I’m commonly asked What is Ethos, exactly? I normally stutter for a bit while assorted thoughts of culture bounce around the many clogged corridors of my head. It’s a multicultural magazine, made by students I usually respond, always disappointed with my vague offering. Then I get the follow-up question: Well, what do you write stories about? The floodgates open. We’ve covered a wide spectrum of culture in the last four years. There’s that story about toilets around the world ( Winter 2010) or Eugene’s fiery Papa’s Soul Food Kitchen ( Fall 2007). What about when we covered the culture of breeding and riding bulls ( Fall 2008) or that feature investigating female circumcision ( Summer 2009)? Even after working as Ethos’ editor for nine months, I still can’t quite encapsulate this magazine into something concise and tidy. I fail to tighten and pull it into a fashionable bow. Perhaps multiculturalism as a concept is too ornate to iron down to simple terms. So, it’s a multicultural magazine . . . made by students becomes my only mumbled response. For me, Ethos has been the opportunity to explore and attempt to understand the murky depths of culture, and I hope it provides the same for our readers. Maybe that’s what Ethos is all about: opportunity for exploration. Our staff has the great fortune to experience life through the lens of a journalist, which is no simple commission. There’s an immense, alluring challenge to telling somebody else’s story accurately, especially if that somebody is from a culture as foreign as stunna shades are to your grandmother (to be fair, I don’t completely get those either). Ethos doesn’t always get it perfect, but we embrace the tricky task. Sadly — maybe fortunately — my time stumbling through nebulous descriptions of Ethos has come to an end. Graduation is here. This is my final edition working on this remarkable, student-driven publication. I am grateful for the experience, but more so for the exposure to an incredible staff passionately invested in the exploration of curious, cool culture. At the end of the day, maybe the question should be how do you define culture? How do you explore it? Open the floodgates.
Here are a few of my designs from my final edition as editor of Ethos Magazine.
Scrambling through the chaos, I attempted to identify each band. Piles of equipment grew on stage as six Eugene bands loaded into WOW Hall for Ethos’ first annual Bandest of the Bands competition. Through the disarray I examined a small crowd wandering the room, fully clad in homemade Native American costumes. I asked the stage manager who they were. “Uh, that’s Sea Bell – the big band” he mumbled, glancing over the set list. The band had painted their faces and neatly tucked vibrant feathers into braided hair. That night, Sea Bell decided they wanted to dress as Indians – one of the many themes the band features in their energetic shows. Since the ‘60s, the debate surrounding Native American costumes has been as heated as it’s been complex. Some argue such costuming is disparaging and others — like Sea Bell — believe it’s empowering and respectful. The debate has been widely played out with professional and college teams’ mascots and logos; the results have been varied. Stanford University, for example, dropped the Stanford Indian mascot in 1972. Now the cardinal (the color, not bird) represents the school. But the Washington Redskins, among many other teams, still uphold Indian themes. While I was apprehensive with Sea Bell’s stereotypical Indian attire, I also had the sense the band members were well intentioned. However, well intentioned or not, some in the crowd were offended (see this e-mail Ethos received after the concert). This issue, like any other involving ethnicity, heritage, or faith is multifaceted and the means to adequately address it are muddled. The recent debates surrounding Pacifica Forum and the attempt by campus leaders to clarify the definition of hate speech depict exactly how intricate cultural considerations can be. Diversity dilutes simplicity. Complexity creates confusion and ignorance. Far too often ignorance sprouts into hate, progresses into hate acts, and ultimately hemorrhages into violence. Understanding and compassion are the only combatants to such rampant abhorrence. The collegiate atmosphere is ideal for engaging in the thorny dialogues surrounding racism, classism, sexism, and any other micro or macro aggressions that empower hatred and discrimination. The muscle of student voices paired with the idealism and energy of campus life create a unique opportunity to deflate hostility and gain understanding. While we’re here, it’s imperative that we attempt to engage, question, and challenge all walks of life — vile or otherwise — in order to combat hatred in all of its forms. Only then will we shift this intricate, odious paradigm. LinksOriginal Article2010 Winter Edition, Ethos Magazine
Working as Editor in Chief, I designed the cover and back cover for the winter 2010 edition of Ethos Magazine.
