Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa, Vahiguru ji ki Fatih!

The entire Sikh Research Institute team wishes you a warm, Guru-focused, and reflective Vaisakhi! Mature crop, bountiful harvest, cultural celebrations, and thanksgiving — a significant day and time in multiple communities and traditions. Such is the rich symbolism and context in which Sikh siblinghood was born anew into Khalsa Panth, ripe like the golden wheat.

We commemorate the momentous inauguration of the Khalsa Panth today, the pinnacle of Sikh revolution that served as a convergence point for all the spiritual traditions and sentiments of the past.

Eliminating old bondages, we were made free: directly under the command of the One Sovereign Divine, with sovereignty vested in us, the khalisah.

Khalsa asserted an individual’s rights to dignity of life and liberty, fighting for everyone as rebels, even with prices fixed on their heads, for the Guru was in their consciousness.

Khalsa is the one who…
kills the five (vices) and destroys doubt (duality)…
takes care of the poor and disciplines the wicked…
connects with the Divine and destroys bondage
climbs the horse and wages war daily
wears arms and punishes the wicked…
– Bhai Nand Lal “Goya,” Tankhahnama

Today, we as Sikhs across the globe are asserting our socio-economic and civil rights, while exhibiting deep-buried hunger of sovereign expression through political representation. Our efforts ruffle the power structures of the ruling elite, and recent spate of hateful press coverage in Panjab and Canada are a testimony to that.

As we reevaluate our position and develop a response, we need to look back at our tradition to learn how we tackled these issues in the past. In the time of extreme crises, Sikhs remained inward-focused and united in the love of the Guru and fought outwardly as sovereigns.

It is crucial for us to continue to create awareness about Sikh identity, but also to devote substantial time for self-education on the Guru’s message to find the best expressions of our thought and identity in socio-political, economic and civil engagements.

Turn to the Sabad-Guru to seek the source of Khalsa’s vested sovereignty and become its worthy inheritor through its thoughtful expression.

O mind, you did not accomplish the only important task you had;
you did not praise the King, the Master of even the Raghu clan. Pause…
Death has befallen the whole world including the doubting religious scholars.
Say Kabir, “Those who know loving devotion of the Divine, have become Khalse.”
– Bhagat Kabir, 655

Take the time to pause and reflect on “Pragatio Khalsa Partam ki mauj” (“Khalsa revealed in Divine ecstasy”).

‍

With love,

Inni Kaur