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Dead Prez has been a heavy influence on my development as an artist and as a writer for a long time now. I was first introduced to DP’s music in 2005 with their album “Let’s Get Free”…after having that entire album memorized I went on to listen to the rest of their works. And so needless to say, the opportunity to open for them was a surreal feeling. I feel blessed to have gotten such an opportunity. Enjoy!

In one word if I had to describe my attitude, I would have to say, Inspired. Back in April I got a message on facebook from a kid by the name of Suchint Sethi saying “hey, if you could, please tell me how this is. im a 17 year old rapper from ny tryna get my foot in the game….” I gave this track a listen and was blown away by how good this 17yr old kid was. His lyrics, his annunciation, his articulation, his flow and just overall demeanor on that track was SO DOPE!

If you don’t believe me you can take a listen to that track for yourself below. It currently has 9,000 views, which is a lot more than I ever get lol. But thats how good he is.

Of course I wrote back saying “yourrr effinn sickkk kiddd” and I remember saying forget gettin ya foot in the game, take that shit ova!

Later that month we met up at the NY Sikh Day Parade in beautiful New York City and decided to shoot this video so the people of the world could see Skeptik’s face and get to know him better as an MC. I’m lookin forward to watching this dude’s career unfold and I know for a fact that yall will be hearing more from him very soon.

enjoy!

Read this page before beginning: http://www.sikhs.org/japji/jp28.htm

For those of you that were too lazy to go read it, the link is for the 28th pauree of Japji Sahib. I must have read this pauree countless times in my lifetime, but it definitely made more sense in class that day than it has ever before.

This pauree in Japji Sahib really hits home and even after hundreds of years of being written it still remains SO relevant to our lives. In the opening lines, Guru Sahib tells us to “make contentment our earrings, humility our begging bowl and meditation the ashes we apply to our body” and in order to understand this pauree we need a little bit of background information on who Guru Nanak Dev Ji is referring to and what he’s saying about them or to them.

In this pauree Guru Sahib is referring to or is having a conversation with a group of Jogis (Yogis), and when translated literally a Yogi is someone who practices Yoga. When I think of the word Yogi, I think of some of the people I used to see in India: Dreadlocked hair, minimal clothing, praying beads in the hand and around the neck, and sometimes even covered in ashes but overall just seen as “Holy people”. I’m trying to research more on the Yogi lifestyle and find out more about it, but from the little that I have read it sounds really intriguing.

You’re probably wondering why Yogis cover their bodies in ashes, and after some simple google-ing I find the answer to actually be really awesome. In essence, Yogis cover themselves in ashes in order to constantly remind themselves and their urban surroundings that our bodies are impermanent and will not go with us into the next life…. I find that to be beautiful, conceptually. In fact, Guru Sahib even talks about this concept numerous times throughout the Guru Granth Sahib but we will have to discuss more on that at some other time, perhaps another class.

Now let’s go back to the pauree. My focus for the class was “man jeetai jagjeet”, which loosely translates to “by conquering your mind, conquer the world”. Guru Sahib is so polite and so humble in conveying this message to the Yogis, it’s so awesome. He understood exactly what their practices were and then offered some suggestions of his own. Guru Nanak encourages the Yogis and, more importantly us, to attain humility, contentment, meditation, constant remembrance of God, faith in God, and the realization that our bodies are just loaners from our creator. For me personally, I interpret it as him asking me to challenge myself and attain these things without having to wear ear-rings or cover myself in ashes, or practice any of the other Yogi traditions. He tells me to actually LIVE those qualities and not just present them to the world through the symbols that I carry.

We may not have many Yogis roaming the streets of the western world, but when I try to relate this pauree to my life I think about the numerous times in my life I’ve adorned the 5 kakaars of the Khalsa but have failed to actually practice their purpose, which is why “Man jeetai jagjeet” becomes so important in our lives. Lets together all learn to conquer our minds and tame our souls before we try to conquer the world. There is a lot more to write and talk about, because I feel like I could go on for hours about just this pauree, but time is short.

