| Newsletter of the Sikh Dharma Ministry |
| Sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Religion |
| Join us Sunday, June 16th for the Summer Solstice Ministers Meeting! Time TBA. |
| The Power of Prayer |
| Table of Contents |
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A Message from the Secretary SS Dr. Sat Kaur Khalsa Ask the Bhai Sahiba... A new regular feature! Office of the Bhai Sahiba The Power of Prayer SS Sat Simran Kaur Khalsa The Scientific Study of Intercessory Prayer SS Dr. Partap Singh Khalsa Minister of the Month SS Mata Mandir Kaur Khalsa |
| Send your nagging questions to grk@uniserve.com |
| by SS Sat Simran Kaur Khalsa |
| by SS Dr. Partap Singh Khalsa |
| SS Mata Mandir Kaur Khalsa |
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| From your Secretary of Religion: The theme for this issue is the Power of Prayer. I have a personal story about this that I would like to share. On February 6, I was standing in my bedroom in New Mexico using a “safety ladder” to get a sweater off the top shelf of my closet. As my left foot hit the top step, the ladder went flying out from under me. My body twisted in four incompatible directions, and my left knee had a mind of its own. Now on the floor and in shock, I could see that the outside of my left leg was about to start bleeding profusely. I hobbled across the floor to the bathroom shower. A fairly loud voice in my head told me “Get off of that knee!” I got into a cold shower and attempted to get back into my body. Afterward, I wrapped my leg and called a friend to take me to the emergency room. Four and a half hours, and many X-rays later, the doctors said that I hadn’t broken anything, but that I had a sprained left knee and ankle, as well as lacerations down my left leg. I’d never used crutches, and miserably failed the first test after the nurse demonstrated for me. Little by little I got the hang of it. On Sunday, I few back to Los Angeles with the help of Southwest Airline’s curb side to curb side wheel chair assistance. For someone who is normally very independent, all of this attention and assistance was overwhelming. At the same time, I needed help. I had a friend pick me up at the airport and help me up the stairs to my apartment. I hired someone from the sangat to do my grocery shopping and some of my normal LA errands. I was in a lot of pain, but things were going pretty well. I was in my office by Monday, seeing clients with my leg raised and iced. On Tuesday, I saw an orthopedic surgeon who was supposedly one of the best knee guys in LA. After an MRI it appeared that I had torn the medial meniscus and the medial collateral ligament. I had bone contusions and I was somewhat terrified. What to do? Knee surgery! I was blessed in that MSS Shakti Parwha Kaur was going through a similar surgery two weeks ahead of me. She coached me through every turn. The big dilemma for me was what was I going to do for the three days post surgery when I would be flat on my back? Everyone, including the doctor told me I was going to need help. Meanwhile, it took a month to schedule the surgery, and I was still flying back and forth to LA and Santa Fe every other week. As I came into the home stretch, the week before my surgery, I had made many calls in my attempt to hire help. One person could do the first night and that was it. Most of the staff was in India helping the Siri Singh Sahib. I didn’t know what to do. I finally just said, “Look God, I need help. I am unable to do this myself.” Then I turned it over and surrendered to the best of my ability. Within two hours I got a call from one of the LA sangat leaders. He said, “We understand that you are going to have knee surgery and we want to set up a seva schedule of people to help you.” I welled up in tears and said “your call is an answer to my prayers” and it was. I got the help I needed, and I was extremely grateful. Waheguru! PS. I am recovering slowly but surely. I must say, I have found physical therapy to be a form of modern day torture but I am keeping up. |
| “Prayer is the attunement of the mind into the higher consciousness and into the Unknown. It has nothing to do with what you say and what you don’t say. It is just mental attunement. That is where the power is…one who can pray can be very powerful, because prayer makes all the elements serve that person. Gifts will come to that person. Whoever will give to that person will be gifted in return a hundredfold, a thousand fold. That’s also the beauty of it.” Yogi Bhajan When I entered the Parkarma of the Golden Temple with the Siri Singh Sahib on March 22 there were about 25 of us. As we walked past Baba Deep Singh’s shrine our numbers started growing. By the time we arrived at Dukh Banjan Beir the place at the Sarovar where the men dip, we were about 150 people; but I am telling you, that even if you were not there physically, you were there, too. Everyone who had prayed for this moment in time, when the Siri Singh Sahib could come to Harimandir Sahib and give his thanks, everyone who was part of the realized moment was there. The energy was that strong. It was amazing. Everyone present was wonderstruck and in self-imposed silence. We knew that prayer was what brought us there, prayer was being realized, and prayer is what we were still doing. As ministers of Sikh Dharma our prayers have been tested these past months as we were called to prayer for the Siri Singh Sahib. In talking with people during the times of his most intense period of ill health, the questions often arose, “Exactly, what do we pray for? At what point does our prayer get specific and at what point do we surrender our prayers to God’s will, or to the will of who we are praying for?” I’ve given a lot of thought to these questions, and have drawn some