After the attacks on the Golden Temple complex, the Siri Singh Sahib established a monthly 6th-of-the-month Gurdwara to honor the sacrifices offered in dedication to the Khalsa Panth.  In a Gurdwara lecture dated March 6, 1993, he explained,”So it is a privileged day today, it’s the sixth, we celebrate every sixth, the day of the Akal Takhat, and it’s a day of the dish and wish and it’s a promise by the Guru. It dawned on me and that is what Guru Ram Das said, “on this day, the saddest day, celebrate…Let anybody prepare with love a dish, bring it with a wish and I shall grant it,” and it has become our regular feature, it has become our regular fact.  Today, we don’t only bring money, we bring Ras, we bring Roras, we bring something on which we survive, we bring the choicest thing, our life.”

In addition to the 6th-of-the-month, wish and dish Gurdwaras also happen in honor of other events – such as celebrating Guru Ram Das’s birthday.

Personal Story by Guruka Singh Khalsa 

In 1992, I learned the true power of “A Dish and a Wish.” I remembered that the Siri Singh Sahib had said to cook a dish “with your own hands” from scratch and I spent several hours doing just that and brought it to the Gurdwara and presented it with my $11 donation and my prayer to Guru Ram Das.

The Siri Singh Sahib had just told us to move to New Mexico immediately, and my prayer was very simple: “Guru Ram Das Ji, let our house in California sell quickly so we can get a place in Española.” That’s it. As usual with a dish-and-a-wish Gurdwara, it was after 10 PM when we got back to the house. There was one message on the answering machine and it was our friend in California. The message said, “You just had a full-price offer on your house. They don’t want to negotiate, they just want the house.” There has never been a single wish-and-a-dish when my prayer was not answered. Never… Not once. I understood very clearly: do it correctly with full devotion and piety and let it go. It will be taken care of perfectly.

“Do you know why you are afraid? You are afraid when you act. But when you act in the faith of Guru Ram Das as the Sikh of the Guru, then there will be no fear, because Guru shall cover it. Life is no more than a dollar bill. It is the biggest scripture on the Earth… the only currency in the world which says, “In God we Trust.” And every Sikh has a dollar bill within himself which says, “In Guru I Live.”