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Spirit of the West — Page 3
3. Guru Raj Kaur Khalsa
Co-founder, Raj Yog Nival
In her own words, Guru Raj Kaur Khalsa is “a
Greek/Sikh gal born into 1950s Brooklyn, New York, who
by some miracle ended up in beautiful Vancouver.”
Part of the miracle stems from her encounters with kundalini
yoga and Yogi Bhajan in the early ’70s. Yogi Bhajan
was a Sikh householder, a former Indian government official
who came to Canada in 1969 to teach kundalini yoga—not
a traditional Sikh practice, but one he learned as a
teenager from yoga masters. “He didn’t come
to spread Sikhism but to make this ancient form of yoga
public, because he saw a need in the West,” Khalsa
says. “But some of us were also interested in
the Sikh stuff as well, which kind of surprised him.”
After adopting Yogi Bhajan’s mix of yoga and Sikh
philosophy, Khalsa and her husband began teaching in
Vancouver in 1973. Together they oversee Raj Yog Nivas,
aka Yoga West, a Kitsilano gurdwara and yoga center.
Punjabi Sikhs arriving in the ’70s didn’t
know what to make of their white-turbaned, well-toned
brethren, but Khalsa gained their trust by offering
classes to Punjabi youth while advocating for the right
of Sikhs to wear turbans and ceremonial kirpan knives.
Thirty years on, the Raj Yog Nivas community is an eclectic
overlap of North American Sikh converts, Sikhs of Punjabi
descent, and yoga aficionados with no ties to Sikhism.
All are welcome, she says. “The Sikh faith was
never meant to become another religion, rather to openly
teach how to ‘do the sacred,’ how to have
a sacred, integrated life, a meditative mind, and a
fearless spirit.”
4. Fode Drame
Imam, Zawihay Foundation
Over honey-sweetened tea and a tray of pistachios,
cake, and mandarin oranges, Imam Fode Drame explains
the name of his congregation. “Zawiyah in Arabic
means corner—where two lines meet. This is what
we want to create. A place of connection between Earth
and heaven, and a place where East meets West.”
Descended from a line of Senegalese Muslim clerics,
Drame moved to Vancouver in 1999. Until 2005 he was
head of a mosque in East Vancouver; during his tenure
it was the only B.C. mosque to allow women to attend
and study the Koran. It was also one of the few to invite
other religious leaders to talk about their traditions.
This made him controversial. The B.C. Muslim Association
locked him out, and Drame moved on to establish Zawiyah.
On Fridays the foundation attracts hundreds of Shia,
Sunni, and Ismaili Muslims, and a smattering of curious
non-Muslims. The congregation is young and progressive,
drawn to the imam’s egalitarian teachings and
emphasis on tasawwuf—Islamic spiritual disciplines
by which “the individual discovers his own soul,
his own realities, and who the Creator of his soul is.”
He believes that “enrichment comes through dialogue.
From past history, both Muslims and Jews engaged in
dialogue in Andalusia to the great benefit of both traditions
on one hand, and Islam and Christianity on the other.
Vancouver presents the opportunity of another Spain.”
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