El Valle de mi Vida

again, again

My nephew likes to say "again, again."
I think we both got airborne on that one. Good thing he's got two uncles :-)
"Wow cool, I can't wait until I'm bigger"
My super cute niece.

Quote

"The strength of your judgment is the only enemy you have. You do not look at things in the light of the spirit, the light of the soul, so you do not believe and trust that everything is the light of the soul. Things fit in when they want to fit in. You are not required to force people to believe them."
-Siri Singh Sahib

More pictures from my phone

I thought the rain looked really cool one day, when I was driving to Santa Fe.
It was coming down hard in one area, but not in other areas.
The greener days of the monsoon season.
contrast
"I'm sure my brother doesn't mind if I put one of his dinosaur toys in my mouth."

I love New Mexico

Weekend

Usually I get material for my blog on the weekend, but some weekends I don't do that much exciting stuff. I've worked on cars that past two weekends. One weekend I put new fuel injectors in my BMW. (I put fuel injector cleaner in my car and it ruined the injectors) Now I get better gas mileage. Then this weekend my brother and I put a new timing belt on the Toyota that he owns and that we commute in to work. I thought yesterday 'Why not put pictures of some of the mundane stuff I do on my blog?' So here you are:
Replacing the timing belt. It's kind of a precise job.
Woops. I broke the old belt when taking it off.
These pictures were taken with my phone, so this one has my brother's finger in it. Here I am in my ocassional weekend uniform.

Oh did I forget to mention, even amongst my mundane tasks God continues to bless me with incredible beauty. All I could say when I saw the mountains this weekend was 'Sat Naam Siri WaheGuru.' I kept repeating over and over again, as I took notice of God's beautiful art. The snow was so white and so bright, I couldn't take my eyes away and I couldn't stop praising the giver of All. Thank you for this beautiful Life. WaheGuru!

Which post

Which one should I post? I posted both. I had a real hard time holding my hand still for these, because the subject is really small. They're both still a little blurry unfortunately, but I thought I'd share them any way.
I like the background of the one above better, but I think the focus is better on the one below.

I like snow

As I was driving to work this morning I spotted snow atop the highest peak in the western mountains (the Jemez mountains). I work in the Jemez. There were clouds above the peaks of the Eastern Mountains (Sangre De Cristo mountains), so I couldn't tell if there was snow there, but I was pretty sure there was. On the way home from work, I got this picture, showing snow atop the Sangre De Cristo mountains. I then found out that the first day of fall this year is the 23rd of September. It's been really cold here at night and now there's snow on the mountains and it's technically still summer!

From my phone

I had some Toronto picture in my phone. I took them the day I forgot my camera.
I went to an evening program at the Dixie Road Gurdwara (big one) in Toronto. On the right in the foreground I partly got a picture of Jaspaul Singh Ji. Jaspaul Singh Ji is a really nice guy who brought me to the program and showed me around the Gurdwara.
Some of the sangat at the program.
There are multiple Darbar Halls in the Gurdwara. They even have more than one program at a time! I guess I can see how a huge sangat occasionally necessitates that events conflict, such as weddings, akhand paths, bhogs etc. In this case it was two kirtan programs, and I didn't see why they should be separate. It was two different kirtan styles, but can't we take turns? This is the second hall that I visited.
An interesting banner. With the efforts taken to put this up (in the Gurdwara!) somebody could have redirected the effort to make a nicer banner that said something like 'Raj Karega Khalsa!' If the Sikh homeland is Khalistan, why is the banner in a huge Gurdwara in Toronto Canada? What if Khalistan existed? Should the banner be taken down and the Gurdwara abandoned? What about a banner that says "Sikh homeland: Earth." Or another that says "Sarbat Da Bhalla." Living as Khalsa, wherever we are, will establish Khalsa Raj, fighting for physical boundaries will take us no where. Guru Gobind Singh never set his sights so low as a piece of land.
A chandelier in the Gurdwara.

Harvest

I took these photos over a month ago, so these should definitely be harvested by now. My brother has harvested some of his tomotoes and they are really good. Home grown tomatoes make you wish all your produce was organic and grown locally.

I'm not sure what this is, but it's an interesting photo.

basil
lettuce
potatoes
I've been putting a lot of flowers on my blog lately. I guess if I don't have material I resort to the basics (flowers, babies, sunsets :-)

Mellow Yellow

Hello!
Alone, I remain at peace.

