Tom: Welcome to the show, Simran.

Simran: Thanks for having me. I’m really glad to be here.

Tom: I wanna start off with a personal question, so start us off and tell me where did you grow up and what were you really passionate about as a child?

Simran: Oh, thanks for asking that. Yeah, I grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Uh, that’s where I was born and raised. I have three brothers, and we grew up playing sports basketball especially. Soccer too was my, was my main sport as a kid growing up in Texas.

Tom: How did that work for you socially? Is that sort of the conduit by which you built friendships and got to know people?

Simran: Growing up with turbans, we often felt like we weren’t on an equal playing field. And sports really helped us level out. Sports create this opportunity for people who otherwise don’t fit in to sort of release all of their anxieties about being different, and just say, if I’m good, that’s all that really matters. And, if I can hang with you, you might want me on your team. And so that, that, that was really special for us.

I think also, the sort of experience of being outside of school and spending hours every week, with other people who, didn’t know us in, in a school context, and that was a really cool, experience too, and, helped us build confidence because so often people would see us and make assumptions about, every other context of life, right? Like, these guys are foreigners and they don’t know the rules, and they can’t hang out with us, and so on. And within, 15, 20 minutes being able to pierce those assumptions and, and showing people that we did belong, uh, that helped us build a sense of inner confidence, both in terms of our own abilities as athletes, but also socially being able to just create space for ourselves in this world.

Tom: Yeah, I, I was a sports fanatic growing up and, and still am and, and play with my sons. And just as you were talking, it made me think of the many different ways sports facilitates a kind of social cohesion. It’s meritocratic, right? No matter what you look like.

Simran: Yeah. Yeah.

Tom: Well, I read in your book that you went to college to be a soccer player, but it didn’t turn out how you imagine. Can you tell our listeners your, in a nutshell, soccer career at Trinity University?

Simran: It’s funny to think about because it feels like a lifetime ago. And, and now as you and I are talking about the importance of sports from childhood, I’m sort of remembering how significant that was for me. I was never really a good student and, although I did okay in my classes, it was only in order to play soccer. And then I get to Trinity and, on the last day of preseason, I had longstanding ankle injuries, but I got it pretty bad in that preseason game and was out for the season. Um, and that started, what was then a really painful journey for me. Not knowing what I would do to sustain myself.

Tom: And where did you wind up focusing your energies once it became clear that your ankles weren’t gonna permit?

Simran: I think the one thing that really changed was that for the first time in college, I was starting to understand that the material I was learning in the classroom could have a real impact in my life. That specifically that had to do with thinking about issues of race and racism, in ways that I hadn’t really understood before. But I had felt and, and really wanted to know what was happening to me and my community and what could I do about it. And I think that’s, what really hooked me in that the feeling that there was something that I had to potentially contribute and, and maybe even something that I could help change for the positive.

Tom: Sure. I’m curious, was there a particular point in which you began to really consciously cultivate your spiritual identity, of your own accord rather than as, say, a family heritage or, or cultural heritage.

Simran: It was right around that time for me because I, I had grown up in a Sikh family, and, you know, part of that experience means that my parents had immigrated. They felt it was really important to preserve the tradition and the values. And so we would learn and we knew a lot about the tradition. And I’d say, you know, even just having to answer people’s questions about, why do you wear that? What does it signify? It, it meant that we had to understand, but it never really felt deeply spiritual. The most significant moment that I can really remember is the period in college, you know, September 11th had just occurred. And so the racism had really picked up, and I’m, I’m trying to understand what’s happening to me, but I’m also trying to decide if keeping my commitment to the Sikh tradition is worth it. What value do I get out of being part of this community, and do I really want to buy into the ideas?

And so to, as I’m asking myself those questions, I start diving in and saying, what is it that I’m, that I’m connected to here? and it’s, it was through that process of exploration that I really started to feel a deeper connection with the tradition and a spiritual connection with it.

Tom: Yeah. For our listeners, many of them are in my position. I didn’t really know anything about the Sikh tradition until I first met you and heard her presentation. So I wonder if we can zoom back for a second. If you could tell us when, where, and why the Sikh faith started?

