Espanola, New Mexico Sangat Members, Sat Kirtan Kaur and Siri Sadhana Singh share inspiring words on their experiences of seva at the Los Angeles Baisakhi Day Celebration.

Sat Kirtan Kaur

Baisakhi is my favorite event of the year. While I deeply love Solstice, White Tantric Yoga days and the Guru Ram Das chanting (and all the other great annual events), there is still no other event that inspires me quite like Baisakhi.

These last few years, I have been given the privilege of serving with Seva Kaur on the decorating and set up team at the Los Angeles Baisakhi event. The scale of this event is deeply awe-inspiring for me. For that one special day, we turn one of the largest rooms in the Los Angeles Convention Center into an enormous and utterly gorgeous Gurdwara.

This decorating and set up mission always seems to border on insanity in the beginning. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of working with Seva Kaur, she is an artistic visionary. Her blueprints for the Gurdwara are larger than life. The vision appears channelled from the divine and it calls on each Sevadar to deliver their excellence in order to manifest the vision. I think this borderline insanity is what makes this event so inspiring for me.

Last year, I arrived in Los Angeles fairly run down from school. My reserve energy was depleted and the scale of the event was so massive, I felt a little panicked. The best way I knew to surrender and manage the anxiety was to bow. Every morning, I would do some prayers and then stay prostrated for a period of time. It is obvious to me that manifesting such an enormous event is completely driven and guided by the divine. By the end of set up, I always experience an elation because I know that my work and the work of my peers has been led by God and Guru. Happy Baisakhi!

Siri Sadhana Singh