japmans

^^^

that's okay advice.. but it has serious implications as future parents.

should parents then cut their children's hair, for example, and let them find the sikhi internally since simply carrying the outer isn't enough?? being a parent involves quite a large degree of brainwshing... you want your kids to act a certain way and do certain things, so you reward them when they do things that match this, and reprimand them when they do the opposite.

I totally agree with you, that there has to be an internal grace and an internal "chaah" to want to be "religious"... but i don't think it has to come at the expense of the outside.

The poster seems to just be uninspired to follow a religious path... and I totally agree with him/her.. and on that front, i entirely agree with Mindless' post.

Unfortunately, the poster seems to live in a household where he/she feels that the spirituality, the self-journey is not encouraged as much as are robotic practices... ( major disclaimer: i'm not calling nitnem robotic.. i'm saying it's robotic if there's no sharda or desire to do it or what not, AND i think we've all been in a place where we've realized we're just saying words and not really feeling the bani)

so as mindless said... pursue a higher plane of thoughts to discover who you are... Read spiritual books, read books of high quality. If you don't have good sangat around you, then make good books and gurbaani your sangat... and most of all, find out who you are and where you fit in this Grand Play. But do it honestly... because anyone can just conclude that "well my place is as a free-spirited spiritual dude that thinks everything is just awesome and everything is a form of devotion". Discipline and actions that encourage discipline are not bad things

and then, Peace, Comfort, and Solace are sure to follow, hopefully!

i've heard of alot of kids being pulled out of Baru Sahib lately ,because the atmosphere is not one that is condusive to spiritual growth... at least the full-time school... some of my cousins went to the summer camp i believe two years ago.. they did not enjoy it at all.

peacemaker, your mind is the creator of all your thoughts. it is different from your memory, and your memory is a brain function.

do you remember each of the thoughts you had as a six year old? No, but it's somewhere in your mind, it was once created by your mind, but not stored in your memory, which is a part of your brain. My point is... you don't remember your past lives, but chances are, you don't remember something you thought even last week. Our purpose is to continue to better ourselves, and that's a feeling you'll get from within... by doing more kamaaee, more meditation, more seva, sangat, simran (as you know... The Three S`s ) It`s not entirely important to know where we were in our last life...If it was, God would have given us this ability for our current life...

In fact, God has given us everything we require in order to foster a connetion with him. Whether we do so through our actions and kamaee is another story altogether.

Unfortunately, I have no gurbani to back this up.. Just something I remember either reading or hearing.

But I'll throw it out there.

The mind is the intangible force that creates our thoughts, which are created based upon our state (whether we're gurmukh, for example, or maybe we're kaami, krodhi, lobhi, mohi, ahankaari, etc)

our thoughts MAY lead into actions, thereby creating karma... other thoughts may simply be rejected, replaced, or forgotten, and not acted upon.

our karma is carried through in our soul, which carries through our joons, from life to life.

We are accountable for our actions. We are given the ability to decipher at an extremely rudimentary and elementary level between right and wrong. Man will not be punished for engaging in the human nature of thought, which is why I disagree when people say a thought is as bad as an action... Sometimes, we don't even choose to think a certain way.. Thoughts are spurred upon by previous actions, or the environment in which we exist, or other reasons... Bad thoughts, evil thoughts can be changed if they are addressed, if they are realized to be bad and evil. Doing this prevents us from actually engaging in evil deeds, because we choose to not act upon our thoughts.... Therefore, we slowly build our mind to a higher level of consciousness, and the thoughts we have become more sublime and pure.

These purer, more sublime thoughts lead us to engage in activities that are "good" or "better", thereby bettering our karma, which is the "footprint" of our soul, that which we carry from life to life.

These are just my thoughts.... I haven't done enough khoj of gurbani to back it up, so I'm probably way off and very wrong.

In all honesty as lovely as you sound, I really don't see you lasting wearing a turban even if your family did say yes this time.. I have this vibe your going to be those temporary 6 month singhs which I know and have met so many times in my life. Actually I wish I could place a million pound bet on every singh who I knew would cut their hair and remove their turban. I would be a billionaire about 3 times over....but alas no betting allowed on singhs!

