“If you
want to learn something, read about it.
If you want to understand something, write about it.
If you want to master something, teach it.”
Yogi Bhajan
is the chief religious and administrative authority for the Ministry
of Sikh Dharma in the Western Hemisphere. Yogi Bhajan has been
given the Ministerial title of "Siri Singh Sahib" by
the central governing body of the Sikh
religion, the Akal Takhat, in recognition for his unceasing
missionary work in the western world.
He is an individual of remarkable insight, powerful energy and
an unwavering commitment to global healing and spiritual awareness.
Yogi Bhajan is a Master of Kundalini Yoga, the Yoga
of Awareness, and a dedicated and inspired teacher. Since
arriving in the United States in 1969, he has dedicated himself
to bring meaning, dignity and a reconnection of Spirit into the
lives of people everywhere, especially those people who have become
lost and confused through the use of drugs.
As he has worked diligently to spread the science and practice
of Kundalini Yoga throughout the Western Hemisphere and beyond,
Yogi Bhajan has become widely recognized as a world leader and
champion of world peace and healing.
"Since ancient times, humans have found that they have zillions
of thoughts,
billions of feelings, millions of emotions, thousands of desires,
hundreds of fantasies, and a multitude of realities and personalities.
We do everything to get rid of this pressure, because it is eating
us up inside. We try every method available, but ultimately, our
mind and thoughts rule us and bog us down."
"We have
the Birthright to be
Beautiful, Bountiful and Blissful."
Yogi Bhajan,
Ph.D., is also a gifted Doctor of Psychology, counselor and yogic
therapist. The counseling methodology called "The Science
of Humanology," helps people realize there inner strength
and well being by giving them practical tools to utilize with
an every day lifestyle. Yogi
Bhajan In Memoriam
Sikh
Group Finds Calling
In Homeland Security
As reported in the New York Times
September 28, 2004
By Leslie Wayne
Espanola,
NM - At the end of a dusty road, behind a barbed-wire fence, is
Sikh Dharma of New Mexico, a religious compound with a golden
temple of worship, a collection of trailers used for business
and a quiet group of people wandering the grounds wearing flowing
white robes and turbans.
In the New Age
culture here, the Sikh Dharma
community, founded in the early 1970's, provides a place where
followers of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader and yoga master,
can live in harmony and follow their beliefs in vegetarianism,
meditation and community service. Except for Yogi Bhajan, who
was born in India and came to the United States in 1969, most
members of the Sikh Dharma are American-born and moved here to
pursue their way of life.
The compound is also home to Akal Security, wholly owned by Sikh
Dharma and one of the nation's fastest-growing security companies,
benefiting from a surge in post-9/11 business. With 12,000 employees
and over $1 billion in federal contracts, Akal specializes in
protecting vital and sensitive government sites, from military
installations to federal courts to airports and water supply systems.
Akal Security reps with President Bush
Despite
Akal's unusual lineage, Sikh Dharma members say they are following
an ancient Sikh tradition of the warrior-saint as well as showing
deftness at the more modern skill of landing federal contracts.
"Our customers
look at who we are and filter it all out,'' Daya Singh Khalsa,
Akal's co-founder and senior vice president, said in an interview
in his office here. "They couldn't be less interested in
our religion and what we look like.''
Among Sikhs "there is no stigma in being financially successful,''
Mr. Khalsa added. "Prosperity does not take away from spiritual
net worth. You can have both."
Akal certainly bears that out. It is the nation's largest provider
of security officers for federal courthouses, with contracts for
400 buildings in 44 states, including the federal courthouse in
Manhattan.
The company just
won a major contract to guard Army bases and munitions dumps in
eight states, and also provides guards for the Ronald Reagan Building
in Washington, blocks from the White House. It handles security
at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, as well as
at four new detention centers run by the Homeland Security Department
where foreigners await deportation.
In the straight-laced
world of the security business, where most people have a police
or military background, Akal stands out. It is the only security
company that anyone in the business, including Akal's own executives,
can think of that is owned by a nonprofit religious organization.
"If we are in a room with 50 other contractors, you won't
remember the other guy, but you will remember us," said Mr.
Khalsa, who wears a white turban, has a long beard and refrains
from cutting his hair.
It has also not
hurt that Akal has been a generous campaign contributor to both
Democratic and Republican candidates at the federal level, and
that Mr. Khalsa has met with President Bush both in the White
House and in New Mexico. Local New Mexico politicians have also
benefited from this largess - and responded with friendship and
support.
Four former New Mexico governors stopped by Yogi Bhajan's recent
75th-birthday party; Governor Bill Richardson was last year's
keynote speaker at the group's International Peace Prayer Day.
"We play
in the political arena like everyone else," Mr. Khalsa said.
He and his wife, Sat Nirmal Kaur Khalsa, who is Akal's chief executive,
have given more than $30,000 to both Democratic and Republican
federal candidates since 2000.
Mr. Khalsa, who was once known as Daniel Cohn, was given his name
by Yogi Bhajan after he moved here in 1971, soon after graduating
from Amherst College. Like other members of the 300-family Sikh
Dharma community, he has adopted the name Khalsa, which refers
to a group of orthodox Sikhs.
The Sikh Dharma
community here blends New Age values and orthodox Sikhism, a monotheistic
religion that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent
in the 15th century.
"We are not used to non-Punjabis joining our religion; it
is a curious development," said Gurinder Singh Mann, professor
of Sikh studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
who explained that many of these new converts are more devout
than those born into the religion.
Unlike their
counterparts in India, women in Sikh Dharma wear turbans, as do
some of the children. Most members of the Sikh Dharma live in
modest houses near the compound and Yogi Bhajan's ranch in Espanola,
the Hacienda De Guru Ram Das Gurdwara. Yogi Bhajan has arranged
many marriages within the community.
