus and the Golden Temple. He was so excited that for the few hours that we spent there before he drove me back to my hotel, he didn’t (couldn’t, rather) stop talking about Sikhy!

He had taught his Spanish wife to read the Japji Sahib in the Roman. He got both her and his 6 year old son to recite the Mool Mantra by heart. His son’s room, and their bedroom was again covered with pictures of our Gurus. We all sat and watched videos of his Baba Ji’s satsangs in India. All the people in those mega events were non-Punjabis. Women and men, they were completely lost in their devotion, clapping their hands to the kirtan of our Gurus in the fashion that people of India are apt to do when singing bhajans. In total, in my entire life, I have not had a more profound experience as I had that day being with this family. It was on that day I understood the lesson of ‘Intensity of Worship’ that I so often speak about these days. I began to understand that unlike people of other religions, the only intensity we Sikhs seem to have is that of fighting ferociously over the rehat maryada.

This Gujerati brother was totally soaked with the love for our Gurus and Gurbani. He told me of his ‘Baba Ji’ a Sikh saint who had a following in the Pune area of India. Before he reluctantly sent me home that night, he loaded me with gifts of cassettes and CDs of his favourite ragis, a picture of his Baba Ji, and a special Gutka – it was a 20 page booklet with nothing inside except 10 lines of only the Gurmantra Waheguru written in English on each page, in 5 columns. He said that since all of his Baba Ji’s followers were non Punjabis and could not read Gurmukhi, he had this prepared for them and told all his followers to READ OUT ALOUD each Waheguru, word by word, from this gutka every day as their nitnem.

Whereas we in the Mission are proposing that we go back to the original teachings of Baba Guru Nanak, where He taught that anyone who believes in the one God, Akaal Purakh, and the divinity of the Guru is a Sikh. And we are preaching therefore that anyone who believes and practices the above can be and is as good a Sikh as any, whether with hair or not. For those who love their turbans and hair, they are welcome to continue, and even aim higher to adopt the full 5 K’s and become Khalsa. We are saying that for Sikhi to grow again, we have to adopt this stance or something along these lines. We cannot continue to insist that a Sikh has to be a Khalsa and that if you are cutting your hair, you are not a Sikh! This group and others who are in denial are insisting that if you are not a Khalsa and not wearing your 5 K’s, YOU ARE A ‘PATIT’, an apostate or rudely referred to by them as ‘Kacha Pilla Sikh’, translated as ‘unfit and worthless Sikh’.

We call God ‘Patitt Paavan’, the Saviour of Sinners, yet ‘WE’ call people ‘pattits. In my monthly programme in Petaling Jaya in April, I said; “God only judges us on the day we die, ie - once. Yet we, judge everybody every day. We preach in our gurdwaras that our Holy Gurus built the Golden Temple with four doors that open to the four corners of the world and to all the people on earth, saint or sinner. Then we create labels to call those who cut trim or shave as pattits. Have we done justice to our Gurus teachings? In the Holy Granth Sahib, the word pattit refers to persons who have become un-Godly or ‘fallen’ in their ways. It does not in any way refer to those who cut trim or shave. It was never meant to be used to discriminate against those Sikhs who don’t wear the 5k’S.

Recently, some kids started a Facebook site on the internet to attack me personally, and my views on doing away with these counter-productive limitations, and making the Sikh religion an open and inclusive religion that is open to all and welcomes all unconditionally instead of a limiting and exclusive one only for the privileged few. They say that since I want to make the religion open and easy for everyone to follow, I am making it ‘cheap’!. I couldn’t believe that making a religion open for all was actually a sin, by their standards.

Because I am working under the banner of ‘Sikhs With A Mission’, they called their site Anti Sikhs with a mission. Interestingly, these kids too are echoing the same oft repeated slogan which we are all quite tired of listening to, and still preached by these people who are still living in cocoons and living in denial, which I have heard for the last 30 years – “We are not interested in quantity. We only want quality. We don’t want these people who cut their hair. Those who are cutting their hair can leave the panth for all we care. They are not fit to be Sikhs and anyway, were never good enough to be Khalsa!”

Actually, this reaction comes from a case of ‘Sour Grapes’. It’s the same story as in the Aesop’s Fables of the hungry fox who tried to pluck the bunches of grapes hanging on a high vine. When people can’t have something, they try to save face by saying that that was not what they wanted anyway.

They are implying that the more than 80% of Sikhs today who they have declared as patit (apostate) by their definition, because they cut, trim or shave, they are not fit to be Sikhs in the first place because they don’t have quality and that is why they have chosen to cut their hair, and that they won’t be missed by anyone if they leave!

The above is a graphic representation of the Sikh funnel today. If it was raining people instead of raindrops, how many people do you think it would catch? Look below to see the size of for example, the Christian Funnel. Actually it’s a probably relatively a thousand times bigger than that.

If any Sikh believes that we can withstand the funnels of the other religions, we might be in for a little shock. Everyday, we hear of more converting out of Sikhi. Not only will we NOT BE ABLE TO catch our own Sikh ‘raindrops’, our raindrops will actually be caught by the other funnels, which are much much larger than ours because we refused to accommodate those who could not keep their Sikhi form due to their personal reasons!

Folks, the writing is on the wall. We better put on our glasses and read it now, or very soon it will be a case of ‘the last man out can switch off the lights’! The only way for Sikhy to survive in this age of the AGGRESSIVE CONVERSION POLICIES OF THE OTHER FAITHS around us, WE HAVE to ‘get out of the Box’ and play the game the others are playing. We have to start increasing the size of OUR funnel. If we don’t, our raindrops are going to miss the funnel, hit the ground, or run-off into the waiting funnels of others.

Sikhism is now once again at the crossroads of our survival. We have survived many times before. But this time, the fight may be long, and hard. And do not forget, we do not have the stamina, enthusiasm and determination of our founding fathers. Unlike 300 years ago when the young Sikh nation was bursting with energy, stamina, zeal and determination to stand against all odds. Today we lie muddled in ‘INTERNAL’ disputes, jealousies, character assassinations, gurdwara rivalries, caste issues (Ramgharia Jhat , territorial issues (Malwa Majha Doaba), and worst of all, rivalry and fighting for control at the top level of our Panthic institutions.

If We Want the results We’ve Never Had Before, We’ll Have to do What We’ve Never Done Before.

If you remember your Sikh history, this is exactly what our Gurus did many times before. They did things no one had done before. Now, it may be our turn to show whether we have the same kind of courage to act as they displayed.

We in the Mission too are struggling to find ways to return Sikhy to its former glory. Under the present circumstances, even that is a far fetched dream. If we can stabilize the panth would be a miracle enough. For a start, we will never be able to get the support of everyone. In any community or religion, that is impossible. We have no delusions about that. No ideas can ever be acceptable to everyone out there. All we seek is that as many Sikhs as possible recognize that there is a huge shake-down looming out there, that we are in a huge crisis today.

The Sikhs and the leaders are in denial. Just in the last few years in the Sikh homeland, every other Sikh youth has become clean shaven. Colleges and even secondary schools in Punjab are full of youths who are alcoholics and drug addicts. If we can just wake up the panth to our problem of a looming extinction, we would have achieved our Mission. For those who feel that we are making sense, you can do more by voicing your support for our ideas, at least in your local area. Instead of criticizing and attacking each other, it would be better if people came up and posted SOLUTIONS. For the massive problem we are facing out there, we are only too eager to hear other peoples proposed solutions, if they have any. Either way, we will have done our job.

Thanking You.
Peace, Love and Light to all.
Satnam

Twelve Hours With the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin

Twelve Hours With the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia

My son says I should also blog about my life, and not just about religion. So here goes. No harm in giving it a shot. Might be interesting for some. How about we start with stuff from last week.

It is not unusual for us who have been in the Malaysian Sikh Band to be in the company of the rich and famous. Being the founder of the band, I have had many memorable encounters with high officials, government ministers, Sultans and Kings. The most memorable was when at the AGM of the PPP held at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur where I was a guest, Tun Mahathir, the world famous then Prime Minister of Malaysia, invited me to have lunch with him at his table.