The first decade of the 21st century has come and gone and luckily we’re all still here. Y2K came and went without so much as a light bulb going out. Technology didn’t falter as predicted; rather, it enabled profound progress. We’ve spent the last ten years illuminated by blizzards of information. Nobody seems to remember the way things were—like the days of pagers and dial-up—all the way back in the 20th century. The Web for example, has snowballed, rolling over itself again and again while redefining the ways we walk through life. Forward motion appears to be the driving force of humanity. We can’t stay still. Our rate of progress is scary, almost too swift to adjust. But we are adjusting; we must adjust. The University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication, just two years shy of its centenarian, is scrambling with heavy breaths and gritty determination to adjust. The world of journalism is evolving faster than it ever has before and we’re all attempting to rapidly rethink our roots for the foggy future that’s barreling towards us. I’m surprised even Google, with a reported 100,000 news-related hits a minute, has been able to keep up. But this is the fun of humanity, the fun of progress. This is what we do—we adjust and move forward just to redefine it all again, hopefully for better. Ethos is doing our best to embrace the modern whirlwind of journalistic evolutions, investigating cost effective printing, and investing further into the cyber world. Ethos has some exciting things in the works. Who knows where we’ll progress from exploring the world’s toilets, examining the nuances of socialist health care, or getting a feel for Eugene’s eclectic barbershops. All we ask from you is to keep reading, and maybe hand a free copy to a friend. Links2010 Winter Edition, Ethos Magazine
A Celtic Tale won a 2009 Hearst Award for feature magazine writing."They blew up my car,” Istvan said in a thick Hungarian accent. “It’s completely destroyed.” I could hear the numb roar of the fire brigade’s sirens outside my five-story apartment in Dublin’s city center. His phone call rattled me out of a deep sleep at five in the morning. I rubbed my eyes and managed to scrape out, “What?” Istvan repeated himself then hung up, leaving me disoriented and wondering what to do next. Nine hours prior to Istvan’s wake-up call, he invited me to keep him company on his balcony while he smoked a cigarette. The light blue Camel cigarette pack had a white stamp invading half of the front’s tranquil invitation. In bold black letters it read, “Toradh caithimh tobac — bás / Smoking kills.” He blew out his match and threw it in an overfed ashtray. His brown hair, buzzed short on the sides, disappeared in the thick white smoke from his freshly lit cigarette. The sulfur and smoke floated away, presenting a clear view of the north side of Dublin. It was a cool February night and the air still had a moist taste left over from the day’s rain. Istvan zipped his olive-colored fleece jacket up to his neck. “Damn Irish weather,” he shivered. We looked down when we heard teenagers throwing glass bottles at the wall surrounding our apartment complex. Istvan yelled at the hooligans, who lived in low-income housing nearby. Soon, bottles started to land on our side of the wall, shattering beer-stained glass on parked cars. “Why are you throwing bottles!” His voice projected down the street. Bracing his legs, he stood shoulder width apart, supporting his sturdy frame. His square, smiling face had quickly transformed into a stern mien. “Why are you throwing bottles?” one of the teens shouted back. “You Hungarian fuck—we’ll destroy you. We’ll demolish that red Fiesta of yours!” I could almost see the veins flare out of his forehead from five floors up. Their aggressive Irish voices, soaked with inebriation, echoed throughout the narrow streets below. The glass-ridden cars belonged to tenets of the Christchurch View Apartments. As the caretaker of the building, Istvan became friends with many of the residents. His job was to look after them, as well as the apartment property. But warding off bottle-throwing teenagers drunk with rage was not necessarily in his job description.