Copy

Photos from the same event that Gurumustuk has posted.
The man, the legend :-) This is just before he took a photo of me (somehow I didn't realize he got the photo even though I was looking right at him).
I used to go to programs here when I was a kid. I remember we made baskets and pottery and other crafts.
Sunset guests.

Up Close

Cute

My name is Vasu Sukhmani Singh and I have a balloon :-)
I'm a work of art
This is my pitaji Seva Singh.
I'm Karamjeet Singh :-)
Satvinder Kaur was catching bubbles.
My uncle said meditation is important :-)

Smile

Visitor that came to live with me for a day, now his relatives have arrived for a short time :-)
Roses are red...
Lost focus
Oh yeah, time to smile :-)

Las Vegas Gurdwara website

The Las Vegas Gurdwara has a new webiste:
http://www.lasvegasgurdwara.com/
I've been to two samagams there and enjoy the sangat and the programs there.

P.S. This is the famous Las Vegas in Nevada, not the original and smaller town of Las Vegas in New Mexico.

Canada pictures

I do have some Toronto pictures that I didn't put up. Some were blurry but this one came out alright.
Singhs

While in Toronto I realized I was pretty close to Ottawa. I have friends in Ottawa who I haven't seen in a while. Also I thought it would be cool to see another city. My friend Mukande Kaur from Ottawa hosted me and took me to see my other friends and other parts of the city.
This in the Gurdwara in Ottawa.
It was starting to get late when we got to the Gurdwara so the lights were dim. Until my eyes adjusted this is what I saw. It's a pretty cool site, and the Gurdwara seems real nice.

Quote

"You have to communicate your judgment. What is wrong with people is that mostly they only judge each other and don't communicate it. There is a saying, "Don't judge, you'll be judged", right? It is very difficult; you can't do it. Therefore, I say to you judge, but let the other person know what your judgment is. You can never [really] judge another person because you do not know what is going on with the other party, okay? So just communicate your ad hoc judgment, then you will hear the other person, and then you will come to a mutual understanding. But you can't stop judging."
-Siri Singh Sahib

Rest of Toronto pictures

In the sangat.

I wasn't the only one taking photos :-). If I were to give this picture a title it would be called 'half famous.' (oh yeah, I got my right arm in the photo again).
I didn't learn the name of everybody, just Manmeet Singh Ji, the little boy with a lot of charisma.
Twin sisters, Mandeep Kaur Ji and Manpreet Kaur Ji.
Sean Ji and Jagneet Singh Ji.
Brothers.
Looks like a babaji - Heera Singh Ji
Downtown Toronto. You know there's a lot of Punjabis in a city when they have public signs with the Gurmukhi script. I guess there's no word for emergency in Punjabi ? So they wrote amerjainsee in Gurmukhi. I would have written it as:

Quote

"As a teacher, you must experience everything that you share."
-Siri Singh Sahib

More Toronto pictures

Big ups to my man! Khalsa Ji, Gurpreet Singh.
Jagneet Singh Ji and me. A really nice young man.
Sangat
Sat Naam Ji!
I'm Japjot Singh, I'm the older brother of the baby above :-)
Parampuneet Singh Ji encouraging his son. He's a really nice guy with two cute kids.
We had a discussion about yoga and I think I must be explaining something (what little I know).
More sangat
Sikhi to the Max software is so great!
Looks like a samagam :-)

Toronto samagam

The start of my pictures from Toronto.
This picture is kind of funny because the Singh in front of me is leaning forward with his head down, so it looks like he's missing his head :-) This was during the Amrit Vela 'WaheGuru' Simran (meditation on the mantra 'WaheGuru')
In the samagam, Heera Singh (who I stayed with) on the tabla. A really nice guy, I called him 'babaji' a few times, just for kicks... sometimes he looks like a babaji.
The space for the samagam was really nice.
Part of the sangat.
The area where langar was served. There are only a few people in this picture, but sometimes this whole place was almost full!

head above the clouds

It felt like the plane was above a sea of clouds and sometimes a great formation would appear out of the sea.
Tomorrow I'll get some of my Toronto pictures up. I didn't nearly take as many photos as I thought I would.