Com­ing to terms with the un­timely demise of her hus­band -ace men­tor, mo­ti­va­tional gi­ant and writer Ka­mal­jeet Singh Ahluwalia, his wife -an ace gar­dener, in­flu­encer and a pleas­ing per­son­al­ity in her own right -Harpreet Kaur Ahluwalia de­sires to con­tinue the ex­em­plary work of her il­lus­tri­ous hus­band. World Sikh News will con­tinue to pro­vide its plat­form to nar­rate her sto­ries and many of the un­pub­lished works of Ka­mal­jeet Singh Ahluwalia. Her out­pour­ing here is the heart­felt ren­di­tion of her thoughts based on her ex­pe­ri­ence while deal­ing with the treat­ment of her late hus­band prior to his suc­cumb­ing to Covid19. She raises the much-talked nar­ra­tive and an­swers it too: Can care of the com­mu­nity at large, be a com­pro­mise for the care of mem­bers of the faith, fam­ily and self?

SIKHISM EN­COUR­AGES EACH ONE OF US to make the most of the op­por­tu­nity given to every hu­man be­ing to at­tain re­union with God through –truth­ful con­duct, hu­mil­ity, med­i­ta­tion and prayer and by serv­ing the needs of the com­mu­nity -Sewa while liv­ing within a fam­ily.

Guru Nanak es­tab­lished a re­formist move­ment based on equal­ity and so­cial jus­tice for all. The tenets of Sikhism—of ser­vice be­fore self, com­pas­sion, and in­clu­sion are es­sen­tial com­po­nents of the teach­ings of Guru Nanak.

Sikh the­ol­ogy teaches that all peo­ple are equal ir­re­spec­tive of caste, colour, gen­der and creed. Hu­mil­ity is the core of Sikh liv­ing. It ex­pands the con­cept of equal­ity wherein the Sikhs ex­em­plify this con­cept through lan­gar. So Sewa for Sikhs is self­less ser­vice with­out any re­wards or per­sonal gain.

Sikhism says that sewa is an act of ser­vice to­wards Wa­he­guru. It makes them live a life of Gur­mukh with virtues of truth and truth­ful liv­ing, con­tent­ment, love, wis­dom, courage, com­pas­sion, pa­tience, hu­mil­ity and self-con­trol.

Sikhism ad­vo­cates shift­ing the fo­cus from self (man­mukh) to the needs of oth­ers first and thereby keep­ing the five vices of anger, pride, lust, greed, and at­tach­ments to ma­te­r­ial things at bay. Guru Granth Sahib says “through self­less ser­vice eter­nal peace is ob­tained”. 

Sikhs have through­out lived this ide­ol­ogy. They make up a small per­cent­age of the global pop­u­la­tion but have served at the fore­front of hu­man­i­tar­ian crises from hur­ri­canes to tsunamis, ter­ror­ist at­tacks, and now the Covid pan­demics.

To­day a Gu­rud­wara, Nis­han Sahib, and a Sar­dar have be­come sym­bols of sup­port of all kinds -self­less love, and sewa to mankind. 

To­day a Gu­rud­wara, Nis­han Sahib, and a Sar­dar have be­come sym­bols of sup­port of all kinds -self­less love, and sewa to mankind. If we look back in the re­cent past, we will find Sikhs help­ing the Ro­hingya, Syr­ian and Iraqi refugees with food and shel­ter, giv­ing sup­port in floods of Ker­ala, Jammu, and Kash­mir, Orissa and Ut­tarak­hand, wild­fires in Cal­i­for­nia, and many more. Since March 2020 when the pan­demic was de­clared in In­dia, funded by mostly Sikh phil­an­thropists they have been mo­bi­liz­ing a global re­sponse dur­ing this cri­sis.

The Hemkunt Foun­da­tion sup­plied oxy­gen cylin­ders, Sikh Aid pro­vided global hu­man­i­tar­ian dis­as­ter re­lief ser­vices and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, United Sikhs pro­vided cre­ma­tion and oxy­gen sup­plies, car­ried out san­i­ta­tion work in Jama Masjid be­fore Eid cel­e­bra­tions. Khalsa Aid helped in the re­lief ef­fort and pro­vided free oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tors, Ekam Sikhs sup­ported peo­ple with gro­ceries and lan­gar, Voice of Voice­less set up tem­po­rary hos­pi­tals and many more Gur­d­waras, in­sti­tu­tions and in­di­vid­u­als who have pre­ferred to do anony­mous ser­vice in their do­mains. 