Istvan and I sorted through our options. His thick, brown eyebrows crunched together, subduing the calm, collected look that normally rested on his face. I had never seen his dark blue eyes so wide open. Fighting on the streets is common in Dublin—night or day—and violent debauchery outside Istvan’s balcony was deafeningly familiar.
We were high up in an apartment complex, guarded by three security gates. Still, uneasiness crawled up our necks. We both knew there were ways they could get in, and these belligerent thugs could certainly follow through with their threats, although I figured they wouldn’t.
But what if they weaved past security and found their way to Istvan’s door? What if this confrontation became face to face, escalating beyond an oral clash?
“Come down and fight us!” they shouted.
“I’ll be right down,” Istvan waved, still holding his cigarette. The drunkards below didn’t detect the derision in his tone.
He climbed through the sliding glass door into his bedroom and called the Garda, the Irish police. The instigators clenched their fists and paced, awaiting a battle. Before long, flashing red and blue lights bleached the damp streets below. We watched the Garda haul off the teens in handcuffs. They continued to snarl at us until the van door slammed, muffling their voices behind the glass.
A wave of relief slid down my spine. I looked to Istvan expecting to see the same. “They know who I am,” he said, his eyebrows now climbing up his forehead. “They know which car is mine.” He lit another cigarette and took in a large drag. I danced around my jumbled thoughts and assured him it would be all right. He insisted otherwise, but my naivety had already convinced me the confrontation had reached its conclusion.
Sunlight bled through my foggy skylight the following morning. I awoke, instantly remembering Istvan had called just hours ago. Somehow, I had fallen back to sleep.
I quickly dressed and ran downstairs to find the remains of his car, tucked to the side of the building where Istvan had parked. It was completely charred, the interior melted. The tires remarkably survived the heat and remained intact. A blackened halo around the colorless frame of Istvan’s Ford Fiesta had formed on the wall. The remainder of a gutter hung, nearly liquefied, in front of his car.
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The Dubliner Magazine had granted me an internship in Ireland for the winter. Istvan had befriended me the evening of my arrival. He is one of the nearly 600 thousand foreign nationals who have immigrated to Ireland because of its (now-formerly) opportunistic economy. Ireland’s economic strength first started in the early ‘90s when corporations moved to the island’s shores to take advantage of its low corporate taxes and attractive provisions for businesses. Foreign investment and a young, educated work force led to a massive and legendary economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger. Ireland transformed from a historically poor country into one of the wealthiest nations at the turn of the century.
“When I moved here Ireland had a strong, reliable economy with one of the biggest salaries of Europe,” Istvan explained to me. “I can save 1,500 quid [euros] a month in Ireland. In Hungary, I would be happy if I could get 400 a month – I could not save anything at all.”
Istvan decided to move away from Hungary in 2006 when he found a job through a Hungarian service advertising for air conditioner technicians in Ireland. The wages were low and the job was technical and demanding, but it offered Istvan the opportunity to not only work, but also improve his English. “I had three trades at home and still no job,” he said. “In Hungary you can find a good job if you have connections, otherwise you have no chance. It’s very corrupt—there is no free market anymore.”
Today, the Celtic Tiger is a thing of the past. The boom that had once attracted immigrants like Istvan as well providing jobs for locals, has all but died. Ireland’s job market is weak. In April, an Irish convenience store called Londis advertised a job opening in one of its Dublin store’s front windows. More than 500 people, both Irish and foreign, lined up to apply for the single cashier position.
Istvan has a job — fortunately. He moved on from being a technician in 2007 and now works at Christchurch View Apartments, where I lived during my internship. It provides him with a good salary and a free place to live – not to mention a spare bedroom to rent out. But the teenage punks could strike again. They knew where Istvan lived and that he wasn’t going to move anytime soon. The sour job market has left Istvan with no options to find employment elsewhere. Even if he wanted to move out and still keep his current job, he couldn’t; as the apartment caretaker, he is required to live at the complex.
