Fall

As I watch the yellow and red leaves stir in the wind, I get this stirring in the pit of my stomach. I can feel those leaves, moving, dancing, and finally falling and settling their way to the ground, melting into the soil and rooting themselves as a part of the earth. In that soil, a seed from a fruit allows a new life to begin and start to grow. 

There is a period of time that we spend in our lives getting to know our inner yearnings, figuring out what we need to be well, and live within the fullest forms of ourselves. This comes from figuring out what we need spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, to feel rejuvenated, fulfilled, and like your cup is full. I think I finally understand where those words “settling down” come from. There is an inherent desire that arises to want the comfort and routine of connection, belonging, and home. I think this desire also comes from understanding and figuring out all those pieces about oneself and just wanting to share that. In reality settling down is not a comfortable process in itself, because it is a process of change, but it does eventually lead to being settled. 

 

For years during my training, I promised myself that there would be a magical moment the minute I was done- that I would have the fulfilling career I wanted, get married, travel and just fulfill all my dreams and interests. I went on dragging myself along patiently making sacrifices by imagining this future life. Then a couple of years ago I saw my colleagues finishing their training. They weren’t living the magical life because they were so burned out that they no longer remembered who they were. They had skipped investing into themselves spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, as part of that sacrifice to get to where they were. Now all they had left was a career they resented, but they kept working ridiculous hours thinking of another future day once they were retired that they would get to know themselves. In fact there was a paper written about this concept- it’s called delayed gratification (see reference below). In that paper they talked about how people commonly couldn’t balance work and home to the point that they decided that they just had to wait until they were retired to truly live their lives. I still know a lot of people that think if they work really hard today, then they can retire early and hopefully do all the things they dreamed of doing. This was really eye opening for me to realize at the time and I vowed that I needed to invest into myself so I started doing things I enjoy like playing my rabab and even things I initially dreaded but later learned to love that fed my body, mind and spirit. Sikhi taught me the importance of the present moment. 

 

There are certain times we do have to make a short term sacrifice for a long term gain. I am incredibly appreciative of the fact that I can now work less hours and still get paid enough to run a household, and spend time with my kids. It is a gift not to have to choose between a family and a job, and to have a job that is not only impactful but also gives me the autonomy to choose how much I work, where and when. At the same time, you can make sacrifices to get a long term gain but make sure that you don’t sacrifice everything. Make sure you teach your kids not to sacrifice everything. If my career had engulfed and encompassed me, I would be devastated that my life is not some magical fairytale right now that I promised myself. I would have become just like all the colleagues I saw, waiting for a day when I was retired to enjoy life. There needs to be balance between sacrificing some stuff in the short run for long term gain, while still enjoying the present and living in it. While I am so disappointed in how anti-climactic it has been to have a first year of practice during a pandemic, and having things not come together how I thought they would, I am thankful for what I have. It’s not like the whole castle crumbled and all I have left is the pillar of my career. So this idea of delayed gratification is so important to explore because it relates to us disrupting the process of settling into our lives. In fact we never really do settle into the present, because we are always living for a future that doesn’t come. 

 

There have been many decisions to make in the last couple of months. I’ve had to decide around my career, health, spirituality, future… all based on a vision of the future. It has been hard to do that blindly, so for two months I just froze and made minimal decisions. Each decision was a branching point, for example I cant commit to working 100 hr work weeks for two years if I’m actually planning on raising a family. I can’t move to the middle of nowhere to work, if I am planning on being closely connected to a Sikh community and going regularly to the Gurdwara. What I realized in that two months is that the process of settling into ourselves, and settling down requires decisions and effort. I can’t hold off making these decisions, but I also can’t make ones that adversely affect my future and compete with my value systems. That whole process that the leaf takes of dancing, is you adjusting is the process of knowing what fills your cup so you can settle down and you can be comfortable. So you can find a balance between doing stuff for the long term benefit and being satisfied day to day. I am looking for my space in the soil. Although the degree of choice you have might be more limited to you in your life depending on your circumstances, try to find that balance of using your autonomy to make life fulfilling each day as well. Remember that some of the Bhagats did their work in such a way that their work- making shoes, dying cloths itself was simran so if you don’t have the autonomy to change your situation you do have the autonomy to change your mindset. 

 

References

http://catalogue.cssslaval.qc.ca/GED_CL/102463592064/Doc_224290_ang.pdf Physician Health- State of Knowledge and Preventive Approach  

But Why?

