I love meandering with my friend Jas Kalra. Not only is she thoughtful and kind, with her background as a world traveler and immigrant to Canada from India, she brings with her a world-view and lived experience that are quite different from mine… which is a wonderful way of offering me the opportunity to see through her window of experience, and grow. Her view of community is steeped in her experience as a person born into the Sikh religion. While she articulated community much as I understand the determinants of health – education, safety, net of security, food, water, healthcare and so on – she painted the picture of how Sikhism sees community, as providing the basics for life. And when you understand the basics of Sikhism, which has values of honesty, compassion, generosity, humility, integrity, service, and daily spirituality, you begin to understand how she comes to her definition of community. In addition to introducing me to some of the pillars of Sikhism, she also introduced me to the aid work of Khalsa Aid. I learned a lot about community from Jas, I hope you’ll enjoy this chat with my friend as much as I did.
Sikh beliefs on God, karma, death and rebirth (BBC)
Jas wanted to mention Valerie Kaur ; best-selling author of SEE NO STRANGER. She is a Sikh woman and her work is an inspiration to many.
Jas' poem on my website