The DS­GMC along with the Delhi gov­ern­ment set up a 400-oxy­gen-bed Covid fa­cil­ity at the cen­trally lo­cated Rakab Ganj Gu­rud­wara Sahib in Delhi, ad­ja­cent to the In­dian Par­lia­ment. It also or­ga­nized lan­gar on wheels. Beds and rooms were made avail­able in Delhi Guru Ar­jan Dev Sarai and Gu­rud­wara Bala Sahib for Covid af­fected peo­ple. When the na­tional cap­i­tal was gasp­ing for air, Gu­rud­wara Damdama Sahib stepped up to pro­vide oxy­gen lan­gar. Bangla Sahib Gu­rud­wara has al­ways been pro­vid­ing lan­gar for free to all.

The Sikh com­mu­nity keeps do­ing what it does right – serve the peo­ple self­lessly.

The Sikh com­mu­nity keeps do­ing what it does right – serve the peo­ple self­lessly. Even dur­ing the pan­demic while many of us are stay­ing safe at home, oth­ers are strug­gling to get ac­cess to ne­ces­si­ties. The Sikh com­mu­nity stepped in to help peo­ple in dire need. They risked their safety along with doc­tors and health work­ers to help peo­ple across the world.

There is an old say­ing “Char­ity be­gins at home”. I would re­word it as “Ser­vice be­gins from home.” Fac­ing the dev­as­ta­tion caused by this pan­demic and given the over­whelm­ing Sikh re­sponse to it, com­bined with the fact that many Sikhs -rich and poor, in ur­ban and rural ar­eas, were strug­gling for sup­port, a ques­tion that ran­kles in many a Sikh mind is, “Can we do some­thing for the Sikh com­mu­nity? Can we take care of our com­mu­nity? Is there any hos­pi­tal or­ga­ni­za­tion which will open their doors to Sikhs in need? 

There is an old say­ing “Char­ity be­gins at home”. I would re­word it as “Ser­vice be­gins from home.”

Sikhism sup­ports the right of free be­lief, the pur­suit of knowl­edge, and free in­quiry. It does not ad­vo­cate blind fol­low­ing of faith. Guru Nanak Sahib clearly says in Guru Granth Sahib:  

ਅਕਲੀ ਸਾਹਿਬੁ ਸੇਵੀਐ ਅਕਲੀ ਪਾਈਐ ਮਾਨੁ॥
ਅਕਲੀ ਪੜ੍ਹਿ ਕੈ ਬੁਝੀਐ ਅਕਲੀ ਕੀਚੈ ਦਾਨੁ॥
We should un­der­stand com­mands of the Mas­ter and obey; we should act with dis­cern­ment, un­der­stand­ing to re­ceive the ho­n­our in the Di­vine court.
Guru Granth Sahib Page 1245

We should use in­tel­lect to read and un­der­stand and ap­pro­pri­ately make char­ity -im­part unto oth­ers.

In to­day’s sce­nario is self-love my need or want? One­ness and love are the two build­ing blocks of Sikh liv­ing. Here the love is not for just lov­ing oth­ers but also for lov­ing the self too. 

With­out un­der­min­ing the Sewa unto oth­ers or di­lut­ing the con­cept of Sar­bat da Bhala, the Sikh com­mu­nity needs to start do­ing self-care in terms of the men­tal, emo­tional, phys­i­cal, and fi­nan­cial well-be­ing of its mem­bers.

With­out un­der­min­ing the Sewa unto oth­ers or di­lut­ing the con­cept of Sar­bat da Bhala, the Sikh com­mu­nity needs to start do­ing self-care in terms of the men­tal, emo­tional, phys­i­cal, and fi­nan­cial well-be­ing of its mem­bers. We need to make our peo­ple strong by giv­ing them higher ed­u­ca­tion, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, skill train­ing, and good health­care fa­cil­i­ties. To­day along with Lan­gar, we need to set up schools, col­leges, train­ing cen­tres, and hos­pi­tals that sup­port the com­mu­nity.

 “ਚੰਗਯਾਯੀ ਕਦੀ ਨਹੀਂ ਮਰਦੀ”— Good­ness never dies.

 “ਚੰਗਯਾਯੀ ਕਦੀ ਨਹੀਂ ਮਰਦੀ”— Good­ness never dies. This will give us more con­fi­dence and the reach of our Sewa will in­crease many folds be­cause the Sikhs have not learned to keep any­thing to them­selves. They will still self­lessly do Sewa but with more power and con­fi­dence.

ਨਾਨਕ ਨਾਮ ਚੜ੍ਹਦੀ ਕਲਾ, ਤੇਰੇ ਭਾਣੇ ਸਰਬੑਤ ਦਾ ਭਲਾ॥
“God’s glory ever in­creases; in His Will, Nanak prays for the good of every­one.”

Harpreet Kaur Ahluwalia, the wife of late Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, is a cor­po­rate coach and men­tor, a ma­jor in econom­ics, a pub­lic speaker on cor­po­rate af­fairs and an ex­pert ad­vi­sor in Em­pow­er­ment, En­tre­pre­neur­ship, Re­la­tion­ship Man­age­ment and Ado­les­cence chal­lenges.