good morning i am hugh burrows. welcome to mosaic. a very special mosaic. this is about the sikh faith and sikh people. it is our pleasure to be joined by the chair of the sikh foundation of palo alto welcome sir. >> thank you. >> good to have you here. i know that -- what -- how do we begin -- how can you help us to begin sikh people and sikh faith. >> i will be happy to do that. it will take awhile to talk about various aspects but i think we can refer to origins

of sikh faith if you like. our founder, the first guru, said there will be one god, only one god. god is described in many different ways but it is the most monotheestic religion around. no difference between man and goods you can have teachers that will help you but you can reach god through your teachers directly no intermediate necessary. god is defined as always has been always shall be sole creator without fear without anonymity, forgiving, and of course formless. god is defined as a formless god. yes. so that is one aspect of sikh religion one has to understand.

truly mono theestic with a formless god. if you look at the holy book of the sikhs which was written by a fifth guru, it is a magnificent document. origins of it are still around. this is one of the very few original documents of the origin that are still around for anybody to see. and that particular book, is written in poetry, to music, and it talks about relationship between man and god and in between there is discussion which helps every human being in the process. and if you read this thing very carefully, you feel that sihism

believes in abs -- sikhism believes in absolute equality of all human beings, race, religion, all you are equal and i think in the history of any religion it is the first religion which in the holy book there is a number of pages devoted to equality of women. absolute equality of women. i think when you look at women suffrage movement in this country, hundreds of years, 500 years the guru taught about absolute equality of women and man. all the same. i think there is another thing which is interesting about sikh religion that we respect all other religions. all other religions, we respect

them and support them in any possible way. my feeling is that the gurus said the number of other super human beings, which we call profits which came thousands of years ago, but they did wonderful things for humanity and therefore we must respect them. the other thing is, that we don't believe in conversion. we simply do not go out to try to convert some body to sikh religion you are born as a sikh if you like it and want to convert yourself out of your own goodwill you can do that otherwise sikhs do not go out and try to convert other people. sikhs are supposed to be very hard working and this is specified even in our holy book you are supposed to work hard rather than what the hindus for example believe you take part

of your life and devote it away from humanity, to try to learn about god. we are told not to do that we are supposed to partake in the world go out and earn and specify that we give a certain percentage of our earning for charity. >> i am specified we need to take a break and we will come right back sir. stay with us. great program

welcome back to mosaic this is a program about sikh people and sikh faith we are joined by a project manager with sikh foundation of palo alto we have met the doctor chair of the

sikh foundation, would you pick up from our discussion there and tell us perhaps the number of sikhs are there a lot in the world? in america? >> about 24 million sikhs all over the world. vast majority are in punjab, north india, and then india and then they have migrated all over the world you have a large quantity of sikhs, a large number in england in canada they are a few percent total population. in united states, they say there are a half million sikhs in america but i believe the number is close tore one million in the united states. there are approximately 2 to 300, the house of the lords

that we call them all over united states, large number of sikhs go there and have functions and so on but we will talk more about sikhs in united states. >> yeah, almost what the doctor said a million, 40% of those numbers are here in california. the bay area in itself is the second largest sikh population next to yuba city only and recently just last month the california state legislature passed acr 181 which declares november 2010 would be declared the sikh american awareness and appreciation month. and under this it recognizes that sikh americans have been in the u.s. over a century they have contributed immensely to the state's economy have

leading roles in industries in farming, agriculture, trucking, high tech and medicine. you can find sikhs everywhere in all walks of life. >> we have a photograph here that tell us about this. >> this is a picture of sikh immigrants who landed in san francisco 1910 angel island retention facility. so they have been -- this was the first time and this is in punjabi on the walls of angel island, san francisco written which translates to i have been here 9 months when he was detained before he was let go. it has a very long past in that sense. >> very much a part of the bay area. and there are how many -- i will say temples. >> sikh temps. >> yeah, in the bay area.

