People
Where I Get My Inspiration
by JASTEENA KAUR DHILLON
"From
woman, man is born; within woman, man is conceived; to woman he is engaged
and married. Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations
come. When his woman dies, he seeks another woman; to woman he is bound.
So why call her bad? From her, kings are born. From woman, woman is
born; without woman, there would be no one at all.
Guru Nanak, GGS:473
My last few weeks have been filled with talk of women, strength and adversity.
I wondered the other day if this was unusual for me to think about this lately or it is just always there in my mind in my work and in my life? Then, as usual, the analysis starts and the questions start bubbling in my mind.
Where does this impetus for me to focus my work on women come from? Why do I care about the plight of women all over? How do I keep my sanity after hearing and seeing the violations women and children and powerless communities suffer? And, well, you know what happens when questions start in a woman's mind, she wants answers!
To get those answers, I turn to the only place I can turn to, that is the place inside of me that makes up who I am, how I feel and what I do? I find within myself and I am surrounded by other women who came before me, who did brave things and who showed me what compels me to keep women's spirit at the forefront of everything I do.
The grandmothers and aunts and mothers and mentors who are here in life and in the afterlife give me the strength to continue to promote and protect women and other vulnerable groups.
It is these strong and brave women who sit inside me who compel me to care about the women being stopped from going to school in Afghanistan, Sikh widows still seeking justice for the Indian government's crimes 25 years ago in 1984, women being raped in Bosnia, women being martyred in Sri Lanka, women starving in Sudan, women being shot in Jakarta and women being bombed in Iraq and who motivate me to continue to be the shield to help avoid these dangers!
I tried to understand more about myself, the other day, when I was given the honour to address people invited by a rape crisis centre in Canada on the 20th anniversary of the "Montreal Massacre".
In 1989 in Montreal, Quebec, at the L'Ecole Polytechnique, a man armed with an automatic weapon stormed into a class and separated the women from the men and shot 14 women dead, saying that women do not deserve to be educated. This event changed me, I told the audience, it made me scared and propelled me to commit myself to this life's work.
As I spoke those words, I also knew that it was not only the external event of seeing the women in Montreal punished for all of the achievements women have made in the world, but it was also internally the women who live inside me, from my own family and religion.
In the Guru Granth Sahib, the Creator is referred to as father, mother, friend. And most importantly, God belongs to neither sex.
Our first Guru, Nanak, set the stage, as it is described in the quote at the beginning of this piece. It emphasises that there is no justification for categorizing women as the bad element in society or considering them less or inferior in any way. His words are borne out of reaction to the conceptions of women promoted by other contemporary religions of his time. The last guru, Gobind Singh, put the equal status of women into practice by, for example, banning female infanticide.
And furthermore, in the teachings of the other Gurus, the positive reinforcement of women in Sikhism continued:
Come, dear sisters let us join together.
Guru Ram Das, GGS: 96:6
The unfathomable beloved resides in every man and woman's heart.
Guru Ram Das, GGS: 605:6
Join with me, my sisters, and sing the songs of rejoicing the Lord of
the Universe
Guru Arjan, GGS: 136: 6
Come and meet with me, my sister souls, and unite me with my God.
Guru Amar Das, GGS: 38:5
That's it! That is where it comes from! And that is where it will stay within me and exude from me in all of my work. And it does just come so naturally to treat all persons in the same way, to share my resources with all no matter where they come from or where they are going.
After all of this contemplation and analysis, I still am not sure when and where I actually learned all of this and when these women - Gyan Kaur, Gubachan Kaur, Amarjeet Kaur, Brinder Kaur, Bari Dadi Kaur and the still living Gurnam Kaur and Harvinder Kaur seeped into my soul and became part of me or even all of me, but they are here and guiding me everyday in all of my work with women in Kabul, Jaffna, Darfur, Baghdad and Montreal.
January 24, 2009
Conversation about this article
1: Karamjit (Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.), January 27, 2010, 11:43 PM.
Thought provoking. It's interesting that one likes to think that they are unique and the possible paradox, that one is only unique because of those that as you say "live inside you". It was refreshing to read about your source of inspiration.