by SS Sham Kaur Khalsa, La Paz, Bolivia 2024 (Third Quarter) As Sikhs, our active participation in interreligious dialogues around the world is nourished by the inclusive teachings of our faith. In 2023, I had the honor of experiencing this firsthand in Bolivia, where I joined as a Sikh Minister with representatives from various religious traditions to promote peace and mutual understanding. The interreligious dialogue in Bolivia brings together Catholics, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Zen Buddhists, Lutherans, Bahá’ís, and Sikhs. Although our Sikh community is relatively small in Bolivia, we share our commitment to equality and justice in this diverse forum.
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Archives for Global Sangat
Interreligious Dialogue from a Sikh Perspective: Lessons from Bolivia
Ministering in Chile in This Time and Space
by SS Sat Sansar Singh Khalsa, Santiago, Chile 2024 (First Quarter) What does the word ‘Minister’ mean to you? Being a Minister is for me an identity that is shared with a lineage of women and men who through the ages have been an inspiration, through the testimony of their lives. To live the life of a Sikh includes actively supporting one’s community in this way of life. That identity manifests in many ways for me—in deep internal aspects and in actions in the sphere in which I participate. Externally it means for me to stand as a lighthouse, ever
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Daily Online Meditation for Healing in the Middle East
by SS Nam Nidhan Kaur Khalsa, Santiago, Chile 2024 (First Quarter) For a few decades now, the internet has opened the doors to homes and hearts around the world. It has shown us the beauty, as well as the ignorance, dreams and aberrations, that are common to human beings. It has connected us and helped create a global network where we are all closer, more similar and vibrating together in the face of all the events that are taking place in time and space. As terrible as wars are, we now have them happening and showing up on our cell
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Minister in the Spotlight: SS Dr. Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa
by SS Dr. Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa, Espanola, New Mexico 2024 (First Quarter) Where There is Courage, There is Happiness Soon after I became a Kundalini Yoga teacher in December 1971, I had the sensation that there was an unseen sangat—a not yet identified community—that I am to serve. When I became a Sikh Dharma Minister a year and a half later, the same sensation filled me. I called upon the Guru to bring me to this unseen sangat, so that we would be known to each another. Over the decades, the Guru has brought me into several communities: in
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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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Miri Piri Academy Women’s Camp at Anandpur Sahib
by SS Shanti Kaur Khalsa, Espanola, New Mexico 2023 (Second Quarter) After several years of isolation due to the pandemic, women from around the world gathered in February at Dashmesh Sadan in Anandpur Sahib, India, for a ten-day retreat organized by Miri Piri Academy (MPA) of Amritsar. Head Principal Japjeet Kaur was an elegant host for the camp, taking care of all the details and allowing us to dive deeply into study, meditation, and experience. We began and ended our time together at the MPA campus in Amritsar, which provided us with ample opportunity to explore the campus, visit the
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Remembering 9/11
by SS Sat Jivan Singh Khalsa, New York NY 2021 (Third Quarter) SS Sat Jivan Singh was in New York on September 11, 2001. He shared with us his experience of attending an interfaith memorial service on October 11, 2001. He also shared some reminiscences about the events that took place in the days and weeks following September 11, 2001, looking back at his role as a Minister in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States. October 11, 2001 New York, NY The taxi let me out on 7th Avenue just above Chambers Street, about six or
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Sikh Dharma Recognized in Argentina
by SS Ram Krishan Singh Khalsa, Buenos Aires, Argentina Spring 2018 It is a great honor for me to announce that on February 15, 2018, Sikh Dharma of Argentina was formally recognized as an official religion in our country for the first time in history. In 2012, I began to develop a relationship with the Guru through the teachings received from Kundalini Yoga and its instructors and also in my relationships with the Punjabi residents in Argentina who held occasional Gurdwaras at Casa de Luz, the home of Pritam Baghauti Kaur. In this way, I observed, not the distances and differences,
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