As I was a special guest of Datuk Kayveas, the president of the party, he took me over to the prime minister’s table. Was I nervous? Boy, was I nervous! I had to spend the rest of the morning seated next to Tun, until Tun had to leave for another engagement. We talked about many things. I tried to sound as intelligent as I could. Seated right next to the brainiest guy in this amazing country, it wasn’t easy. I remain indebted to Datuk Kayveas for this incredible opportunity. Of course you never have your camera when you need it most.

The next biggie for me was when Datuk Darshan Singh of Ipoh (then, but now Tan Sri) introduced me to Sultan Azlan Shah when his royal highness was Agong (King) of Malaysia. To my shock and amazement, the king recognized me, and began by asking me if I was the pilot who had started the Sikh Band he had seen in the news papers. After that, we talked for a while about my work in the Sikh community. It was another great highlight of my life for the king to have spent his personal time chatting with me. Again, I am grateful to Tan Sri Darshan Singh for that special moment.

There are many more memorable events that I can write about, especially on board my flights, as you can imagine. And that brings me to the latest one, just last week. Fast rewind to Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 at the first class passenger check in desk for my return flight to KL, which was to take off at 12 noon.

Check in was as normal as could be – “Any baggage Mr Sukdev”. Yes. “ Please place it on the weighing scale” etc etc. Then, the phone rang, and my life would never be the same again, just like they write it in the novels! Now watch what happens. And I love this part………..

She answered the call, and that’s when the action started. After replacing the receiver, I was politely asked if I could help as a ‘small problem’ had come up. The previous night’s 10 pm flight had to be rescheduled to 3 pm today, 3 hours after my flight. There had been a technical problem that could not be rectified. Some ‘VVIP’s’ I was told, who were scheduled to fly last night needed to get back to KL for some urgent meetings. I was asked if I could give up my seat for their use, and if I would agree to travel on the flight 3 hours later. I immediately agreed as I was on holiday and really had no urgency to get back to KL anyway. What difference would 3 hours make anyway? So I was told to take a seat and make myself comfortable. I would be confirmed for the 3 pm flight, and should a seat for the 12 noon flight become available, I would be given first priority.

At a quarter to noon, I was informed that one seat was available for me. My boarding pass was issued and for some inexplicable reason, instead of MAS staff, two Alitalia ground hostesses were assigned to see me to the aircraft through the ‘Fast Track’ channel to avoid queuing at the immigration. Had no idea MAS had a tie up with them!

When I entered the first class cabin, I was a bit surprised that there were only 4 passengers there in a cabin designed to seat ten. Where were the others? After all, it was supposed to be full and it was only minutes to departure time, and I was after all, the last passenger to be accepted, or rather, re-accepted after I gave up my seat.

Anyway, I knew where my seat was, so I trotted off to it, parked myself there and made myself cosy. I mean this was only the millionth time I had been there, as almost all pilots would rather seat here when they are on Team B, a reference to when pilots fly relief duty on long haul flights. Obviously, its much more comfortable than the little two bed bunk cabin we have to rest in that’s attached to the flight deck. (Oh O! Should not have said that. Already people accuse pilots of doing nothing during flights.

“We know lah. You never do any work during the flight. Yaa-lah You got auto pilot whaaaaat. So just ‘pasang and lepak lah!’ Next, after this, they’ll be saying;

“See. Told you whaaat. Pasang auto-pilot, tidur. Tauu lah!

Anyway, getting back to the story, I had just settled in with my blanket and book to read, when a whole lot of people entered the cabin. They were officials from the Malaysian High Commission who had come to see off the returning delegation of the VVIP.

The next thing to happen was the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin was shown the seat next to mine. I could not believe what was happening. I do believe that I had turned a pure white colour as the blood from my cheeks descended straight down to my feet, refusing to come up again. I was just too stunned and I had no idea how I was supposed to conduct myself, with the suddenness of it all. When on flight duty, the crew are informed well in advance if any VVIP or royalty are traveling. In that case, we have ample warning and are well prepared when we go downstairs to the main deck to greet them as they enter the aircraft. And again, it’s not like you are going to be seated next to them for the rest of the flight. You’ll exchange a few words of simple conversation and soon return to the flight deck. (I mean, and you’ll all agree that somebody has to go back there to select the auto-pilot, right?).

As he bid farewell to the staff from the High Commission, I had just enough time to wiggle my toes and get some blood back into my cheeks. The first few words were a little clumsy, but soon, everybody settled down for the take off and the flight. The rest was smooth. It was great. Can’t think of a greater privilege than that.

What do you talk about. Well, for starters, make polite conversation. Be sensitive. Pick your topics. Stay away from politics. There’s a lot to talk about. What books you like, what sports you like, what places of interest have you enjoyed most, etc, etc. there is one thing however I regret not asking; Tan Sri and Puan Sri to accept my invitation to join my family and friends for a nice chapatti dinner at my home? That was ‘the big one’ and it completely slipped my mind. What a miss.

Well, all is not lost. I do believe that we will meet again soon. And also the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib. And I might still send him and his good wife an invitation in the post. Who knows.

Well, at least I brought back a beautiful picture of my most memorable twelve hours with the Deputy Prime Minister. I am indebted to him and Puan Sri for this picture. They are both extremely nice, intelligent, and humble, and together, they make a wonderful couple.

Thank you Tan Sri and Puan Sri. I shall cherish the memory.

Why Change is Necessary and Inevitable

In the last few years, a ‘new’ Sikh festival has suddenly appeared on the horizon. It is called ‘Bandhi Cchor’. It literally translates as ‘the release from detention’ and is celebrated as ‘Bandhi Cchor Divas’. It is the day when the Holy Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji was released from Gwalior prison by the emperor Jehangir. The day is significant in that Guru Sahib Ji insisted that for Him to agree to this release from imprisonment, the emperor must also release 52 rajas that had been held prisoner by the bigoted Jehangir. The Guru wanted every prisoner in the Gwalior Jail freed.

Why was this ‘festival’ unheard of in the past? Because it didn’t exist! Even today, not many Sikhs have heard of it yet. It is only gradually coming into people’s vocabulary. After all, it really is just another event in Sikh history and cannot, even with the wildest stretching of the imagination, be raised to the status and stature of many other very significant events in our history that are NOT BEING CELEBRATED or given the due importance by us. So why single this day out for celebration?

Even I myself, when I first heard of this attempt to promote this festival as a mainstream Sikh festival, was a little unsure. The reason is that, when we start to promote less significant events like this, we lessen the sacredness and do injustice to the much more significant and earth shaking events in our history that are till date, still not being given the due recognition that they rightly deserve.

For example, the Shahidhi Diharas of our four Sahibzadas come and go, with almost nil importance attached to them. Why? The Chota and Waddha Ghalukaras come and go. No one pays any attention to them. Why? 20,000 and 60,000 Sikhs were slaughtered in one day in the most extreme examples of ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Mughals. Not even Hitler’s Death Camps ever committed anything close. These Sikhs were killed because they would not accede to the demand of their killers to convert their religion. And such apocalyptic events in Sikh history are not given any notice. Just as a comparison, when 13 Sikhs were killed by the Nirangkaris in 1978, we were screaming for Nirangkari blood. I hope that little fact of history allows us to draw the significance of the Ghalukaras, which we have largely ignored.

So, again the question; why leap-frog this event called ‘Bandhi Cchor Divas’ over the more significant events and suddenly start declaring this as an annual Sikh festival while other important days remain in the shadows? To understand that, we have to first examine why someone saw this need to suddenly create Bandhi Cchor Divas.

Sikhs over the centuries, have still continued to celebrate the Hindu festival of Divali, even though our Gurus left that religion of their forefathers and launched a new dharma called the Sikh religion. It is even celebrated at the Golden Temple today, with great enthusiasm and vigor. Just because the family and relatives of Guru Ram Das Ji and Guru Arjan Dev ji, and all subsequent Gurus were Hindus, this practice has simply continued, with no one stopping to think “Hey, this doesn’t make sense. With all due respect, we are no longer Hindus”!

