"It is the woman's heart and consciousness
that hold this planet together,
her words of peace and love
that make this sphere whole."
-Sangeet Khalsa

By Jan Henrikson
The Awareness Journal

"My suits are from Saks. My turbans are not! "Sangeet Khalsa told her fellow executives at ITT, International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation's world headquarters in New York. As head of financial public relations she had always worked with senior vice presidents and the chairman of the board. Then there came the turban threat.

The turban was much more than a symbol of her spiritual path as a Sikh, which means seeker of truth. It was a "crown of grace and excellence." She constantly fought the desire to wear it at work. Then during a meditation, she was chanting away when, "Suddenly I was out of my body looking down at myself. My cat and dog were at my side. I saw myself covered by a huge golden blanket. I remember saying, 'You know who you are. You're Sangeet Khalsa. What are you afraid of? God's covering you.'"

Being the only woman in all-male situations before there were token women had never been a problem for Sangeet (which means one who brings peace and harmony), but now she was a pre-token token with a turban. Corporate America did not smile upon her.

"With very few exceptions those people who had been my staunch supporters all those years closed their doors on me. People, who two years before, had stood at the side of my mother's grave honoring her daughter in the middle of a winter snow in Pennsylvania, would not say good morning to me in the elevator. They were scared. Corporate ostracism is huge."

How did the tough-nosed Park Avenue executive with a ritzy apartment and a view of the Statue of Liberty find herself in such an unexpected situation in the first place?

"I was told I'd be in a wheelchair by the time I was forty," says Sangeet. "I was thirty-three and I had begun scoliosis in the spine. Three disks were ruptured and gone. I was in agony. Before that I had endometriosis. But I kept going up the corporate ladder because I didn't know what else to do.

"After seven years of physical therapists and advanced techniques, I thought I'd go to this calisthenics class in my health club. Why I don't know because I don't really like calisthenics. A man walked in wearing a turban and sat down and I said to myself, 'It must be the yoga class. I must be in the wrong class. Nothing will kill you once.' So I did it."

With yoga practice, her arthritis vanished. The breathwork rebuilt her spine. She became a vegetarian. When she accompanied a yoga student to a Sikh service called Gurdwara, which means the door or the gate of Guru or God, "These big tears were rolling down my face and this voice inside my head said, 'Well, old girl, you've finally made it home.'"

She wanted to quit ITT instantly, but Yogi Bhajan, the Sikh spiritual authority who brought Kundalini yoga and meditation to the west in 1968 told here that after 10 years at ITT - this was only year three - "All your past karmas will burn up and you'll be a free woman."

Sangeet defines karma as the accumulation of lessons not yet learned in this or other lifetimes. It is created by incomplete thoughts, actions, and commitment. Every soul can either use the "shotgun approach", trying to erase every single karma. Or the soul can choose the destiny path. "Hop on this jet plane and meditate and serve and huge clumps of karma burn off," she says.

"I went through the fires of hell in many ways that first year of turban wearing. But by the time I left, I had even more responsibility and authority. I learned to stand my ground because I had done nothing wrong. I showed them that I was a greater asset, a better person in their terms as well as mine."

Just as predicted, at year 10, "I was visiting what had become my home when my father passed. I was just there for the weekend and went out to get lumber. When I came back, my house had been totally burned. There had been an electrical short. They had to hold me back from flinging myself inside. My house didn't matter. It was my two little cats. My cats died under my altar. That was the only place that wasn't charred and burned. They just went to sleep.

"I called Yogi Bhajan and he said, 'Your past karmas have burned up.' Then, after all the layoffs had happened at ITT, it finally got to me."

At last.

"When you turn rage into courage, take passion and make it into compassion, then you will not have to engage in battle and you will always win. It's a great life and it's only beginning."

Indeed. On the morning of New Years Day, 1991, far, far away from the crucible of New York in the gentler land of Phoenix, Arizona, Sangeet woke up with a start and the phrase, "Womanheart" imprinted in her mind.

Over a two-week period she and Creator nurtured the heart of Womanheart. It was more than a program of yoga, meditation, chanting, and loving communion with other women. More than a workshop revealing that sometimes men's and women's relationships are like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde vs. The Thirty Faces of Eve." [A chapter in Khalsa's new book]

It was the invitation for women to nourish themselves completely and open up into their own deepest spiritual path. It was to provide the catalyst for the most profound changes a woman can experience in this lifetime.

And it has. Womanheart has evolved from evening classes to workshops, and now is a four day retreat, held twice a year with the invaluable help of her male business partner Hari Nam Singh and a volunteer staff of women.

Sangeet's mission is to "reach a million women with the message of their own grace and dignity and the tools to assure themselves of this everyday". I tell women, 'There are many places you can go to change your mind. You came here to change your life. Take these experiences into the core of your heart.'

"That's why this is not WomanEgo, WomanIdentity, WomanSpirit. The heart of the woman nurtures the entire planet, whether she ever has children or not. Her children are all around her. She makes the environment beautiful, peaceful and uplifting. If the world goes to hell in a hand basket, I won't and don't you dare. Some of us need to be strong. We need to be steady, conscious, and elevated. We have to look to our own sacredness and build it, and from that make that great connection that will never be broken."

Fifty women, whose stories are all as rich as Sangeet's, recently gathered together at the Inn at the Biosphere in Oracle, Arizona, USA to make that great connection that will never be broken.

"This was the greatest thing we could do for the planet," says Istis Tulk, whose daily sadhana practices of yoga and meditation, since the Retreat, have changed her world. "To contact that divine feminine and heal all that woundedness of the feminine that has happened for so many eons. To heal ourselves at a deep level."

Fifty women arose - willingly - before light was up. For, as Sangeet says, "When your soul rises before the sun, the day is yours." They sat on a grassy promontory overlooking a valley and lush, majestic mountains, chanting "Wahe Guru", the call to the Infinite, the great ecstasy, the wow of being in flow, while a herd of deer paused to luxuriate in the loving energy.

"You drew up the sun and you outshined it," said Sangeet.

Her suits were from Saks. Thank God, her turbans are not.

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Jan Henrikson is a freelance writer and a features writer for The Awareness Journal.