conclusions based on my own experiences. I first tuned into the meaning of prayer about 15 years ago, when a very good friend of mine was diagnosed with a life threatening disease. One day I realized that without consciously sitting and praying for him I was basically in a constant state of prayer for his well being. I experienced prayer as a constant caring for someone that I wanted the Universe to take care of, and so on some level the prayer was unending. Prayer is so subtle. We don’t have to pray with our eyes closed in front of an altar, or while chanting. Prayer is a non-stop process. We don’t pray and not pray. When we have the intention and the projection, we pray with every breath and our prayer is ever present. Answered prayer takes many forms as well. Some prayer is answered because of the strong projection we have, and it ends up causing US to take action which changes our lives. Some prayer is totally in Divine hands and is answered in a way we never even thought of. As Sikhs we accept whatever manifests as Gurprasad. As ministers of Sikh Dharma prayer is a powerful tool built into the toolkit, given to us by Guru Gobind Singh. And with the ending of each Gurudwara service, or when we stand before whatever altar we have as a touchstone to the Infinite, we do so with bowed head and folded hands in prayer. We know that prayer creates miracles. Miracles are actions which contradict scientific laws. They are marvels. I believe in miracles because I have seen them for 33 years. I saw them as I traveled with the Siri Singh Sahib, year after year from place to place, and I see them now as I travel from place to place, seeing people who practice the teachings of Kundalini Yoga and the technology of the Shabd Guru. I have seen people who were angry, sad, depressed and confused; leave their anger, sadness, confusion or depression because they wanted to. That wanting was prayer, too. So prayer manifests from consciousness. Consciousness comes when we desire it, and commit to it. Consciousness is nurtured by practice of technology and surrender to the Infinite. Consciousness grows with actions based on integrity and caring. When prayer is part of the collective consciousness and is strong toward something it can manifest change. We have seen for ourselves the power of our collective consciousness in prayer, as we participated in the healing of the Siri Singh Sahib. Let us continue to pray for healing and nurturing for him, for ourselves, for our environments, and for the planet. |
| Prayer is one of the oldest and most widely used interventions for those suffering with physical and emotional ailments. Our Sikh religion, like all other religions, encourages us both implicitly and explicitly to utilize prayer as part of our religious practice. Many spiritual and religious leaders, including the Siri Singh Sahib, have recommended its use by individuals and sangats to heal ourselves and others. The systematic scientific study of its effectiveness as a healing intervention is a more recent development (Roberts et al., 2000), although initial explorations began over a hundred years ago (Galton, 1883). Active funded investigations are ongoing (Dusek et al., 2002), most notably by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which is the part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This article will summarize and interpret some of the more important recent findings on effectiveness of intercessory prayer for a variety of ailments, which have been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. An important first step for scientific evaluation is to define what is meant by prayer. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition) defines it as, “A solemn and humble request to God, or to an object of worship”. However, many other types of prayer are possible based on religious or non-religious beliefs, spiritual and meditative practices, and whether practiced by individuals and/or groups. Hence, it is important to define what it is that you are studying so that you can eventually decide if you can find anything important about it. Another critical step is to define the methods by which credible results will be ascertained. While “true believers” of any ideology may be unhappy with the scientific method, it has proven to be highly valuable for sifting hard truth from questionable theories and beliefs (e.g., the sun rotating about the earth). A comprehensive review and meta-analysis of existing research on the effects of intercessory prayer has recently been completed (Roberts et al., 2000). This was conducted by the Cochrane Collaboration, which is the most respected international group devoted to performing systematic reviews of all types of healthcare interventions. Their objective was to review published clinical trials on intercessory prayer used “…as an additional intervention for those with health problems already receiving standard medical care.” They selected clinical trials that were randomized (to minimize bias by the intercessors and/or subjects) and focused on “…personal, focused, committed and organized intercessory prayer on behalf of anyone with a health problem …”. They considered a variety of outcomes including quality of life, illness, death, desired goals, and well-being for all involved. They assessed the data from the studies for methodological quality, and excluded studies that were poorly done. Some of the trials involved relatively large numbers of subjects (n = 1444; (Harris et al., 1999)) while others were quite small (n = 38 (Joyce and Welldon, 1965)). The main results from this review and meta-analysis were that the data were “too inconclusive to guide those wishing to uphold or refute the effect of intercessory prayer on health care outcomes.” Specifically, the