Showing posts with label Series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Series. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Poem - Spinning Circle
The poem written by a member of the Sikh Philosophy Network regarding my last post encourged me to dig-up some poems of my own. I'll post one from time to time.
Below is one which for any non-Panjabees will probably pose problems due to the transliterated words which attempt to convey Panjabee words. If you are such a reader, and you want to know what the transliterated words mean, please leave a comment requesting the meanings of these words, and I'll reply back by translating each one for you.
Spinning Circle
There is Shaant amidst
Crashing waves
Stillness at the centre
Of spinning circles
Poise in the fluttering
Falling leaves
Grace in Killing
Soor-Beer Shaheeds
---
There is Sehaj amidst
Thundering thoughts
Truth in the middle
Of blinding fog
Seva in the hands
Of murderous thieves
Zor in the begging
Of Gurmukh Ghareebs
---
There is Amrit amidst
Bitter poison
Sants in the hearts
Of hateful sinners
Light in Darkest
Abandoned Souls
Melody in Chaos
Of Manmukh minds
---
Shaant amidst
Soor-Beer Shaheeds
Sehaj amidst
Gurmukh Ghareebs
Amrit amidst
Manmukh minds
Find Stillness
Centre
The Spinning Circle
( ( ( :-) >>>
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Sunday, 7 December 2008
A Tale of Two Chairs
Copyright 2004 Atma Singh Myself, my wife and a close friend went for a walk yesterday, with little Zor Singh in his buggy. We visited a small park nearby. On our way home we spotted a discarded chair which had been neatly placed next to a large dustbin, on a picturesque road adjacent to the park. My wife who likes to sometimes think of herself as a ‘collector of things’, which really means she is a hoarder, decided we could use this chair. I politely reminded her we had just given away two chairs very recently after we had suddenly realised we were running-out of space. She insisted. So I carried this very heavy chair a few metres before she changed her mind and realised we didn’t really need a chair, at which point I put it back where we had found it. Marriage is so full of u-turns!
Anyway, when we got home, I started to look through some photographs I have taken over the last few years. I’m currently getting a website designed in order to promote and share my photography. I’m sure you’ll hear more about this in the coming months even if you don’t wish to! As I browsed the streams of thumbnails, trying to decide which images will feature in one of the online galleries, I came across a picture of a chair which was taken soon after the Tsunami wreaked its terrible wrath upon much of the developing world in 2004. It brought back so many memories.
This chair was photographed in Sri Lanka in a district called Batticoloa, which is on the East Coast. I was there briefly as a volunteer with Khalsa Aid, a humanitarian disaster relief organisation. We supplied tents to some poor Muslim fisherman and their families, in a nearby fishing village. These people were desperate for assistance because they had been overlooked when rebuilding had started, by the majority neighbouring Tamil communities.
The chair was located in a property which had been brought to its knees. I still remember the terrible stench that saturated the moist salty air around us. We were told by locals that this emanated from corpses which hadn’t yet been removed from underneath the masses of rubble.
If the chair were to remain untouched, who knows how long it would sit there, testifying to the chaos that surrounded it. It attracted my eyes because it was part of a strange wider environment, but unlike those humans who had not been killed or destroyed, this chair couldn’t walk away or leave the scene. However like them it was a survivor. Perhaps its owners had all been killed. Perhaps like the chair we saw yesterday, but had decided not to take with us, it had been perceived as useless or a luxury not worthy of being carried, to wherever its owners had carried themselves. Who had sat upon this chair? What memories had it preserved, locked away in its dark, dense body?
It came across as peacefully poised, yet resolute in its will to keep on standing where so much else had fallen. I felt compelled to take a picture of it. The colours and lines which surrounded it made it, in my eyes, a beautiful scene to capture. I took so many photographs of people on this trip, many of which I will soon be sharing, but for some reason, this image seems to carry a unique emotion.
It makes me wonder how long that chair I saw yesterday will sit there before someone takes it. I imagine the reason it has been discarded is far removed from the circumstances which surround the one I photographed. I hope someone does make use of yesterday’s chair some day soon, so that it doesn’t get tossed away.
