Guruka Kaur and Guruka Singh at the Birthday Breakfast.

Here is a short poem that Panch Nishaan Kaur wrote for Guruka Singh for his 60th Birthday.

Guruka Singh, Joy to our hearts you bring. The memory of spring.
The man, the sun. All celestial beings, sing for you today.

Sing for you always. Open your ear to hear
Infinity rings - Clear your mind of any question.

Press your ear against the lips of God
Constant Naad, Imbue time and space.

Every breath, Fulfilling Destiny with ease, joy and grace.

Press your ear to hear the beauty resound at the depth of your being
Throughout every fiber God is found.

May the beauty of your soul, continually inspire all you know

Every one at the table getting ready for a yummy birthday breakfast.

Ram Rattan Kaur

Today is the Birthday of another very special person to me; Guruka Singh Khalsa. Most of you who have read this blog have probably already seen/heard him talking about many different topics in the videos that I post. As you have probably noticed, he has a lot of love, joy and inspiration to share with everyone about Sikhi and life. When we sit and record the videos for the blog it always seems to just flow so naturally.

He has always been an inspiration to me and a great role model. I have learnt (and continue to learn) a lot from him over the years, and it has been exciting for me that we work with him on a daily basis. It is hard to express in words how much I appreciate and love him. May Guruji bless him with many more years to continue serving.

You can send him an email here if you would like to wish him a happy birthday.

There sure are a lot of different terms to get familiar with! I'm sure by now most of you at least know what a "blog" is. There are now quite a few Sikh related blogs online, which is great! Every morning I check out a selection of Sikh blogs that have been updated.

I remember way back in the day, "March 2005", when I started blogging. I was in search for other Sikh bloggers. I looked all over the place and found some, but not that many. This was part of the reason that I setup the Sikhi Wiki Bloggers page so that it would be easier for people to find other Sikh Bloggers. Anyways.... I think it is great that many Sikhs have embraced new communication methods like blogging. I know for me it has changed my life in many ways and is a lot of fun!

So, continuing with going into new mediums of communication I have been playing around with Podcasting (especially since I now have the new Video Ipod which I got as a gift from family). Think of a podcast as a radio show. Each show consists of a series of individual episodes that you can listen or watch, how you want - on your PC, using your MP3 player, or with just a web browser.

Basically I am taking the videos that I normally post on the blog and converting to different formats for podcasting. I setup two podcasts; One as audio only and the other as video.

For example there are some podcasts that I subscribe to because I don't normally have the time to listen or watch them during the day. This way I can hear the podcast in my own time, whenever I want. I was just doing dishes in the kitchen and cleaning up the house while I listened to "Democracy Now!", and before that "Living on Earth", which are both radio programs that I like but don't normally get a chance to hear live. It is soo cool to have them automatically downloaded onto an Ipod/computer or other MP3 player. I just tested some of the video podcasts on the ipod which are also great.

I really hope that others people get inspired to create their own podcasts so that we can have some variety of Sikh podcasters on the internet covering different topics.

• Subscribe to MrSikhNet.com Video Podcast
• Subscribe to MrSikhNet.com Audio Podcast

More information on how get the MrSikhNet podcast
(Audio or Video)

Ps. I am still catching up with some of the older content that I have added for the past months.

by Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa

When I was a child, Christmas Eve was my very favorite night of the year.

Maybe it was because of the fire roaring in the fireplace, and the little colored lights on the Christmas tree. With all the other lights turned out, it created a feeling of magic, this sense that something special was about to happen.Maybe it was the way my mother would put electric candles in all of our windows – so when we walked upstairs to go to bed, there was a warm orange glow bathing all the rooms in a luminescence that seemed almost other worldly.

Maybe it was the special food that she only made once a year - the brownies with chocolate and marshmallow frosting, or the "Yum-Yum" cake - moist, warm and crumbly with raisins, nuts and spices.

But mostly it was because of Santa Claus.

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Last night we celebrated Himmat Singh's 18th birthday! To start the dinner/celebration we all did a shabad together: "Poota Mata Ki Aasis". Below is a short video clip.