>> five. >> and where? >> well, there is one in san jose, finest i think there is a picture of that later on and then one in -- >> there it is now. >> that's right a beautiful picture of -- it is a multiacreage story building, which is able to house thousands of people and there is schools that educate the children in punjabi and sikhism and then a number of others in different areas. >> here is the sikh parade in yuba city you said also there was a large concentration of sikhs. just to double back there, san jose,. >> yes. >> fremont. >> fremont. >> else sabronte. >> hayward. >> berkeley. >> are the temples open to people? >> yep. >> or is it closed. >> open to anybody that wants

to come in and everybody gets free food. yep. regardless of who you are the sikhs and that is not only true in san francisco area. any where in the world, you go to a sikh temple and you can have dinner served to you >> i know for a fact the fremont one serves over 10,000 free meals, hot meals every week you can go in 24 hours any time and anybody can have a meal. >> that comes from teaching or tenant of the faith? >> yes. that's right. it begins from the origins of sikhism we wanted everyone to be treated equally, the history is the mogul king was brought in and made to sit next to other sikhs and be fed lunch. >> the origin there in india, in the hindu cast system. >> right. >> so if i understand it

correctly, the sikhs, 500 years old, young by indian standards, ancient by american standards, is a horizontal requality a creative response out of that and again centered in -- why in ritsar? >> that is the place the guru started the golden temple, one of the most important monuments that we have of the sikhs and all sikhs any where in the world go and serve that is the place urgent open the first, there is a magnificent lake in the middle of the lake is the temple and it was opened by a muslim. they had a muslim to open it for us. >> really? >> yes. why we consider all of the religions equal. >> here is a photograph an

image of that. maybe we will go out to break and when we come back we will pick up more about this very special program about sikhs in the bay area. that image of the golden temple in india

we are talking about sikh faith and sikh's in the bay area what does sikh mean? >> the word sikh means learner, a student basically we consider ourselves learning all the time. therefore new information comes in we absorb it and use it as we go along. i think this is the teachings of our ten gurus which we will talk about more in some details. >> sikhism is a religion based on the teachings of ten teachers we call as gurus.

it was founded by agu rue in the 15th century he was followed by 9 others. he ordained forthe sikh's the form that we see, identity we see today, you see the man wearing turbans, and other articles of faith. so it was a tenth guru who ordained this? >> about what year? >> 1699 when this was established. and it came out because of the persecution that the sikh's had faced, our fifth guru, who had established the golden temple, and also he is the one who compiled the guru, he took the writings of the gurus, the hymns they had written as well as that of the other saints in

there and compiled it into scriptures that we called the articran. he was murdered by the mogul rulers. and then the 9th guru was also murdered by the mogul rulers in delhi. the pacifist sikhs turned into to fight up for their rights and he ordained this form so that the sikh's could stand out and stand up for anybody's rights if they are persecuted under tire any or injustice. >> i read somewhere a sentence i liked to be a sikh is to be a warrior both for the outside and also inside. >> a soldier -- saint soldiers. >> this' good. saint soldiers. >> it is important to

understand when the guru had five of his men followers he baptized them and then they baptized him. this is a very beautiful function that the guru performed for us. >> baptism. >> yes. yes. baptism is a christian word but it is very similar. >> but ritual washing and awakening? >> that's right. >> how is it viewed? >> it is called a ritual of baptism by steel you have a steel vessel you add water and some sugar into it. sugar symbolizes the sweetness that you have to bring to your personality and the steel symbolizes the strength that you have to bear. so that is in punjabi. >> equality.