Simran: Yeah, sure. So the Sikh tradition is about 550 years old. It originates in a region of South Asia, called Punjab, which constitutes modern-day Pakistan and Northwestern India. And it emerges in a context that I think is actually very similar to what we have today. There’s a lot of cultural mixing, interaction, religious diversity, ethnic diversity, linguistic diversity, and there’s people are trying to figure out how do we live alongside one another. And kind of like today, they’re, they’re not really doing a good job. They’re fighting over ideas of hierarchy and who’s better than who, and people come out with supremacist ideas and, and they institutionalize ’em. And it, it becomes a, a social context of deep pain and suffering and inequality.

And, it’s in this context that the founder of Sikhism Guru Nanak is born, and he looks around as he’s growing older and, and understanding society, and he says, we don’t have to live this way. There, there are other ways of living that might be easier, that might invoke less division and, and hatred and violence and, and the vision that he begins to offer is one that is rooted in a very simple concept, but one I think that still feels profound today.

And that is, the oneness of all creation. It’s from this basis that we call it in Punjabi is Ik Onkar, and it’s the first term in the sixth scripture, and it appears over and over again throughout it. And, what it’s essentially telling us is that the interconnectedness of all creation has a number of profound corollaries, right?

So if I truly believe that we are all interconnected, then there’s no place for me to discriminate against someone on the basis of who they are. There’s no place for me to judge anyone. There’s no place for me to presume that I’m better than anyone or worse than anyone. One of the things that Nik says is Ham. I’m, I’m not good. But also no one’s bad. And, and the teaching in the Sikh tradition is that everyone is equally divine.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Simran: One of the sort of social and political outcomes then is if, if you truly believe this, then how do we work in a way to make it so in our society so that everyone has equal access to opportunity, to joy, to freedom, to resources. And so this becomes a really important part of Sikh philosophy that has drawn me in as well. Something that I, I really have come to believe.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Yeah. if the reality of things is that this is a world that’s radically connected, what could work to reveal it in a sense that it looks connected rather than that being a, a sort of a hidden or underlying value. One thing I was kind of struggling with as I read your book and this idea of, this radical connectedness, is like, how do you recognize or feel a connection with people or systems that are just perpetuating harm and division? How do you make sense of that disconnect or, or paradox?

Simran: I really loved what you just sort of rephrased at the beginning of your comment there, which is rather than aiming for in ultimate outcome in which we see connectedness, which I think is what so many of us do, especially in, in the modern West, to say at some point, hopefully we will achieve unity and that we will see one another as equally human and, and feel a connection between one another. What the Sikh philosophy asks us to do is take, take that as our starting point and to say we are interconnected and we can understand that. And then all of these sort of differences that manifest themselves among us are not necessarily dividing lines, but they’re different kinds of expressions of the oneness. And I think to, to your question there around, well, how do you do that with people who cause you harm? What I’ve found to be really meaningful in my own day-to-day experience of, meeting people in this world who, who don’t like me, because of how I look or because I believe something different from them.

 And for me to be able to see their humanity even in the midst of the pain or the suffering they might be trying to bring into my life. Some people think when I say that, that I’m saying, you should excuse the ugliness of their actions and simply just say, well, we’re still connected. And I’m fine with you if you’re fine with me. And I don’t think that’s what I’m saying. I think it’s both, and, that is enabled by this starting point of interconnection to say, you are human and we are connected, and I do see you as divine. And it’s also true that the actions that you’re bringing into the world are not reflective of the values that I hold to be true. And I can still hold you accountable to those, and I can still call you out for the pain that you produce, while also still loving you as a fellow human being.

Tom: zooming out and, and looking at the Sikh faith, is there like a kind of a, a shorthand set of, of terms or principles with Buddhism, I think of the eightfold path with Islam, the five pillars with Christianity, has the gospel, Jews have the commands of the Torah. When I hear Sikhism, what basic principles come to mind?