I left the car ruins, already late for my internship. As I hustled through morning traffic, I thought how grateful I was that neither Istvan nor myself were physically harmed. Yet my subconscious refused to relax; we were lucky in a disturbing, twisted way.
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Dublin at times carried an odd ambience of vulgarity and contempt. The vomit on the sidewalks was there every time I went to work. It was difficult to ignore. Heroin addicts huddled inside old sleeping bags on the corners of most Dublin streets were also tough to overlook. And the drunken aggravation we experienced was impossible to disregard, especially with Istvan’s car now destroyed.
After work, I accompanied Istvan to the Garda station to drop off what we optimistically hoped would be incriminating video surveillance footage to the officer assigned to the case. We watched the video of the suspects in hooded tracksuits jumping the wall and running towards Istvan’s car. Conveniently, they stayed out of the frame. Some 30 seconds later, they darted across the screen. Thick, white smoke eventually came into view and the black and white camera shorted out soon after, likely due to excessive heat.
The officer informed us the two drunken teenagers arrested were released later that night—45 minutes before Istvan’s car was destroyed. Reluctantly, he walked us out the door. He would do his best, he said, but a conviction was unlikely.
If the Garda were persuasive enough to obtain a confession, sentencing would be completely up to the judge. They could receive anything from significant jail time to a warning. A warning? Bollocks.
“It’s these damn Irish scumbags,” Istvan explained as we walked back. “They get on the doll [welfare] and just get pissed [drunk] all day. Nobody stops them from causing trouble.” His voice was calm. He didn’t appear to be angry – he was just defeated. His defeat was not out of weakness, but rather it was an element of strength in his kind nature.
While Istvan’s point was harsh, it was difficult to dispute. Irish adults have the highest consumption of alcohol and the highest degree of binge drinking in Europe, or so Alcohol Statistics Ireland claims. More than a quarter of Ireland’s population is on welfare. Those over 21 can receive up to €334 a week, the equivalent of roughly US$476, which opens up opportunity for drug or alcohol abuse. In fact, Ireland’s Drug Policy Action Group found drug treatment has a lesser impact in Ireland because it is so far removed from other social care services. Even worse, a committee assembled to assess public expenditures released a report in July proposing to close half of Ireland’s Garda stations because the funding simply isn’t there.
During the Celtic Tiger, Ireland enjoyed the second highest GDP per capita in the European Union. Public spending rose, unemployment fell, infrastructure grew, and Ireland experienced a shift from mass emigration to mass immigration, luring those like Istvan to leave their home country for the third largest island in Europe.
As an American, I rarely hear the term emigration. Immigration, however, has been a hot political topic for years in the U.S.—members of Congress have fretted over paying billions of dollars to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But in Ireland, emigration was a genuine fear, and immigration was a gorgeous prospect. Between poverty, starvation, and violent conflicts, a large portion of Ireland’s citizens have historically fled. More than 34 million U.S. residents claim Irish ancestry—over eight times the current population of Ireland.
I found myself in the capital of a country with a rich, harsh history in a scary, downward spiraling time. Sadly, the blissful Celtic Tiger began to slump in 2001, but made a recovery in 2003 when property values shot up and the country once again experienced great economic strength. However, in 2008, that strength diminished when the global economy began to plummet. As a result, Ireland, what had once been Europe’s best performing country, became the first in the EU to sink in the current global recession.