With that in mind - I don't think you can do it, your always going to look for a problem - so why bother wasting our time and your own time.

Nice of you to hide behind the guest tag as you spew that junk... you`re a class-A <banned word filter activated>.... You think you`re being all productive with your reverse psychology.. at least i HOPE that was your intent, cuz you're terrible for not wanting to help if your only motivation to post was to trash the guy.

Noone asked you to post, Sounds like you're the weak and wimpy one... how come you had to wait for someone else to post before you posted your long reply? Afraid to be in the minority?

I'm glad you know so many people who've gone through problems, here, have a medal for being popular. Hey, next time you post, change your ID name to "Mr. Popular".. then again, tha tmight identify you... or perhaps you need someone ELSE to make your point first, so that you can come in under the radar with a second post

...So, does your "Mr. Popular" medal make you feel beter about life? Perhaps it might give you a small iota of a positive/optimistic outlook. It's funny, cuz here's a guy who is trying to become a Singh and who loves his family. You are absolutely NO authority to decide what spiritual level he is at and his ability to deal with maya. He's going through a tough time, and he needs Guru's Sangat... you have demonstrated that you are the definition of KUsangat. This veer needs to avoid people like you, people who are only out to slight him, out to destroy his confidence.

In fact, you're no better than his family... he's trying to build up courage and esteem and sharda, and it's getting knocked first at home, and then by the people he's trying to find comfort with...

And before you reply with "you don't know who I am or what I've done", that's precisely my point.. you don't know this guy who's asking for help.. you don't know his conditions... you don't know if he's had to go through a serious family issue where he had to become the man of the house, and therefore feels a certain responsibility for the well-being of his mother and sisters.. you don't know if maybe there's other adversities in his family life, or maybe his family is not well liked in his extended family, so they're very close-knit.. you don't know jack about his life conditions, so why don't you just offer some support instead of being, as i mentioned before, a class-A <banned word filter activated>.

Thanks for comin out, Mr. Popular.

And for gods sake when did I say that SPECIFICALLY THOSE 2 SIKHS WERE DEVOUT???

I said 'in general'...

oh vaow

inna gussa?

was just asking, my dear, considering that's where the conversation went! Sorry if I offended you so deeply that it caused you to bring God into it and type in Caps. I didn't realize my words were that explosive and hurtful!

you are a part of the panth.

And Guru Sahib will keep you in sangat and keep you surrounded.. he will help you, if you really want it.

Bhai Joga Singh was one of his most pyaara singhs, and even he felt like giving in and going to a brothel, but Guru Sahib stood in the way and kept him from it.

How hungry are you for Guru Sahib? Because you need only take one step

Charan Saran Gur Ek Paindaa Jaaey Chal,

Satgur Kott Painda Aagay Hoey Layt Hai.

You will be a heer, a rattan for this panth. Your love is apparent from your posts. Keep the hunger! It will happen when it happens, and when it does, you'll be better for all the challenges and all the adversity. Don't give up!

Where did it say anywhere that these two sikhs in afghanistan were "devout"

I'm still trying to figure that out.

The Congo has been pretty ignored. I have a good friend who is currently in Uganda, and she's there to help the cause in Northern Uganda that this article briefly touches on. She does her work through a non-profit called MACRO, which is the Mukundo Aids Control and Relief Organization. Of course, this obviously isn't work in the Congo, but so far it's the closest I've come across.

Monetary donations, of course, are a big deal for the hospital. As the article states, you can do this on the website provided.

I think it'd be important in terms of energy to take the time to share this with people. The Congo has the potential to be the richest country in Africa, even with Nigeria's presence as an Oil Producer, yet not many people know it exists, and even fewer know about the problems in the country. I'm not going to profess to be a conoisseur, but i'm going to assume that even THIS isn't the only problem in the country, though it is a big one.

Get the word out. Maybe an organization needs to be created specifically for this purpose. I'll keep looking and keeping an eye out.

