AMRITSAR, INDIA -- Here, in the spiritual center of the Sikh faith, one man stands out. He appears to be a walking contradiction: he is both taller and fairer, but also much more visibly "Sikh" than almost everyone around him, even the Punjabis who have practiced the faith for generations. He is Sada Sat Simran Singh Khalsa and he is over six feet tall, with pale skin, a towering turban, ruddy beard, and floor-sweeping blue robes. As he walks the perimeter of the Golden Temple, he attracts stares from Punjabis and Westerners alike—all trying to classify him, all coming up short. India is rife with Westerners who adopt an Eastern philosophy and begin dressing and practicing like their Indian counterparts, but few are like Khalsa.

He was born and raised outside of Washington D.C, in a decidedly American community, but also in the Sikh tradition, albeit the particularly American variety of the Indian faith. At age eight, he was sent to Miri Piri Academy to study and now, on a warm spring evening some 18 years later, Khalsa can be found in the school’s music room, giving lessons to a group of young devotees.

At the Miri Piri Academy in Chhertha Sahib, outside Amritsar, India, the students faces look American, they speak in American English, and many of them have all the trappings of American youth: iPods, cell phones and reggaeton ringtones, but nobody could mistake these kids for the average American student. Neither could they be mistaken for the Indians among whom they live, pray and serve. Their white turbans are tied more elaborately, their robes are longer and their symbolic swords, kirpans, are bigger and less, well, symbolic.

Sada Sat Simran Singh Khalsa looking at a book of photographs of ancient Sikh warriors. (Erik Wander)

Located on 17 acres in a village in the Indian state of Punjab, Miri Piri Academy is a school for the children of Western, mostly white, Sikhs who are followers of Yogi Bhajan, an Indian Sikh who brought the faith to the west in the late 1960s. They are often called “American Sikhs,” but the group bristles at the distinction, asserting that Sikhism in the East and Sikhism in the West are one and the same and there is no such thing as an “American” version. Nevertheless, the school’s students are mostly the children of Americans who converted to the faith in the 1970s, often after becoming practitioners of Kundalini Yoga and eventually studying under Bhajan. Bhajan—who is alternately known as Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji, Siri Singh Sahib, and, simply, Yogi Ji—founded the school, and his influence is everywhere.

Bhajan’s philosophy is rooted in discipline. He taught, “Without discipline you achieve nothing. With discipline the doors of life are open and yours to choose.” That principle is echoed constantly in these words beneath the school’s emblem: “School of Royalty and Reality. Our first principle is the Love of Discipline.” The school’s mission is “to train the future leaders, teachers and healers of tomorrow through rigorous discipline, quality academics and strong self-discipline.”

At Miri Piri, students begin their day two hours before dawn with an hour of Kundalini yoga and meditation followed by physical training. “The reason, scientifically, is because your mind is calm then,” Sada Sat says. “The world hasn’t started. You can meditate and you can conquer all your demons at that time. There’s a whole science behind it. You have to experience it to really understand.” Twice a year, for 40 days at a time, they arise even earlier, at 2:30 in the morning to do their sewa, or service, at the Golden Temple. There, they wash the marble floors surrounding the “pool of nectar” upon which the temple appears to float.

Khalsa’s fiancée, Guru Das Kaur Khalsa (most followers of Yogi Bhajan take on the last name Khalsa), only came to the school as a high school junior, but she credits the rigorous structure with transforming her life. “When I was in school in America I drank and I partied,” she says. “But when I came to school here I decided not to. I think I just became happier.” She credits this happiness to the rigorous discipline the school enforces. “They pack the schedule in. One of Sri Singh Das’s philosophies was to be really disciplined in your life. He said, don’t leave room for them to be, like, rebellious. Keep them busy and disciplined and working hard and doing all that stuff and then kids won’t have time to do stupid stuff. He says that kids rebel because they’re unhappy and if you create a solid home for them that makes them feel secure in themselves then they won’t need that.”

Most of the school’s 130 students start young, some as early as age six and seven. Bhajan encouraged his followers to send their children at a younger age, teaching that when a child is one to three, their mother is their teacher; when they are three to seven, their father is the teacher; and after that, their peers and God are the teacher.