By 2008, the Celtic Tiger had taken its last breaths. Now, many foreigners who originally moved to Ireland for work are without jobs. Unemployment currently is a staggering 13.2 percent compared to 9.8 percent in the U.S. By 2010, some experts expect Ireland’s unemployment to reach as high as 16.8 percent. With unemployment on the rise, immigration is starting to be viewed as a threat. The Irish Times reported two-thirds of Irish adults believe in more restrictive immigration policies due to the current economic state. Also, the same committee that advised closing nearly 450 Garda stations suggested cutting away 240 jobs from the Irish Naturalization and Immigration Services’ staff. “We were eejits to think ninety years of poverty could just turn around in a quick moment,” a pub owner said when I asked about the Celtic Tiger. - Eventually, Istvan purchased a new car. But just as calm and safety set in again, his car was stolen and destroyed, likely by the same parties as before. A successful prosecution still does not appear to be promising. A community meeting for the Christchurch View Apartments decided Istvan is no longer allowed to park on the premises. “They think this is the solution of the problem. But I am still alive and have a job,” Istvan said recently. “These guys causing trouble on the street have no sense for responsibility. If somebody tries to stop them, they steal and burn his car continuously and cause lots of inconveniences. The worst thing is the Garda can’t protect the normal tax payer because of the soft laws … or who knows why?” he continued. “Of course we can’t forget the normal part of the Irish population who are lovely, open-minded, and have a great hospitality. I have learned a lot from these nice Irish people and I have many good Irish friends.” Istvan is right. Although both burdened by Irish crime, we saw the remarkable character of the Irish people. The people surrounding me in Ireland were deeply sincere—I was often entwined in a delightful excess of upbeat conversation. The Irish people have a reputation for being warm and kind. That reputation is well deserved as their warmth and welcoming embrace is difficult to ignore. Ireland has begun to shift the paradigm in the last twenty years as it developed into a strong and prosperous country. Intel, for example, was one of the foreign companies that paved the way for the Celtic Tiger when it first opened a manufacturing center in Kildare in 1989. The corporation created over 5,500 jobs for Irish citizens. Unfortunately, today, Ireland can’t offer the same completive manufacturing as it used to. Intel is considering cutting back production in Kildare, sacrificing 400 to 500 jobs. The Irish economy is losing its grip on the remains on the Celtic Tiger. How Ireland reacts now will factor greatly into what we see from the island in the future. - A week before I left the island and said my goodbyes to Istvan, The Dubliner Magazine sponsored a debate on Irish identity. The debate came on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin’s Liberty Hall. I arrived and wandered around the buoyant crowd. A mixture of Dubliners, tourists visiting the capital for Patty’s Day, and foreigners living in Dublin eagerly loaded into the large auditorium for the night’s debate. I sat down amongst curious chatter, joining the crowd in wondering what the so-called Irish experts paneled for the debate would argue about Irish identity. “It’s time for us to stumble and remember who we are and try and just be stronger about things,” The Irish Independent’s columnist and social critic Ian O’Doherty said to the crowd. “We have to look in the mirror and collectively check ourselves and say, ‘Right, let’s turn things around.’ Let’s become the country not that we think we are, but who we hope we can actually be.” Leaving Ireland, I couldn’t help but remember O’Doherty’s evaluation. The Celtic Tiger’s swift rise and fall is an opportunity for the Irish to revaluate. Perhaps this is Ireland’s chance to continue to show its strength and to rebuild: rebuild into a nation that foreigners like Istvan can safely settle; into a country that can again take the lead as an economic strength in Europe; into an island that can truly boast the luck of the Irish. LinksOriginal ArticleFall 2009 Ethos MagazineEthos Magazine
The following designs are from the summer 2009 edition of Ethos Magazine. This was my first issue as art director. The designs from the "Power of Ondikuhole", including the cover, received awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
Ethos Magazine (formerly KD) feature spread design
 Click to view full size. The fluidity, the rush, the freedom of skydiving
Why not jump out of a plane? Why not tumble toward the Earth at 300 miles per hour in a frivolous attempt to battle gravity for 60 seconds? Devin Williams doesn't ask why.
When he was 16 years old, Williams had his first skydiving experience during a tandem dive with his stepfather, David Wright, who at the time owned Wright Brothers Skydiving in Eugene, Oregon.