It was a nice cozy evening by the fire, with DELICIOUS food that his mother (Guru Fateh Kaur) made. I ate double what I normally would eat because it was soo yummy. Narayan as always had a blast! He has so much fun at his Uncle Dharam and Himmat's house.

You can check out Himmat's blog. He just started his own :)

Happy Birthday Himmat Singh! Bringing out the cake with candles for him to blow out.

I don't recall having birthday cakes and candles in India for birthdays. From what I remember we gave out sweets instead. I'm curious if Sikhs in England/USA/Canada do the "sweets" thing or...the birthday cake with candles.

Gurujot Singh cutting the yummy cake.

Sarab Shakti and Dharam after a whipped cream fight.

This is totally cool seeing in a visual way, recent visitors to the blog. I added the map tracking code last night to see what came up. Click on the above image to see the details. Double click on any of the cities/countries in the list below the map and it will zoom in to the location. Fun fun :)

A friend who works with the 3HO events office forwarded me the following email from a "Punjabi" Sikh who participated in the recent "Winter Solstice Camp" which took place last week in Florida. It is always nice to see people go through their own personal growth and make positive changes in their lives. We can all learn from each other's experiences. (Ps. The Summer Solstice Camp is in the middle of June here in Espanola, New Mexico. We are also going to be holding another camp on "Jaap Sahib" right before that camp. More info to come in the spring)

"As I sit here getting ready to write about my experience at winter solstice my mind is struggling to find the words. After all how do you put into words the emotions of love, peace, acceptance, universal oneness? I am almost afraid to write these words because I know they will not do these emotions justice. But I will try with my limited capacity as a writer to express what I experienced. I feel like it to be a duty to tell the world (especially the Punjabi youth) about my experience with the 3ho sangat. Before I start I would like to tell the people this is my own personal experience of just meeting the sangat. I did not do much yoga there because I am a beginner and it was difficult for me to participate in the main events. So I am writing about only my experience with interacting with the sangat.


I would like to tell the readers a little bit about my background. I have done personal development courses in my life which have opened me to new experiences. However it has been a long time since I did these courses and I found myself going back to my same old mundane life. The experience at 3ho has rejuvenated me; it has touched my heart in such a profound way. I have been into Sikhi pretty much my whole life in one form or another. I have taken guru ji’s amrit about 2 years ago. It was a wonderful time in my life. I had so much pyaar for Guru ji and this kept me on track and happy. However along the way I started to become more strict for whatever reasons. I somehow forgot about the love of Sikhi and focused on being strict in order to achieve my spiritual goals. Do not get me wrong, I believe it is fine to be strict IF your soul asks for it. For example if through simran you naturally do not want to watch t.v. because your soul (inner self) feels it is distracting and taking you away from meditation, then that is wonderful and beautiful. However if you stop watching T.V. because you are copying someone who is spiritual, then it can be dangerous. If you do not know why you are doing what you are doing then you can lose that pyaar for God. My point is always know why you are doing what you are doing. Do not let Sikhi become ritualistic. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way. I had lost the pure emotion of love for my guru and it had been replaced with love buried in rituals and superstitions. After attending this solstice camp my heart has become open to love again.

I have experienced so much love energy from the sangat at the solstice that my heart became opened once again. When I become strict for the wrong reasons I automatically started putting up walls. I started havingjudgmentss on people who weren't as strict as me. I was like this because of my environment of fear based thinking. "God will punish you if you do this or that". "You need to be perfect, or God will not love you". I started thinking about people who trimmed their beards as wrong, people who were amritdhari yet wore make up as weak, people who went out to see a movie, as sinners. Why? Because I was so miserable with myself I had to make myself feel better by judging others. I made thesejudgmentss without even realizing it. My heart had been closed. So recently I gave up being strict and decided to just be. I’m not saying I went out doing kurheits (braking my amrit). I just stopped depriving myself of small pleasures. However my heart was still closed. After going to winter solstice and seeing their love for humanity and love for people in general my heart has become open once again.