Cochrane reviewed three studies (Byrd, 1988; Collipp, 1969; Harris et al., 1999) investigating people with heart disease or leukemia and found no evidence to support that prayer affected how many people died. They also found that in three studies (Byrd, 1988; Harris et al., 1999; Joyce and Welldon, 1965) that prayer didn’t significantly affect the incidence of intermediate or “bad” outcomes in people with heart disease. They found in two studies (Byrd, 1988; Harris et al., 1999) that prayer did not significantly affect the number of days that people stayed in hospitals (i.e., praying for a “swift recovery” was ineffective). They concluded as follows: “If prayer is seen as a human endeavour it may or may not be beneficial, and further trials could uncover this. It could be the case that any effects are due to elements beyond present scientific understanding that will, in time, be understood. If any benefit derives from God’s response to prayer it may be beyond any such trials to prove or disprove.” Some clinical studies have found beneficial effects of prayer. Indeed, there are trials of patients with coronary heart disease that have shown improvements in their health status that appeared to be directly related to prayer (Harris et al., 1999; Byrd, 1988). However, other studies have not been able to replicate those results (Aviles et al., 2001), and it is for this reason that scientific reviews and meta-analysis (ala Cochrane Collaboration) are performed. Recently, a study was reported that demonstrated that prayer increased pregnancy rates for couples undergoing in-vitro fertilization (Cha et al., 2001). In another study, prayer was beneficial (though the effect was small) for patients with bloodstream infections, reducing their hospital stays and the duration of their fevers (Cha et al., 2001). In contrast, prayer had no discernible effect on patients with either rheumatoid arthritis (Matthews et al., 2000) or kidney disease (Matthews et al., 2001). It is important to recognize some of the constraints inherent in the scientific process. The questions asked by scientists (formally, the “design” of the study) arise from their own cultural mindset, and hence are influenced by society. If they designed a study to ask different questions, they might find different answers. For example, the benefits of prayer may have more profound effects on the intercessors than on those for whom they are praying. The types of prayers and/or frequency may have specific rather than general effects, and hence, would not have been discernible in the Cochrane Collaboration’s meta-analysis. It is notable that there have, so far, been no investigations of the mechanisms whereby prayer may be effective. In addition to this, research must be very precise in methodology, measurement and design so that other scientists can replicate, verify, refute or expand upon their results. This is a very high bar to reach, and it often takes time and multiple studies to reach a scientifically verifiable consensus. When considering these constraints, it should not surprise us that recent studies on the medical effects of prayer are not yet definitive. What is significant about current research is the increasing interest in this topic, and the expanding dialogue among scientists. That they are willing to approach it as an area worthy of research is in itself a great step forward. In conclusion, even though many of us have personal experiences that confirm the practical power of prayer, scientific clinical trials of the effects of intercessory prayer have been inconclusive overall. When beneficial effects have been scientifically observed, they appear to be small. However, even small effects may be quite significant, particularly in major illnesses. Given the active investigations funded by the NIH, it is likely within the next decade or two that more definitive scientific results will be forthcoming. |
| Being asked to write about my ministry has given me a chance to reflect on my journey, to discover the unique patterns of my destiny, and to reflect on the many ways the Guru has given me to develop and enhance my ability to serve the mission of the Dharma. The real “kick-off” happened well before I became a Minister. This was my experience of studying with Bhai Sahib Dayal Singh during the summer of 1975. It was the summer before the first Khalsa Women’s Training Camp, and a group of us came together for eight weeks to learn and understand the word of the Guru. We also learned the protocol surrounding the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, both in caring for the Gurdwara and in performing Paath and Kirtan. I look upon this time as the most enriching weeks of my life. Bhai Sahib’s love for the Guru was so infectious and wonderful; I couldn’t help but catch it and integrate it into my heart and my life. Because I learned so much, I also started to teach these things, and to practice them in my own community. Thus, the second aspect of my growth as a minister came forward. This is the ministry of living and serving in community. Many of us have experienced this in the Dharma. The Siri Singh Sahib has given us this gift; this chance to fulfill our destiny through ashram life. I have the blessing to have lived for 30 years in the large, cozy, close-knit sangat of Herndon, VA. There have been many ways to serve here. I have been especially active in serving in the Gurdwara, which has become more and more a ministry of music. I share with many other members of our sangat a commitment to caring for each other and upholding the pillars that make this community a place where people can grow and flourish. Working on the staff of the ashram for many years helped me to understand the scope of responsibility that we carry as ministers: to be