"There was that first instance of rocking and going out the door and realizing, ‘There's nothing suspending me, I'm just falling now,’" Williams recounts of his first jump.
Williams, now a fifth-year senior at the University of Oregon, spent three years packing parachutes for Wright Brothers Skydiving before being sold on the sport. Barreling out of a plane with his stepfather for the first time, Williams realized he loved skydiving. The wind ripping open his lips and encompassing his body as he fell through the sky convinced him skydiving was the rush his life demanded. At 22, he has more than 340 jumps under his belt.
His stepfather's skydiving company made the sport accessible to Williams and gave him the opportunity to jump on a regular basis. Unfortunately, due to complications with insurance, land agreements, political issues, and pilot grudges, Wright Brothers Skydiving was shut down. Eugene Skydivers, Wright Brothers’ former main competitor and currently one of the only operating skydiving companies in the Willamette Valley area, is struggling with the same barriers that led to the demise of Wright Brothers.
"[My stepfather] isn't skydiving anymore. It really frazzled him," Williams says. "The dude has just been completely changed by the whole process of having his business taken away.
Although the status of his stepfather's business makes it more difficult for Williams to dive, those who were a part of the company still maintain a passion for the sport. Many employees of Wright Brothers moved to Skydive Oregon in Molalla, Oregon, after Wright Brothers shut down.
The fear of dying is what keeps people from skydiving, but as insane as jumping out of a plane may seem, Williams sees the risks of injury or death as calculated and, for the most part, preventable.
“There really is no rush to it anymore; it's just another action. But you do recognize that something could go wrong," Williams says. According to Dropzone.com, which calls itself “The best source for skydiving information,” 61 people died of causes related to skydiving in 2007. Most of these deaths were from landing problems, not from failing to pull the ripcord on time, equipment malfunctions, reserve problems, or mid-air collisions, as most people assume.
“Most fatalities and injuries happen under a perfectly good chute. It's people turning [with their parachutes] too low to the ground," Williams explains.
Williams acknowledges that risk is part of skydiving; he doesn't believe death should be.
"A lot of people don't get nervous anymore and they skip steps. They should be nervous. I have a few friends that have seen people die," Williams says.
The technology available to skydivers allows for maximum safety precautions. For about $1,000, divers can purchase an Automatic Activation Device (AAD). An AAD is a sensor that automatically deploys the reserve chute after a pre-set elevation has been passed. Essentially, the diver could be unconscious and the chute would still open.
"The equipment is so good these days, [it will] take care of you even when you don't do anything,” Williams says.
Williams hasn't witnessed any fatalities, but he has seen some brutal injuries. He once saw a videographer's canopy collapse under turbulence at 200 feet. The videographer free fell nearly 150 feet before his canopy re-inflated, which instead of helping him, actually whipped him harder to the ground. His helmet, heavily weighted with video and photography equipment, caused his head to hit the ground first. He broke nearly every bone in his face. He also shattered his foot and broke his hip, knee, and arm. But he survived.
Witnessing such injuries encourages Williams to be alert every time he jumps but doesn't deter him from the sport. In fact, Williams participates in a slightly riskier kind of skydiving: free flying.
Traditional skydivers freefall horizontally with their stomachs facing the ground, while free flyers position themselves vertically, sometimes with their heads down to accelerate their freefall speed. Diving horizontally limits skydivers to speeds of 150 mph; free flyers reach speeds up to 300 mph.
Free flying evolved from traditional skydiving. It allows divers to position themselves in a sitting position, a standing position or even head first, an experience Williams compares to being like a lawn dart.
"We can go a lot faster, and we can do a lot cooler stuff if you're not on your belly," Williams says. Williams feels everybody should at least freefall once.
The nature of free flying increases the risk of mid-air collisions that often result in fatalities. Skydivers must make calculated movements to avoid potential tragedies.