What I have seen is that the 3HO sangat do not push their views on others. They do not put up walls, instead they build bridges. They show people nothing but love. And this love is like a tidal wave that bursts through the barriers of the heart which are preventing one from realizing God. There were many Sikhs and non-sikhs attending this solstice camp. The key that opened my heart was the way they just loved everyone and anyone regardless of how much simran they did, or what religion they were. The lesson that I have learned is that every one person is their own and they have the right to find their own way to practice sikhi. Why should I impose my beliefs on someone? A person is an individual child of god who has the right to practice however he or she wants. I also realized that it iridiculousas to interfere or pasjudgmentsts on another individual. Who am I to say what is right or wrong. There is only one way to god, and that is through love.

Only through love will you be able to touch another persons heart. Only through love will people listen to you. Not througjudgmentsts. This lesson has been implanted in my heart after being around some of these beautiful Sikhs at the solstice. Through love they have touched my heart and opened it once again. I have realized that walls melt away when you have love. But if you have rituals and you follow other people's version of sikhi blindly then walls get put up and you end up cold and alone. Thank you 3ho for showing me how to be compassionate again. Thank you for showing me that sikhi is inclusive not exclusive. Thank you for showing me that Gurbani can only be understood fully through love. "Sach kahon sun leho sabai jin prem kio tin hee prabh paio." (All should listen to this truth that only those who love God can realize Him.)" - Sehajvir Singh

Last night it snowed and there was about 5 inches of fresh snow. Today was our last day of skiing and I think we lucked out. It was SOOOO amazingly beautiful out. Nature is so wonderfull and it is great to be out in nature. As I was snowboarding around I would see these amazing views of the mountains and just be awestruck.

I had so much fun today. With all the powder (fresh snow) It was like taking a knife and carving butter on bread. Arjan's parents got us all the new 30GB video ipod for a Christmas present and I loaded it up with music and took it with me on the slopes. It was great listening to music as I was going down the hill.

It's about 9PM and I just finished loading up the car with our luggage. Tommorow morning early (5AM) we drive home back to Espanola, New Mexico. It would be nice to stay a few days longer but Arjan has to be at work. My brother Dharam is going to be coming up here friday night for some of the great snowboarding. I know he'll have a good time. Crested Butte is a cool small ski town.

I took the whole week off from work figuring that we were going to ski the whole week so I'll probably stay at home and catch up with some much needed "home work" that I have been putting off all year (doing our personal accounting for year end tax filing). I'm not too excited about it...but it's something that has to get done. Who likes doing their taxes??

Anways...I hope you all are having a relaxing and fun holiday season. This is always a nice time for me to spend with family.

Narayan ready for day 3 of skiing. He did so good and is really starting to get the basics. The better he gets, the more fun it is for us all. I look forward to when we can ski together.

Narayan and Grandma made a Gingerbread house.

Another picture...

Last night it started to snow here in Crested Butte, Colordo...so we decided to go for a walk out in the snow by the Ski area. When we got there we saw some tube sleds and decided to sled down the hill. It was so much fun! We hiked up the hill...and raced down. This was in the dark as the snow fell...so it was quite adventurous. Narayan and all of us had a lot of fun.

Narayan and Grandpa getting ready to go down the hill.

Going down the hill in the snow at night in the tube sleds.

The huge snowman

Narayan and family in front of the huge snowman.

Since Dec 24th we have been in Crested Butte, Colorado having some family time. Arjan's sister lives here and her parents came out too. Every year we get together for some family time skiing/snow boarding. It's been lots of fun. It is supposed to snow tonight, so if we are lucky it will stop in the morning and we can ski in some fresh powder! I'm excided. I snow board and it is great to board in powder. It's like carving butter on bread. Yummm.

I was having fun skiing and taking pictures so I recorded some video on one part of my ski run. This is me on my snowboard going down the mountain with Arjan's little digital camera.

In this video Narayan and Arjan are racing down the hill. Narayan is still learning to ski. He took some lessons last year...and this year he is doing great. Every day he get's a little better.

Narayan on his first day skiing taking a run down the hill.

Arjan and kelly behind me and Jack as we go up the for a round of skiing

Arjan and her dad, Jack.