But after the attack on the Golden Temple, this sentiment of ‘we will no longer celebrate Divali as it is not our festival’ became heightened and many Sikhs wanted to distance themselves from this practice of celebrating Divali once and for all. As a result, Sikhs were one festival short in their annual calendar. The children were unhappy. Their mums were unhappy as they looked forward to all the festivity. And the lads were unhappy too; they didn’t get to go out to ‘celebrate’ with their mates. A solution was clearly needed!

To overcome this deficit, so that people can still continue to celebrate the day, even if not as Divali, some clever people invented a new festival and called it ‘Bandhi Cchor Divas’. They suggested that it could take the place of Divali. Conveniently, it just so happened in history, that after His release from prison in Gwalior, Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji made His entry into the Holy Amritsar on the exact day that was Divali. So the people of Amritsar had a double celebration with people turning out in new clothes to distribute sweets and watch the elaborate fireworks set off in the outpouring of emotion and rejoicing on the return of the beloved Guru. So this day of Guru Ji’s return to Amritsar now provided the no-Divali camp a great opportunity to replace Divali with Bandhi Cchor Divas. All they had to do was create a new name and every body could just go on celebrating Divali as ‘Bandhi Cchor Divas’! No one has to give up celebrating, as long as we can call it something else. We created something out of almost nothing, a new name, gave it a new significance, and made everyone happy. Even though our Holy Gurus never celebrated it or even heard of it, today all Sikh organizations and even the Akaal Takht recognizes it. How interesting! Nobody accused them of being ‘smarter than the Gurus’ for introducing something new!

I write this piece to highlight that there will always be a need to improvise, improve and sometimes even create new things that are required to serve a new situation and purpose that may not have existed during the times of our Gurus. For example, our Gurus would never have heard of this “Bandhi Cchor Divas’, that Sikhs and Sikh leaders all over the world are now suddenly touting, to fill up a vacuum left by a new situation!

I also write this piece because, some time back, I received an anonymous mail asking me that for all the new ideas that I am proposing to the mainstream Sikh community to solve existing situations that need attention, through my blog and other works, am I, quote: “smarter than the Gurus”. Unquote. I felt quite sorry for this person. How sad, when a person can’t understand simple things and ideas. its not about being smarter than the Gurus, dummy! Its about WE have a situation here today. WE have to fix it the best WE can, by putting our heads together. The Gurus have showed us how to change or clarify what needs clarifying, through the consensus of the people and through the endorsement of the five Piaras. Guru Hargobind Sahib was the first to show us. when the time called for change, He put on not one, but two swords, something unheard of for religious men. Many like the one who questioned me left the Sikh dharma at that time, accusing Guru Hargobind of being smarter than Guru Nanak. "He has defiled our sacred Gurus and our religion by bringing weapons into our religion".

Later, Guru Gobind Singh taught us to change our paradigms, with the incident involving Bhai Khanaiya. The group who reported against him went up to him and said, "The Guru's soldiers risk their lives trying to kill these moguls. you are reviving them. Are you smarter than Guru Gobind Singh?" And who doesn't know what Guru Said. Pointing to Bhai Khanaiya, He said to them - "That man is right too!" And then, the incident of Guru's saluting the grave of a peer. When someone raised it with the rest of the group before it was brought to the Guru Himself, the other's rebuked him - "You mean you are smarter than the Guru? You are meaning to tell us that the Guru doesn't know what He is doing?" And history has recorded for all to see, that the Guru actually not only praised the group that finally found the courage to raise the matter with the Guru, but paid a moneytary fine as a tankhah! Guru laughed to His hearts content. It became the happiest day of His life. it became the day He had been waiting for. And giving all of them full praise, He said "Aaj mera Khalsa jawan ho gaya hai. Hun mera Khalsa sedaa rahega!

Our Gurus were unique also in that they empowered their disciples. they taught us 'vivek', the power of reason, and the wisdom to choose what is important and what is necessary. so, never be afraid to suggest to the panth at large, any ideas that one may have for the improvement of the Sikh nation. if the idea is good, it will eventually be accepted. if it is not, it will simply fade away.

This article is also the result of my publishing a previous article about how it would make more sense to address the Holy Guru Granth Sahib as the Guru Jyot Sahib. I feel it is necessary to demonstrate to the audience, where I am coming from. I am coming from a position of empowerment, not disempowerment. I have been empowered by the teachings and actions of my Gurus. We always say to people – ‘Actions speak louder than words’. Well then, Sikhs should also look at the actions of their Gurus and study them.

This time has also reminded me of an interesting encounter with a Sikh Young man from the west. Mr. Singh, not his real name (sorry, just being cheeky.) happened to be at the SNSM Annual Samelan in Johor Bahru some years back. We were both in the same queue for lunchtime langgar. He was a few places in front of me. When I first saw Mr Singh, with due respect, I was sure that I wanted to avoid any conversation. From his accent, I knew he was British. But he wore a Nihang style turban, and you know how terrifying that can be. (If you’re reading this Mr Singh, I’m only teasing, ok!) That choice of turban to me always spells trouble. It usually means people from ‘Old School Sikhi’, rigid, a bit full of themselves because of claims of being purer than other Sikhs, and so on.

My introduction to Mr Singh was hilarious. He walked up to me and said” Veerji, can I tell you something?” With my bullet-proof armour now fully deployed between me and him, I said “Yeah, sure!”

He started like this; “You know, if all the Sikhs of the world were gathered at Wembley Stadium (obviously, coming from the UK!), and Guru Gobind Singh were to suddenly appear, He would take the nearest microphone and say, “You Fools, you are still exactly at the same spot that I left you 300 years ago! When are you going to start thinking and progressing! (In Panjabi, it went like this – Oeh Moorakho, tusi otheh hee khareh ho jitheh meh tuhanoo cchad keh gayaa see!)

I nearly fell off the planet when I heard that. There’s Mr Singh, this Nihang look-alike, and he’s just made this profound statement so distant from closed minded Nihang look-alikes! I was so impressed with his openness and his ability to laugh at ‘ourselves’ that we had lunch together. I listened to all of what he had to say. True to his British salt, he had analysed everything so correctly. And we’ve been the best of buddies ever since.

I have included this little anecdote just to share with you the fact that there are many many people out there who are enthusiastic about change, who want to see measurable progress in our worldview. They are willing to change ‘old school’ ideas for ‘new school’ ideas. They are willing to improvise, improve and innovate where necessary so that we can progress into the future. And most important…..their minds are open!

In my session with the university students at the recent Sikh Youth Australia camp in June 2009, I remember clearly these words I had used to address the audience;

“I am tired of being a minority. I have had it with being a minority. I refuse to be a minority anymore. Why should I be content to be a minority? Why should I be resigned to be a minority? Why should I simply sit back and accept this fate? Sikhs seem to have resigned themselves and accepted their lot, as always being a minority, as never being good enough to be a majority, for infinity and eternity. Well, sorry, but count me out. I will not succumb to that mentality. I shall instead work harder, better, smarter, so that one hundred years from now, my children’s children will not have to live as a minority, even if it is in just one country in this world. To fulfill the vision of my teachers, I am going to work to create teachers, who will speak a new language, teach a new teaching, and live a new Sikhi. Let me quote the beautiful words of my mentors;

Sant Niranjan Singh of Patiala – “Go and create ‘Lighted Candles’. That is your duty. An extinguished candle cannot give light to another”.

Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Singh – “I did not come here to create disciples. I came to create teachers. So, go and teach!

When Orville and Wilbur Wright spoke of making an aeroplane of aluminium and steel fly through the air, I’m sure there were people around who said those same words – ‘Are you smarter than God?’ Don’t you know that God made gravity. Only things that are lighter than air, can fly!

God wants us to succeed. God wants Sikhi to succeed. Or he would not have created us. Why would God create Sikhism only to fail? Our Gurus want us to innovate. Our Gurus expect us to innovate. We need more ideas. We need more ‘Bandhi Cchor divas’ type ground breaking ideas. It does not mean that if something did not exist in the time of four Gurus, it is unacceptable, that it cannot be introduced. Didn’t we introduce the ‘Janam Sanskaar’. It never existed at the time of our Gurus. It was created to solve a problem. Sikhs did not have a birth ceremony. We only had an Amrit Ceremony, for when someone wanted to join the Khalsa. Without a birth ceremony, Sikh women in India were going to the Brahmins to perform birth rites for their new-born children. The Sikhs then had to stem this practice. In about 1936, they created the Sikh version of a birth rite and called it ‘Janam Sanskaar’. Did anybody ask the Guru’s permission?