“He liked it when kids would come here when they were younger,” Guru Das explains of Bhajan’s philosophy. “He thought when you’re young, it’s so important for you to have good parents and for them to give you a good structure. But then send them to boarding school and let the environment be their teacher. Because kids get too attached to their parents and then they take on their parent’s issues, and then they might get divorced or whatever, it’s good to be separate.”

Guruka Singh Khalsa is representative of the older generation of Sikh Americans. He began to practice the faith in the 1970s, after a roommate who practiced Kundalini yoga moved into his home in Berkeley, California. “We called it Berserkly at the time,” he says. “We were a raggle-taggle bunch of gypsies.” Now a webmaster for the site sikhnet.com, he sent both of his sons, who are now 26 and 16, to Miri Piri Academy, even as he chose to stay in America as part of Bhajan’s core group of leaders, who are concentrated in Espanola, New Mexico.

Guruka’s elder son was sent when he was just 6 years old; it was his first trip to India. “The whole process of sending a child that young halfway across the world totally freaks a lot of people out,” Guruka says. “It freaked me out too. But for most of these kids, the overall experience of being in a third world country, not protected by your parents, having to face who you are much earlier in life, allows you to test your own grit, your own strength.”

Guruka says that part of the appeal of sending his children so far away for so long was the larger influence of spirituality and faith in India. “Overall when I look back, what does the experience of being at a school like that give to a child?” he says. “A deep grounding in a spiritual energy that simply isn’t present in America. To be in a culture in whose central values are steeped in spirituality is very different than to be in America and be part of a religion.”

He also believes that the distance between himself and his children has been beneficial to their relationship, noting that “When you live with your parents, you get fed up with your parents. There’s a theory called distance therapy. When my son is halfway around the world, I meditate on him every day. And he meditates on me. It’s very different to have an image of your parent. It leads to a very helpful experience when the kids grow up.”

Guruka maintains that aside from the occasional bout of homesickness, his children loved their years at Miri Piri. Still, when his older son graduated, he was, as Guruka says, “disoriented.” He spent a little over a year in Amritsar, working odd jobs and living with his friends, much like Sada Sat and his friends.

Guru Das went to the University of Oregon following her graduation from Miri Piri and on one recent day in Amritsar, she wears a “Sikh Student Association” t-shirt from her alma-mater. Other graduates have gone on to Yale and Harvard, but many more go to work immediately in one of the businesses founded by Yogi Bhajan, such as Akal Security in New Mexico or Golden Temple Foods in Oregon.

The school is accredited according to the U.S. educational system, and offers most of the same curriculum offered in America, supplemented with yoga, meditation, and Sikh studies, including music, sword fighting, and Punjabi language classes.

Aside from some Punjabi teachers, the students are largely separate from the local community. It is at the Golden Temple where Western and Eastern Sikhs truly come together. Equality is one of the founding principles of the faith and during the sewa, or temple service, American and Indian Sikhs work alongside one another, washing the temple’s floors with milk and honey, participating and serving the free communal meal, langar.

Sometimes the students play music in the temple itself as part of the daily evening ritual in which the sacred text, the Guru Granth Sahib, is put away for the evening. The golden temple glows, its reflection mirrored in the still water surrounding it, as pilgrims and tourists file slowly down a thin walkway leading across the water into the temple. Music resonates from an inner chamber inside the temple, where musicians seated cross-legged on the floor chant and play the tabla, a traditional Indian instrument. The crowd of devotees is often dense, but calm, as they walk through the small inner temple and then sit or stand outside its perimeter.

It was here at the temple that Sada Sat met and befriended Hardeep Singh Khalsa, a Punjabi Sikh, who one day playfully challenged Sada Sat’s knowledge of the faith. Sada Sat answered the challenge correctly and then challenged Hardeep in turn. Soon, the jousting led to a friendship and now, some seven years later, Hardeep is one of the few Punjabis who is closely aligned with the American Sikh school and community.