Arjan and Kelly sitting next to me as we go up the mountain on the ski lift

Arjan with her skis on waiting for us to go down the hill.

A view from the ski lift down the mountain. What a view!

This is the "Crested Butte" that the town is named after. This picture is from the ski lift going up the mountain.

A quick picture while I was snow boarding down.

Arjan and Narayan riding up on the ski lift. Narayan getting ready to go on his first big ski run down the hill

Narayan trying his skills at skiing

Arjan looking down the ski hill

Narayan after a day of skiing (after some yummy hot chocolate)

A picture of Jack (Arjan's father), Arjan, Kelly (Arjan's sister) and me on the top of the mountain getting ready to head down the hill.

Me and Jack riding up the ski lift.

Narayan getting ready to go skiing.

Narayan excited on Christmas morning opening preasents as quick as he could.

Video Games! Yay! (Present from papa)

Narayan opening presents on Christmas morning

It's Saturday evening as I write this and here in the northern hemisphere, it's the heart of winter. The darkest time of the year... and my favorite time of the year. Sure summer is fun, being outdoors all the time with everyone, but this time of year is so sacred. It's in the dark womb of winter that we plant the seeds of light that will soon be born and will blossom into the coming year and bear their fruit for everyone. That's why the intentions we set now are so potent, and why meditating at this time of year can be an incredibly deep experience. I just came back from Amrit Singh and Siri Dyal Kaur's house (right behind our house) where the Espanola sangat gathered to celebrate the return of an old soul. Today is the 120th day of her pregnancy, the time when the soul enters the womb. It is our tradition here to hold a ceremony for the mother to honor her and welcome in the soul of the child. Siri Dyal Kaur sat on a throne of piled up sheepskins surrounded by flowers and candles, and we all brought her presents and sang to her for an hour. We sang "Adi Shakti Namo Namo, Sarib Shakti Namo Namo, Pritam Bhagvati Namo Namo, Kundalini Mata Shakti Namo Namo" to honor her as the goddess she is and to welcome the arriving soul into her womb and into our sangat with love and protection. She prepared a wonderful feast of delicious vege soup, breadsticks and baked potatos and she made an incredible dessert of rich creamy home made ice cream filled with fresh berries and pineapple. Yum! This is her second child. Her and Amrit's first, Ram Rattan Kaur, just turned two in October. She is a great soul and we love being her auntie and uncle Ji. Ram Rattan looked beautiful in her white dress and pukka turban and chuni. Her papa snapped this picture as she climbed into her mother's arms during the chanting.

Today is my mother's birthday! A beautiful and joyous day. I have my mother to thank for all her efforts throughout my life, giving me so much love and support. The values and lessons that a parent teaches are really important, and I was fortunate to have a great mother to teach me.

If you would like to wish her happy birthday you can go to her website and click on the contact link.




(Hemkunt Sahib Yatra 1979?)

Well, tommorow morning me and the family will drive about 4.5 hours up to Crested Butte Colorado to spend the holidays with Arjan's sister, Kelly, and her parents. We'll have a few days of skiing/snowboarding and just having fun.

I hope you all have a safe and relaxing holiday weekend!

by Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa

A dear friend of mine and I share the same age: 37. What I say these days is, "I can see 40 from where I’m standing," but this bothers her sooo much. "Ek Ong Kaar – stop saying that! We’re not old yet."

Well, we're definitely not getting any younger.

I had a good long look at myself in the mirror this weekend. The once dark brunette hair is starting to develop a salt and pepper look, and when I smile, there are all these little smile wrinkles around my eyes. When I was a girl, I used to wonder how my face would age – you can always tell people's temperaments from their wrinkles. It's nice to see laugh lines. It means I've used my face muscles the right way all these years.

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In this video Guruka Singh gives an explantion of Karma and Dharma and why you should get up early in the morning to meditate.



Download: Video / Audio Only

(Click on the picture to see the captions)

I had friend sent me some pictures of our Gurdwara using a free program from http://earth.google.com/ These are satellite images taken from all over the world. It is quite cool. I downloaded the program and did some searching around. It's actually really cool to "fly around" to different places. I even "went to the Golden Temple".....but the image quality was not as good as the USA images so it was a very blurry image which you could make out the Sarovar.

