by SS Dr. Sham Rang Singh Khalsa, Millis, Massachusetts
2025 (Second Quarter)

Tension was in the room, with 400 students sitting for one of only two tests for a whole semester of organic chemistry at MIT. Getting into this course was a big deal in medical school. The proctor told us to start, the little blue books fluttered open simultaneously by the many hands, and we were off!  . . . Yet I just sat there and breathed, chanting silently to Guru Ram Das. I prayed, “If You want me to be a doctor, then you take this test.” I’d spent the last 40 days in Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training and had invested much less time in my academic studies. 

So many times during that test, the answers to questions eluded my thinking mind. Each time, remembering Guru Nanak measuring out the wheat repeating Tera Tera Tera, I’d pray, “This one is Yours.” By the end, I felt tremendous bliss, but was unsure of how the marks would fall. It turned out that my mark was in the top ten in the class. Wow!

At work as an emergency physician, tension and chaos certainly continued to arise. Somehow the crazier it was out there, the more that left the only choice being to work from peace within. I had marveled over the years that other medical students, residents, and ER docs could even function without some type of daily sadhana and surrender into a Higher Power. And I marveled over and over watching Guru Ram Das deliver the goods, from good grades to making correct diagnoses in complex cases and situations. 

Some of my nurses would jokingly call a “Code Khalsa” when crazy stuff was going on. “Go get Dr. Khalsa and throw him in Room 8,” where I would find three burly security guys restraining a kicking and spitting psychotic or drunk patient. It was fun to pull up a chair to the top of the bed and have a simple chat with the patient about the weather, watching the whole room settle down. Stillness at work!

Of course, I could also get triggered. Once, walking a long hallway to see a young man with a runny nose and cough, my mind spurted thoughts of how stupid he was to come to an ER for a cold. Since it was a long walk, I had time to hear my thoughts and respond internally. “So maybe he is stupid, then he wouldn’t know any better. I’m acting stupid by judging him as stupid when I haven’t even met him yet.” Once I did meet him and he didn’t seem stupid, I asked him if he would normally come to the ER for a cold. He broke down, opened up, and told me he was just so worried because he was a smoker and his uncle had died of lung cancer the week before. It was a good visit.

Shuniya seems to open doors, some of them quite unexpected. I remember feeling bored in department meetings, then noticing that boredom was a feeling to be explored, noticing that I was boring myself, dropping into Shuniya, and then . . .  Either I’d be smiling in peace, or something very interesting would pop up in the meeting. 

 The Guru is our best Friend, always present, our true identity, whether we are remembering or not. Life is just more fun when we remember. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SS Dr. Sham Rang Singh Khalsa began practicing Kundalini Yoga in 1977, graduated medical school and moved into the Millis ashram in 1983, and began practicing emergency medicine in 1986. He was the camp physician for Winter and Summer Solstices for decades. With love for the Guru, meditation, and helping people, he serves to integrate all aspects of life. As discerned by the rishis of Ayurveda, Dr. Sham Rang teaches that all experiences, not just food, can be digested back to their elemental Source as unnecessary suffering falls away.