Women left for dead—and the man who’s saving them

In the Congo, where tens of thousands of women are brutally raped every year, Dr. Denis Mukwege repairs their broken bodies and souls. Eve Ensler, author of The <admin-profanity filter activated> Monologues, visits him and finds hope amid the horror.

By Eve Ensler

I have just returned from hell. I am trying for the life of me to figure out how to communicate what I have seen and heard in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. How do I convey these stories of atrocities without your shutting down, quickly turning the page or feeling too disturbed?

How do I tell you of girls as young as nine raped by gangs of soldiers, of women whose insides were blown apart by rifle blasts and whose bodies now leak uncontrollable streams of urine and feces?

How you can help

The women of Eastern Congo, V-Day and UNICEF—the latter acting on behalf of United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict—are launching a new campaign to urge an end to the femicide and raise money for women’s groups in the Congo. You can…

Write a letter addressed to His Excellency, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila Kabange; demand that he take action to stop the attacks on women.

Send it to

U.N. Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict,

P.O. Box 3862, New York, NY 10163,

and it will be delivered to Kabila.

Donate directly to Panzi Hospital through vday.org.

Money donated to Panzi also goes to establish a City of Joy, a safe haven for the healed women, where they’ll learn to become political leaders.

This journey was a departure for me. It began with a man, Dr. Denis Mukwege, and a conversation we had in New York City in December 2006, when he came to speak about his work helping women at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu. It began with my rusty French and his limited English. It began with the quiet anguish in his bloodshot eyes, eyes that seemed to me to be bleeding from the horrors he’d witnessed.

Something happened in this conversation that compelled me to go halfway around the world to visit the doctor, this holy man who was sewing up women as fast as the mad militiamen could rip them apart.

I am going to tell the stories of the patients he saves so that the faceless, generic, raped women of war become Alfonsine and Nadine—women with names and memories and dreams. I am going to ask you to stay with me, to open your hearts, to be as outraged and nauseated as I felt sitting in Panzi Hospital in faraway Bukavu.

Before I went to the Congo, I’d spent the past 10 years working on V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls. I’d traveled to the rape mines of the world, places like Bosnia, Afghanistan and Haiti, where rape has been used as a tool of war. But nothing I ever experienced felt as ghastly, terrifying and complete as the sexual torture and attempted destruction of the female species here. It is not too strong to call this a femicide, to say that the future of the Congo’s women is in serious jeopardy.

I learned from my trip that there are men who take their sorrow and helplessness and destroy women’s bodies—and there are others with the same feelings who devote their lives to healing and serving. I do not know all the reasons men end up in one or the other of these groups, but I do know that one good man can create many more. One good man can inspire other men to ache for women, to fight for them and protect them. One good man can win the trust of a community of raped women—and in doing so, keep their faith in humanity alive.

Dr. Mukwege picks me up at 6:30 A.M. It is a lush, clean morning. Eastern Congo, where Panzi Hospital is located, is wildly fertile. You can almost hear the vegetation growing. There are banana trees and cartoon-colored birds. And there is Lake Kivu, a vast body of water that contains enough methane to power a good portion of the sub-Sahara—yet the city of Bukavu on its banks has only sporadic electricity. This is a theme in the Congo. There are more natural resources than almost anywhere else on the planet, yet 80 percent of the people make less than a dollar a day. More rain falls than one can imagine, but for millions, clean drinking water is scarce. The earth is gorgeously abundant, and yet almost one third of the population is starving.

As we drive along the semblance of road, the doctor tells me how different things were when he was a child. “In the sixties 50,000 people lived here in Bukavu. It was a relaxed place. There were rich people who had speedy boats in the lakes. There were gorillas in the mountains.” Now there are at least a million displaced Congolese, many of whom arrive in the city daily, fleeing the numerous armed groups that have ravaged the countryside since fighting erupted in 1996. What started as a civil war to overthrow dictator Mobutu Sese Seko soon became “Africa’s first world war,” as observers have called it, with soldiers from neighboring countries joining in the mayhem. The troops have various agendas: Many are fighting for control of the region’s extraordinary mineral wealth. Others are out to grab whatever they can get.

