by SS Shiva Singh Khalsa, Chicago, Illinois 2023 (Third Quarter) The 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions was held August 14-18, 2023. This is the 4th Parliament we have attended. It is a week of presentations; plenaries by world-renowned faith and government luminaries; and most of all, amazing conversations with like-hearted people from every corner of the world. This is the 130th anniversary of the first Parliament in 1893, when the West got its first taste of non-Abrahamic faiths, held at the McCormick Lakeside Center in Chicago, USA. This week started with 1,000+ representatives of more than twenty diverse faith
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Archives for Community
The 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago: a Deep Dive Into a Global Faith Community
My Pregnancy Story
by SS Charansev Kaur Khalsa, Viña del Mar, Chile 2023 (Third Quarter) Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa! Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh! The Ministry Newsletter Team invited me to write an article for the August 2023 issue. As a new mother, I have currently not been active in ministering to our community. Nevertheless the team kindly asked me to share my pregnancy story. This is my personal journey, in preparation for raising a child in the Dharma during these turbulent times. On January 1st, 2022, my husband, Agya Akal Singh, and I visited the mother ashram in Española, New Mexico.
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Supporting Sangat during Times of Challenge
Interview with SS Guru Sangat Singh Khalsa, Great Falls, Virginia This interview was conducted over the telephone by Guruamrit Kaur, Newsletter Editor, on August 25, 2023 2023 (Third Quarter) What are ways that we can support ourselves during times of challenge? For me, personally, Sadhana in the Amrit Vela is the whole deal. Including banis as well. These technologies of Banis, Simran and Sadhana. The technology is
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Contemplations on the Challenges and Gifts of this Moment
by SS Arjan Kaur Khalsa, Mexico City, Mexico 2023 (Third Quarter) It is easier to give an opinion, question, judge, point out or belittle, than—on the contrary—to guide individuals towards values, appreciate their vulnerability, recognize their innate courage, and reveal their magnificence. To understand the human condition is a complicated process. This is not a concept that can be analyzed, nor an object that can be possessed. It is knowing the infinite tints, weights and gradients of the differences between people, accepting them and seeing the totality. Creation is CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE. Therefore I venture to say that a synonym
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Finding Inner Calm and Reaching Out
by MSS Guru Raj Kaur Khalsa, Vancouver, Canada 2023 (Third Quarter) Dear Ministers, How are you doing after these last few years of the revelations about Yogi Bhajan, and from our children, oh, and the isolation of COVID?? How ARE you doing? I am asking you heart to heart. It is so important at this time to be authentic; that we do the inner work as well as the re-connection work. Finding Inner Calm Here are some thoughts on how to find inner calm as well as re-connect to the people in our lives, whom we love and whom we
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Ways to Bring Our Community Together
by MSS Sat Hari Singh Khalsa, Boizenburg, Germany & Guru Ram Das Aquarian Academy 2023 (Third Quarter) Sat Nam, I’d like to talk about our experience in Germany. As a part of the former Guru Ram Das Ashram and Sangat in Hamburg, we were searching for more than 20 years for a Home for the Teachings. We projected always for the combination of a beautiful Gurdwara with a Yoga Centre. In 2016, we had been alerted that in the countryside of East Germany a former Synagogue (founded in 1799 and being used until 1886,
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The Dharma of Releasing My Trauma
by SS Dr. JivanJoti Kaur Khalsa, Santa Cruz, New Mexico 2023 (Second Quarter) Dear Ministers, I wish to thank the Sikh Dharma Ministry for devoting this newsletter to the Progressive Arc of the Resolution of Trauma. I was grateful to be asked to write an article on this timely and important topic. Even though I am a psychotherapist, Kundalini Yoga teacher and Sat Nam Rasayan healer, I am not writing this article from the perspective of a professional. Rather, my focus here is the vulnerable, intimate and personal journey of healing trauma in my own life. Realizations There are
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Twice Lost, Twice Found
by SS Sukhdev Kaur Khalsa, Raasiku, Estonia 2023 (First Quarter) Life has presented many challenging times in the past three years. We know that hard times follow periods of peace and prosperity, just as there is winter every year, followed by another cycle of summer. Some winters are harder than others—there is no way to predict or to judge. But we can take hard times as a blessing for us to learn how to grow. It is in the darkest times that we can grow the most, reshaping ourselves and realigning with our core values.
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Holding On and Letting go
by SS Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, Claremont, California 2023 (First Quarter) One time a very wise man and I were sitting close together, across from each other. In what seemed to me a sudden move, he placed his hand in a clenched fist near my face. Looking into my eyes, he said, “This is not a heart.” After what felt like a very long moment, he opened his hand—still near my face— and said, “And this is not a heart.” Then he slowly began to open and close his hand in a fist. He had my attention. As I looked at
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Personal Reflections on Compassion
by SS Satwant Singh Khalsa, Leesburg, Virginia 2023 (First Quarter) Sat Nam, Though not a Sat Nam Rasayan expert, I have taken many classes in it and read up some as well. As best as I can explain it, you open a healing space—a sensitive space where you experience all your sensations simultaneously rather than focus at a particular place. Once you have stabilized that space you introduce the subject/client/patient. The introduction of that subject creates resistances or conflict within the healer. The healer then works to resolve the resistance WITHIN HIM OR HERSELF. As those resistances are resolved within
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