This post was more for me than it was for anyone else, see the next post for what actually took place in class that day

As usual, when I introduce the topic to the class, I ask that they take 2 minutes to quietly jot down their thoughts about it on their own. I’ve noticed that not all of the kids are outspoken, so this gives me a chance to call on the quiet kids and ask them what they’ve written down. (Just a tip for all my teachers, camp counselors, etc)

On the board, in one column we put down what words we think are associated with the term “Sikhi” and on the other side the words we think are associated with “Sikhism”. And what we noticed was that a good amount of the kids said phrases like “a way of life” when describing Sikhi. Whereas when looking at the Sikhism column we saw words like “code of conduct”, “rules”, etc. Some of the kids gave very interesting answers, and I love this because I love the fact that their thinking on their own. One of the kids said something along the lines of, they’re both the same word, one is in English and one is in Punjabi, they mean the same thing. (Awesome!)

The question then arises, why, if they are the same word, do they have different connotations? The core discussion for the class took place around this very question.

Our conclusion lays here: The connotations we see as “rules” or “organized religions” were for the most part set in stone by our Gurus themselves. We often argue that Sikhi has become Sikhism because we have institutionalized it and implemented things like the Rehat Maryada but those rules and suggested ways of life weren’t pulled out of thin air. Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s Rehat Naamay and verbal hukams passed down gave birth to things like the current Rehat Maryada. The Guru has blessed us with not just the path to our beloved Waheguru but also all the tools we will need to get there. Having “Sikhi” without “Sikhism” or vice versa can only get you so far and I think personally in order to achieve our full potential we need both equally. “Mann tu jot saroop hai, apnaa mool pachaan”. Guru Sahib tells us that we ARE divine, we DO carry the saroop of Waheguru, we DO embody his light, we just need to realize our full potential. I gave the example that Bhai Sahib gives often of how in order to play a professional sport you need dress a certain way, practice a certain way and/or even live a specific lifestyle. Same way with Sikhi, in order to attain our full potential we need to be able to first put ourselves in that uniform and put ourselves in the mode. (get in zone! Autozone! jk)

I think it is important to mention here that many times people will ask us if we’re religious, and depending on the individual some people will say yes and other will offer something along the lines of “I’m not really that religious, I’m more spiritual”. In fact, even one of the kids in the class said that she was faced with a similar question by one of her classmates. Her friend asked her if she was religious, and after a series of yes or no’s, she concluded with a “yea I guess I am”. It seems like the term “religious” has developed some serious connotations in our society. Western society often debates about the Spiritual v. the Religious and the debate doesn’t really seem to get anywhere.

Yes there is a huge difference between every individual’s spiritual journey and the organized religion they follow, but in terms of the Sikh faith we need the latter in order to achieve the former. Often times people say they are “spiritual” because it’s a convincing excuse when someone asks you why you’re not a practitioner (or full practitioner) of your faith, and rightfully so, you may not believe in all the rules and codes of conduct that have been put in place by the religion. But most of the time it’s a good way to satisfy the question and yourself. I can admit here that I too have given that excuse many times in the past if someone has asked me about my religious beliefs. Because the fact of the matter is, it’s hard to admit to someone else that you’re not perfect, and it’s even harder to admit to yourself that you have a lot of self-improvement to work on. Sometimes you can even feel a bit shameful or intimated depending on who’s asking the question.

So essentially in the Sikh faith there lays no debate about the spiritual v. the religious. You need one in order to achieve the other, they must coexist. You can call it Sikhi or Sikhism it wouldn’t matter, long as either of them was associated with the connotations of BOTH. Guru Gobind Singh Ji spoke of this beautifully when he said “Rehat pyaari mujhko, Sikh pyaara naahi”.

Bhul chuk maaf.

So Check it, I was out in Surrey in December and of course I had to hit up my man Saint Soldier, who not only has the same stage name as me BUT is also probably just as awesome as me. The both of us performed at the annual UNITED SIKHS conference and then grabbed some Boston Pizza and hit the studio with Vancouver’s very own Mani D. If you don’t know Mani D, then you should know he was man behind the “Farmer’s Suicide” song and video by Saint Soldier, which is a DOPEEE song.