It is common for us to experience events that make us question our worldview. Our understanding of the world is adapting over time as we experience life. I’ve had many times when I’ve revisited topics on this blog for that very reason, because when we re-explore a topic we deepen our understanding of Sikhi and walk away with a new framework of understanding.  

When challenges occur, they may shake our faith in others, ourselves, or God. Sometimes, people cannot establish a new adaptive framework. Instead of being able to move past it, they start to view the world from a negative standpoint. We have talked about the importance of the “wall of doubt” in our posts in the past; this wall stands in between our minds being able to achieve their life goal of realizing it is one with Waheguru. It is like a small crack in the ice- once there is space for that doubt, it grows more and more if left unchallenged. From that doubt we develop really concrete black and white rules about the world- “don’t trust anyone”, “don’t be vulnerable”, “don’t give second chances”, or even “God has done wrong, God is bad.” I refuse to believe that these are the lessons we should be learning from life. People develop this framework because they are hurt, and there is an underlying fear of opening up themselves up to being hurt again. In her Netflix special, “The Call to Courage”, Brené Brown gives us an example of this. She goes swimming with her husband and while they are in the water, she tells him how much she loves connecting with him. This is not very typical for her and was really hard for her to say, but he doesn’t reciprocate. She tries again, and again he swims away. She is feeling shame, hurt, rejection, but reminds herself that her mind is just telling her a story. In the show she explains “our brain, which is wired to protect us above all else, wants a story.” She finally just expressed to him that the story she was telling herself was that he is rejecting me because of how I look in my swimsuit. He shared that he actually hadn’t heard her in the water because he was fending off a panic attack while swimming from a nightmare that he couldn’t save his kids from drowning. They were able to clear this up once they had a discussion, whereas they otherwise would have just argued and let it come out passive aggressively. She could have told herself the story that he doesn’t love her anymore for her looks, been too afraid to confront him about it because she didn’t want to be hurt again, and then just move on with her life with the negative viewpoint that her husband no longer loves her because she’s older. She was vulnerable in first telling her husband that she loved him, but also equally telling him she was hurt and checking her story, and it was that checking that repaired trust and corrected false assumptions. This is an example of positive adaptation. 

 

I have a loved one that is ill and one of my relatives asked me- “tell me, why is this happening?” I think whenever we face a challenge in life, our most common question is why. We are looking for an explanation for some semblance of control, because if we can find a reason we can protect ourselves from it happening again. Someone might very well give us a reason- the reason for illness, the reason for someone being murdered, or simple things like the reason for being late. The explanation might not be satisfying enough to settle our minds because the event has already occurred and could not be changed. When we don’t have an explanation, or a satisfying one, we make up our own stories. Sometimes our story might involve blaming karma “this happened because of their bad karma”, black magic, pop psychology, bhoot (ghosts), or horoscopes. Ultimately these are all just a creation of maya. The 5 thieves have caught us once again, obsessing over why things are happening. I think the best explanation I ever got about why is from Bhai Satpal Singh from Nanak Naam, and he explained that it just is. Hukam is like a river that flows, it isn’t good and it isn’t bad, it just is. When people speak, or do something they are compelled to do so. It is up to us to use the chance we get by the grace of God, to recognize the maya, and break out of this cycle. The understanding of why also influences how we adapt to situations and whether we develop those negative widescale black and white viewpoints. If the Guru Ji’s had wanted us to learn not to trust anyone and to shut ourselves away, they would have written that into our Banis, and we would have become yogis in the mountains. Instead our Guru Ji’s taught us life lessons of being courageous, compassionate, and connected even when it is hard. This is a sign of our faith in God.

Brené’s research shows trust is made up of the components (BRAVING): honouring boundaries, being reliable (do what you said you would), accountable (apologize for mistakes), vault (hold in confidence what I share with you), integrity (practicing values), non-judgement (both come to each other for help), and generosity (I assume the best of your words, intentions or behaviours and will check in with you if something is bothering me). Through John Gottman’s research we know that trust is actually built in small moments. Brené has examples like building trust can be a person asking how a sick relative is, or remembering your parent’s names. These aren’t big things by any means but that is how trust is built. Gottman told a story of how he wanted to read a mystery novel, but saw that his wife is sad; he could have ignored her but he chose to approach her and that built trust. It would have been a betrayal to read his book, but betrayal is not the same as distrust. He explains distrust would have been if he thought he could do so much better than her and he should just leave her for someone else. It is universal to experience betrayal of trust in our lives. If we look at how it played out for Brené’s situation- she experienced the event, her trust in her relationship was shaken, didn’t want to be hurt again but she checked in to see what parts of trust were broken and approached with the story she was telling herself, eliminated her doubt and repaired the relationship. One of the other ways this could have gone would be that she didn’t want to be vulnerable, she could have just stuck to her story. Alternatively she could have approached her husband but still not been convinced of his explanation, or her attempts to repair the situation could have been futile.