Hardeep Singh Khalsa and Sada Sat Simran Singh Khalsa at Sada Sat's home in Amritsar. (Erik Wander)

Hardeep admits that many of his friends and family are confused by the community of white Sikhs. “They see whites, they say, ‘What are they here for? They want to rule over India again or something?’” he says, referencing the extended history of the British rule of India. “Every single person asks me this question, ‘Do you know why they’re here?’”

Sunit Singh, an Indian Sikh pursuing his PhD. in theology at the University of Chicago echoes this concern. “They’re isolated. It’s not clear to me that they have much contact with people other than American Sikhs. What kind of experience are these kids having? Of India? Of Sikhism?”

Indeed, some of the graduates of the academy seem to belong neither here nor there, and are neither fully American nor fully Indian. Ram Das Singh Khalsa, 21, returned to Amritsar after having lived in America for a year after he graduated from Miri Piri. He admits a certain fear of returning to the States again, where the rituals of his faith are less diligent. “Here, we have to do it,” he says. “We don’t have the choice to do anything else. Going back to the States, you have to do it on your own. That is a big test, that’s why I came back. Here, the practice is every day. It’s just a matter of building myself until I don’t need to have that inspiration, until I can do it on my own.”

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Two sikhs sit before the pool surrounding the Golden Temple. (Dikla Kadosh)

In a land of differences—religious, political, economic, and social—India’s history is in some ways defined by murderous conflict. Amritsar is the spiritual center for Sikhism as well as the staging ground for some of the country’s bloodiest battles, and our trip there highlighted the violent legacy borne of a billion people and centuries of colonial rule.

Last night we visited the Golden Temple, known as Sri Darbar Sahib in Sikhism. Though the religion shares many Hindu traditions such as rebirth and dharma, Sikhism was founded in the 15th century as a response to the caste system and focuses on equality. Despite comprising less than two percent of India’s population, Sikhs are known for their disproportionate influence on the nation’s politics and military. The temple is their holiest site.

At the temple, pilgrims performed rituals of purity outside the compound’s white marbled walls. We took off our shoes, washed our hands, covered our heads, and stepped through two shallow pools of water before we could enter the inner courtyards.

Inside, hundreds of Sikhs queued up to enter the Golden Temple, and some bathed in the water that surrounded the building. Nestled inside the protective white walls, the temple shined like the gleaming yolk of an egg.

The temple was built in 1589 in the spirit of unity, and worshippers flow through the doors in each wall. “The meaning of the four walls is people are welcomed from the four corners of the world,” said Jaswinder Singh, the temple’s assistant information official who greeted our delegation. “All are welcomed.”

But the walls of the Golden Temple have also invited bloodshed. In 1984, a Sikh separatist rallied outside the temple in the name of Khalistan, a secessionist campaign for an independent Sikh state. After the separatist locked himself inside the Golden Temple, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent military troops into the temple to kill him. The separatist’s martyrdom led directly to Indira Gandhi’s assassination later that year by two of her own Sikh bodyguards.

We saw another reminder this morning of the high cost of Indian freedom at the Jallianawalan Bagh, a public park in Amritsar where in 1919 a peaceful gathering of 3,000 Indian Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus were massacred by British troops. The open field where the victims were gunned down is now a memorial, with potted flowers lining the sidewalks and pillars marking the spot where the soldiers took aim.

On one side of the park, tourists peered into a 20-foot-deep well that 120 desperate souls jumped into, seeking refuge from the gunfire but finding only death. General Dyer, who led the British troops, was later murdered by a Sikh who had witnessed the massacre as a boy.

The site is now a focal point for Sikh pride. “It’s a historical place, and I feel proud,” said Gurpreet Singh, a 23-year-old Sikh who had traveled 250 kilometers to visit Jallianawalan Bagh. “A lot of Indians have sacrificed here.”

Still, the spirit of unity lives on in Amritsar. At the Golden Temple, we watched Sikh men carry the holy book Guru Granth Sahib from the nightly prayer service back to its resting spot, in a ceremony marked by rhythmic song, prayer and reverence. Though women traditionally do not carry the holy text because of its weight, any Sikh man who is able to hustle his way into a prime spot can help transport the book in its golden carriage.

