Lucye Rafferty/The Hoya Bhai Gurdarshan Singh (left) prepares for the panel on Sikhism last night outside of ICC Auditorium.
A panel of Sikhs spoke in ICC Auditorium last night, discussing the tenets of the faith and debunking misconceptions regarding Sikhism.
The religion, which began in Pakistan more than 500 years ago, now has more than 20 million followers worldwide. It is the fifth largest religion in the world yet, according to Suma Singh (COL ’03), one of the organizers of the panel, there are many misconceptions about the faith.
“We hope that [students] will come away with a better understanding of Sikhism and its different dimensions,” Suma Singh said.
Panelists ranged from a priest of the Sikh faith to a Catholic-born woman who converted to Sikhism in the 1970s. Two other speakers discussed Sikhs in the media in recent years.
Bhai Gurdarshan Singh, a Sikh priest, related the story of the beginning of the faith. Unsatisfied with the caste system in place in Pakistan, Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of the religion, began preaching that all people, no matter what their birth, are people of one creator. At that time, people of the lower castes were not allowed to take part in the religious services. Dev Ji taught that the separation of people into classes causes pain.
“You know that when a football player’s shoulder is separated he cannot play. Even though the shoulder is still part of the body, the separation causes pain,” Gurdarshan Singh said. “This is not something 500 years ago. Still, if there is a pain, if there is suffering, if there is violence it is because, in some way, life is not with the source.”
Gurdarshan Singh said that the tenets of Sikhism are much the same as those of the Five Pillars of Islam, the predominant religion in Pakistan when the Sikh faith was created. The three tenets, according to Gurdarshan Singh, are meditation, honest labor and sharing with those who have less.
Shakta Khalsa, born to a Catholic family, converted to Sikhism after spending several years as a hippie. Khalsa now teaches yoga and has written several books on the subject. She said that yoga, along with meditation, is important to finding God, and that her conversion was more natural than people may think.
“As I grew older, I realized more and more that I naturally felt that we were all one, and we all contained God and that God was all around us,” Khalsa said. “The creator and the creation really are just one thing. If you take that to its nth degree, you understand that we really are what we think of as the our creator.”
She said that, in spite of wearing a turban and traditional white clothing, she feels no different than others, and in fact feels that it makes her more comfortable for others to talk to.
Sumeet Mitter (COL ’05), one of the organizers of the event, said that after Sept. 11, many Sikhs were mistakenly assumed to be members of the Taliban.
“After Sept. 11, Sikhs were victimized. Two of them were killed,” he said. “They were actually brothers, and in two unrelated events they were killed because they were mistook for members of the Taliban.”
Balbir Singh Sodhi and his brother Sukhpal were both shot in unrelated incidents. On Sept. 15, 2001, Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed in a drive-by in Mesa, Ariz., the first victim of a fatal hate crime following September 11. Sukhpal was killed 11 months later driving his cab in San Francisco, Calif.
According to Mitter, the important point for people to understand is that Sikhs are just ordinary people with their own identity, trying to live in peace. He said he hoped the panel proved that Sikhs are accepting of everyone.
“When somebody sees a Sikh, the message is, that person is seeking God,” Gurdarshan Singh said. “If I am walking up the street, deep down in my mind I look different, because deep down in my mind, God has given me identity.”
The Sikh Students of Georgetown and the South Asian Society sponsored the event.
