TheBattleDrums.com

Conviction is defined as ‘firm belief’ in the context I’m about to use. The date being June 5th, I had thought about making today’s class topic about 1984 and Operation Blue Star. Yet, for some reason earlier in the week, someone drove me away from that idea with a simple piece of advice that made me laugh…he said… “let’s talk about 1984 in February or August or something like that…everyone talks about 1984 in June and in November, let’s talk about it in like September or January or something”.   And as cynical as that may have sounded, I saw some truth to that statement and tried to take the class in a different direction this Sunday.

Not only does June 5th mark the anniversary of Operation Blue Star and the Genocide of the Sikh people in 1984, but it also marks the Shaheedi Purab of Dhan Guru Arjan Dev ji, along with other events in history such as ‘D-Day’ and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

When thinking about those people that willingly CHOOSE to lay down their lives for a cause, I can’t help but ask one question… What is it that they possessed that gave them the courage to accept death as a viable option? They must have something in their hearts, minds and/or souls that says I would rather accept death right now, than compromise my belief. But what is that thing?

I think we can agree that not ALL shaheeds are always Gurus or Sants or Sikh Scholars but do we really need ABSOLUTE conviction in ALL aspects of Sikhi, in order to make a sacrifice such as the one these brave men, women and children made just 27 years ago?

They may not have known, or even understood, all aspects of their Sikhi, but they had conviction in some of Sikhi’s CORE beliefs. I think if not anything else, they understood that every human being had the right to be free, and that right was being stripped away from them. I think they understood that all men and women were created equally and deserved to be treated as such by a governing body. And if nothing, I think they understood Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s hukam which he wrote so eloquently as:

“CHUN KAR AZ HAMEH HEELAT-E DAR GUZASHT

HALAL  AST  BURDAN  B-SHAMSHIR  DAST”

When all the stratagem employed for (solving) a problem are exhausted,

(only) then taking your hand to the sword is legitimate.

I believe that if it was anything that gave them the courage and valor to lay down their lives, then it was their conviction, it was their firm belief.

We spoke briefly about Guru Arjan Dev Ji’s shaheedi and how throughout his torture and to his very last breath he never showed signs of pain, anger, resentment or even sadness. He continuously immersed himself in Naam Simran and repeatedly sang “teraa keeya meethaa laagay, har naam padhaarat naanak maange”. To him, his physical death was all written in God’s will and his will was sweet to him.

Guru Sahib’s conviction was simple, he had one simple firm belief…our physical bodies are rentals from God and do not belong to us, no matter how hard we try to customize them. The class gave the example of our bodies being like rental cars. You don’t rent a car from someone and then start sticking bumper stickers on it and getting new rims and tinting the windows and what not. You rent it ‘as is’ and return it ‘as is’, and the same goes for our bodies. Guru Arjan Dev Ji makes this concept come to life, better than anyone else. His physical body may have left the world, but as millions of people still utter his words he remains immortal.

Know that, where it takes courage and valor to accept death as your bride, it takes twice as much to accept that what shall die was never yours.

bhul chuk maaf.

-  diwana singh

My very first experience with meditation was when I younger….and surprisingly enough, I have a pretty vivid memory of it. We were at camp in the summer, and like any other day in August in Maryland, it was extremely hot that day. We had just finished ’sports time’, had showered and changed, and come back into the main hall for the Evening Divaan. I remember sitting in the sangat all hot and sweaty, sticky, darker than ever, and overall just extremely uncomfortable. Then Bhai Sahib got on the microphone and began to speak… Even though the room was filled with kids ranging from 7 years old to 17 years old, his voice demanded attention in such a manner that within seconds the room was silenced. The only thing filling the room now was the noise of a dozen or more plug-in fans and his voice over the sound system. I remember his words like they were yesterday….”we’ve spent a lot of time out in the sun playing and having fun, now it’s time to settle down and calm our minds” (paraphrasing from here onwards).

Sit up straight in chokdree (legs crossed), stop moving, don’t itch or scratch, don’t talk, don’t chew, don’t think, just stop everything and close your eyes……..this was all new to me.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been THAT kid. Constantly talking, laughing, joking, smirking, acting silly, playing any and every sport I could learn, and just filled with an endless amount of energy. For me to not do any of that seemed next to impossible. He asked us to clear our mind of EVERYTHING, create a blank slate in our heads and just focus on one word… WAHEGURU. I still remember sitting in that divaan seeing nothing in front of my eyes but that word pop up as we repeated it after him collectively. That was the first time I meditated unknowingly.