ALADDIN: "Do you trust me?"

Brené describes how we can go through the acronym and try to understand which features need to be repaired. Which component of trust? We can also work on our own personal growth by asking ourselves- am I reliable, do I make generous assumptions of others? Since we all experience having trust broken, we know that we all have the experience of breaking someone else’s trust too so these are valuable for us all to work on. Maybe the attempt to repair some broken trust just wasn’t grand enough to fix things. Gottman actually studied this and found the quality of an attempt to repair a relationship doesn’t predict it being repaired- in other words it doesn’t really matter how big the repair action is in comparison to the break in the trust. He says for one person, a husband making a funny face might just patch up a relationship. Think of all the times you were mad and someone cracked a joke and it just changed the feeling of the room, made things light immediately. He described that the more important thing the emotional closeness established prior to the event that needs repair. Were people friends to one another in the past, did they trust initially? That’s where commitment to repair comes in too. I think if we look at Sikh Punjabis especially a lot of this stuff must have been intuitive to the generations before us because the divorce rate in our parent’s generation is so incredibly low. The process of repair after a betrayal and just finding ways to move through disagreements probably just came with knowing that you are with someone and neither of you is leaving (commitment, the opposite of distrust), so you might as well just fix it up as soon as you can. If minds are still stuck, people can work from a Sikhi point of view- doing simran together, sitting aand having faith in the guidance of a Hukamnama, trusting the Oneness that is in everyone.  Trusting another is about making those generous assumptions, of seeing the best, seeing Waheguru in all and being loving but not caught in moh. 

 

In this post we reviewed the topics of trusting people, ourselves, and God, and how challenges can lead us to positive or negative adaptations in our world-view. When we are caught up in our thoughts, fears, and doubts, we have fallen into maya and it is very hard to muster up the courage to get ourself out of the negative viewpoint. Courage is required for emotional battles as much as it is required for the physical ones fought by our ancestors. Let me be clear- it isn’t easy because that is the entire nature of this game of life. So when we say fight these emotional battles with simran, Naam, moving away from thoughts that divide us and into thoughts that unite us, we are really talking about our entire life purpose. The armor that protects us from being hurt in Sikhi comes with Naam, so while we engage and live in the world no matter what we are living in love, Anand, and peace. 

 

References 

John Gottman’s story of reading his mystery novel: How to Build Trust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgWnadSi91s&t=9s

Gottman: Repairs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqPvgDYmJnY   

Brené’s Anatomy of Trust talk: https://brenebrown.com/videos/anatomy-trust-video/

Picture: http://thetempestgirl.blogspot.com/2010/09/do-you-trust-me-what-we-can-learn-about.html

Bhalo Bhalo Re Kirtaniya

Click the shabad link here Shabad

This shabad is from Raag Ramkali by Guru Arjan Dev Ji. It's translation is below from igurbani. It is to the tune by Dr. Gurnam Singh Ji.  

He sings the song of the One Universal Creator; he sings the tune of the One Lord. He lives in the land of the One Lord, shows the way to the One Lord, and remains attuned to the One Lord. He centers his consciousness on the One Lord, and serves only the One Lord, who is known through the Guru. ||1| Blessed and good is such a kirtanee, who sings such Praises. He sings the Glorious Praises of the Lord. And renounces the entanglements and pursuits of Maya. ||1||Pause|| He makes the five virtues, like contentment, his musical instruments, and plays the seven notes of the love of the Lord. The notes he plays are the renunciation of pride and power; his feet keep the beat on the straight path. He does not enter the cycle of reincarnation ever again; he keeps the One Word of the Shabad tied to the hem of his robe. ||2|| To play like Naarad, is to know that the Lord is ever-present. The tinkling of the ankle bells is the shedding of sorrows and worries. The dramatic gestures of acting are celestial bliss. Such a dancer is not reincarnated again. ||3|| If anyone, out of millions of people, becomes pleasing to his Lord and Master, He sings the Lord's Praises in this way. I have taken the Support of the Saadh Sangat, the Company of the Holy. Says Nanak, the Kirtan of the One Lord's Praises are sung there. 