So on a less conscious note, we kicked a couple freestyles and decided to put this little thing together. Check it out!

Comment, rate, SUBSCRIBE!

Peace

Disclaimer: Long blog ahead.

I want you to use your imagination and paint a picture of what I’m about to describe to you……

Imagine a Sikh…….. In fact, imagine a perfect… Sikh. A Sikh that wakes up at the early hours of dawn, does ishnaan and sits down to do paath. A Sikh that constantly remembers Waheguru. A Sikh that is filled with humility, sincerity, humbleness and service. Imagine if you will, a Sikh with such a character and personality that anybody that comes in contact with this Sikh realizes that this person is different from the rest of us. Imagine a Sikh that stands for justice and fights against oppression and tyranny. Picture if you will, the perfect Sikh. Now quietly open your eyes….

That’s how we started the class on Sunday… The class was then asked to quietly jot down everything they saw. And once they were done, we put these responses up on the board. To their own surprise (and now hopefully yours), when asked what was the most common theme on the board, someone yelled out “a man!”

99% of my class, when described the image of a Sikh, saw some sort of male personality. Whether it was a Guru, a shaheed, a relative or themselves. ONE brave girl timidly said “Mai Bhago”. ONE girl. Prabhleen Kaur (Aneja) probably deserves to be this week’s Champion Child since I didn’t declare a champion child in class this week. GUDRJOAB!

This was a perfect lead into a discussion about the psyche of people. We often subconsciously behave in ways that if spoken about we would probably disagree with. For example, subconsciously almost all of us are racist, but if someone asked us if we were racists, we would probably be offended.

The girls in this past Sunday’s class were extremely intrigued and came to the realization that several things in our traditions, practices and communities were gender biased and over time as a people we had subconsciously made them the norm. Even to the point where the girls didn’t think to question it or even to think twice about it anymore.

The girls vocalized their thoughts on how it’s at least a 1000 times harder to grow up as a Sikh girl than it is to grow up as a Sikh boy. And I couldn’t agree more… the lack of support systems for our growing women, the absence of any sort of encouragement and the seldom discouragement completely destroy the concept that growing up as a Sikh boy is tough. (sorry fellas)

We spoke about what our Gurus had done to abolish many of these gender biases by giving examples of Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s bodyguard Mai Bhago and Mata Sahib Kaur who revolutionized the Amrit Sanchar process (from charan pahul to khanday dee pahul). Another mentionable here is the fact that Guru Sahib diminished all gender biases by referring to all human beings as the soul brides of Waheguru.

We concluded the class with more questions: How come we’ve never been to a dastar bandhi ceremony for a Sikh girl? How come a female Parshaad sevadaar is a rare sight? How come we rarely ever see a female doing Chaur Sahib at the Gurudwara? Who does a girl go to when she has questions about her hair?  Where does a girl go when she starts to second-guess her faith? These were all questions the boys had never even thought about. Even some of the girls had never thought about these questions. And I’m glad these are coming to the forefront, so even if we don’t reach concrete solutions today, we’ve at least managed to instill some consciousness into the minds of our youth.

Our discussions ended with trying to find solutions that we could implement here at our own Gurudwara and in our own community. I think the usual mindset is to “think big” or “start small first”, but even in this global community, I’m starting to like the concept of “start small and stay small”. Commit to absolutely changing something you absolutely have control over and don’t stop till you make that happen.

HOMEWORK!!!

Homework assignment from now is to write AT LEAST a half a page of reflection every week. Don’t just state what the class was about or copy and paste your notes, instead try to reflect on the class discussion and reach some conclusions of your own. MANDATORY assignment!

okaybye

p.s. The girls seemed to be a lot more involved this week than the guys. The guys in the class seemed to be afraid to say anything at all, which I found extremely amusing. J

The following links are for further reading:

http://spiritofthesikh.blogspot.com/2010/10/half-panth.html (this was the in class reading)

http://www.sikhchic.net/current_events/womens_equality_why_arent_we_spearheading_the_struggle

p.p.s. i might not always remember to tag every one, PLEASE feel free to tag yourselves or anyone else. Apologies.

