by Sat Kewal Kaur, Moscow, Russia Fall 2010 Guru’s Word sounds heart-touching to everyone, including people who hear Gurbani for the first time. [I had] just started practicing Kundalini Yoga. I listened to Japji every day on the way to work and after work. I simply like how it sounds. I asked myself, “Where is the text to this miracle sound?” I visited the Sikh Gurdwara in Moscow where I lived. To my surprise, I did not find the text in Russian. I visited a market where Sikh salesmen are, and asked one of them to bring Japji text for me direct from India.
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Archives for 2010 - Fall
The Soul of a Sikh
The Guru’s Translation Project
by SS Guruka Singh Khalsa, Espanola NM Fall 2010 On the first day of Khalsa Council in October 2009, we worked in small groups to identify projects that furthered the current Khalsa Council 2009-2011 agenda on the topic Sharing the Teachings: Kundalini Yoga, Shabd Guru, Women, Healing, and Family. In one of those small group sessions, Sardarni Sahiba Sat Mohine Kaur remembered an assignment that the Siri Singh Sahib had given to the women attending Khalsa Women’s Training Camp (KWTC). During the summer of 1983, the Siri Singh Sahib had requested each camp participant to translate some pages of the Siri
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The Guru’s Glossary
by SS Prabhu Nam Kaur Khalsa, San Leandro CA Fall 2010 I had been in the Dharma for a year or two when I had my introduction to the sound current. Amarjeet Kaur was teaching a two-week class at the Golden Temple Restaurant in Los Angeles, which was a 40-minute drive from my home in Long Beach. We worked on one shabd, learning one line every day. I sang that shabd and a few others and never knew the meaning of a single word, but it was attractive to me and so I kept being drawn to singing them. Little
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The Art of Translation
by Gurujot Singh Khalsa, Espanola NM Fall 2010 Originally published on SikhNet.com The act of translation contains its own intrinsic impossibility. That is, every translation is only an approximation of the original. That does not mean that we should not attempt the impossible! In fact, I believe it’s actually necessary to do so. I find it somewhat difficult to translate Gurbani into English because one word in Gurbani could require a whole story or several paragraphs of explanation to understand the whole meaning. Many of the examples used in Gurbani require an understanding of the culture that existed at the time
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Transformation Through Translation
by SS Gurudev Singh Khalsa, Houston TX Fall 2010 The translator’s desktop is seldom considered a place of pilgrimage, a sacred space where the seeker can find his deepest realization. Most of us imagine a place of pilgrimage as a physical place full of beauty and inspiration, where our prayers and hopes are answered and where our pain and suffering are healed. How could one imagine finding such a place in the humble desktop of a translator? Let me try to open a small window to gain a glimpse of such a place. During the years that I spent translating
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Making it Sweet
by SS Sat Mohine Kaur Khalsa, Espanola NM Fall 2010 The focus of our Fall 2009 Khalsa Council Meetings was the Shabd Guru. We broke into small groups to discuss this topic. It came up in our group, through Sat Bachan Kaur, that we needed a good translation of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. Right away pearls of wisdom from our teacher came to me from Ladies’ Camp when he asked us to translate the Siri Guru Granth Sahib as a group of 300. I shared what I could remember from his request and the whole group lit up. Everyone was
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On Being a Sikh Dharma Minister
Reprinted from “Victory and Virtue: Ceremonies and Code of Conduct of Sikh Dharma,” published by the Office of the Bhai Sahiba of Sikh Dharma of the Western Hemisphere. THE FUNCTIONS OF A MINISTER OF SIKH DHARMA A MINISTER of Sikh Dharma is a shining light, a radiant son or daughter of Guru Gobind Singh who lives to be healthy, happy and holy, and who inspires others to live so. A MINISTER lives with an open heart, open ear and open eye in order to feel, hear and see the needs of people around him or her. A MINISTER serves the
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Secretary of Religion Column (Fall 2010)
Our Summer Solstice Ministers’ gathering on Sunday, June 20, 2010 was a unique experience. Based on the theme that the Ministry is the heartbeat, pulse, and spirit of Sikh Dharma, we began by using sound and beat to open up the entire body through the sound current of Ong. This was followed by a moving, sensing exercise to soft music, and then a meditation to release fear of the future. SS Dev Suroop Kaur and Siri Chand Singh played a classical Raag rendition of the Dhan Dhan Ram Das Gur shabd from Dev Suroop Kaur’s new album Sahej-Peaceful Acceptance. If
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#37 Fall 2010 Newsletter
The theme for the Fall 2010 Ministry Newsletter is Transformation Through Translation. We asked Sikh Dharma Ministers and others to share the experience of translating the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. Please enjoy the following articles on this topic. We welcome comments and feedback on this newsletter and our website. Please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in the articles on this website are those of the various authors and not necessarily those of the Office of the Secretary of Religion or Sikh Dharma International.
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