The truth is……No! Because it was not necessary. On Baisakh 13th April, 1699, on the day our Guru went on His knees and asked the Sikhs to bless Him with the same Amrit He had just given us, He raised us to be is equals, in an honorary way, not that we can ever be equal to Him in a thousand lifetimes! What He was doing was empowering us. It is what the new gurus of success are only now teaching us in the motivational and self development seminars – How to empower your colleagues and employees, so that the organization can flourish. The shop floor worker can never be equal to the managing director. But that is how we are told to run our corporations, by giving them honorary equality, allowing everyone the opportunity to express new ideas and new visions, for the well being and success of the organization.

Our children deserve a better future than the one we are promising them. We all have to contribute our thoughts and our ideas for it to happen. We cannot continue to live in a cocoon that was spun centuries ago. Within the Sikhi framework, respecting the principles and the values as espoused by our Holy Gurus, we must ‘CONTINUE’ the march into the future. Progress can only come with change. Conversely, there can be no progress without change. That itself is a principle of life and existence!

There are so many brilliant Sikhs out there who are capable of the most brilliant ideas. But all voices have fallen silent. No one is contributing. There are hardly any new thoughts. In the last ten years, I have heard of only Veer I. J. Singh (Sikhi. View With A Bias), and Prof Kapur Singh (Sikhism in the Modern World – Guru Nanak Dev University). Everyone else has shied away, maybe for fear of being criticized as being ‘not pure enough’ or ‘not holy enough’ to be commenting on religious matters.

I expand here what i have written earlier, just so my younger readers who are not familiar with this bit of history can properly acquaint themselves with this most important point. Everyone will recall the sakhi when Guru Gobind Singh Ji used an arrow from his quiver to salute the grave of a pir baba, as He rode past it. What did the Sikhs with him do? Did they just follow Him? Sure they could have just done the same. After all, isn’t it part of being faithful to your Guru, to follow in His words and deeds? They could have said that He is the Guru, He must know what He is doing, even though it is against Sikh practice to bow before anyone, worse still, a grave.

Later, when the riding party stopped for rest, the Holy Guru was questioned by one group of Sikhs as to His actions which were clearly against Sikh teachings. Guru Ji first had a good laugh. He said He was so relieved that they had taken action on His earlier action. He told them that this idea to test them had suddenly come to Him as they were approaching the grave of the pir. He thought about how the Sikhs who were with him would respond to His contradicting actions. Will they have the grounding to bring the matter to His attention? Then, after embracing the leaders of the group which had brought this up, He told them how relieved He was that they had found the courage and the ‘vivek’ or clarity, to raise the matter. Now watch what happens.

It was at this moment in Sikh history that Guru Gobind Singh Ji uttered the following monumental words –
“Hun mainoo yakin hai ke mera Khalsa jawan ho geyaa hai. Hun meraa Khalsa panth sadaa rahega!”.
(“I can see that my Khalsa has come of age, that my Khalsa has grown up and has achieved full maturity. Now I am assured that the Khalsa Panth shall live forever!”)

Has anyone noticed WHEN it was that Guru Sahib commended the Sikhs in this sakhi? Was it those who chose to remain silent and not act, that the Guru praised? It was when they demonstrated their freedom to exercise ‘good discretion’. Also, need I tell you that the majority of the Sikhs in that group were vehemently against this small group taking the matter up to the Guru, because “we have no right to comment on what the Guru does’? And for those of us who so energetically rise up to criticize and ridicule the others who are studying and looking at things from a new perspective, please remember that the Guru did not give any praise to the majority, who had ‘closed their minds and refused to look at the situation under the light of new information’, even though they thought they were acting to protect the sanctity of the Guru!

Until today, Sikhs are still criticizing Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Singh Yogi Ji for introducing Yoga into the Sikh practice of the western Sikhs. They themselves attend aerobics sessions and work out in gyms, but because there are lines in the Holy Guru Granth Sahib that criticised the yogis, these people spent their entire lifetimes claiming that yoga is un-Sikh! It seems that being a parrot is not confined to the birds.

In the U.S., Yogi Ji was banned at worst, and shunned at best by these people and their gurdwaras. He never went to there, unless it was for some specific reason. Even until this day, western Sikhs do not go to ‘Punjabi’ gurdwaras. They just built their own. And it turns out that it was Yogi Ji and not his critics, who brought hundreds of thousands of western and Asian people from Thailand, Vietnam, China and Japan to the Sikh religion. All those who were happily criticizing him for decades have contributed almost nothing to the growth of the Panth.

The learning from this is that for someone to be right, the other does NOT have to be wrong. There may be times when ‘Both can be right!

A perfect example of ‘Both can be right’ is the sakhi of Bhai Khanaiyaa. Those who brought the complaint that Bhai Khanaiyaa was serving the enemy, were also right. Please don’t take this sakhi and this matter lightly, just for knowledge. It was a matter of life and death for those Sikhs on the battle field. For every Mughal soldier Bhai Khanaiyaa restores and returns to the battlefield, don’t know how many Sikhs may die for it. But yet, it was Bhai Khanaiyaa who was praised and complimented by the holy Guru. History does not record the Guru praising the complainants!

Sometimes, what looks right may not be. Sometimes, what looks wrong may not be! It is wise to be careful before we judge, lest we overlook something.

I hope that we have all been able to see through the sharing of this sakhi that our holy Guru not only praises us when we are faithful Sikhs, but also when we are empowered enough and can act to improve a situation that may need attention. That too, folks, is our sacred duty, lest anybody forget. Our Guru’s entire mission was to empower us, not disempower us. Our Gurus did not require us to ‘hand back all responsibility and creativity back to the safe hands of the Gurus’. Anybody can be a parrot. It takes the Guru’s knowledge and wisdom to fly out and be free from the cage.

This should be an important consideration for all of us if we are to move forward into the future as a community. With that one statement, “Hun mera Khalsa Jawan ho geyaa hai!”, our brilliant Guru freed us forever, expressing the confidence in us to be able to raise new ideas and new approaches, because collectively, the Khalsa will always have the intellectual capacity to manage ourselves in the absence of the Guru’s physical presence.

It is not possible for anyone to be a scholar and thinker and not come up with new ideas and concepts for the greater community to ponder. As Osho Rajneesh taught his students – “If you have nothing new to offer, stay at home”. And this other wisdom came from a dear friend just yesterday – “If you are afraid of criticism, don’t do anything!”

Everyone of you out there is constantly modifying and improving your self and the things you teach your children as you yourself are growing in knowledge and wisdom. Why is it that some people feel that constant improvement can only be allowed and actually encouraged when it comes to running our homes or making more money, but it is a sin when it comes to applying the same process when it comes to our religious practices?

Sikhs must feel empowered. Contribute constructively. We must all realize that we must come forward if we have any thoughts. Write them down. Post them for others to contemplate or even advance and develop. Some may not be workable. But others might be. It is everybody’s responsibility to aid our progress. You do not have to be the holiest Sikh in the world to have a good idea or suggestion. Conversely, some of the holiest Sikhs may not have the leadership, visionary or even management skills that so many of you have acquired over the years through the books you are reading and the seminars you attend. So tell me now, who has to speak up for the Sikh nation, if not you?

There is no such person as holy enough to speak, anyway! As Jesus once said, “Let that man who is without sin cast the first stone!” In the house of our Holy Guru, we are all equal. Do not be afraid to progress. It is not a sin to expect progress. The Gurus are counting on us. So are our children!

Satnaam

What Brings Progress to the World

The world owes almost all of its success and progress, not necessarily to those who agreed with the way everybody was thinking, but more to those who disagreed with the rest of the world. It is the people who disagree with the common thinking, who invent or discover new things for everyone else to benefit and enjoy.

