by SS Dr. Kirpal Singh Khalsa, Espanola NM Winter 2017 Jaap Sahib is Guru Gobind Singh’s Bani (sacred hymn) that uplifts the soul, gives the experience of infinity and expands the radiance of the human psyche. It is Gurbani, the Guru’s hymn, and recited in Naad, the sacred sound current. The Siri Singh Sahib explains that Guru Gobind Singh composed Jaap Sahib to revitalize his people at a time when they were “crippled mentally and physically and downgraded to the extent that if a Moghul soldier spat at you and if you didn’t catch the spit, you could be beheaded.
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Archives for banis
Revitalizing the Khalsa Spirit
The Rhythm of Life
by SS Prabhu Prakash Kaur Khalsa, on the road USA Winter 2017 Like my mother before me, I’ve been a singer all my life. While still in the womb, I absorbed my mother’s joy of devotional singing and the love she projected through her voice. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t equate the vibration of the human voice with the experience of being alive and loved. When asked to share my experiences with Gurbani, I was reminded of conversations I had with Mom before her passing. We would talk about how each being on this planet
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Resistance
by SS Kartar Singh Khalsa, Sterling VA Winter 2017 Let me be clear—I don’t currently read my banis every day, although I did so as a daily practice for many years. So let me speak honestly and openly about the topic of resistance. Three times the Siri Singh Sahib told me—all unsolicited—to read my banis daily. During my interview to become a Sikh Dharma Minister at Summer Solstice years ago, MSS Shakti Parwha Kaur also told me to read my banis every day. So, I used to read daily from a Nitnem and eventually I memorized Japji Sahib so that
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Secretary of Religion Column (Winter 2017)
A Minister came to me and said she was having great difficulty answering the first question on the 2016 Minister’s Exam (“Write an essay on Japji”). She asked if she could respond to the question with an artistic rendering. I gave her permission to do so. An artistic rendering—I was curious to see what this Minister would manifest from her unique God-given talents. When SS Guru Kiren Kaur Khalsa (wife of Dharm Singh) from Espanola, New Mexico very humbly gave me this painting and scroll at the end of Gurdwara a few weeks ago, I sat down on the floor
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JapJi Mala
by SS Siri Ved Kaur Khalsa, Bakersfield CA Fall 2009 Bani, Bana, Seva, Simran. All the technology we need is found within these four gifts. Through the practice of Bani, we experience Shabd Guru and transform our every molecule. Through Bana, we augment our auras, project Guru’s radiance and, in fact, represent the Guru through our actions and words. Our turbans hold our heads “together,” protect our solar centers at our crown from the direct rays of the sun, and our coiled hairs, literally our built-in battery center. Through the practice of Seva we learn to give up our heads,
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