there for others in an organizational way, a heartfelt way, a neutral way, and a generous way. A vital part of my ministry has been the seva of the householder. Marriage and parenting on the spiritual path has been one of the greatest blessings for me. It is both challenging and fruitful, drawing upon the very depths of who I am as a human and a Gursikh. All of us who have done this seva can appreciate the total giving that it is. In giving us Grist Ashram, our way of life, Guru Nanak knew this was not a part of life to neglect. He taught us that taking on the responsibility of being a householder and raising conscious spiritual beings on this planet is an important part of Dharma. The fourth facet of my ministry, my training as a hospital chaplain, was truly a gift from the Guru. During this time, over the span of approximately four years, I had the opportunity to acknowledge and develop myself as a healing presence for others. My connections, to the Golden Temple, to the healing power of the Guru, and to the Siri Singh Sahib’s teachings, have been brought into the hospital rooms of many suffering people, and have worked their way through my ministerial and human presence to comfort and uplift the souls I have met. During my training I also had the opportunity to lead many worship services attended by people of all paths. I was able to integrate our faith with those of others, representing the Guru, but also crossing the boundaries of religion into the realm of the universal language of love. Working with people of many religions helped me to realize, not only how much we have to offer others, but also how much we have to learn from them. When I was given the opportunity to develop a Sikh Dharma Enhancement and Minister’s Training course, I was able to draw on my chaplain training. It was there that I had learned and practiced more than ever the importance of both personal reflection and group sharing in ministry. The course, which I have been facilitating over the Sikh Dharma bridgeline for almost two years, is based on these concepts. The idea is that this course will serve as a foundation, a beginning for a dynamic, living program that can help all of us to be more knowledgeable about our Dharma. More than that, however, this course provides a deep personal experience, allowing us to share these tools and to use them for our personal growth and service. It provides a supportive group to process the many issues and questions that we may be struggling with, and gives us a forum in which to celebrate our victories as well. Many wonderful ministers and non-ministers have contributed to this course to make it as effective as it has been, and I am very grateful to them. The course allows us to minister from the inside out, but I also recognize that my training in hospital ministry was brought to this course and to this Dharma as a gift from the outside in. My current ministry is a combination of blessings. I serve as a hospital chaplain. I serve in our community, helping in our effort to bring a new level of healing and communication to our sangat. I continue with the minister’s training course, and I play and sing music, both in our Gurdwara and in other arenas where spiritual music and education about Sikhism are now being requested. My life is rich and varied, and I thank God for my ministry and for the opportunities we all have to live and give in our own unique and exciting ways. |
| QUESTION Our Sangat has a fair amount of kids and has also experienced a great increase in the number of Indian Sikhs joining our Sunday Gurdwaras. One of the outcomes of this is the increased celebration of birthdays, with Sangat members bringing birthday cakes as part of the langar. Some of these cakes are store bought and therefore contain eggs. There has been discussion on where we draw the line. Should we prohibit this practice? Ask that when possible eggs not be used but it is Ok on occasion? Not make an issue and leave it to the people receiving the cake to eat or not? Your wisdom is most welcome on this issue. OUR RESPONSE Well, sounds like you have already thought this question through. These kinds of questions are a challenge for us, because we want to honor the sacred protocol around the Guru -- this is so important to us -- yet we don't want to be fanatics. Birthdays celebrated around the Guru are so cozy, fun, and instill in the birthday gal or guy a feeling of being blessed by the Guru, especially when being remembered in the Ardas. I think your questioning of the cake issue answers your own question. The Guru's langar is a reflection of the sacredness of our body temple, and a symbol of the purity and preciousness of the Guru's Sangat. Seems to me it is one of those slippery slope kind of things. If this, then what else is okay on occasion? (Just writing this all down is going to encourage us here in Vancouver to pull in the reigns on this issue, too!) May I mention that if you had asked me the same question around community dinners, or that kind of thing, I would probably go for the "each to his own" kind of attitude. But the Guru's lungar is a particular technology, discipline, sacred thing we do. Maintaining its purity is NOT being a fanatic. Surely we can come up with ways to have cakes that we can comfortably serve in lungar. Maybe a local bakery can be encouraged to learn to make eggless cakes -- they would surely get the business to justify it! Or maybe a local sangat member can have a little cake-making business on the side.... Rather than "prohibiting" the cakes, look at it as re-establishing the honoring and loving of the Guru's Rehit. Surely it will be worth the effort and supported by everyone! MSS Guru Raj Kaur Khalsa, Office of the Bhai Sahiba |
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