and Los Angeles, CA who graciously left her body due to cancer on September 24, 2009
The heart of South America is Paraguay! It is a land that is situated in between Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. The 6 million people are a delicate mix of Spanish, Italian, German and Indigenous. They are smiling, kind, beautiful, and mannerful. And their pure heart shows in their bright faces. The people speak Spanish and Guarani. Guarani is the first and only indigenous language of the Americas to have all five banis translated into it. This tremendous effort was completed by Sukh Dev Kaur who was born in Paraguay to Indigenous parents.
It is in the capital of Asuncion that Sikh Dharma IberoAmerica and our office of El Camino Real are located. Out of her love and devotion to the Guru, Sat Pal Kaur, a native Paraguayan, built “Centro Dharma”. It is the most beautiful complex whose focus is the first and only Gurdwara ever built in Paraguay. The Guru even sits over a sarovar with the same fish you find in Darbar Sahib. Additionally, there is a yoga center, spa and store as part of the Gurdwara complex. There you will find classes in Gurumukhi, Kundalini Yoga, Kirtan, Gatka, Sikhi and bhangra.
The morning of our arrival in Asuncion we were invited to the new “Quinta” or ranch of Hari Jot Singh and Sat Nishan Kaur who are Kundalini Yoga teachers and members of the Paraguayan sangat. With a large group of the sangat members present we were treated to a wonderful lunch reception and musical program honoring The Lord of Miracles Tour.
The following morning we were visited by three Ministers of the central government of Paraguay. The Minister of Children’s Affairs, the Minister of Labor and the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Dona Gloria Rubin, with her entire ministerial staff of 15 women. For 2 hours over a beautiful lunch we discussed how we can participate in joint seva projects with their departments. All of the men and women in attendance had many questions on Yoga, Sikh religion and handling stress. It was a wonderful event where we planned to teach in their prisons, work and teach street children, expand our Langar and train their employees in stress reduction techniques through Kundalini Yoga. When everyone left they were uplifted, happy and grateful. Needless to say they were touched by the House of the Guru. And speaking of Langar, Atma Dev Kaur initiated a weekly Langar for street children last year. Every Saturday morning she and a group of fellow sevadars cook wonderful healthy food and serve it on the streets of Asuncion. It is a wonderful seva that they do flawlessly and with a lot of love and heart. It is called Langar Guru Ram Das.
On top of meeting with these three wonderful ministers of the country the Minister of the Environment for Paraguay, Oscar Rivas, visited us at the residence of S.S. Gurubachan Singh as well which is located in the same complex of the Gurdwara in Asuncion. During the Minister’s visit we discussed different programs that he is running and what a great service he does for the country. He expressed that he will soon be changing the scope of his ministry to be “Environment and Water” because of the tremendous need in the country. We were very excited to hear this because we have a Seva Project that we are developing to help bring water to the indigenous tribes throughout Paraguay who have been suffering without any source of clean water. There is a great need for this work to be done and right now it is only about finding the funding to make water available to these people. Somehow Guru just makes the connections and it is up to us to take action. Waheguru!
Throughout our stay included a weeklong series of lectures ranging from Kundalini Yoga to handling stress in these dynamic times. On one evening we gave a lecture to the Masons. The Masons are internationally known for their community and fraternity throughout the world. They are normally the business and political leaders of every nation. In the United States as well as many other countries, the founding fathers are Masons. It was a great opportunity to share with them the teachings of Kundalini Yoga and how it works while they meditated to Gurbani Kirtan. They were impressed, enlightened and grateful we taught them, in fact they were so impacted that after the class they came up to S.S. Gurubachan Singh and told him “now we understand what the purpose of our fraternity is, it is to serve”. And this is the practice of Kundalini Yoga, there are four legs on which Kundalini Yoga stands 1st is Posture, 2nd is Breath, 3rd is Mantra (sound current) and 4th is Seva (service). Now they are contacting Masons all over South America to offer our conferences. This is truly a blessing of Guru Ram Das to be able to reach a large, influential segment of society that is historically difficult to approach.
During our last day in Asuncion we visited a Refugee Home for street children in Asuncion. There we discussed with the coordinators how we can teach these young adults the science of breath, Kundalini Yoga and Shabad Guru to change their lives. Now the community there has taken the reigns for this project and are starting to work with them to bring the light of the Guru to every person in need. Throughout our entire stay we met and taught the people of Paraguay. The pictures we are sharing with you will show you the bright faces of these beautiful people.
In the evening we held a class for The Latin American International Association of Pediatrics who were Doctors from all parts of Latin America. They all happened to be in town for a convention and they learned yogic breath techniques and meditation during their visit to Paraguay, it was great. The person who organized the event, Meharbani Kaur was actually the chairperson for the entire convention and she is also a Kundalini Yoga teacher and Pediatrician in Paraguay. It is quite amazing to see that these teachings can impact and reach to so many different aspects of this world.
From Asunción, we traveled to La Paz Bolivia which will be covered on our next article on this 7th Lord of Miracles Tour in Honor of Guru Ram Das.
S.S. Gurubachan Singh Khalsa
Ram Das Singh Khalsa
Gurbani Kaur Khalsa
Sat Guru Kaur