· Aeroplanes were invented by people who disagreed with the belief that only things that are lighter than air can fly. They proved the whole world wrong, and made aeroplanes that weigh hundreds of tons fly through the sky. Everybody else said they were wrong. It wasn’t possible!

· Telephones were invented by people who disagreed that the only way to talk to others was by sitting next to them. To everybody’s disbelief and criticism, they believed that there should be no reason why people could not talk to each other when they were far away. Then some others even disagreed that the only way to talk long distance was by a wired telephone. Why, they said, can’t we talk without telephone cables? And then, the walkie talkie and soon the mobile phone were born! Everybody else said it wasn’t possible!

· The i-pod was born when some people disagreed that the only way to access music was by owning cupboards full of cassettes and CD’s. Why, they said, can’t there be an easier way to have music available on the go, instead of carrying huge CD players and cassette decks? Everybody else said it wasn’t possible!

To look for new results when something is not working is to ‘Disagree’ with the worldview. That ‘Disagreeing’ is necessary. And if approached correctly, always seems to open new doors and bring a new set of achievements for those who kind of ‘dare’ to disagree.

Guru Nanak founded the Sikh religion because he dared to disagree with the Hindu view. Guru Gobind Singh invented the Khalsa because he dared to disagree with many of his relatives and the masands who were saying that Sikhs should not raise an army because by doing so, the emperor from Delhi will come to destroy them. They said that if they didn’t make the emperor angry by raising an army, all will be fine and the emperor would just let them live happily ever after!

The world has continued to advance because of those who DISAGREED with the commonly held ideas and views. So, to all of us in the Mission, and to those who find our work exciting, never be afraid to disagree with the common thinking. The common thinking is usually an obstacle to progress. It makes people accept things the way they are and stops them from changing things to make them better.

Recently, I was talking to someone over a cup of tea. He started to speak about my work and my articles and blogs. Citing an example of a proposal of mine to the Sikh World, ie, Guru Jhal Ceremony, he went on to appraise me that over a lunch time discussion he had had, there were some on the table who did not understand. I laughed. “That’s great news”, I joked. Then I know for sure that we are on the right track. That means that our thoughts and ideas are ‘uncommon’. Just like all the inventors who disagreed with the rest of the commonly held views, we too are sure to find great success with our Mission. If there are people who can’t agree or accept our ideas, we are definitely on the right track! Satnam to that!!!

Student or Disciple; Understanding Who We Are

Some writers have translated the word ‘Sikh’ to mean learner or student. I have to clearly highlight this misconception. It is actually quite misleading to say ‘Sikh’ means learner. This is also possibly the reason why Sikhs continue to learn and learn, but hardly anyone is practicing or doing anything about their Sikhi. What I mean will become clearer as we read on.

Sikh is a Sanskrit word that has its root word as ‘Shish’. Sikh means ‘Disciple’, or ‘Apprentice’ in today’s modern language. There is a huge difference between a learner or student, and a disciple. For example, a Christian brother may go to a Sikh to study Sikhism, its art and culture. He may have no intention of becoming a Sikh! The Christian is now a student. But another Christian may go to a Sikh saint and become a disciple. As happened with thousands of westerners who became disciples of Siri Singh Sahib Yogi Ji, this person now WANTS TO BE a Sikh.

The business of a student is to study and gather information. The business of a disciple or an apprentice is to PRACTICE what the teacher PRACTICES. Sikhi is not only about gathering information.

I am not here to inform you. I am here to ‘Transform’ you.

Guru Nanak didn’t come here to give us information. Sikhi is not something we only study, but something we PRACTICE. We first SEE what our teachers do, and then we DO it ourselves. Sikhi is not only in the learning, but more in the DOING!

This understanding is also very critical at this stage of our Mission. That is why a huge shift in the thinking of the Sikhs is in order. Up until now, most of what we have been doing is collecting information. We just keep listening to more and more lectures, more and more ‘parchaar’. Ask yourself this question – All this information you are collecting, will it be any use when you are standing in front of Dharam Raj? Does it mean that if you are a Sikh historian, you will automatically get Mukti, since you now know every Sakhi and everything about Sikh history? Where did that misconception come from, that knowing more Sikh sakhis and more Sikh history will bring me Mukti?

We must really ask ourselves - Is there any lifestyle change in my life after I listen to those lectures? Did I go out and do something Godly for someone? That is the six-million dollar question to ask. Have I started my inner journey? Or questions like - Did you buy and send food to the home of a poor family? Did you buy school books and uniforms for children who cannot afford them? Did you give money to a poor family to buy medicines for their seriously ill child? Did you hold their hand and pray for someone who needed prayer or did you send them to see a Granthi because you ‘didn’t have time’ or ‘didn’t want to get involved’?

Have you done ANYTHING at all to ‘PRACTICE’ your Sikhi? If your answer is yes to even one of the questions, then that calls for rejoicing. But if your answer is no to all, then its time to reflect. For most people, it is enough to keep thinking that I am a good enough Sikh. because I go to Gurdwara and listen to all the kirtan and lectures. Just remember – We are not students! We are disciples. We are not learners; we are practitioners! Until we convert what we learn in those lectures into an improved Sikhi lifestyle, all we are doing is “I Feel Good” activity! This knowledge, this understanding alone should now be enough to bring life-style change in us.

Now look at what the western DISCIPLES of Harbhajan Singh Yogi ji have been doing. They have been practicing what their teacher has been practicing. They listen, they learn and then THEY PRACTICE. That’s why they are where they are, and we are where we are! And now, we invite them to come to Asia to teach Sikhs to be Sikhs. What a paradox!

I am not here to transfer ‘knowledge’. I am here to transfer ‘Being’.

Interestingly, without realizing it, all I got from Gurdwaras all my life was ‘information’, knowledge and more knowledge – lectures on Sikh History, translations of kirtan shabds and Hukam Namas. Even after reading, singing and hearing the words of Guru Nanak in the Asa di Vaar – ‘Parrh Parrh Gaddi Laddhieh… (One may read and study cart-loads of holy books and religious manuscripts….), it never struck me what Baba Ji was trying to teach me. And I just continued to sit in Gurdwaras nodding my head to all the gems of wisdom and truth that were coming from the singers and speakers. I had no idea that I was just collecting more information to put on the already dusty shelves of my mind. I had no idea that that was all wonderful ‘I Feel Good’ activity.

Then one day, I realized that I did not have to know what is written in the 1430 pages of the Holy Jyot Sahib. Just knowing one thing that was written on one page there was enough to get my Mukti, as long as I started practicing it. No one has to wait until they have studied every page of the Holy Granth Sahib, every word of Sikh history, before you become a lighted candle, or a teacher. All you have to do is practice Dharma, practice the goodness in your heart, practice truthfulness in life, and practice devotion in your soul. No language or words or knowledge is necessary for this.

When Guru Nanak went to visit Bhai Lalo (The Sakhi of Malik Bhago and the two pieces of Bread. Out of one came blood. Out of the other came milk!), He embraced Lalo as a true Sikh. It was the first time they were meeting. Bhai Lalo had never seen or heard of Baba Nanak before. Had Bhai Lalo read and mastered the Holy Granth Sahib? Of course not. It did not even exist at that time! Had Bhai Lalo attended lectures and understood the translations of the Paath? Actually, Lalo was totally illiterate, as people of that time were apt to be.

Guru Nanak praised him for being a true Sikh all because when Lalo had seen a holy man (Nanak), he had immediately invited him to his house to have a meal with him, even though he was so poor that there was hardly anything to eat in his house! It had nothing to do with knowledge. (Bhai Lalo was a wood-worker. He used to make and sell wooden pegs that were used by weavers to anchor into the ground to which the weavers attached their weaving hand-mills. So to buy food for the night meal with Nanak, whom he only knew as ‘just another holy man’ until the miracle of the pieces of bread, he worked longer that day, prepared many more pegs than usual, and sold them for all for just enough to buy that bit of extra food.