I remember visiting Darbaar Sahib (‘Golden Temple’, Amritsar, Panjaab) for the first time several years ago and being shown where Guroo Arjan Sahib Jee had often sat. I simply can’t convey the feelings I felt. I couldn’t stop myself from placing my forehead on that spot and kissing the dust that lay there. Afterwards, as we walked away, I couldn’t seem to stop an immense feeling of awe from continuously arising and subsiding within me, like the movement of the tide, as I looked over my shoulder again and again, thinking: ‘My Satguroo sat upon that ground, underneath that tree”. I just couldn’t take it in.
Furniture and objects don’t just support us physically; they carry so much emotional energy with them. As spirit-born beings, humans leave so much in their wake, even going about their mundane daily business. Whether we keep an item or discard it, whether it is destroyed or remains intact, I believe that something of us, a residue, forever permeates the things we have touched and the places we have been.
These are the things that I remember when I look at this photograph.
Anyway, when we got home, I started to look through some photographs I have taken over the last few years. I’m currently getting a website designed in order to promote and share my photography. I’m sure you’ll hear more about this in the coming months even if you don’t wish to! As I browsed the streams of thumbnails, trying to decide which images will feature in one of the online galleries, I came across a picture of a chair which was taken soon after the Tsunami wreaked its terrible wrath upon much of the developing world in 2004. It brought back so many memories.
This chair was photographed in Sri Lanka in a district called Batticoloa, which is on the East Coast. I was there briefly as a volunteer with Khalsa Aid, a humanitarian disaster relief organisation. We supplied tents to some poor Muslim fisherman and their families, in a nearby fishing village. These people were desperate for assistance because they had been overlooked when rebuilding had started, by the majority neighbouring Tamil communities.
The chair was located in a property which had been brought to its knees. I still remember the terrible stench that saturated the moist salty air around us. We were told by locals that this emanated from corpses which hadn’t yet been removed from underneath the masses of rubble.
If the chair were to remain untouched, who knows how long it would sit there, testifying to the chaos that surrounded it. It attracted my eyes because it was part of a strange wider environment, but unlike those humans who had not been killed or destroyed, this chair couldn’t walk away or leave the scene. However like them it was a survivor. Perhaps its owners had all been killed. Perhaps like the chair we saw yesterday, but had decided not to take with us, it had been perceived as useless or a luxury not worthy of being carried, to wherever its owners had carried themselves. Who had sat upon this chair? What memories had it preserved, locked away in its dark, dense body?
It came across as peacefully poised, yet resolute in its will to keep on standing where so much else had fallen. I felt compelled to take a picture of it. The colours and lines which surrounded it made it, in my eyes, a beautiful scene to capture. I took so many photographs of people on this trip, many of which I will soon be sharing, but for some reason, this image seems to carry a unique emotion.
It makes me wonder how long that chair I saw yesterday will sit there before someone takes it. I imagine the reason it has been discarded is far removed from the circumstances which surround the one I photographed. I hope someone does make use of yesterday’s chair some day soon, so that it doesn’t get tossed away.
I remember visiting Darbaar Sahib (‘Golden Temple’, Amritsar, Panjaab) for the first time several years ago and being shown where Guroo Arjan Sahib Jee had often sat. I simply can’t convey the feelings I felt. I couldn’t stop myself from placing my forehead on that spot and kissing the dust that lay there. Afterwards, as we walked away, I couldn’t seem to stop an immense feeling of awe from continuously arising and subsiding within me, like the movement of the tide, as I looked over my shoulder again and again, thinking: ‘My Satguroo sat upon that ground, underneath that tree”. I just couldn’t take it in.
Furniture and objects don’t just support us physically; they carry so much emotional energy with them. As spirit-born beings, humans leave so much in their wake, even going about their mundane daily business. Whether we keep an item or discard it, whether it is destroyed or remains intact, I believe that something of us, a residue, forever permeates the things we have touched and the places we have been.
These are the things that I remember when I look at this photograph.