This past Sunday’s class was about Thirst or Pyass (in punjabi) and I invited brother Rubinpaul Singh to help the kids make a better connection with Gurbani and explore the concept of Thirst.

We changed things up this week by setting up the structure for the class as more of a Gurbani Vichaar and the shabad for this week’s class was as follows:

ਪ੍ਰਭ ਸਿਉ ਮਨੁ ਲੀਨਾ ਜਿਉ ਜਲ ਮੀਨਾ ਚਾਤ੍ਰਿਕ ਜਿਵੈ ਤਿਸੰਤੀਆ ॥

Prabh Sio Man Leenaa Jio Jal Meenaa Chaathrik Jivai Thisantheeaa ||

My mind is attached to the Lord, like the fish to the water, and the rainbird, thirsty for the raindrops.

(full shabad can be found here: http://searchgurbani.com/guru_granth_sahib/ang/703/line/30366 )

The class was broken up into groups and each group was given 1 line with the definitions of each word in the line. Then the group was told to make sense of the line and try to figure out what the meaning of that specific line was.

In this shabad, Guru Arjan Dev Ji talks about his thirst to be with his beloved God. He says things like:

” Whoever leads me to my Beloved – I would cut off my head and offer it to him, even if I were granted

the Blessed Vision of His Darshan for just an instant”

Guru Sahib is expressing how badly he wants to be one with his God and he explains his love and his thirst by comparing himself to a fish. He says, “My mind is attached to the Lord, like the fish to water”

We further talked about how that relates to us? How do we start to develop this thirst ourselves? What does it take to get to that level?

Perhaps we can conclude that short meetings such as the one we had last sunday are a good start. A group of youth sat together and actually LISTENED to what the Guru had to say to us. We all HEAR kirtan, some more frequently than others, but seldom do we actually take the time to register what the Guru is actually saying. I thought this week’s class was a good way to get a little taste for thirst.

We gave the example of imaginging yourself in the middle of a desert with absolutely nothing but sand in sight. Just the hot boiling sun, the sand and you. And as you can imagine, after a couple of hours, you would start to get thirsty….. but why? Simply because we KNOW what water tastes like and we KNOW that only water will be able to quench our thirst. In the same way, we need to taste Gurbani more and more often in order for us to develop more of a thirst for it…

The class ended with the quiet listening of the Shabad which we discussed above, this time actually letting it register wiith us and having more meaning than before…

More thoughts can be found on brother Rubinpaul Singh’s blog here:  http://spiritofthesikh.blogspot.com/2011/02/pyaas.html

The shabad can be heard here:

http://www.gurmatsangeetproject.com/Recordings/DharamSinghZakhmi3/Sun%20Yaar%20Hamaray%20Sajjan.mp3

Looking forward to this Sunday’s class! 11am-12pm. GNFA Gurudwara. Trailer # 9!

p.s. it is important to be noted here that Amitoj Singh was our beloved Champion Child this week. GUD JAAB!

Class # 3 was held on Sunday Feb 20th, 2011.

Though we only briefly talked about this in class, i still feel like the central theme for the class was “I AM BEAUTIFUL”.

The class began with everyone receiving a copy of the image below. So before you begin reading the blog, please stare at the image below for a bit.

The class took 5 minutes to themselves to write anything they could think of when they saw this image. Where was this from? Who was in the picture? Where was this picture taken? What is going on in the picture? etc. etc.

This image has recently been circulating the internet amongst some other pictures, and is a photograph of a group of Egyptian Christians forming a human shield to protect the Egyptian Muslims, who have stopped protesting for their daily namaaz (prayer). My good friend and mentor Rubinpaul Singh first mentioned this image to me over the phone earlier in the week and the first thing that popped into my mind before he even said anything was Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji.

For those not familiar with Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, this class was definitely ideal for you. We did a good amount of history on who was Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji, what sort of a political climate did he see in his lifetime, who was in his family, who were his teachers, and eventually we lead it all up to Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s martydom. To look up more information on him, just simply enter “Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji” in google and should find a good amount of links with helpful information

Whats important to be mentioned here is that the common misconception is that Guru Tegh Bahadur laid down his life for a specific faith or religion i.e. the Kashmiri Pandits. But what I personally believe is that, he laid down his life for the freedom of religion. Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s views were nowhere close to being in line with the views of the Hindus, but he still stood alongside them in Solidarity and ensured their security.