As I walked in to class today (a little late) things seemed calm…then again, there weren’t that many kids there either. As the kids started trickling into the classroom, things started to get a bit more chaotic. By the time the clock struck 11am and it was time to start class, the kids had gone bananas (some literally).

At that point I remembered the camp day from years ago…and unnoticeably, the roles had changed. We spent about 10 minutes in complete silence with our eyes closed, and another 15 minutes reciting the mool mantar collectively.

Recently I saw (dontjudge) the movie “Eat, Pray, Love”…and if there was one thing that really resonated with me from that movie, it was the lesson that meditation doesn’t always have to be practiced in a single certain manner or at a single specific place or time.

I see meditation as a conversation with my soul. A time for me to stop thinking about everything that stresses me, worries me, engulfs me and just take a moment to connect with my inner being. In previous classes we talked about ‘Mat’ and ‘Budh’. Our Mat is what we use to make our day to day decisions, sort of like our operating system. Whereas, our Budh is comprised of all the decisions we’ve ever made, and becomes our intellect, our whole being.

For me, when I can put my Mat to rest and finally shut it down for a few minutes, I can finally make a connection with my Budh. Having a connection with my Budh means my consciousness can finally have a say in what my Mat does. Since our Mat works constantly, even when in our sleep, trying to silence it is one of the most difficult tasks mankind is faced with. I hope I can make this a more regular routine, not just with the class, but within my own life on a daily basis.

Our class today was briefly about Conviction. Today was the class full class of the semester and my goal with the class has been to not just ‘Inspire’ but to help myself and others find ‘Conviction’. Rubinpaul Veerji introduced me to something really spectacular and for some reason everything just fell in place beautifully.

NPR has been doing, and still does, this amazing segment/section called the “This is Believe” segment. I printed a couple essays from their archives last night and had the kids read them in class. Some of the kids were really touched by the essays and really liked them, while others thought the ones they read were stupid (lawl). Their final assessment now is to write an essay for “This is Believe” based on any one of the topics we have covered in class this semester. I look forward to reading this essays

For more info on NPR’s “This I Believe” : http://www.npr.org/series/4538138/this-i-believe

bhul chuk maaf.

- diwana singh

I hope yall have read the previous “Class # 7” blog. Writing these blogs 2-3 weeks after the class is definitely bittersweet. Sweet because I have better perspectives, better understanding and sometimes even newer discoveries. Bitter because sometimes I can’t remember what we actually talked about in class.

But after finishing that last blog, it all just came back to me right now. The class started with a very interesting survey. We handed out small pieces of paper to all the kids and told them to quietly and individually answer the question written on the board. The question on the board read “Do you or does someone in your immediate family consume alcohol on a regular basis?”

The results of this anonymous survey were pretty interesting…we had a dead split in the class. 50% of the class answered yes and 50% of the class answered no. And the survey was more for me just because I really wanted a better perspective on what sort of situations the kids face at home.

Why did I think this discussion was necessary to have? Because from the little experience that I do have, I know that 100% of my class WILL be or already has been faced with the decision of whether to drink or not and 50% of them probably WILL end up choosing to do so. That’s just how the world works. In very few instances will the child of a drinking parent decide NOT to drink and walk a different path, but that’s mostly not the case. And that’s simply because parents that drink have absolutely no right to tell their kid not to drink, that’s just textbook hypocrisy. So now put yourself in the shoes of that teenager….

Random friend from school: hey man, you wanna grab a beer?

If you’re not strong in your will and don’t already have an idea of what your do’s and don’ts are, what your principles are, then most likely… you’ll cave.

Parents that are drinkers will often make excuses for their own decisions and disguise them as life advice for their kids. For example, “yeah beta, It’s okay to drink, as long as you don’t get drunk”

-__________-

The bulk of the class was then spent in hearing testimonials from the students about their experiences with peer pressures in high school and in College. My two TAs are in college now so they were able to give the rest of the class some really good advice and insight into the college world and how to deal with peer pressures.

All this combined with the discussion on Mann Jeetai Jagjeet was what Week 7 was all about.

Word.