( ( ( :-) >>>
Atma Singh - everyday sikhee
Monday, 1 December 2008
The Khalsa Spirit 1: Rosa Parks
Photo Credit: Website - Rosa Park Facts
Rosa being arrested and her fingerprints taken
"I would like to be known as a person
who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice
and prosperity for all people."
Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005)
A Gursikh sent me a text this morning mentioning the 'mother of the civil rights movement’, Rosa Parks, who on this day in 1955 caused quite stir. I read her story further via BBC: On This Day which I highly recommend as a way of soaking-up some very interesting history upon a daily basis.
At the end of his text he wrote:
"Was she 'anti-social', 'extremist' or 'fundamentalist'? Or was she 'sava lakh se laroan' [able to take on a legion of opponents], following a much higher law than artificial human law?"
A light bulb shone inside my little brain - why not write about a series of non-Sikh individuals who imbibe a particular component of the Khalsa Spirit? By recognising and appreciating these Khalsa sparks within our brothers’ and sisters' hearts, perhaps we can all truly start understanding how Vaheguroo lives within, and ultimately inspires, every single heart.
Let's first try and define the word Khalsa. Khalsa is an Arabic word which can be translated as ‘pure’ and ‘untainted’. It was also apparently used to refer to land belonging to a King or Emperor, which could not be taxed. These definitions converge to construct a beautiful concept. Khalsa represents The Pure Unrestrained Truth which cannot be challenged or defeated. It is the un-taxable land of Truth belonging to Vaheguroo and it's aim is to constantly manifest.
Since 1699, it has come to be known as The Satguroo’s conferred title for those people who live, breathe and meditate in complete unison with The Satguroo, so much so, that The Satguroo describes the Khalsa as His Satguroo, to whom He unconditionally submits. In 1699, the fraternity of the Khalsa was born as we know it, and this land has continued to manifest since...
Recognising The One Light manifest in all beings, the Khalsa are able to imbibe lessons of Truth through all things and all people. Now, let us travel back in time exactly 53 years ago, and learn a lesson...
Rosa discarded her concerns and boarded that bus, her resolve unshakeable. She decided that day she would live The Truth despite others’ attempts to deny her it. It didn’t bother her that the driver was the same man who threw her off a bus 12 years earlier because she had refused to enter through the back door, specially allocated for blacks.
She sat down upon her seat, tired after working long and hard manual hours, only to be confronted by a white man who requested she give-up her seat. Rosa refused and in doing sos violated American segregation laws, which stated at the time that a coloured person must give way to a white person if no vacant seats remained upon public transport vehicles.
Historically, her actions represented not the single defiant voice of a young black woman but the consolidation of a collective statement; that Blacks would not accept such degrading treatment and were willing to break any man-made law to prove it. Led by Dr. Martin Luther King, American blacks everywhere boycotted buses soon after Rosa made her stand.
Photo Credit: Eege Vot Fum
The bus that Rosa sat in that day
Rosa’s actions are in complete resonance with The Satguroo’s teachings. Vaheguroo expects us all to challenge any so-called laws which treat one person as superior and the other inferior. For the Khalsa in particular, whether it was the Mughal Emperor Arungzeb forbidding our ancestors from riding horses, or a modern-day democratic nation deciding that Blacks couldn’t always have a bus-seat, there is no difference.
In my mind, Guroo Gobind Singh Jee points to her, and says to me: “You see that soul, learn from its virtue, a Truth being lived. A worthy lesson for the Khalsa”. In this way, I feel inspired by such figures and feel hope, in a day and age when so many 'Sikhs' reveal that their garbs and practices are mere religious rituals, devoid of spiritual inspiration. Why? Because their words and actions do not match the glorious spiritual heritage and relevance that their outer image portrays. I don't feel disheartened though, because the Khalsa is beyond such a façade and will always live, as a spark, waiting to ignite in any heart.
Whether it’s the boy who stands up to the playground bully, the teacher who inspires her pupils with self-belief, or the lady on that bus in 1955 who refused to give-up her seat, they all illustrate the same thing. They remind us that The Satguroo transmits lessons to His Sikhs through all things and all people, if only we are willing to receive them.
( ( ( :-) >>>
Atma Singh - everyday sikhee
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