by SS Hari Kaur Khalsa, Espanola, NM
Winter 2010
Fall/Winter has always been such a deeply fulfilling time of year for me. The cottonwood leaves are turning golden, and I am drying chamomile and learning to make calendula oil from yellow and orange calendula flowers. This is also the time of celebrating Guru Ram Das’ birthday.
For 11 nights, the Espanola sangat gathers at different people’s homes and we chant Dhan Dhan Ram Das Gur for 31 minutes together and hear a story about our beloved Guru Ram Das and then eat a delicious dinner together.
One night, we had the blessing to go to Matamandir Singh and Sat Nam Kaur’s house. Matamandir built a gazebo outside their country home with his luscious vegetable garden growing on either side, making us all feel like we were in the Italian countryside.
They put down oriental rugs and we all sat in this circular sacred place and chanted to Guru Ram Das as the sun went down and the sky turned pink and it got chillier so everyone had their shawls wrapped around them.
Matamandir Singh asked me to play the harp and after the chanting, he also asked me to tell a story about my Guru Ram Das box. The whole night was so cozy and enchanting and reminded me of when I used to live in Amsterdam Those were very cherished times for me. And this is how Matamandir knew I had a Guru Ram Das box because it all started in Amsterdam.
Writing My Prayers
The Siri Singh Sahib sent me to Europe after my second divorce. I was to work at the Yogi Tea Company in sales and marketing to represent him all over Europe. I ended up having the blessing of visiting so many beautiful people in our family throughout Europe, people from all walks of life.
I represented us at many big events, including the Human Rights Commission at the United Nations in Geneva with my dear friend Deva Kaur. It was an incredible mission for me and I loved it, but it was also a huge challenge because I didn’t know a soul when I arrived in Europe and I was recovering from my own personal heartbreaks.
One of my friends from Germany gave me a gift of a nice natural wooden little tree. I put it in front of my altar and started writing my prayers to Guru Ram Das on little post-it notes and sticking them on the tree. Within a few hours or days or sometimes a little longer, something would happen that would resolve all my worries and answer my prayers. I called it my Guru Ram Das tree.
My friend Ravi Har Kaur came to Amsterdam for my first birthday in Europe and gave me a beautiful handmade box, lined in satin, with a picture of Guru Ram Das on the top and dried flowers and ribbons. I realized that I could put my little post-it note prayers to Guru Ram Das inside this box.
I liked that idea because then no one could come into my room and see all my personal prayers hanging on the tree. Some of them seemed silly and small to me and I didn’t want the whole world to know the little stuff I was worried about.
Now I don’t think any prayer is too silly or small and I see how Guru Ram Das takes care of even the smallest wish. So that is how the Guru Ram Das box started. I write all my prayers, from big things like prayers for all the children of the world, to prayers for smoothing out something I said that may have been hurtful to someone, to prayers that the gift that I am making for someone opens his/her heart.
People from all over the world call me to ask me to put their prayer in the Guru Ram Das’ box. I am always happy to do it. The most amazing thing about it is to see the miraculous, most creative ways that Guru Ram Das works out the problem or whatever needs to be done. It is never anything I would have thought of. And sometimes it does not come in the same package or wrapping that I imagined, and I have to think, Oh, there it is! That is what I prayed for!
Leaving It to Him
When I do my Celestial Communication every day standing barefoot on the soft earth, I thank Guru Ram Das and the Siri Singh Sahib for all the miracles in my life, including my husband and son and friends and graceful environments and ways to serve and all of you, my family.
I’ve found that the best way to write my prayers down is not to necessarily ask specifically for something or how I want a situation to work out. Sometimes I want to try and manipulate the situation and say he or she will say she’s sorry or he or she will be nice or $1000 will come to me. I found it best to just leave it up to Him, so I say things more like, I feel at peace about this situation or with someone.
Yesterday my husband and I went to Ram Das Puri, our enchanted land where the Siri Singh Sahib said the angels dwell and where we hold Solstice every summer. We walked on the Solstice Healing Walk. The path is in the shape of a spiral and there are three different altars where we leave offerings.
At the first altar, I raised my arms to the open sky and chanted Adi Shakti, the mantra that works through all obstacles and fears and honors the primal feminine energy. At the last altar, I did a Celestial Communication with the mantra Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru. I prayed thanked Guru Ram Das for all the Miracles that allows us to grow and heal and feel at peace in our souls, minds, and hearts so we can share His Divine Light with everyone we meet.
Know that my prayers are with you and I delight in hearing all the incredible ways Guru Ram Das works for all of you.
THE SECRETARY OF RELIGION
SS Hari Kaur Khalsa is an ordained Sikh Dharma Minister. She sends “greetings from my little casita up in the hills of La Puebla, 10 minutes away from the Espanola ashram, where I am so blessed to live with my husband Sat Sangat Singh and sweet dog Sage, with whom I go on sacred walks and do my Celestial Communication in the blue skies of New Mexico.” She lives and serves as part of the Espanola, New Mexico, sangat and teaches Celestial Communication as taught by Yogi Bhajan/the Siri Singh Sahib.