Under
Akal's biggest security contract, worth $854 million, it provides
protection for federal courthouses and judges. While federal courthouse
guards wear United States marshals' uniforms in nine districts,
their employer is Akal, which hires mainly former police and military
officers, almost none of them Sikhs. Akal's contract with the
guards prohibits them from wearing turbans or having facial hair,
unlike the company's Sikh officials, who are required to do so
by their religion.
For all the group's
unusual ways, government officials have few complaints about Akal.
"Our people have done checks on them years ago and we have
no issues with them," said John Kraus, a contracting officer
for the Department of Justice. "Last I've checked, we've
had freedom of religion."
One high-profile contract Akal recently garnered, beating 20 other
companies, was for $250 million to provide security guards at
five Army bases and three weapons depots. The Army has turned
to the private sector to replace soldiers sent to Iraq.
Competition was based on ability, past performance and price,
according to an Army official, who added that Akal's religious
ties were not a factor, nor did Akal benefit as a religious group.
"We do not
discriminate based on race, creed, religion or national origin,"
the official said. "It was never really a factor."
Because of that open approach, Akal has almost exclusively gone
after government contracts.
"The federal government has created the fairest acquisition
system in the world," Mr. Khalsa said. He added that with
the company's low overhead - Mr. Khalsa, its top executive, earns
a modest $90,000 - Akal is "very price-competitive"
in the eyes of government agencies on tight budgets.
Yet Ira A. Lipman, founder and chairman of Guardsmark, one of
the nation's largest security companies, is critical of the government's
low-price approach to protecting important installations.
"You have
people working in highly sensitive government sites and the government
is working on a low-rate concept," Mr. Lipman said. "This
company has taken advantage of a low-rate mentality in the government
to assemble a lot of business. But let the buyer beware and let
the public focus on the people and their experience."
Akal is just one of several for-profit and nonprofit entities
that are part of a larger Sikh Dharma financial empire. These
include Golden Temple, a natural foods company that makes Yogi
herbal teas, Soothing Touch health and beauty products, Peace
natural cereals, dietary supplements and private-label products
for Trader Joe's, the specialty food chain. Its annual revenues
exceed $60 million.
Akal and Golden
Temple both operate under the loose umbrella of the Khalsa International
Industry and Trading Company, which also includes Sun & Son,
a computer software company.
The sole shareholder of all these companies is Sikh Dharma.
Equally important are a number of nonprofit ventures also owned
by Sikh Dharma. The biggest of these is the 3HO Foundation, with
the name standing for Healthy, Happy and Holy Organization. That
group is dedicated to the spread of Kundalini yoga, which is focused
on releasing inner energy, and of Yogi Bhajan's teachings. Other
nonprofit organizations have been set up to preserve Yogi Bhajan's
archives as well as to support a Sikh Dharma school in India,
where many of the group's children are sent.
"The whole
point of all these ventures is not for an individual to get rich,
but to perpetuate the mission of the community," said Avtar
Hari Singh Khalsa, who, as Arthur S. Warshaw, was once president
of Time-Life Television in Hollywood. Today he is chief executive
of the 3HO Foundation and other nonprofit's.
No money from Akal, Golden Temple or the other profit-making ventures
goes to the church, which is supported by donations, officials
say. Sending money to the church is barred by Akal's bankers and
could also jeopardize the tax-exempt status of the church. Akal
pays no dividends and plows all cash generated back into the business
to support its expansion, Daya Khalsa said.
Officials here say that no individual member of the Sikh Dharma
community, including Akal executives and Yogi Bhajan, has any
equity in either Akal, Golden Temple or any other profit-making
businesses. Yogi Bhajan has served as an unpaid Akal adviser and
has been hired, occasionally, as a paid consultant on Akal management
issues.
Yogi Bhajan's guidance led to the founding of Akal. In 1980, Akal's
other co founder, Gurutej Khalsa, found that although he had graduated
from several law enforcement schools, his beard and turban prevented
him from getting a job. He turned to Yogi Bhajan for advice and
was told that if he started his own company, the police would
begin to work for him.
The Amar Infinity
Foundation, based in Phoenix, is also tied in financially. It
has $100 million in assets, gained mainly through individual donations
and through such fund-raising events as the annual Yogiji Golf
Classic in Phoenix. Amar Infinity was set up to support the 3HO
Foundation, the Sikh Dharma and a long list of other nonprofit
groups.
A final piece of the Sikh Dharma financial mosaic is the Siri
Singh Sahib Corporation, a nonprofit organization set up, according
to its state incorporation papers, to "administer and manage
affairs of Sikh religion."Yogi Bhajan is the sole officer
and director.
Akal has developed a comfortable relationship with leaders of
both major political parties. In Daya Khalsa's office are numerous
"grip and grin" photos of him with various politicians,
including President Bush, former President Bill Clinton and former
Vice President Al Gore.
Akal donates
at the state level, too, giving $10,539 to Governor Richardson's
2002 election campaign and thousands more to the New Mexico Democratic
and Republican parties. Federal election records also show numerous
political contributions to both parties from various Khalsa's
of Espanola, in amounts ranging from several hundred to several
thousand dollars, along with $14,000 in contributions from Yogi
Bhajan.
The group has
built up trust at the federal level over a long period. When questions
were raised after Akal landed its first big contract in 1986 to
protect the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, U.S. Senator
Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat from New Mexico, rose to Akal's defense.
"People were saying, 'How could you let these foreign whomever's
take over a critical weapons testing site?'" Daya Khalsa
recalled. "And he said that we were friends and that we're
good Americans doing a good job."
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