But you have to go back further than 1996 to understand what is going on in the Congo today. This country has been tortured for more than 120 years, beginning with King Leopold II of Belgium, who “acquired” the Congo and, between 1885 and 1908, exterminated an estimated 10 million people, about half the population. The violent consequences of genocide and colonialism have had a profound impact on the psyche of the Congolese. Despite a 2003 peace agreement and recent elections, armed groups continue to terrorize the eastern half of the country. Overall the war has left nearly 4 million people dead—more than in any other conflict since World War II—and resulted in the rape of hundreds of thousands of women and girls.

In Bukavu, the people escaping the fighting walk from early morning to late at night. They walk and walk, searching for a way to buy or sell a tomato, or for a banana for their baby. It is a relentless river of humans, anxious and hungry. “People used to eat three meals a day,” says Dr. Mukwege. “Now they are lucky to eat one.”

Everyone knows the doctor, an ob-gyn. He waves and stops to inquire about this person’s health, that person’s mother. Most doctors, teachers and lawyers fled the Congo after the wars started. It never occurred to Dr. Mukwege to leave his people at their most desperate hour.

He first became aware of the epidemic of rape in 1996. “I saw women who had been raped in an extremely barbaric way,” he recalls. “First, the women were raped in front of their children, their husbands and neighbors. Second, the rapes were done by many men at the same time. Third, not only were the women raped, but their vaginas were mutilated with guns and sticks. These situations show that sex was being used as a weapon that is cheap.

“When rape is done in front of your family,” he continues, “it destroys everyone. I have seen men suffer who watched their wives raped; they are not mentally stable anymore. The children are in even worse condition. Most of the time, when a woman suffers this much violence, she is not able to bear children afterward. Clearly these rapes are not done to satisfy any sexual desire but to destroy the soul. The whole family and community are broken.”

We arrive at Panzi Hospital, a spread-out complex of about a dozen buildings. Eight years ago Dr. Mukwege created a special maternity ward here with an operating room. Panzi as a whole has 334 beds, 250 of which now hold female victims of sexual violence. The hospital and its surrounding property have become, essentially, a village of raped women. The grounds are overwhelmed with children and hunger and need. Every day at least two children here die from malnutrition. Then there are the many problems that result from severe trauma: women with nightmares and insomnia, women rejected by their husbands, women who have no interest in nurturing the babies of their rapists, women and children with nowhere to go.

It is early morning, and the hospital courtyard has been transformed into a temporary church. Women dressed in their most colorful, or perhaps only, pagne (a six-yard piece of brightly patterned cloth that can be wrapped into a dress or skirt) sit waiting for the doctor to arrive and lead the prayer service that begins each day. A dedicated staff of female nurses and social workers are there as well, dressed in their starched white jackets. There is singing, a combination of Pentecostal calls and Swahili rhythms, Sunday-morning voices calling up Jesus.

This morning service is a kind of daily gathering of strength and unity. When the women sing, everything else seems to disappear. They are with the sun, the sky, the drums, each other. They are alive in their bodies, momentarily safe and free.

As they sing, Dr. Mukwege tells me stories about the women in the chorus. Many were naked when they arrived, or starving. Many were so badly damaged he is amazed they are singing at all. He takes enormous pride in their recovery. “I will never be ashamed,” the women sing. “God gave me a new heart that I can be very strong.”

“At the beginning I used to hear patients’ stories,” Dr. Mukwege tells me. “Now I abstain.” I soon understand why. I meet Nadine (like others in this story, she agreed to be photographed, but asked that her name be changed, as she could be subject to reprisals for speaking out), who tells me a tale so horrendous it will haunt me for years to come.

When we begin talking, Nadine seems utterly disassociated from her surroundings—far away. “I’m 29,” she begins. “I am from the village of Nindja. Normally there was insecurity in our area. We would hide many nights in the bush. The soldiers found us there. They killed our village chief and his children. We were 50 women. I was with my three children and my older brother; they told him to have sex with me. He refused, so they cut his head and he died.”

