Significance of Guru Pooja Diwas

With the blessings of Satguru Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj, this year on February 22nd, Houston’s young saints celebrated the Guru Pooja Diwas in a unique way. Rev. sister Sheelu Keswani Ji, who has taken upon herself the task of preparing and mentoring the young children of Houston satsang, asked the children aged 5-16 years to participate in a writing contest on this occasion. These writings were later shared in the next Sunday’s satsang program. The children, through their writings, demonstrated their profound love, understanding, and personal connection with the satsang, sewa, simran, and Satguru, making everyone in the satsang very happy and satisfied. The excerpts of children’s writing are presented below:

Aashita Pant (age 7)
“Baba Ji taught us to love everyone and be positive in life. We come to satsang every Sunday to honor Baba Ji.”

Suhavni Mahajan (age 7)
“Baba Ji loves us. He has given us God-knowledge and asked us to help all people. Baba Ji travels around the world to spread his message of love and humanity.”

Prisha Verma (age 8)
“Now that I am blessed with God knowledge, I know that God is everywhere, and I see this God. Therefore, whenever I feel scared or am in trouble, I pray to God. I also pray to God regularly in the mornings, while going out of home, and before going to bed. Sometimes I pray in school. Baba Ji helps people by giving this God-knowledge, which in turn makes people realize that we all are one family.”

Param (age 9)
“Baba Ji is spreading the message of peace and love around the world. By coming to satsang, I understand what it means when we say, ‘No God, No Peace. Know God, Know Peace.’”

Himanshu Prasad (age 10)
“Satguru is a person who removes your every problem with a magic word called simran. Simran is ‘Tu hi Nirankar, main teri sharan haan, mainu baksh lo.’
How do we reach Satguru? We have to do only two steps:
1. Come to sangat on/before time and do sewa.
2. Do simran every day.”

Aarushi Pant (age 11)
“Sewa is very important because by doing sewa, we can help other people and learn to put others' needs before ourselves. This way, sewa not only helps you become a better person but also helps spread the message of kindness and compassion espoused by Baba Ji. If people don’t see us doing sewa, this message will not be spread.
Baba Ji is an amazing role model for us all, and I hope that I can be like him when I grow older. He is kind, understanding, and determined. He never gives up and continues to work hard to spread the message of love, humanity, truth, equality, and peace for all.”

Sanjvi (age 5)
“She was very enthusiastic and lovingly drew a picture of Baba Ji.”

Tamanjit Kaur (age 15)
“The importance of Guru Pooja Diwas comes from the repeated lesson that I, as a learning saint, should be able to remember: remove the ignorance and hate that I put around myself. Often, we as humans blame others around us or the world around us for the problems we caused, the hatred we made, and the ignorance we gave. What we often forget are our own faults, which is why this day is strikingly significant. Our Satguru’s teaching helps us understand how to look at our own mistakes and how these mistakes stop us from being able to love, care, and realize the mission’s motto ‘Peace, Not Pieces’ among us, God’s children.”

Akriti Keswani (age 16)
“We conduct a sewadal rally on this day every year because we recognize how important it is to devote ourselves to the service of humanity. It is essentially a training and a ‘work in progress’ for our mission. By doing this, we not only motivate ourselves to become true sewadars without any barriers of religion, ethnicity, etc., but we also, in turn, motivate others to join our movement for uniting all human beings.
That brings us to one of the main underlying messages of our mission, which is ‘Harmony in Oneness.’ We believe in the principle of uniting all human beings, despite their diversity, to One essential being, which is Nirankar. Nirankar is in everything and is pervading everywhere. He is omnipresent, and the objective of the Universal Brotherhood is to bring everyone to the consensus of finding Nirankar, or the light, in everything as well as in every being.”