We spoke about what happened after Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s shaheedi and how it inspired Guru Gobind Singh Ji to create the identity of the Khalsa. This further lead the class into a simple question that often boggles all our curious minds, Why Do I keep my hair?

I don’t believe there should be a standard answer to that question, but we can all have some common reasons why. One of the more common and vague answers I hear is “it’s a part of my religion”. Which doesn’t really say much, so I gave the class my top 4 reasons why.

# 4 – Commitment – anybody and everybody is able to make a safe assumption that when you keep your hair, that you have made some sort of a commitment to something. The general public has no idea what the committment is to, but at this point they know that you are the type of person that has some sort of principles and ideals and you commit to them.

# 3 – Role Models – Think Pop Culture (or as i like to call it “poop culture”). When your favorite basketball player, nfl player, or justin beiber dresses a certain way or behaves a certain way or follows a certain code of conduct, you tend to do the same. Think about why we wear nfl jerseys when we go to football games. Because in that moment, we WANT to be a Redskin or cowboy or giant or whathaveyou. Similarly, I’m a huge fan of my Gurus, my shaheeds, my generals, my bhagats, my kings and queens. And so when I read about how they lead their lives, I WANT to do the same things they did.

# 2 – I AM BEAUTIFUL. Simply put by Guru Ji as “meray raam rai, jyon raakhay, tyon raheeyay.” The way that you have created me, the way that you have presented me to the world, is the way I wish to remain. The class agreed that God is perfect, hence his creations are perfect. Which means that we have no reason to alter ourselves as we are perfect in the eyes of God.

# 1 – I signed up for this. In class, we spoke about Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s reaction when he heard that no other Sikh from the crowd of many stood up against the call of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji’s executioner when he asked if there was any other Sikhs that was brave enough to stand up against the rule of Aurangzeb. Guru Gobind Singh Ji vowed to create such a people, such a breed of humans, such an elite class of saint soldiers, that even if they wanted to hide the fact that they were Sikhs, they wouldn’t be able to. “savaa laakh say ayk ladaun, taa-en gobind singh naam kahaaun”.

I keep my hair because I signed up for this.

Obviously a lot more goes down in Trailer # 9 on Sundays from 11am-12pm, but you gotta be there to experience it.

**Homework for the week is to come up with your OWN Top 5 Reasons for why you keep your hair. Come up with these answers for yourselves and not for me. Find out why you fell in love with this concept and what keeps you madly in love with it.

Fateh!

The first class of the semester had a great turnout! We had about 26 members of the Sikh Youth come together to talk about the topic of Integration is Not Assimilation. The first half an hour was spent on defining what each word means and what the phrase as a whole might mean. We also spoke about Segregration, American History, and how the lesson relates to us.

Some of my favorite quotables from the class are:

- “Integration is like a salad bowl, and Assimilation is like a smoothie”

- “Its not about how it relates to us, its about how we cause integration or assimilation. Because without us there wouldn’t be any talk about integration or assimilation”

We also played a quick 30 second game of sharades, which was won by Gurleen Kaur (champion child who received a Khanda sticker). The correct answer was Harmandir Sahib, which we said was a perfect example of Integration. Its situated in the middle of the water, but its still stands above it, similar to the lotus flower.

The Second half of the class was used to discuss the Sikh perspective on Integration and Assimilation. A line from Asa Ki Vaar reads “Neel Vastar Pahir Hoveh Parvaan”. Guru Nanak talks about how the hindus at the time dressed in blue robes and ate the food of the muslims in order to gain their acceptance. More on that can be found here: http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Asa_di_var_Page_10

A lot more happened and was talked about, but you gotta be there to be there. Every Sunday 10:30 – 11:30AM. Trailer # 9 at GNFA.

Look forward to next week’s class!

Brand New song from SaintSoulja. check out I’m Beamin (Lupe Fiasco Remix)

peace!