Nadine’s body is trembling. It is hard to believe these words are coming out of a woman who is still alive and breathing. She tells me how one of the soldiers forced her to drink his urine and eat his feces, how the soldiers killed 10 of her friends and then murdered her children: her four-year-old and two-year-old boys and her one-year-old girl. “They flung my baby’s body on the ground like she was garbage,” Nadine says. “One after another they raped me. From that my <admin-profanity filter activated> and anus were ripped apart.”

Nadine holds onto my hand as if she were drowning in a tsunami of memory. As devastated as she is, it is clear that she needs to be telling this story, needs me to listen to what she is saying. She closes her eyes and says something I cannot believe I’m hearing. “One of the soldiers cut open a pregnant woman,” she says. “It was a mature baby and they killed it. They cooked it and forced us to eat it.”

Incredibly, Nadine was the only one of the 50 women to escape. “When I got away from the soldiers, there was a man passing. He said, ‘What is that bad smell?’ It was me; because of my wounds, I couldn’t control my urine or feces. I explained what had happened. The man wept right there. He and some others brought me to the Panzi Hospital.”

She stops. Neither of us has breathed. Nadine looks at me, longing for me to make sense of what she’s related. She says, “When I got here I had no hope. But this hospital helped me so much. Whenever I thought about what happened, I became mad. I believed I would lose my mind. I asked God to kill me. Dr. Mukwege told me: Maybe God didn’t want me to lose my life.”

Nadine later tells me that the doctor was right. As she fled the slaughter, she says, she saw an infant lying on the ground next to her slain parents. Nadine rescued the girl; now having a child to care for gives her reason to keep going. “I can’t go back to my village. It’s too dangerous. But if I had a place to live I could go to school. I lost my children but I’m raising this child as my own. This girl is my future.”

I stay for a week at Panzi. Women line up to tell me their stories. They come into the interview numb, distant, glazed over, dead. They leave alive, grateful, empowered. I begin to understand that the deepest wound for them is the sense that they have been forgotten, that they are invisible and that their suffering has no meaning. The simple act of listening to them has enormous impact. The slightest touch or kindness restores their faith and energy. The strength of these women is remarkable, as is their unparalleled resiliency. Dr. Mukwege tells me I need to meet Alfonsine (her name also has been changed). “Her story really touched me,” he says. “Her body, her case is the worst I have ever seen, but she has given us all courage.”

Alfonsine is thin and poised, profoundly calm. She tells me she was walking through the forest when she encountered a lone soldier. “He followed me and then forced me to lie down. He said he would kill me. I struggled with him hard; it went on for a long time. Then he went for his rifle, pressed it on the outside of my <admin-profanity filter activated> and shot his entire cartridge into me. I just heard the voice of bullets. My clothes were glued to me with blood. I passed out.”

Dr. Mukwege tells me, “I never saw such destruction. Her colon, bladder, <admin-profanity filter activated> and rectum were basically gone. She had lost her mind. I was sure she wouldn’t make it. I rebuilt her bladder. Sometimes you don’t even know where you are going. There’s no map. I operated on her six times, and then I sent her to Ethiopia so they could heal the incontinence problem, and they did.”

“I was in bed when I first met Dr. Mukwege,” Alfonsine says. “He caressed my face. I lived at Panzi for six months. He helped me spiritually. He showed me how many times God makes miracles. He built me up morally.”

I look at Alfonsine’s petite body and imagine the scars beneath her humble white clothes. I imagine the reconstructed flesh, the agony she experienced after being shot. I listen carefully. I cannot detect a drop of bitterness or any desire for revenge. Instead, her attention is fixed on transforming the future. She tells me with great pride, “I am now studying to be a nurse. My first choice is to work at Panzi. It was the nurses who nurtured me day after day, who loved me back into living.”

Alfonsine has ambitions that go beyond Panzi: “I feel like a big person in my community; I can do something for my people. Women must lead our country. They know the way.”

