Akal

This is the beginning of the hymn my great-grandmother would chant every morning, hours before the sun came up:

One God
Whose Name is Truth
One Creator
Without Fear
Without Hate
Whose Presence Transcends Time

Before there was a Sikh history or a long list of Sikh martyrs, there was this verse. And there were people from all walks of life who would rise early and recite it to fill themselves with thoughts of God.

This is the seed that grew into Sikhism.

I doubt the man who shot six in Wisconsin knew anything about Sikh faith. The man who shot Balbir Singh Sodhi certainly didn't.

But because they chose hate and longed to be feared, they became trapped in the paranoia of their time.

What an awful place to be trapped.

What a tragic waste of human potential it is whenever we insist on seeing narrowly and spitefully instead of with the generous eternal vision of the divinity within us.