Simran: I’ve developed a sort of shorthand for myself that I use as a compass for thinking about the core sick principles. And, I’ll share them with you and then I’ll, and then I’ll talk through how they’re connected to one another.

So the first is this idea of oneness. The belief in which is the interconnectedness of all creation. And the idea there is essentially one of light. The light is always there, and it depends on our perspective, if we’re able to see it and, and appreciate it. Light never goes away. It is inherent within us. And that divine spark is something that we can all realize. And so this idea of our interconnectedness, which has all sorts of social consequences, right? Like anti-casteism and anti-hierarchy, and, a commitment to serving one another, right? These are all sort of coming out of there.

But I guess the second pillar, that I would point to, that builds on the idea of oneness is, is what in English I would call love. And what I mean by that is that in, in Sikh philosophy, we are taught that if we can experience this idea of oneness and feel connected to the world around us constantly, then that is an experience of love and not the kind of transient, everyday experiences of love that, that you and I might know in our lives, but one that is, enduring, and deeper and stays with us, because it is something that is grounded, in an experience of this world.

And so that’s, that’s the second teaching. And one of the things we’re taught in the Sikh tradition is that love is the ultimate endpoint of our lives. That’s our goal. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. And the way that one gets there is by practicing it every day, in the same way that we would practice anything that we’re trying to accomplish. and so we can come to embody love by bringing it into our daily lives.

And then the third pillar is justice. The simple idea here is that if you truly love the world around you and you truly love the people around you, you will attend to their suffering. You will want to make their lives better. And we all know this in our own lives, right? Like love inspires action, especially for the people that we’re closest to. And if my daughter is hurting, I’m not just gonna sit there and hope that she feels better, or tell her she should feel better, or say that she will feel better. I will get her a bandaid and, and wash off her cut, hold her hand, and these kinds of things. And so in, in our tradition, we think about justice and engaging in the work of justice as a really important part of our religious practice. One that is deeply spiritual and reinforces our bonds with the people around us. all grounded in this idea of interconnectedness

Tom: I think in addition to the principles of religious traditions, one of the hallmarks are the religious symbols that are either worn or carried or a part of architecture, that sort of thing. I’ve noticed that one of the distinguishing features of the Sikh community are the turbans that men wear on their heads. I’d like to ask you, when you look at yourself in the mirror and you see your turban, what does that mean to you?

Simran: Thanks for asking it that way, because so often people ask me, well, what do people think the turban means? And, people in religious communities describe different meanings for their own understandings of articles of faith or rituals, or practices.

To me there, there’s a few things that I would say. One of the most compelling meanings of the turban to me is that it is a symbol of empowerment and equality, and divine royalty. And what I mean by that is in South Asian culture, especially in the early modern period, you know, 500 years ago, when the Sikh gurus were, were walking on this earth, in South Asian culture, the turban indicated someone’s royal status, right? Only the highest class people, men, and kings were, were wearing turbans. And you know, the teaching in the Sikh tradition is that everyone is equal and everyone is equally divine. And the gurus made this really interesting, creative moment of activism and said, I, I could tell you all to stop wearing your turbans because you’re no better than anyone else. But what if instead, I empowered everyday people to recognize their own divine royalty, their own sovereignty, and say, you know, you should wear turbans too. Why wouldn’t you? And I love that creative act. I love that moment of genius, and I really take it seriously.

It might mean something different to people in modern America today.  But to me, it really does feel like a crown and as a marker of my own personal sovereignty. And it, it sort of functions that way too, that like by. By choosing to wear a turban and choosing to look different in modern American society where I live, it helps remind me every day that I don’t have to be like everyone else, that I can make choices that are in line with my own values that are represented by my turban, right?

Like these ideas that I just shared about oneness and love and justice, I can do that even if no one else is doing it, because that’s what sovereignty means. I have an autonomous, independent decision-making practice that I get to engage with every day by choosing to wear the turban, but then also then helps me make those decisions more easily, in a context where people don’t always live by the same values that I try to.