Every day about a dozen new women arrive at Panzi Hospital. Most come for surgery to repair a fistula, a rip in their internal tissue. There are two types of fistulas seen here: One is the aftermath of brutal rape, the other the result of birth complications, something that could be prevented if there were adequate maternity health care. These obstetric fistulas are the result of abnormal tearing during the birth process. Many occur when women flee the militias while they are in labor; there is no time to give birth, and the baby dies inside. The women who make it here are the lucky ones. They limp on homemade canes made from tree branches; they trudge slowly in deep pain. Some have walked 40 miles. Because it takes so long to get to the hospital, women have no chance to receive the anti-HIV medications that must be taken within 48 hours after rape. Health experts fear that in a few years, there will be an explosion of AIDS in the Congo.

Dr. Mukwege was once the only doctor at Panzi Hospital able to perform fistula surgery; now he has trained four others. The hospital does 1,000 such operations a year.

I sit in on a typical operation in a clean, safe, but seriously underequipped operating room (nurses use torn pieces of a green dressing gown to tie the woman’s ankles to the stirrups). I am able to see the fistula—a hole in the tissue between the woman’s vaginal wall and bladder. A hole in her body. A hole in her soul. A hole where her confidence, her esteem, her spirit, her light, her urine leak out.

Because of the prevalence of fistulas, the Panzi complex is soaked in urine. The smell pervades everything. Pee spills out of women in a huge, dirt-floored hangarlike space where hundreds sit all day. Pee spills out in classrooms, leaving puddles on the floor. The women are always wet. Their legs chafe and their skin burns. There are many little girls in pee-stained dresses roaming around Panzi; shy and ashamed, they, too, are victims of rape. The week of my visit, a state agency had turned off the water for the hospital after billing Panzi $70,000 (an insane amount by Congolese standards) because it heard that the hospital, which is private, was receiving money from the West. Staff had to bring in buckets of water from the surrounding neighborhood. To have hundreds of women with fistula-caused incontinence and no water seemed like a crime upon a crime.

I can’t help wondering what happened in Dr. Mukwege’s life that compelled him to work here, sometimes 14 hours a day. “I was born in Bukavu on March 1, 1955,” he tells me. “During my young age my mother was suffering with asthma. In the night when she became ill, I was the one who would go and look for a nurse or bring her medication. We all thought she would die. Even now, each birthday she celebrates, I am so happy to see her alive.

“My father was a pastor. He was very gentle, very human. From him I got the caring to treat patients. When we would go and visit sick people together, he would pray. I would ask, ‘Why can’t you give them tablets or prescriptions?’ He said, ‘I am not a doctor.’ I decided then that prayer is not enough. People must take things into their own hands. Asking God does not change anything. He gives us the ability to say yes or no. You must use your hands, your mind. When I receive women here who are hungry, I can’t say, ‘God bless you.’ I have to give them something to eat. When someone is suffering, I can’t tell her about God, I have to treat her pain. You can’t hide yourself in religion. Not a solution.”

Dr. Mukwege began as a general practitioner, focusing on pediatrics. When he worked in a clinic in Lemera, a village south of Bukavu, he saw dreadful things happening in maternity. “Women were coming in bleeding day after day, many with severe infections. A woman had a baby and carried it dead in her <admin-profanity filter activated> for a week. It was terrible. This helped me make a total engagement in a new career.”

He went back to school to study gynecology in Angers, France, and then returned to Lemera to train the staff in obstetrics and gynecology. After he moved to Bukavu he created a special maternity ward at Panzi. Women who were victims of extreme sexual violence began to arrive. The number grew every day.

Who was—and is—raping the women? The better question might be, who isn’t?

The perpetrators include the Interahamwe, the Hutu fighters who fled neighboring Rwanda in 1994 after committing genocide there; the Congolese army; a loose assortment of armed civilians; even U.N. peacekeepers. Christine Schuler Deschryver, who works for a German aid organization and is a fierce advocate for Panzi Hospital and Congolese women, says, “All of them are raping women. It is a country sport. Any person in uniform is an enemy to women.”

Many women do not even report the violations, because they are afraid of rejection by their husbands and families. Although there are laws against rape in the Congo, if a woman reports her rape and her rapist is arrested, he can pay his way out and come back and rape her again. Or murder her.

Dr. Mukwege, in contrast, is motivating a different kind of healing army. I speak with a hospital employee named Bonane. “I was in Uganda,” he says. “I saw the doctor on TV. He was explaining the atrocities. I realized these are my mothers and sisters. I was so inspired, I came here to work with him.”