The above picture you can see our Gurdwara, SikhNet Office, Langar Hall, and of course our Movie theater. We don't have a lot of entertainment options here so people go to movies often and we have a lot of parties and meditations at different people's house. Every week there always seems to be some get together at someone's house for a birthday, event...whatever. It's nice. We are a pretty close knit community.

Ps. The images don't look "pretty" since they are from who knows how far above the earth. It is actually a nice area and is beautiful in it's own unique way (seen from down here).

A Closer picture of our Gurdwara here in Espanola, Langar Hall...SikhNet offices, etc. You will notice the Gold dome on the top of the Gurdwara.

Here is a picture of where my house is in a little "Sub division". Actually...my house isn't in the picture since this image was taken before it was built. However, you can see the spot where I now live (and I do live in a house...even though in the picture it looks like a pile of rubble... Hahaha..

I was just searching around on the web and came accross this website BlogShares.com which is "...a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by incoming links". Pretty funny. You can see how MrSikhNet.com currently ranks.

Anways...I saw some of the blogs which link to this one and noticed a blog by my brother Dharam's friend (Himmat Singh). I didn't even know he had a blog...and I see him all the time! I found the above picture of Narayan. Here is his description of the photo:

"This is Narayan Singh, Dharam's nephew, being thrown by me on to the couch. This was a few months ago. By the way, he wanted me to throw him".

Oh my gosh! So this is what he does when he has "sleep overs" at their house. Hahahaha. Of course Narayan is going to say "do it". He leaps off his top bunk bed without even a fear in his head. Fearless little guy. I guess it is up to us to manage so that he doesn't hurt himself.

In a few weeks a new comic books series "Santa, Banta & Trendy" will be coming out. The quality of the art looks great, and the main characters of the comic are Sikhs, which is awesome. I think this will be a great alternative to the mainstream comics which are mostly super heroes (Batman, Spiderman, etc). I don't think the comics will be religious in nature, but it is still great to have Sikhs be more visible in a positive way in media. The kids will enjoy it too. I would prefer my son reading a comic like this rather than a spiderman comic. I'm waiting to receive a "Media copy" of the comic too see more of the story line. Can't wait!

Ok, the point of my posting this message is not just to let you know about the coming comic book series, but really to get some ideas from you (quickly). The publishers are going to have one of the up-coming comics feature me and Ashvinder Singh in the storyline with "Santa Singh". So, I am looking for ideas. We basically need to come up with a story for the comic.

The only framework that we have to deal with is that Santa Singh's mother lives in Toronto, Canada and he is going for a visit (either alone, or with his wife and son "Trendy"). He is the star of course so the story line would mostly center around him...with other characters like me and Ashvinder...as sub characters involved in the plot. Anyways... if you have ideas of events and possible story lines, here is your chance for fame! You could say... "I came up with that idea!". You can either post ideas as a comment to this post or email me.

Oh yes...the center page will be some type of game (cross word puzzle, trivia, etc) so also looking for game ideas.

"I have 'discovered' Sikhi for about 6 months or so and have attended a Gurdwara a few times. I have forgotten to mention that I live in Cardiff, Wales, UK. There appears to be no other white people in the Gurdwara and so all conversation is in Punjabi. Similarly the worship and service are too. I don't wish to give up my new found desire to embrace Sikhism but I am finding it difficult to feel a part of the congregation. Can you help please?"

Recently I received a few emails (one of them shown above) from people who were brought up with different religious backgrounds and are exploring the Sikhi lifestyle (ie: Wanting to be a Sikh). The emails were asking for help and advice in relation to fitting in with the Sikh community and being accepted.