Tom: The Sikh community exists all over the globe, but probably in no country are they a majority. So most people, whenever they meet you, you’re one of few and maybe they’ve never met a Sikh member before. I wonder what would you like people who aren’t immersed in the Sikh tradition? What kind of association would you like them to have when they see the turban?

Simran: I love the question again because I, I think, what are the people’s ugliest stereotypes about people with turbans? What kinds of things have people said to me on the street that I really struggled with, and how do I challenge those? And, you know, one of the more frustrating assumptions that I receive and that many people in my community get is that because I am somebody who’s visibly religious, I must be close-minded. I must be very conservative. I must think that my way of living is the only right way to live. Which is an assumption and a stereotype that I understand, but it doesn’t ring true for me. And so what I would love for people to see when they see someone with a turban is not to immediately jump to this guy, is an intense, religious, nut job, and instead say, oh, this person is really committed to the value of love and openness. And, this person really sees me as someone who is equally divine and equally deserving and equally respected. That would be a lovely place to land.

Tom: Speaking of different faith traditions, I know that you’ve studied many through your academic career, and I’m wondering, why are there so many different religious communities that all have traditional head coverings?

I’m thinking orthodox, Judaism, Islam, Catholic clergy, even. I live in Pennsylvania, so I see the Amish. What is it about head coverings that you notice across religions that makes them so kind of common and abundant, both past and present?

Simran: Yeah, it’s, it’s such an interesting question and it’s not one that there is an easy answer to. As a historian, I would look at cultural context and say, what were the practices that were common in, in the places where these became associated with religious devotion? And, one of the commonalities among a lot of these traditions is that the places where they originate, in the context of religious diversity. We’re thinking of Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and in these places it is, it is very common actually to cover one’s head as a sign of respect.

 Almost like the exact opposite of what we have in modern America, which is if the national anthem comes on and you take your hat off as a sign of respect, in these contexts, you come into a place of holiness or you come into contact with an elder. And it has often been the case that these communities will cover their heads in these contexts as a way of showing respect. I think another thing to think about, and again, this is, this is trying to generalize across a number of different cultural contexts, is that these practices can often have much simpler meanings than the ones we try to encode.

And so there are places in the world, even now, where people cover their heads, not because it’s a religious symbol or a cultural symbol, but it’s a pragmatic, right? It’s a way to stay cool when the temperature is exceedingly hot, right? And it can be as simple as that. And so, the takeaway for me is, so often we overreach in trying to make sense of what it is that people do and why they do it. And actually just sort of going into sort of their cultural experiences and, and understanding them in their particularities is actually a really valuable practice.

Tom: Yeah. I’m gonna turn from religious symbolism back to religious principles and tenets. I wonder if you can tell me, do the Sikhs have a particular religious sacred text, and if so, what does it look like?

Simran: We do have a religious text. It’s a large volume. The modern standard version is 1,430 pages. It’s called the Guru Granth Sahib. And it’s essentially a compilation of songs written by the gurus themselves.

 In some senses, you could call it a scripture, but I would also say it’s not the same kind of scripture that most Western people are used to. It’s, it’s very different from the kind of prose narrative that you get in the Bible. The Sikh text is more like devotional poetry, that, you know, covers themes of: What is it like to have a divine experience, and how can one have that experience? If you’re familiar with poets like Rumi or Hafez, it’s more along those lines, that kind of poetry, than it is something you’d find in the older New Testament.

Simran: The other thing worth mentioning in terms of what it looks like is that it is written in multiple languages, but in one script. And the idea is that this should be accessible to people of all backgrounds. But also, if you think about the nature of literacy 550 years ago, people didn’t have access to language and literature. And some of this was intentionally gate-kept by higher casts and classes. And so the Sikh gurus, who believed everyone should have access to everything, developed their own script, called Gurmukhi. And so the Sikh scripture is written in the Gurmukhi script, which many Sikhs still read today, including myself and my kids, and a number of people in my family.