Today, Bhai Lalo is one of the greatest teachers of the Sikh religion. No Sikh grows up without listening to the beautiful sakhi of Bhai Lalo and the Miracle of the Bread. And as a teacher, what does Bhai Lalo teach us? He teaches us what it is that makes miracles happen in our lives– because Lalo lived a truthful life, earned a truthful living, and shared whatever little he had with anyone who needed it. He teaches us that because of the truth that resided in him, Baba Guru Nanak was able to perform that miracle, to save him from the anger of Malik Bhago. He teaches us that had Bhai Lalo not been a true disciple, Baba Nanak would not have performed that miracle for him. Bhai Lalo teaches us that Baba Guru will only perform miracles for us when we make ourselves deserving of His miracles, when we make ourselves worthy of His miracles.

And this is what being a disciple is all about. It is not about LEARNING and LEARNING. It is about DOING and DOING!

So you see, how easy it is to be a teacher and a lighted candle. It doesn’t matter if you can’t read or write Gurmukhi. Most of the western Sikhs can’t either. But look at how good disciples they are. And look at how good ‘Lighted Candles’ they are.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know Sikh history, or the names of the Panj Piaras. You can be a Lighted Candle today, right here and right now. Just flip that switch in your mind and make the affirmation. “I am a Lighted Candle NOW”. I am a Teacher of Sikhi NOW!

Keep saying it to yourself. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t even know what it means to be a Lighted Candle. Just make that affirmation now, and by tomorrow morning, watch the miracle happen in your life. Baba Nanak will take you in His Holy hands and show you what it will mean FOR YOU! It may be different from someone else. SO what! Just be ready to give. Just be ready to serve. Observe what our Gurus, our elders, or any other Lighted Candle is doing, and DO IT.

It was only in the last few years that I began to realize that we do not get our salvation, our ‘Mukti’, by collecting more and more information. We will get it by ‘BEING’ a Sikh. So I had to start all over again, unlearning and re-learning. I worked hard at achieving a spiritual ‘EXPERIENCE’, before I could venture forward to give others the same.

In a keynote shabd - Gur Satgur ka jo Sikh Akhaeh…, Guru Ji writes verse after verse of teaching on what the PRACTICE of a Sikh should be, from the minute he she wakes in the morning . On page 910 of the Guru Jyot Sahib, Guru Ji has written verse after verse on what ‘Pooja’ or worship is. Nowhere in these entire shabads is there any mention about being a student and collecting information. It’s all about being a disciple and DOING what the Guru did.

The idea of sharing this information with my readers is to make us aware of the difference of being a student and being a disciple. It is now time for Sikhs to move on from being students and start becoming disciples.

I hope this little essay has been beneficial in your quest to understand the way of Sikh dharma. It’s not in the learning. It’s in the doing. Always look for the little things that we can DO so that we can LIVE OUR TEACHERS (GURU’S) DHARMA. Then, and only then will ‘Mukti’ come naturally, without even trying! It’s in the DOING and DOING!

Satnaam.

Keep Growing. Keep Glowing!

Mission Update Jul 2009

Keep Growing. Keep Glowing!

Dear members and all well wishers of the Mission, it is with great pride and happiness that I bring this good news for you. The Mission and our mission work seems to be shifting into high gear. More and more people, more and more gurdwaras are coming on board and giving us their support. It is only such a short time that we started mission work; March this year tot be exact. But the success we have achieved this far is nothing short of phenomenal.

Our April tour of the seven gurdwaras in Sydney was so well received that even now the sangat is still talking about it. When I was there in Sydney for the Sikh Youth Australia Leadership Camp last week, the president of the Revesby Gurdwara came to meet me. We had lunch together. He wanted to know if we could come every year if they were to sponsor our tour. As you all know, we have had similar receptions everywhere we have gone in Malaysia. We have been blessed by Waheguru Ji with success in serving the sangat at home and overseas. This is all because of the greatness of the sangat, who overlook our shortcomings and are praying for our success.

On our last Kirtan-on-Wheels to Perak on the 4th and 5th, we were very honoured by the wonderful reception by the sangat that was given to us by all the nine gurdwaras on this yatra. The sangat of Menglembu even hired their own bus to join the yatra, so we had three buses. It was awesome. When we got home to KL, the sangat was so excited that they were already demanding that we announce the dates for the next yatra! We have already decided on the destinations. Just waiting to confirm the dates and Veer Hardeep will soon make the announcement. The sangat is going to love it.

Even more good news. Last night we did kirtan at the Kampong Pandan Settlement Gurdwara Sahib. The Bhenjis who had come from there promised that in all future yatras, one special bus will be organized by the sangat there for their own sangat. This is fantastic. Also, we received so much support from the President Sahib and the Granthi Sahib Ji, Veer Harjit Singh, who highlighted in his closing message how important the work that the volunteers in the Mission were doing. The President Sahib (name withheld for privacy) also did a very noble thing by sponsoring the cost of all the langgar that was to be served to the public for the ‘Meals-on-Wheels’ for the 12th July.

A vote of thanks for the Committee and sanggat of Kampong Pandan Wadda Gurdwara Sahib that has also joined the Mission to prepare meals in turn with other gurdwaras, to be delivered to the public on Sundays. Veer Jasbir Singh of Great Eastern Life has been instrumental in coordinating this seva. I also wish to point out that the committee of this same gurdwara had in April donated RM 1500 to the Malaysian Sikh Band to show their support for the band’s contribution to the Sikh community.

We have also been blessed by the joining of Veer Baldev Singh Ji (and his two sons), who helps pick up the meals and the drinks from the gurdwaras and homes where the meals are being prepared, with a one ton truck that he borrows from another Sikh brother. It is our prayer that more and more brothers and sisters will come forward to serve in Mission Sacha Saudha. There is a job and a role for everyone.

We are also blessed to have teamed up with another brother (identity withheld for privacy). Actually, Veer Ji is well ahead of us. He actually has bought and dedicated two large vans painted in our Guru’s colors of Orange Kesri and carrying the Holy name of Baba Guru Nanak. The best part is that his team is distributing meals every day at between 15 – 18 locations where the poor and destitute live. This is amazing. The Mission is looking forward to meeting up with Veer Ji to see what we can learn from him and his team so that we can improve our seva. Now Veer ji has offered us one van to use on Sundays.

So I hope that all Mission members can see that as we aspire to rise up to serve the Holy sangat, our gurdwaras and our Sikh organizations, Baba Guru is sending the people to us who are going to teach us how to be better at the seva we wish to do. Just like when we started to plan an increase in our water cups from ten cartons to twenty, Baba Ji sent us Bhenji Jessvinder Kaur from Mydin to join Mission work. Today she supervises all our water needs, not only arranging the purchasing, but the delivery to our Mission premises for storage till use. Waheguru! If anybody still doesn’t believe that God and Guru is not with us, better look again. Almost everyday, we are seeing a new miracle. People are just joining in from everywhere.

Latest news as of ten minutes ago: Port Dickson Gurdwara has welcomed us to hold our next and upcoming ‘Fathers and Sons’ Camp for the members of the Mission Sikh Student Fellowship, on the 20th and 21st of September. They have also volunteered to prepare the langgar for us. I take this opportunity to offer them our wholehearted thanks for their kindness and generosity. It will be a great camp. We will even invite some of the dad’s from Port Dickson to join us. That will be great.

As we continually seek to improve ourselves and our seva, let us work harder to serve the gurdwaras and the Sikh associations of our country. We can help them whenever manpower is needed. As life members of Sikh Naujawan Sabha, we are already deeply entrenched in Sabha work. Let us also offer ourselves to the other organizations in whichever way we can, so that we can become more useful and can help them achieve their organizational objectives. Always remember our slogan – T.E.A.M. – Together Everyone Achieves More! Keep Going. Baba Guru has much more blessings in store for all who shall serve selflessly.

Celebrate your Sikhi. Celebrate the benovalence of the sadh Sangat. And rejoice in the blessings of Akaal Purakh Waheguru.

Satnam.