>> yes. >> well, why do sikh's wear turbans? >> well, this was part of what the guru wanted us to do. five different things we are supposed to do and one is wear a turban. the other is wear a kollah a steel bangle we have. we have a comb to keep the hair clean and so on. >> fascinating. that is part of a belief that these are my words here is how god created me and -- >> which is probably true. look at all the profits in the world. they all had beards. >> that's a wonderful thing. i think this is probably a good place for us to break just a little bit and then we will come back this is a fascinating conversation on sikh's and sikh's in the bay area. i am hugh burrows, stay with us

>> we are talking about sikh's and sikh's in the bay area before we get to more about the bay area, tell us about yourself. where did you grow up? what do you like to do? >> to begin with, i am a sikh and i understand this tradition i live this tradition. i am also deeply interested in the arts and when i met the doctor many years ago, the combination worked very well and i have been with the sikh foundation for many years now. and had opportunity to work on very many field related propagation of sikh arts i have worked with artists, with museums, worked on publications on books for the sikh foundation as well as we do

have an annual sikh fine article lane door we use. >> the sikh foundation has been a major benefactor to the arts and in fact you have helped establish or funded sikh collection within the fine arts museum of san francisco. >> yes, asian art museum in san francisco. >> beyond that what compelled you to be interested in the arts? >> oh, my god i have been interested in arts from childhood days in particular, i inherited a number of paintings and some books on the life of the guru that were actually produced about 150, 200 years ago by one of my ancestors and they went from one generation to another and ended up with my grandmother who eventually gave it to my father and he gave it to me about 30 years ago and i brought it here and those 40

paintings on the life of the guru, are now part of asian art museum in addition to another 60 pieces of art that i gave them. so there is a permanent exhibit of sikh arts >> we thank you for that. we have a few minutes left where were you born how did you get to the united states how did you get interested in fibre optics. >> well, i was born in morga in india, punjab and grew up in daradune. went to american mission school in fact. did my bachelors degree there, and one of my professors said light travels in straight lines and as a young boy i said to moist no, it is not true i started working on methods of bending light around corner so it wasn't until i came to imperial college in london that

i was introduced to the concept of using glass fibers for transmitting images around cornerthat is what i have been working on for all these years and it has been a very rewarding and exciting experience. >> well, and you have been known as the father of fibre optics i believe and distinguished career as a ' gent, university of california and many other honors what are you interested in right now? >> i am interested in number of different things. but sikh foundation is one of the most important ones there. the art work we do there, we have set up a number of chairs of sikh studies, there are four chairs in california, at university of california, santa barbara, university california river side, and now university california santa cruz and then one at cal state east bay and you are talking about one or two more chairs these are permanent chairs of sikh

studies that will stay there forever. this is fascinating the work sonia was talking about, the art that we do, the calendars we make every year and we have a pain that describes all these -- a web page that describes all these activities. >> i have been talking to you, there we are the sikh foundation, and as we look at those sonia, where were you born? grew up and how did you get to the bay area? >> i was born in india, and grew up in india and i have been here in the u.s. for five years now. >> wonderful. well, we've just -- we just scratched the surface of being sikh and sikh in the bay area but remind us more about sikh's in america in the bay area and the things about your faith. >> well, i think one of the most important things in our faith is as i said earlier,

working hard, being entrepreneurial and giving for charities. those are very important aspects of our life and most of us try to do that. and find it fascinating. >> there is a holy book,. >> a holy book yes. >> written. >> transcribed. >> it is written by our 10 gurus and a number of hindu and muslim saints that is all included in our holy book and most of the muslims that are included in there were basically sufis. >> mystics. >> yes very interesting people. >> and as a matter of fact one of the things that we have done, there was a mosque built

in punjab area and after the partition, most of the muslims left for pakistan and that particular mosque was going into bad shape we helped assist of the sikh foundation and unesco to upgrade it and get it to a point where it can be delivered back to the muslims. >> you said equality importance of equality of women and openness to all faiths. >> yes. >> so no overt conversion but everyone is welcome. >> sure. >> centered with the golden temple there and people are still taught punjabi. >> yes. i would say that sikh's and known sikh's probably 100 million people who speak punjabi language. >> i will need from help with you after we get off air. i am hugh burrows, sonia and doctor, a very special mosaic

is there a sikh greeting or blessing you would use? [ speaking in punjab ] >> god is great >> thank you see you again next month.