My favorite part about this shabad is that it is talking about kirtan itself in a different way, a way that we live our lives by. It talks about what the notes and the beat mean. It is a very powerful raag to hear and to sing. 

Chickpea Flour Recipes, Gluten-Free Degh

I had a friend ask me chickpea flour (besan) recipes lately and I decided to make a little guide on all the recipes I have in my recipe book, including Gluten-free Kara Parshad, or Degh. I always have a really hard time describing what "degh" (kara parshad) is. Most people roughly translate it as a pudding, but its not really a liquid so I'm not really sure what it would be called in English. It's semi-solid when warm and solid when cold. Traditionally a combination of wheat, butter and sugar, it can also be made in a gluten-free version with besan for those who cannot tolerate wheat. Please let me know if you have other recipes. I feel like I'm convinced the best gluten-free flour is definitely besan. It is so versatile and it tastes great, plus its full of protein which is something I always struggle to get enough of.

Roti: mix in 1/2 chickpea flour with 1/2 whatever you want- wheat, cassava, or gf multigrain works well.

Aloo tikki: you take potatoes and either boil or bake them until soft. I baked mine and found they turn out better. Whatever kinds of potatoes works. I used red ones this time. Then mash them well. form patties by hand. Separately mix chickpeaa flour with water until you form a liquid mixture, add in however much turmeric, salt and pepper to make it flavorful. Then dunk your potato patties in, or spoon the liquid onto them. Heaat a frying pan to med with oil- enough so the patties are partially immersed but you dont have to totally dunk them or anything. Then flip once brown. Serve with chutney or ketchup.

India Cookies (not a huge fan but mom loves them, they taste like tea biscuits that everyone has at their house in cities that aren't Northern BC): 3/4 c chickpea flour, 3 tbsp ghee, 3 tbsp sugar, and bake for 12 min on 350 F. My massi roughly told us the ingredients but no measurements at all, so we just lucked out that these estimations worked out. If you are looking for more of a Canadian Cookie, you might want to add a lot more sugar.

Besan Parshad: put 2 tbsp of chickpea flour ith 2 tbsp butter and brown on medium, mixing and preventing it from getting burned. separately boil a glaass of water, 2 tbsp of sugar. Then once the chickpea flour browns a bit and starts to emit a smell, you mix in the water and you keep mixing. You have to keep mixing it until it "comes together" and isnt like a pure liquid anymore. Usually takes around 2 minutes.

Degh: same as above but you need to use 1/2 cup water and 1-2 tbsp of sugar. SHUT OFF THE chickpea flour that you browned then slowly add in the water as you stir. If you dont continuously stir it burns. Then it will become the thin version of the pudding, then keep thickening and it will become the thick version of it. Take it out and cool!

Besan Barfi is made very similarly, except I havent gotten mine quite right yet. You have to put it into a container to let it cool and use cardamom powder. Some people use powdered milk to make it thick. I'll post that when I've got it right.

Kadhi: you take 1 big wooden spoonful of canola oil (haha sorry, not the best measure) and put it in BIG saucepan, Turn it off. Add in 1 tbsp of cumin, 1 tsp of garlic and ginger (i just basically take the fresh ones and then food process them to bits), 1 tsp dried fenugreek, however much chopped green pepper you want, tomatoes and onions. I would put probably 1/2 cup of each. It will pop from the oil so i just put the lid on. Leave that while the stovetop is off. Separately in a bowl mix 125 mL of chickpea flour, mix into 3 cups of buttermilk, and 1 cup of water. Whisk. Then add 1 tsp of turmeric, 1 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp of red pepper, 1/8 tsp masala. Add it to the big pot and mix on high, uncovered. Keep mixing it so it doenst burn, every few minutes. When it has boiled after about 5 minutes put it on medium, and cover it with a lid, keeping it slightly open with your wooden spoon. Stir every little while again for 7 minutes. Voila you are done!