Dr. Mukwege is married with five children, but his brother, Herman, tells me his family doesn’t see him much because his devotion to the women has consumed his life. Although the doctor’s energy never flags, I notice an underlying exhaustion in his face and his being, a sleepless despair that comes from dwelling constantly amid violence and cruelty. He says to me, “When you rape a woman, you destroy life and you destroy your own life. Animals don’t do this. When a pigeon has sex with another pigeon, it is kind. I am wondering how man has the power of such destruction.”

And yet, the status of women in the Congo was dismal long before the wars started. The women work all day in the field and market, carrying the Congo on their backs (sometimes up to 200 pounds in bags strapped to their foreheads). They prepare the dinner, wash the clothes, clean the house, take care of the children, have mandatory sex with their husbands. They have no power, no rights and no value. Many women I talk to ask why I am “wasting my time” with them.

I interview a man who is the keeper of a gorilla preserve. He tells me that when dangerous militias began staking out territory in the park, he went to their commanders and asked if their soldiers would work with him to protect the gorillas. In the end they all agreed. I ask him why he didn’t feel compelled to do the same for the women. The question surprised him. He had no answer.

I ask the doctor about the Congo’s leader, Joseph Kabila, who in November 2006 became the country’s first democratically elected president in 46 years and promised to be the “craftsman of peace.” Are things getting better?

Dr. Mukwege sighs. “Kabila,” he says, “has done nothing. The fighting here in the east has not stopped. During 2004 my life was threatened; I got phone calls warning me to stop my work or die. The calls have ceased, but it is still very dangerous.

“Visitors come from the international community,” he continues. “They eat sandwiches and cry, but they do not come back with help. Even President Kabila has never put his foot here. His wife was here. She wept, but she has done nothing.”

UNICEF, ECHO (the humanitarian aid office of the European Commission) and PMU (a Swedish humanitarian organization) are the major supporters of Panzi. Although the hospital can always use more money, the real need is for a political response to the violence. Barring that, Dr. Mukwege would at least like to get real protection for the women once they leave the hospital. “I patch them up and send them back home,” he says, “but there is no guarantee they will not be raped again. There have been several cases where women have come back a second time, more destroyed than the first.”

On my last day, the doctor asks me if I will lead some exercises for the women that will help alleviate their trauma. We go to the hangarlike building where 250 depressed and sick women are waiting. We begin with breathing. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Then we attach a noise to the breath. Other noises follow. One after another, noise after noise. Then we attach a movement. There is stomping. There is punching. There is mad waving of arms. The women are up on their feet, screaming, releasing guttural sounds of sorrow, rage, terror. In a matter of minutes, I watch them go from broken, mute women to wild, laughing, ferocious beings.

In the midst of this energy, Dr. Mukwege challenges the women to a dance contest. Celebration and power explode from their bodies. A part of each woman is fierce, unbreakable. No one has killed their spirits. The doctor whispers to me, “When I see this joy, this life in the women, I know why I must come back here every day.”

The women’s frenzy builds and builds. They dance in the hot African sun. They dance in the open road. They literally dance us up a steep hill, hundreds of women and children moving in a single, radiant feminine mass.

If 250 women who have been raped, torn, starved and tortured can find the strength to dance us up a mountain, surely the rest of us can find the resources and will to guarantee their future.

Eve Ensler is a playwright, an activist and the founder of V-Day. Her latest book is Insecure at Last.

Photo: Paula Allen

the point is to be able to connect with Akaal Purkh despite these "distractions"

I see your point, but I'm not sure if what you've written is any different than going to the woods and being a hermit or being like sanyaasis or what not......... The only difference if you've banished the rest of them from your home instead of banishing yourself from your home. kinda seems like two sides of the same coin?

bumps

honestly, these are ubelievable to read.. if you ever need to re-energize the spirit.. this is the place.

Paaji, whats the best way to loose fat around the stomach? Daass has put on a few pounds over the last few months and would like to go back to being in shape.