The Sri Guru Jyot Sahib

Bet that got your attention. Yep. You’re reading it right. The Sri Guru Jyot Sahib. As I lead the students in my school on their journey into Sikhi, I become more and more aware of the many references in the holy gurbanee about what really the Guru is. Then I also recall that many times our Gurus reminded us that “I am not the Guru. The Guru is the word of God, Gurbanee.” That was also the answer the Holy Guru Nanak gave to the leader of the Yogis, Gorakhnath. Upon being questioned by the yogi as to who Nanak’s Guru was, Guru Baba replied;

“Shabd Guru, surtt dhun chela”. Pg 943 Line 1 Holy SGJS
The Word of God is my Guru!

Then we have other commonly known references like
“Banee Guru, Guru hai banee.” Pg 982 Line 10 Holy SGJS

Then we are taught that banee itself is ‘Divine Light’
“Gurbanee ess jagh meh channan Pg 67 Line 10 Holy SGJS
Gurbanee is the Light that illuminates the world.

Even in our ardaas, we refer to the Gurbanee as - Dasan Paatshahian dhi Jyot.

And then, it suddenly all came together in one big rush……….. I had seen the Light!

But before I go any further, lets review what I have written before in my other postings. Guru is a Sanskrit word that means from darkness to light. My vidya guru, His Holiness Sant Niranjan Singh Ji of Patiala taught us to translate and understand the word Guru to be – ‘Perfect Light’. Now, if Banee is Guru and Guru means ‘Perfect Light’, then Banee must be ‘Perfect Light’. And if that be the case, then why do we Sikhs refer to the compilation of the holy Banee as a granth and not as the Holy Light of God, or just The Holy Light? This point may sound trivial, but its significance is immense. By the use of the more accurate word, our reference to our holy scripture becomes self explainatory to the whole world, without anyone having to offer any explanations!

A granth simply means a volume, or a scripture that is voluminous. Nothing glorious about it. There are probably hundreds of ‘granths’ around. Why lump our holy gurbanee into that description when we can address it with a much more ‘MEANINGFUL’ title, one that allows the individual a much more personal experience when bowing to, or when referring to the holy gurbanee, much more so when describing it to a visitor to the gurdwara or a student of Sikh dharma.

The Guru is not the granth. It may have been the ancient way to refer to holy books. But that exactly is my point. For the Sikhs, the Sri Guru Granth Sahib IS NOT MERELY A GRANTH. Our Gurus have clearly differentiated it from all the other granths of the world. Actually, it is not even a granth. The banee is not the book. It never was. It is not the paper, the ink or the cover. So why reduce the Holy Light that is descended from ‘Dargah’ into just another one of those granths?

Dhur kee banee aayee Pg 628 Line 2, Holy SGJS
The Holy Banee is descended from the Lord Himself, the Perfect One.

It is descended from the source (Dhur), from ‘Dargah’. So why don’t we address the Holy Guru Granth Sahib as the Holy Sri Guru Jyot Sahib. In English, it could translate to a very clear - The Holy Light of the Sikhs. With this one stroke, we instantly change the entire projection and perception of our holy ‘book’.

Instead of referring to the SGGS as the Holy Scripture or the Holy Bible of the Sikhs as we always do, now we can change the entire energy of the utterance by informing the world that here is the ‘Holy Light’ of the Sikhs!

Unlike the word Granth, the word ‘Light’ is very special. It embraces and encompasses the whole physical and metaphysical universe. Under this light, the word Granth does not do justice to gurbanee. There can be no better words than ‘Holy Light’ to describe the scripture of the Sikhs. And suddenly, it will be so easy for people all over the world to understand what we are trying to say to them. They can now understand why Sikhs regard the Holy Jyot Sahib so highly and above everything else. It immediately gives substance and strength to the whole subject of why SIkhs revere their holy scripture so much, much much more than any other religion does theirs!

The word Light in any language of the world is such a powerful and up-lifting word. No other word could be more appropriate to describe the eternal Guru of the Sikhs.

Even today, Sikhs use the word ‘Parkaash’ when referring to the morning installation ceremony of the Holy Granth. Parkaash means – the Radiance, another practice that confirms that the Granth is Holy Perfect Light. Even in our Ardaas we again refer to its essence; “Dasan Paatshahia dhi Jyot, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji ka dhian dhar keh bolo Sri Waheguru!

On the days that we celebrate the 'birth of our Holy Gurus, why does one speaker after another at the gurdwara stage remind us NOT to call it a 'birthday. They remind us to say - 'Parkaash Diharaa'. Parkaash can only refer to light.

So, for me, out with the old and in with the new. Since a few days ago, I have begun to refer to the Granth Sahib as the Sri Guru Jyot Sahib. At first it sounded a bit ‘different’ and clumsy. But over time, I'll probably get a hang of it.

The final reference of all Sikh scholars is the 'Mahan Kosh' prepared by Kanh Singh Nabha, one of most respected and greatest minds Sikhs have ever known. It is an encyclopedia of the Sikh religion and generally accepted to be the ultimate authority for students of the Sikh religion. On page 436, in the third column and about the middle, you will find the meaning of the word 'Granth'. It is given as 'pustak' and in brackets is given 'kitab'.

Which one of us has not heard these words, that "The Guru Granth Sahib is not a book". Thats what we tell people and also teach our kids. Excuse me? Am I missing something here? We tell others not to call it a book, so how come we are calling it a book in our own language, albeit in a glorified way.

Referring to our holy scripture as 'The Holy Perfect Light' makes a lot of sense to me. It even makes for clearer communication. For eg, my old way to say this sentence would have been:
“As we enter the Darbar, we bow to the Granth Sahib.”
My new way would be:
“As we enter the Darbar, we bow to the Holy Perfect Light”

Now you tell me which one conveys more meaning, which one commands your attention, which one has more substance, and which one speaks to your heart?

During one of my classes last week, when I asked the class to give me their feedback, one of my young students correctly pointed out to me:
“But wasn’t it Guru Gobind Singh Ji who had used the word Granth when saying ‘Sabh Sikhan ko hukm hai, Guru manio Granth’. I had to agree that that’s what the history books tell us. But I also told the student that if the Holy Guru was with us in body today, I would have explained my point to Him. I said that I have every reason to believe that the Guru Himself would have overwhelmingly supported me on this change.

Is it possible that when the Holy Guru Gobind Singh Ji used the words "Guru Manio Granth', it was simply a means of explaining, that from now on, after His 'jotee jot samonaa', Sikhs will have to get used to relating to the Holy Gurbani contained in the 'Granth' in the same manner that they have been relating to the physical presence of the Holy Gurus. Instead of coming before the Guru's physical presence, they will now have to go before the physical manifestation of the gurbani, the Granth Sahib. The Gurbani, will from now till eternity, be their guiding light.

And by the way, yes, for the dohera after the ardaas, I shall still sing it as Guru Manio Granth!

Satnam

Snatam Sikhi

An Introduction


When All Other Means Have Failed, It Is Righteous To Do Something New And Different!


Snatam Sikhi is just a name, a reference to a different approach to Sikhi. It is in no way an attempt to start a new sect. Don’t we have enough of them? Instead, it is an attempt to re-energise and inspire a new wave of Sikhi that can take us to the big wide world out there, and to the future. Snatam simply means devotional, divine.

Sikhi was never meant for only the Punjabees. If that is what we have understood, we are way off the mark. The Holy Guru Nanak Himself walked round the whole known world of His time, to spread his message of Sikhi. And we Sikhs had better wake up to that fact. We should encourage as many people as we can to embrace Sikhi instead of giving everyone such a hard time for trying to become Sikhs, with our endless rules and conditions that almost no one seems to be able to comply with.

The Sikh leadership from the Punjab has failed the Sikh nation. All appointments to the Sikh religious leadership are actually political. Even then, no one has any real power or ability to deliver measurable gains for the panth. The jathedaars come and go. All they have done till date is add and subtract verses from the Rehraas and the Doheraa we read after the Ardaas. Almost none of the religious leadership can read or write English, further adding to their isolation from the ‘real’ world that we all live in today.

Even the Akaal Takht is today simply a building. Our Gurus had intended it to become the Vatican of the Sikhs. There is no leadership or guidance coming from there. We keep showering it with layers upon layers of gold over the top, but inside, all we hear are the echoes of our past. Besides the daily readings of gurbanee and the daily presentation of the weapons of our holy warriors, absolutely nothing happens there.

