I mentioned that I shall look into differences in mentalities between Sikhs directly from India and those born overseas especially Sikhs from Malaysia, Singapore and Kenya.

I have some very close friends of Sikhs (and sechay-suchay 'amritdharies') who are born in India. I have many many Sikh friends born in Malaysia,Singapore and Kenya. At our Sydney camp some differences came to light which I must 'talk about' as a means to, hopefully, overcoming our differences and also perhaps understanding each other better.

O, by the way, I am not touring this month so I am only going to ramble on and perhaps ruffle a few feathers! Very few write back to me when I write 'run of the mill' stuff on Sikhi. I get lotsa more feedback when I 'ruffle some feathers'!

An amateur video - 'Miracle of Sikhi'.

Our delivery team from Malaysia had a video shot in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah which is in East Malaysia - the northern part of the island of Borneo. It was about the use of 'divining rods' which are normally used to look for underground water but which apparently can also show the increased sacredness of a particular spot. Our aboriginal people in Australia officially call such sites 'sacred sites'. They pray at such sites and hold their sacred ceremonies in such places. The divining method to look for water is officially used by plumbers to locate water pipes and also on farms to look for water in Australia and other parts of the world.

The video claims that a German gentleman, Peter Schiers had used this method supposedly all around the globe 'measuring' the sacredness of so called sacred sites for example the Vatican, places where Mary, mother of Jesus had made appearances etc. He has also 'measured' the sacredness of religious places of other faiths. This same gentleman has supposedly done a similar 'test' at a gurdwara in Kota Kinabalu, which is in East Malaysia and found the gurdwara, especially gurbani and more so, the Visram Qar (Sach Khand), where Guru Ji is retired to at night, to be highly spiritually charged. This information has been supressed by him. So a team of 'naujawans' (youth) from west Malaysia who heard about this when they visited Kota Kinabalu decided to video this phenomena using the same 'sewadhars' who had assisted Peter Schiers in his experiments.

So a video has been made of this phenomena using steel divining rods as used by Peter Schiers. The video starts off in a private house followed by another showing the rods crossing, signifying the presence of sacredness, in front of a picture of Guru Nanak which also had lines of gurbani on it. It also crosses on the presence of gurbani written, and even cd's of gurbani including gutkas, khandas and Ik Oangkar signs. The video also shows that the presence of alcohol negates the sacredness of a 'Sikh sacred' spot.

The video then moves to the gurdwara and at all points at which there is presence of the said gurbani or religious artifacts, the rods cross. Now, to neutralise the energy, the 'diviner' stomps hard on the ground which then sees the rods uncrossing.

Peter Schiers had claimed that normally two 'stomps' of the foot neutralises such energy but it was found that near the Guru Granth Sahib and near the Nishan Sahib, at least five stomps were required to negate the energy. At the Sach Khand, no amount of stomping could negate the energy - thirty two stomps were tried but rather than uncrossing, the rods even started wrapping themselves around the 'diviner'.

We decided to show this video at Melbourne Youth Camp and the sangat which constituted mainly of Kenyan and Malaysian/Singaporian born Sikhs and all participants were suitably impressed though of course some were sceptic about such methodology to gauge the sacredness of a site. There are of course always the sceptics.

In Sydney, we experienced a very interesting phenomena. The 'Indian' sewadhars were up in arms and agitated that we were pulling our youth back into idol worship including getting our youth to 'believe' in pictures of the Gurus, and believing in miracles. Emotions ran high and long standing relationships were threatened. The Malaysian/Singaporian and Kenyan Sikhs could not understand what the fuss was about.

So, what were my conclusions?

It will appear that 'Indian' Sikhs due to their closer proximity to Hinduism and idol worship feel that any indication of our showing faith in 'pictures' and miracles means that we are deviating from true Sikhism and will take all steps to eradicate even the semblence of such practices.