I was thinking just going to India in the summer, that always makes me loose weight due to reduced food intake coupled with increased fluid intake and greater perspiration.

anything i'm about to say is from my own research and experience and not because i'm trained in medicine or exercise fitness... so perhaps mskcan can confirm or refute anything i say

the best way to lose fat around the stomach is to lose fat in the arms, the legs, and everywhere else.... the reason is that Targeted Fat Loss is a myth.... you can't lose fat in any specific part of the body, you will lose fat proportionally everywhere when you workout and stuff.. therefore you won't see the gains you want to see aorund your stomach just by doing something that you think is targetting stomach fat... it is an entire myth to lose only one type of fat over the others....

Therefore the question is how best to lose fat in general, and that will depend on your level of motivation and preferences... for me, i hated (and stlil do) running or jogging, but this is probably the best and most effective way to burn calories... and the best part is, you burn the same amount of calories whether you run or whether you jog (little known fact).. but you clearly won't sweat as much if you walk it, and water weight tends to be fun to lose because it gives the impression that you're losing alot of weight very quickly (your first week, you might lose 5 pounds, but in reality it's all water weight)

It's also important to keep some level of weight training regime during a weight-loss initiative. the most obvious reason is that you will lose weight, but it might be a result of muscle degeneration as opposed to a loss of fat.... you don't wanna fool yourself or anyone else for that matter... keep up a good, consistent weight training program to maintain your muscle mass, and keep a good cardio program going on for weight loss... if you're a heavy trainer, you can do two-a-days, but this should probably only be done if you're experienced and can do it.. you definitely don't wanna go from being a 3 times a week to a 2 times a day, 5 days a week type of person... a) you'll exhaust yourself, and b) you'll convince yourself that you're not exhausted, and as a result, will be more prone to hurting yourself.

And in case you're wondering, I chose biking as my choice of cardio..... it just made me feel the best after i was done a really good workout... plus if you include inclines and hills in your workout, you'll be working your leg muscles (this goes with jogging and such too, obviously)

I agree with mann veerji

i also think achintay baaj bhaey isn't necessarily just referring to manmukh lok...

Gurmukh lok accept death, i agree. but it doesn't necessarily mean that they know when it's coming... they just accept that when their time comes, they go with a smile or what not.

achintay baaj bhaey simply just says death is uncertain. the only certainty is that it will occur...

Raj Academy's mission is one in which it should be in gurughars... the need to, at the very least, ENCOURAGE raag is huge... it'd be better if it was like.. a hands on workshop... if it's an actual concert...where it's just music and no baani.. then i dunno, i'm torn...

music has a big impact on the mind... but ultimately Guru's House is for Guru's Words, i think.

mehtab your post sucked, i hated it (that should deflate you a lil)

..... actually i didn't even read it so i don't know one way or another

isn't the best way to get rid of these topics on sikhsangat simply to sotp replying to them? It seems that people continue to complain about the presence of htese topics, but just by complaining, you contribute to the post-count haha... and ten what happens.... becomes the most viewed topics on sikhsangat.... and then we complain about a lack of quality of posts...

i'm guilty of it too just by responding t othis one, but just thought i'd share...

i kid you not, i thought a bat attacked a singh... like... a bird type of bat... and i was like "great, the things we make the news for!"

bu this is way cooler than that kind of bat.... hope the attacker wasn't too badly hurt.. just enough to get the message hopefully.

i hope i can be half as good as this guy

great post, thank you very much

For the sake of contributing a helpful response:

it's in the Sikh Politics section now.

let's change "Beautiful daughter" to "Guru"

let's change "grab the tail of the bull" to "taking amrit"

and i think most people on the board would decidedly agree with the moral.

you never know what chances and opportunities you're going to get in life. You should have that confidence and that sharda/bhavna/faith that you can achieve...contrarily, you should have a great reason as to why you're letting an opportunity slip by.

Thanks for the post.

It's super cute how in the first vid

the kid corrects the mom too..cuz she misses nirvair, the second time.. but the kid like corrected her hehe..that was cool

Now i'm curious: where's the maryada that says not to wear one of those? (rudraksh)