Because Oregon’s climate is bad for skydiving throughout most of the year, people prefer to skydive in the summer when there are clear skies and warm weather. Warmer states offer comfortable, safe dives year round.
Evan Whitlock, a good friend of Williams and former Wright Brothers employee, transferred to Skydive Oregon and then to Hawaii in the summer of 2007 for year-round employment with Skydive Hawaii. Shortly after, Williams also moved to the North Shore of Oahu and began his stint in paradise.
"I packed parachutes, lived on the beach, and skydived everyday. It was pretty awesome," Williams says.
However, pressure from his mom and his desire to finish school brought him back to Oregon after four months in Hawaii.
"If you would have asked me last summer when I was there if I wanted to go back to school I would have said, 'dude, this is the life right here,’” Williams says. “The people I worked with were crazy, but they're all really nice."
The fluidity, rush, and freedom of skydiving are what keep Williams going back to it. He thinks one day he may want to be a tandem skydive instructor.
"It would be really cool to share that first jump with somebody. I've seen Evan walking around town and somebody recognizes him, 'Hey you're the guy that took me skydiving!'” Williams says. “And they just have that connection.”
 Click to view full size. Ajeet Khalsa discusses his life and faith as a Sikh, what it means to him and the people around him, and his drastic transformation that challenged his practices.
At six years old, Ajeet Khalsa boarded a plane with his twin brother to Amritsar, Punjab in northern India, where he would start his first year of school at Miripiri Academy, a private Sikh boarding school. His hair, grown to down past his waist, was neatly tied up in a white turban. The flight was Khalsa’s commencement to a pattern of annual commutes from Eugene to Amritsar.
Eugene was still considered home for Khalsa (as well as more than 140 other Sikhs and Sikh companies like Yogi Tea, Golden Temple Food Products and Akal Security), but for the next twelve years he would spend three-quarters of his time in India.
In the fall of 2004, Khalsa didn’t return to India; instead he began his freshman year at the University of Oregon. He had never attended an American school before. Twelve years in India had taught Khalsa about Indian culture and the beliefs of Sikhism, the religion his parents had fallen in love with and converted to in 1972 after learning about the faith from their Yoga teacher and mentor.
However, in the last four years Khalsa has been confronted with his belief of Sikhism and its interaction with western culture ideology.
What is Sikhism?
We’re to have to a human experience. You don’t go off to hills and meditate and not interact with life. It’s all about a balance that creates a good life, or creates “Sikh,” which is “to learn” in Punjabi. We are part of one God, every living being has energy and that is the so-called God. When you feel powerful, that is the God within you waking up. Connecting to that energy is the point of life, in a way. If you can connect to that energy, then you can find happiness.
What role has Sikhism played in your life?
It’s played a huge role in [my life] since I was young. I was born in Eugene as a Sikh. My mother and father converted into Sikhism in the 70s. They got into Yoga and then became interested in Sikhism because of their teacher, our teacher. He was an Indian Sikh that came to Eugene to teach Yoga, but his students started asking about Sikhism, [so] he started talking about it. As time went on, he kind of started teaching more about Sikhism because that became a bigger part of what he was doing. My parents were really into it, so they became Sikhs also, because they wanted to emulate what he was. And I was born into that.
Sikhism also, in one essence, sent me to India for my entire grade school. But Sikhism has also allowed me to view the world in a very unique way as far as just looking at our teachings, practicing Yoga, and understanding that we all come from one source. Although I might look different, or anyone might look different, we are all coming from the same places. The differences don’t separate us; they actually bring us together.
Tell me about boarding school in India.
For some reason I always had a longing to go. But then when it came time to go, god, that was shocking. I remember flying over there on the plane, I was so freaked out. I was probably crying half the time. At six years old, I was in a way by myself. My twin brother and I lived in a dorm with 172 other Indian kids, and very few of them spoke English. It was rough times, but it was fun. We were young and we stuck together. But when I was ten I really started to realize I was in this whole new culture and all the sudden I got into learning the language and I got into understanding what Sikhism meant to several million Indians. And that’s how I fell in love with Sikhism. I realized that Sikhism was a religion, in my opinion, that meant to learn—it meant to learn in your own way. So Sikhism to me meant one thing, but to somebody sitting right next to me it totally meant a different thing.