Most of you are probably not used to seeing/meeting people who have converted to Sikhism and trying to find their place as a Sikh in a community. I was on a Sikh discussion forum the other night reading a really long discussion topic that was raging back and forth between the participants. Basically one individual was criticizing "3HO", "Western Sikhs", "Yogi Bhajan", etc, on just about everything. Without going into all that, the one subject of that discussion was a remark that "White Sikhs" don't go to other "Punjabi Gurdwaras" and just "start their own Gurdwaras". Of course this is not true...but it made me think. First...there is an assumption that there are HUGE number of Sikhs that have converted to Sikhi. I don't think there are nearly as many as people think. Maybe we are big in our projection and so people think there are hundreds of thousands and since they have not seen them in their Gurdwara that they must be avoiding it. Who knows though... we don't have a "Sikh Convert Census". So...with these few Sikhs spread out all over the world you may not see a "Sikh Convert" often at all.

In general I think people tend to live within communities of people that they have similarities with. So, many people who have adopted the Sikh lifestyle live in areas where there are other similar Sikhs. There are a few reasons for this.

First...most of them have come from a very different cultural background and do not understand or relate to Punjabi culture, so feel more at home with others from the same background (Just as someone from India might feel more comfortable with other Indians who have similar backgrounds). It's what you know and are familiar with. This is changing as our youth become more global, but is still a big issue for the older generations of people.

Second... Someone who becomes a Sikh has to learn everything from scratch and learn a whole new way of life. This is hard if you don't have someone helping or speaking the language that you understand. It is extremely difficult to learn and feel a part of things when the Gurdwaras are all Punjabi centric. I am not saying it is a bad thing, but I think it is important in western countries where most of the population speaks English that communities figure out ways to support the youth (many of who don't understand/speak Punjabi). This will also support the people that are interested/learning about Sikhi. So, in relation to the topic of this post, because most Gurdwaras don't have a good support system for people of non Punjabi background it is natural for these Sikhs to gather together to support each other and learn together. The issue for communities is to decide WHAT can be done to address this. If you ever come to our Gurdwara here in Espanola you will see how our community does things a little different because of the different background. The format and general ceremonies are the same, but some are done a little different. Someone might read the Ardas in English or Punjabi (depending on the person's preference). We have an Akandh Path that is always going every week and people from the Sangat sign up to read. Volumes of the SGGS with Gurmukhi and English Translation are used so depending on what language the person understands they can all participate. After the Hukamnama is read in Gurmukhi someone always reads the translation in English (sometimes spanish too) so people can understand what was said. Kirtan is normally traditional style, but someone might also sing a devotional song that they wrote about the Gurus (not Gurbani). People play kirtan with Guitars and many western instruments.....and many do so in tunes that are more western sounding. Most of the women are very active in the Gurdwara ceremonies and have strong leadership roles in our community. They do many more of the Gurdwara activies than men (Ardas, Kirtan, Hukamnama, Prakash/Sukhasn, etc). In your typical Gurdwara, men are very dominant and it can be hard sometimes for women to do these things if they want. Our communties are small so don't have dedicated/paid ragis or granthis. Everything is done by the sangat. At least every month the parents and kids get together for Sikh stories or some activity where they can learn about Sikh history (In english of course). There are many other things...but this post is getting long so I'll stop there. I just wanted to give you an idea of things.

Third... A big reason why some of the people that I know have become Sikhs is that they have had someone that speaks their language, and I don't mean the English language. I mean that there is someone that shares information on Sikhi in a way that they can understand and relate to. Just imagine if you were Desi Punjabi, didn't know English, had grown up all your life in India, and then all of sudden you were in the midwest USA (The "Bible Belt" where there is a church on almost every block). Imagine you went into one of the churches trying to learn about Christianity. You would have a tough time I'm sure! I know this is an extreme scenario but I wanted to try to give you an idea of how different it is for someone who is not brought up as a Sikh from Punjabi backround.

There are a lot of bridges to build and things that we have to do to progress into this new age of globalization where Sikhs live in many different countries and come from different cultures. I don't think Guru Gobind Singh's prophecy of 960,000,000 was a vision of all Punjabi's (That's just my opinion).

So, what can be done? This is up to YOU to think about and try to encourage possible changes in your communities (at the very least to support our Sikh youth). So, I don't just assume someone else will do this; make this your contribution. Everyone can take time to help in some way.