Tom: In reading your book, I saw that the Sikh tradition has a concept that you said translates as everlasting optimism, and I struggle personally with optimism. I think the times in which we live we’re, we’re bombarded by negativity. What gives you reason to think that the future will be better than the present or past? Like to what degree can our optimism map onto time that has not come?

Simran: I don’t necessarily believe that the future will be better. In the ways that so many of us think about and are conditioned to think about our world, we expect in a timeline of progress, that the world is continually improving, that we are in, in a Darwinian sense, moving towards a particular end point of progress. And that what comes next will be better than what has come before. You know, I’m a historian. I don’t really buy that. I think time doesn’t work that way. People don’t work that way. You know, if you were to ask me, are we better off today than we were 20 years ago? I don’t know if I’d say yes, in some ways, probably in other ways, probably not.

And I think that’s the nature of life. And I would also say that at least from a place of faith in, in the way that I’ve come to understand it, and, you know, this comes out of a teaching in the Sikh tradition called Hukam. Maybe the best way to explain it is actually through the Serenity Prayer, coming to a place of acceptance, recognizing that there is some that is within our control and we have agency over. And also, there’s so much that’s not in our control, and that is what we call Hukam. It’s not about the future being better; it’s about the present being good. And can we come to see the goodness in our lives today?

I guess, the other way of saying that is it feels so easy to focus in on all the negative that’s around us. And, and there’s a lot of pain and suffering, especially today, as you were alluding to, but to see it as exceptional, to see it as this is the only time in which this has happened, or the worst time that this has ever been, I think, is ahistorical and also quite dangerous. And it leads us to a place of nihilism and pessimism, and to say what’s, what’s the point of anything if, if things are just falling apart? And, and I think having some perspective is a way of talking about optimism, of focusing in on the good that’s all around us, even those things that we can’t control, that feel difficult and, and finding ways to stay engaged. That to me is what optimism looks like.

Tom:  Do you have any recommendations for how we can embody that optimism that Sikhism describes?

Simran: Yeah I’ll, I’ll share a practice that’s helped me actually move from this feeling of overwhelm to appreciation. In addition to doing a gratitude journal which, which has been a longstanding practice for me, when I go to bed each night, this is, you know, for 30 seconds. It’s not a, it’s not a major thing, but I just reflect on the day, starting from when I woke up and I, I sort of traced through everything that happened. And what I’m realizing when I’m thinking about a perspective of fullness I’ve experienced rather than a, a busyness that I’m anticipating and stressed out by, it’s really changed the way that I understand what’s happening, right?

If I start from, you know, the time I wake up around six or six 30 with my kids, and then spend time with them and get them ready and then move on to the next thing, and then move on to the next thing, I found it remarkable to realize how much gets squeezed into a day and how much I get to experience.

That’s a way for me to come to embody this experience of optimism. It’s very personal, right? There’s nothing in Sikh tradition that says, here is how you do it. But for me, this has been a really helpful practice in the last few weeks, especially.

Tom: Yeah. One of the things I enjoyed about your book, in which you were sharing Sikh wisdom with those of us who are not a part of that tradition, is that you offered many practical applications where we could sort of import some of these tenets and that we can apply them to our own lives. And one of the things that you encourage your readers is to discover and articulate our core values so that we can figure out where are we and where do we want to go. Do you have some sort of method for sitting down and being able to discover them?

Simran: It’s been an important part of my family’s shared practice for decades now. And one of the things that I’ve realized is it’s. It’s so much harder to do on your own without a sounding board, it can be so easy to deceive yourself into saying all the things that we’ve been taught are the right things to say, even to ourselves. And so to be in a conversation with people you trust and who can give you honest feedback and say, Hey, you say this, but actually, I don’t really see that reflected in you and, and that it might still be the case that there’s a gap between how you live and what you prioritize.

Or it might also be the case, and I found this for myself too, that the things you think are most important to you aren’t actually, and that it’s helpful to have someone else bounce back, their own experience of you, as a way of putting together some of those values.