Do you believe there is an afterlife?
Sikhs believe in reincarnation. We’re here to learn and so it’s our choice to be here on this Earth in this physical body. And once we learn what we need to learn, we then don’t get reincarnated—we become energy with no physical form.
Does Sikhism object to other religions?
There is no writing that I can think of that condemns any other religion. There is definitely writing that says I don’t agree with what these people do, I’m not going to deny that. But as long as you are completing your tasks on this Earth, you’re fine. You want to experience love and getting your heart broken, you know. You want to experience bliss in the human form. You want to experience giving all your wealth to somebody else, whatever it is. I know that’s a hard thing for people to get around.
Do you ever question Sikhism?
Yes, but that’s the beauty of being a human being is you get to question things. I think everything should be questioned. That’s where I am in my life, I’m starting to question a lot of what I’ve become.
What’s prompted that?
I’ve now been in the US for four straight years. In India I kind of got away from the fact that there are conscious people that are not Sikhs. After being back here, my mind started thinking, if you’re not a Sikh, you’re doing something wrong. And all the sudden I was confronted with that and I was like, “You don’t believe that Ajeet.” And I just revaluated it. I was having a really bad night and I went into Gurdware, the Sikh church. I was in a lot of pain and I just wasn’t happy. All I thought to myself is let it all go, let my ego go, let it come to me, stop going out and trying to grab it. And I let it all go. After that it just got worse. I swear to God I fell off a cliff after that. I woke up with chest pains and having panic attacks. All the sudden my body really started to change. In Yoga we believe your body is trying to tell you what your soul is going through. I asked “What’s wrong with my life?” I dropped out of school, sold a company I had started and I began to focus on myself. That’s what got me thinking, why do I have turban?
Why did you wear a turban?
I wore it for the scientific Yogic part of it. We grow our hair long because our body cleanses our energy through our hair. If we cut it, then our body has to use all this energy to grow it back out. A lot of people don’t know there is a point when your hair just stops growing. Your hair is like an antenna to your soul. In a practical sense the turban keeps it all up and neat because your energy is in your hair. When it gets all tangled and dirty, then you get all cramped up. Your hair is then a very powerful thing. A lot of people shave their heads because they just want to cleanse themselves and that’s what happened to me. I just wanted to start new so I cut all my hair and cut off my beard.
Did that help?
It worked in some ways. It probably wasn’t the easiest way to do things. The easiest way would have been to use what I knew and meditate. But I was just not in a place to meditate at that time. I couldn’t get myself to sit and calm down. I really don’t suggest it to my other Sikh friends. My hair meant a lot to me–it was my identity and I’ve kind of lost that. But maybe that’s what my soul wanted. There are certain things we all want to experience and maybe I wanted to experience this kind of rebirth.
Do people react to you differently now?
A lot of my friends from the States were much more shocked. They didn’t treat me different, they just didn’t understand where I was coming from. I started to have to re-create who I was to people and show I wasn’t entirely different. I do still have the same beliefs as before.
What do you see of Sikhism in the future?
I think religions will die out eventually. I just don’t think they are part of the Aquarian age, the age of experience, the age of awareness. I think people will start to be aware everything themselves and they won’t need all these rules and dogma to steer them in the right direction. Putting all these rules and regulations in front of you isn’t, to me, part of the experience.
So does that set Sikhism apart from other religions?
Well, in Sikhism, we do not convert whatsoever. We don’t tell you it’s the right way to do it. We have no interest in making more Sikhs.
So how does Sikhism survive?
People just see what we do and if they like it, they just come by.
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