To us non-Indian born Sikhs, it was merely an exercise to show our youth that just going and sitting in a gurdwara or close to gurbani, or listening to kirtan is a very pious act and we must indulge in such activities as often as possible.

Because of this taboo towards pictures of Gurus and miracles, our Panth has banned all such pictures from gurdwaras. Where we want to encourage our youth to keep an image of our Guru Jis in their minds as role models, Indian Sikhs would have us forget such images. I have a picture of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, riding a blue horse, fully armed and dressed in regal splendour with a hawk close by, in my mind. If I was a painter I would paint such a picture and give it to as many Sikh youth as I could and also encourage them to paint such a picture because that is the image we want to emulate. Indian Sikhs call that idol worship because of their in-built fear that, after five hundred years we are still capable of re-becoming idol worshippers.

Strangely, they are not wrong because there are still Sikhs, especially Indian born Sikhs who still believe that a picture of Nanak is the 'presence' of Nanak and a large proportion of us Sikhs still bow in front of such pictures and even the Guru Granth Sahib treating it like an idol rather than a sacred book of God inspired writings which we must partake of.

Mention of Alexander the Great as an ancestor of modern day Punjabi's (or Sikhs).

The second episode was the mention of Alexander the Great and his armies being distant relatives as they had come as marauders over 4000 years ago and remnants stayed behind after Alexander turned back, after fighting Porus. The fighting spirit of the armies of Alexander was later moulded into the Sant-Sipahi concept by Guru Hargobind and later moulded into the Khalsa spirit. A seemingly innocent connection, (which by the way is not without some justification because Alexander did come to Punjab) was construed as some vicious plot of robbing Sikhism of its 'Indianness' !! One 'Indian' lady even made the remark - "Does it mean that you are trying to say that we are not Indians?"

Again, the non-Indian born Sikhs could not see what the fuss was about; the youth could not see what the fuss was about, but the Indian-born Sikhs could see some divisive plot in our intentions.

I am sure you will all have your own views on these matters as we all did in Sydney. As long as we can talk about them, discuss them and hopefully realise that there are no insidious plots here to destroy Sikhism, then we are OK. Hopefully we are all here to live lives of Sikhism and propagate the truth as seen through the eyes of our Guru Ji's.

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Well, the Asa Di Var is finally completed, with Waheguru Ji's grace. It is now being mastered and we are on target for a Vesakhi release. Once again, I thank my good friend Ranjit Singh Sidhu of Oxford, UK and of Ipoh Malaysia for sponsoring this recording which will come as a double cd with a gutka just like the Nitnam kit. There are also plans to produce a DVD with words running through on screen as the Asa Di Var is sung. Keep and eye on www.sikhpoint.com for this release in the near future.

Jai Jind Singh of Toronto is developing a 'karaoke' DVD of our 'Dya Singhalong' cd which was originally produced under the auspices of the Sydney Youth Camp. This too should be released by Vesakhi. This DVD starts with a singalong 'Ura, Aera' (our Gurmukhi alphabet), followed by our now famous melody of Mool Mantr and other renditions which children will love to sing along to.

We prepare for about seven concerts/programs at the Commonwealth Games which are going to be held here in Melbourne in March and there is also the opening ceremony of the new Adelaide Gurdwara on 10-12 March.

We have decided to cancel our Vesakhi tour to USA and Canada due to over committments elsewhere and also some fatigue - I needed a break! I apologise to the many friends who had already started to make preparations on our behalf. Especial apologies to Bicky Singh of www.sikhpoint.com who had organised a two week period of programs in southern California which would have also taken in our second attendance at the LA Convention Center Vesakhi celebrations which are organised by 3HO. Apologies to the Pangalis of San Francisco and Ramneek Singh of Dallas. Also humblest apologies to the organisers of the Annual Canadian Sikhs Heritage Evening on 1April in Toronto. Hopefully we can be of service into the future.

Cherdhi Kala .......... Dya Singh