Tom: And reading your book and then talking to you, I see how important the family is that you grew up with, the community of practice, of your religious faith that you’re a part of. I know many of our listeners may not be a part of any particular religious tradition. Would you encourage people to seek out some sort of religious community or not?

Simran: There are a lot of benefits to being connected with religion and religious communities that I think are hard to find elsewhere. A lot of people, when they say that they’re talking about morality and being a good person, I don’t believe that. I think one can be a perfectly moral person without religion. But I, I think what I’ve experienced through religion, there, there are a few things that, that I’m not really seeing good answers to otherwise.

One of them, which I think a lot of people find to be unexpected, is discipline. Discipline is a real turnoff for a lot of us, including me. And I’ve also learned that one of the few places that I get discipline still is through religious practice. I’ve realized that, at least for me, the value of the discipline is not the thing itself necessarily, right? Like saying prayers every day, that doesn’t transform my relationship with God, quote unquote. But what it does is, by doing something on a daily basis that I find to be difficult, it makes it easier for me to do other difficult things, when they come up, and to have inner strength, which is really important in our world.

 I think another one, and I’m seeing this from so many people, is a sense of community and belonging. I know that’s something that our. Society is struggling with right now. Mental health and depression are at such terrible rates. And religious communities are often places where people find a sense of belonging and a connection to other people.

And I think that the last thing, and this is the one that I really, personally have benefited from most, is the role that religion has played in my life in maintaining a sense of perspective and groundedness, right?

So in Sikhism, we talk a lot about ego, and we’re often reminded, hey, you’re not the most important person in the world. You’re not the only person in the world. Serving other people is important to recognizing their suffering. And I think all of this has played a really important function for me, to maintain a sense of connection with the people around me, to help me appreciate the gifts and the blessings and the privileges that I have in my life. And also to recognize what responsibilities that I have to the people around me.

Tom: Yeah, some people, maybe some of our listeners, have had bad experiences with religion, their childhood, or part of communities in which they’ve been very hurt and very wounded. And in that sense, they have associations that it’s, not welcoming, not encouraging, and that sort of thing.

So I wanna think from that perspective, if that person were to learn, some of the Sikh wisdom that you shared, and I think, huh, maybe I should investigate a different religious community kind of altogether. What kind of criteria would you use to investigate whether there’s a, a community is healthy and it might be worth joining?

Simran: I think a healthy community is one that affirms you as a person and supports you and your life, but also challenges you to grow and to learn. You know, the word Sikh itself means student. And the idea is that we’re all lifelong learners, and to never have the arrogance to think we have it all figured out, or that we’ve reached the destination. That role a community plays that a friend plays, in helping you grow and to move through your own difficulties and adversities, I think, is really important.

The other thing that, strikes me, you know, I was just in the last few days, meeting with, latter Day Saints, a different backgrounds, many of them, you know, black Latter Day Saints, L-G-B-T-Q latter Day Saints, many of them who still feel very connected to the church, said, you know, I need additional support and I’m gonna find other people who have shared experiences in my community. And so they’ve created affinity groups and support groups, and I, that to me also feels like a very healthy way of being, especially when there’s judgment that you’re navigating within your own community. How do you, create an additional layer of support for yourself?

Tom: Absolutely. Coming full circle back to where we started, I was thinking about you in terms of looking for a, a healthy religious community to be a part of, be similar to looking for a soccer team that you wanna play for. It’s a place where I’m gonna be welcomed, encouraged, and challenged. Maybe do you see some parallels between sports team that you love to be on and a religious community, and where you feel like you thrived.

Simran: I think you’re right on. And I’m also remembering an ingredient you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, which was fun. And I also think that’s true about religion and religious community for me, what you also mentioned before, around the importance of, enjoying what we have. I mean, what, what other choice do we have at this point?

Tom: Well, Simran, it’s been a really fun conversation today. I love talking sports and I’ve learned a lot about a faith tradition that, honestly, two years ago, I knew nothing. And through your speaking, through your book, and through our conversation today, I’m much better informed.

So thank you for that.

Simran: Yeah. Thanks Tom. This has been great. I’m really grateful to talk to you.