Pancake: 1 cup chickpea flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 3 tbsp sugar (i use less), 1/2 c and 2 tbsp milk, mix the dry into the wet and then whisk. Warm a pan on medium. add 1/2 tsp of oil and then spoon on small amounts of batter to make your pancake, cooking 3 min per side. Add fruit and maple syrup on top! (lol I was so disappointed when they had no maple syrup in India for the waffles and I realized this was a Canadian thing). This is probably the best pancake Iv'e ever eaten. This recipe is from https://www.theconsciousplantkitchen.com/chickpea-flour-pancakes/

Socca: I like this recipe. Ideally use a cast iron pan, I use cumin in mine https://simple-veganista.com/socca-farinata/#llc_comments

It essentially tastes like mattar because its just vesan and cumin, but it's made in the oven instead of fried.

Cheela (omlette): 1 cup of chickpea flour, 1/2 cup chopped spinach, 1/2 c chopped carrot, 1/2 c chopped broccoli, 1 inch minced ginger, 1/4 tsp turmeric (or less!), 1/2 tsp cumin, salt to taste, red chilli to taste, 1 c water- add gradually. oil a cast iron pan, pour 1/2 cup of batter. Then add a little bit of oil on top before flipping. This is a variation of an online recipe but I really dont remember where it came from unfortunately. You can add whatever you want to your cheela.

I will try and post a pakora recipe sometime.

Having Stressors Doesn’t Mean You Must Be Stressed

One of the biggest things I’ve realized lately is that life’s events, challenges, and external stimuli never end. That sounds awful doesn’t it? I had someone tell me this a few months ago when I was incredibly ill from an infection and I thought it was really mean to be telling me in my worst times that it’s never going to end. You are drowning and someone is telling you the lifeboat is never coming. BUT what I know now is that there’s a difference here in saying life’s stressors will never end, and you feeling awful will never end.  

I used to think as soon as my training was done, that all external stressors would cease to exist. After all a significant portion of my overall exhaustion was coming from the gruelling hours and nature of my training environment. Now I finally get to set my hours, and decide how and where I want to work, and who I want to work with. It is a significant difference in autonomy. What I didn’t realize is that stressors actually don’t end though. Especially as Punjabis, we are interconnected to our extended families, and that is a gigantic group of people. The interconnectedness makes it so that if something is going on with flana (so-and-so), then I’m involved too because I’m part of the family. It’s not even possible for such a large group of people to not have constant crises. There is mutual support in the big group and dividing of dukh, and that reliance on each other helps us to get through. This connection is engrained into our survival evolutionarily. Yet I think there are bad things about taking on others’ problems and becoming entrenched into them. We should figure out how to support each other as a family and friends without absorbing all the problems into our psyche. 

Stressors are constantly being thrown our way from so many angles of life, but if we engrossed into them, there would be no space for joy. I just had someone say “you’ve had a lot going on this year, you sure deserve a break.” No, I think that narrative to me needs to change. Breaks are nice, but they don’t solve everything because things are constantly happening. I think the part that needs to change is the expectation that that it will go away, and the expectation that you can’t enjoy life while that exists. External stressors are the nature of the world, and if those let up, the 5 (kaam, krodh, lob, moh, hankar) start their own game internally. This is how the game of life was made and was true even for the Guru Jis with constant events happening from Guru Nanak Dev Ji having the rock rolled towards them from the top of the hill at Panja Sahib, to staying in Babar’s jail. The challenges will keep going, but it is the mindset that needs to change, and the story we tell ourselves around these challenges. 

I remember 4-5 years ago watching Sister Shivani from the Brahma Kumaris talk about how the mind should not be constantly under the stress of it’s external situations. Someone’s eating their chips loudly. You shouldn’t be trying to change them or their chips eating, your mind needs to be under control otherwise you have given away all of its power. (I laugh and think of this every time someone is chomping away at their chips). It is our own minds that need to learn to be living in a state of Anand. The hardest things are handled even better when our mind is balanced. Guru Ji tells us to live like a lotus flower for a reason. We cannot and should not be entrenching ourselves into worldly problems whether they are our own or especially not other people’s. I think there is a line to be drawn in playing our part, and doing what we can as our sewa, but we can’t be absorbed into the world’s problems.  

I am still working on this, and but even the realization has helped me to release a lot of what I was holding on and feeling like I was always dealing with something. It was getting overwhelming to keep track of all of the things that were happening all at once that I was having to handle. I think the idea of reminding myself I am the lotus, of reminding myself I don’t have to sink into these problems and hold them on my shoulders, and that Waheguru is everything and I, myself, me, doesn’t exist to do those things, is helping a lot.