But the Sikh emphasis on "ek oankara"—the idea that God is one—was most apparent in the Golden Temple’s community kitchen, where every day 45,000 worshippers eat as part of the holy experience.

Inside the massive kitchen, we sat in rows on simple jute mats as volunteers slopped lentil stew onto our plates. We humbly cupped our hands to receive bread. At the Golden Temple, Mother India’s embrace was large enough to include 20 visitors from America, and we ate that night in unity.

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Toward noon on Sunday, the second floor of the Gurdwara Sahib in Glen Cove, Long Island started humming with the sounds of a few dozen small children at play. Outside the three-story white building at 100 Lattingtown Road hangs the saffron triangle-shaped Sikh flag. One flaps outside every Sikh temple around the world.

Freed from their parents who go to prayers in the main temple halls below, the children shuffled and skipped through the hallway towards their Sunday School classrooms, often derailed by a shriek from a friend whom they hadn’t seen all week.

Every conversation began with the murmured greeting “Waheguru Ji Ki Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh,” The Khalsa belongs to God, and to God alone belongs victory. The Khalsa is the baptized state of Sikhs and all Sikhs are expected to be in Khalsa or working towards it as the children are in Sunday School. Here they learn Punjabi, Sikh history and the text and songs of their sacred text: the Guru Granth Sahib.

“Who is going to be an ideal Sikh today?” repeated Mokhetar Singh Kamboj, the tall principal, as he walked down the hallway and gently shepherded the groups of chatting children into classrooms.

When the hallway had finally emptied, Kamboj decided to sit in on the class of the youngest children, a dozen children aged 3 to 6 who sat cross-legged or on their knees around their instructor, a high school-aged young woman in a blue sari. Her hands rested on a harmonium—a large box with a keyboard that forms the backdrop to much Indian music.

The teacher first read two lines of the Gurbani--the text of the Sikh’s devotional songs in the Guru Granth Sahib --without music. Gurbani means message from the teacher.

The children went around repeating the two lines one after another. Then they went around again, each taking turns to sing the two lines they were perfecting that day, a refrain found in many parts of the Gurbani:

Charan Chalo-Charan Chalo-Chalo Maarag Gobind
Mitay Paap-Mitay Paap-Mitay Paap Japeey Har Bind
Walk in the path of Gobind,
Your sins are washed away as you meditate on his name.

Guru Gobind was the last of the ten gurus. Guru Nanak was the first and founded Sikhism in 1669. Gobind gave the community the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy scripture, as the eternal eleventh guru. It is revered as if it were a living guru, and one is installed in each gurdwara.

Crayoned drawings of the ten different gurus decorated the walls of this classroom. Unlike their parents who wear traditional Indian clothing, the children wear jeans or sweatsuits, and veils and small cloth-covered buns –it will take years to grow enough hair to fill a turban.

The children repeated the two lines all together, and this time the classroom took on a bit of a Romper Room atmosphere as some more rambunctious students competed with one another to sing more loudly.

The teacher stopped abruptly to shush them and remind them to sing respectfully. Kamboj nodded in agreement but his eyes twinkled, pleased by the children’s exuberance.

After they have mastered the two lines, the lesson for the day, Kamboj left the room and slipped into another classroom of seven students aged nine through twelve to catch the tail end of their Sunday School Class on Sikh History.

The children spoke casually about Gobind, and Guru Nanak, with the principal.

“Why do we remember him?” prodded Kamboj.

A boy named Agam, which means “infinity,” piped up. “He speaks the three golden rules.”

“And what are those three golden rules we remember every day of our lives?” said Kamboj.

Agam’s sister Angel, a 13-year-old-girl wearing yellow and a translucent white veil, did not wait to be called upon.

First she recited the Three Golden rules in Punjabi and then went through them again in English.

“First, remember God’s Name in every thing you do. Second, share your money with others, especially with those poorer than yourself.” She paused, searching for the third rule. A look of panic began to take form on her face. Her classmates all turned to her, heads cocked expectantly.

“Work,” Kamboj began to prompt her.

“Third, work hard and honestly,” interrupted Angel in a sing-song voice and smiled triumphantly.

Kamboj beamed and bowed gently as he left the classroom.

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