The Sikh leadership has no strategies or budgets for global or even local missionary work. The entire landscape is in shambles. The seeds for the ruin of the panth have been planted everywhere. Christians are swooping down on us from above. 35 Sikhs from the Sikh holy city of Sirhind, where the chhoteh sahibzadeh were martyred, were recruited and sent to Bangalore to be trained as Christian Missionaries. Can you imagine the damage to Sikhi when they return to Punjab.

This is only the beginning. The real show has not even begun. What happened in Sirhind was just a test to see the Sikh response to a direct frontal assault on the Sikhs right here in their homeland. As usual, there was none. The Christians always do their homework. Our leaders are too busy grovelling for positions to notice what is happening right under their noses. In Singapore and Malaysia, a huge number of Sikhs have already been converted to Christianity. Not a single month goes by without news of another family’s conversion.

In India, Hindu chauvinists are gnawing at our flesh. Every attempt is being made to re-absorb us into the Hindu mainstream. Another eternal enemy of the Sikhs in the UK are openly taunting and targeting our youths for conversion. They are succeeding too. If persuasion doesn’t work, they use violence. Sikhs fight each other in Gurdwaras, but no one has the guts to fight those who conspire to swallow us up, who grow bolder each day.

It is a sign of desperate times. But it is the perfect time. Just like the time of our Gurus. Adversity has always been the friend of the Sikh and the Khalsa. It is in times of adversity that the Guru brings out the best in His Sikhs. History is my witness. This is the true meaning of ‘Chardhi Kla’.

For the ‘Chardhi Kla’ of the panth, the Holy Guru Gobind made this earth shaking pronouncement in 1675 – “When all other means have failed, it is righteous to draw the sword”. Today, we find ourselves in an exact similar situation. Again, it is our faith that is under attack.

The reason we are under attack is because Sikhi worldwide is itself witnessing a Fizzle-Out. People are bored in the Gurdwaras. The programs are dull and uninteresting. Gurdwaras worldwide are experiencing massive absenteeism. Almost 80 % of Sikhs only go to Gurdwara upon the invitation of someone. Long gone are the days when Sikhs went to a Gurdwara to worship!

I could go on for weeks, but I believe I have made my point. Unless we all learn how to come together and re-inject new life and new energy into the Sikh masses, we could be looking at our sunset; looking pretty, going going, slowly gone. In just a few years, we could lose the ‘critical mass’ in numbers required to sustain a living 'religious' community. Of course we will have no trouble surviving as Punjabis. It is our survival as Sikhs that i am talking about. That is what is under threat today. If we fall below a certain number, the few that remain will simply disappear into the crowd. 'The Last Sikh Standing' would really have nothing to be a SIkh for. Already we are so few and so far between that many Gurdwaras remain shut for weeks before an event is held there, for whatever reason.

I pray my readers will be kind enough to spare me the rhetoric we are so used to hearing whenever someone raises the topic of our slow disappearance, about Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s declaration of – “Raaj Karega Khalsa”. When saying that, He never implied that He will be pulling all the strings from His heavenly abode and Jack Robinson!! Suddenly there are one billion new Sikhs on the surface of the planet. Wake up folks! He was actually laying out the Mission for us, yes, YOU AND ME! He was telling all of us to get off our behind (pardon my French) and spread the message of Sikhi to the world. He was actually commissioning all of us to do that work, not sit around for it to somehow magically ‘Happen’.

Today, I seek inspiration from our great Guru Himself. Using His very own words, I will say – “When All Other Means Have Failed, It Is Righteous To Do Something New And Different!

Today, we have fallen so far behind that there is only one way to go, that is to return Sikhi to its basics and start ALL OVER AGAIN, BABY STEPS AND ALL! We have to imagine we are back at the times of Guru Baba Nanak. We have to re-introduce Sikhi to the Punjabee and non-Punjabee in a language the world understands – English. We have to start again, keeping things so simple; a simple initiation process into the faith like the ‘charan Amrit of our Gurus, and then just the three original commandments of Guru Nanak

Naam japo
Kirt karo
Vandh shakkoh

We have to create a Sikhi that is devotional and experiential. His Holiness Yogi Ji has shown us how practical and powerful that is. For the first time after 300 years, we are seeing new people, in this case from the west converting to the Sikh faith. He has showed us that Sikhi today must no longer be one of passive attendance, most people just sitting around till its time to eat. People must go back to their homes having participated, having experienced an upliftment of their soul, and some fire in their spirit. People must walk and live this journey. They must be involved in it, be immersed in it, not just wait for ragi’s to sing shabads to them and granthis to do ardaas for them! I am willing to bet every cent I have that this new approach will actually inspire many more people rising to the status of Khalsa than what we have today.

Snatam Sikhi is only a name. You can call it any other name you like. Let it be 'Revival Sikhi'. Words are only meant as a means of communicating an idea, to express this line of thought. It is necessary give it some reference to allow us to discuss the ideas that will come from everywhere. I am not the only one responsible for this Mission. You all are too. We are all answerable to our Gurus for growing and spreading Sikhi in the world, which is what they started. I hope you don’t think that Sikhi was only meant to grow and spread while they were around. And after that, we can all sit idly by and watch everything our Gurus built crumble because we were all waiting for them to come back one more time to do the whole stuff all over again!

I don’t have all the answers. I only have an idea to develop on an idea that was given to us by the Siri Singh Sahib. I have an idea that to grow, we have to do something different. Working harder and harder at the same thing that has been failing for decades is not the answer. Doing the SAME thing harder and harder again and again and expecting a DIFFERENT result is Steven Covey’s definition of insanity! That is what I learnt at a motivational camp in 1995 and that is what the Sikh world is still doing today, using the same method of parchaar as we have been doing for the last 40 years, and expecting everyone to suddenly do a U-Turn and start packing the gurdwaras.

If we want a DIFFERENT RESULT, a DIFFERENT SUCCESS, we have to do something that is ‘NEW AND DIFFERENT’. Or stated another way – “We must not be afraid to do something that is new and different” if we want to see a new result. Our Gurus never attended any seminars to learn this stuff but that is exactly what they were doing way back in the 15th century! They turned Hindustan upside-down with their mind provoking teachings. They were not afraid to challenge the centuries old practices of the people then. Then we too should have the courage to walk in the footsteps of our founding fathers, and challenge our own beliefs and practices that have become ineffective.

Snatam Sikhi is best described as 'Inside-Out' Sikhi. That is a great description. It is the exact opposite of the outside-in Sikhi we are all used to; the one where you are born a Sikh, grow your hair naturally, wear your kara etc and go to gurdwara. Then, you start working on your inside, filling it up with substance from Sikhi. Inside-Out-SIkhi allows people to start by learning and experiencing Sikhi exactly the way they are, without the insistence on hair and turbans, then slowly progressing to being a Khalsa if that is their calling. Otherwise, just be a good Sikh!

But sadly, what we see happen most of the time is that the majority drop out after only a short distance. Since there is almost no-one (as in parents, preachers or missionaries that speak a language people can understand or even teach stuff that is actually relevant to life today) around to provide that much needed 'substance'. Out goes the hair, the kara etc, and in comes the booze, the cigarettes and the rest.

Snatam Sikhi is the 'Inside-Out' approach. it may be our only chance to take Sikhi global, to revive flagging Sikhi. I am definately winning back a whole lot of people who had left their Sikhi lifestyle. They are coming back in significant numbers. This is also because Snatam Sikhi does not require or impose ANY KIND OF appearance code. It also does not impose any kind of lifestyle restrictions. everyone is old enough to know what is right for them. My job therefore is only to show them something better than what they already have.

If I can start filling people up from the inside, the rest will simply take care of itself. and everyone can decide for themselves, how much they want. Snatam Sikhi will be the way into the future.


For details on the concepts of Snatam Sikhi, you may periodically log on to my blog http://www.perfectlightministry.blogspot.com/, or the Mission blog at http://www.sikhswithamission.com/ to keep abreast of emerging ideas and concepts.

Satnam