Browsing Tag: News

The origin of Hindu-Sikh divide goes back to the day when Guru Nanak as a young boy of 10 years refused to wear the janeu, the ceremonial thread being worn by all Hindus.

I remember national coverage of his murder, and the insistent message: We in the United States do not practice this kind of religious intolerance. We will not go down this road in the aftermath of 9-11.

As the international borders across the globe reopen in a safe manner in the near future and the international travel demand recovers, it could be expected that Amritsar may recover its pre-pandemic international traffic levels by late 2022.

Fortunately, our conversation with God is not meant to be one-way. The scripture gives us general guidance, but not precise rules. Hence, Sikhs have a lot of personal discretion – and hence also great personal responsibility – for learning the core messages of Gurbani. In understanding and then applying the message of Gurbani in our daily lives, it is also expected that questions would arise in our minds.

Dr. Juss Kaur, known for her Tedx Talk, Oneness,  is an author, artist, teacher and educational consultant. Each of her paintings are imbued with the ‘Waheguru’ mantra, an empowering exclamation meaning ‘the Divine Teacher within.' She will guide us in exploring art as a form of meditation, spiritual dialogue and prayer.

Recently I came across 6 Sanskrit meanings of the word ‘teacher’ which put that lofty word ‘Guru’ in a new light for me because ‘our’ Guru is quite unique. I also remembered a discussion with my Sikhi mentor, the late S. Joginder Singh Ji, a founding member of the SNSM, Sikh Naujawan Sabha Malaysia, of the prefix ‘gur’ in a few pivotal Sikhcentric words leading towards our ‘Guru’.

This September marks 20 years since the attacks of 9/11. Although we’re all aware of the tragic time in our country’s history, many are still oblivious to the ripple of hate crimes that have followed. With this project our team aims to fight the negative stereotypes that continue to exist against turban and bearded Americans and to challenge perceptions of what an American looks like.

As well as advertising the survey at the events I attended, I posted details on various websites and discussion forums to gather responses (see here). This first ever online survey of Sikhs gathered 650 responses and was really useful, allowing me to triangulate survey responses with my interview and fieldwork data and I’ve included some of these in my academic publications to date

Many Sikh artists are influenced deeply by their faith. Baljinder Kaur’s naif representations, Harjinder Singh Sunner’s symbolic works, and Keerat Kaur’s surreal masterpieces all relay key aspects of Sikh life in different ways. The importance of family, nature, and Sikh literature all find their ways into pieces whose beauty capture the heart and mind in an instance.