Tier One · The Foundational Commitment

Become a Sikhiyasi.

Membership of Sikhiyas is by sincere commitment, not by birth alone, and not by ritual gatekeeping. There is no fee, no application form, no examination, and no waiting period. There is only a practice, a pledge, and a declaration. The rest of this page describes each in turn.

I. What A Sikhiyasi Is

A Sikhiyasi is a young Sikh — anywhere in the world, of any background, in any circumstance — who has made a personal, considered commitment to two things at once. The first is the daily practice of the three disciplines our Gurus gave us. The second is the public ethic of Sarbat da Bhala — the welfare of all — as the test applied to every meaningful action.

You do not have to be initiated. You do not have to keep kesh, although many Sikhiyasis do. You do not have to speak fluent Punjabi, although many will come to. You do not have to be from a Sikh family, although most are. You do not have to have served on a programme, attended a Gurdwara school, or carried any prior credential.

What you have to do is decide that the posture of Miri-Piri — sovereignty of identity and unconditional service to all — is one you intend to live, in your daily life, from this point forward. The decision is between you and the Guru. Sikhiyas exists to walk alongside you while you make it real.

II. The Three Daily Disciplines

The path was given to us in three commitments. They are deceptively simple, inexhaustibly deep, and deliberately practicable in any life — student, worker, parent, retiree, householder, traveller. Sikhiyas treats them not as ideals but as the actual daily practice of every member.

ਨਾਮ ਜਪੋ · Naam Japo

Remember the Name.

In your breath, in your hands as they work, in the moments before sleep and the moments on waking — remember the One reality that holds everything in being. The form this practice takes is yours to find. Some Sikhiyasis read Nitnem in full each morning. Some recite Mool Mantar through the day. Some sit in silent Naam Simran for ten minutes before bed. Some carry a single line of Gurbani through the day as a thread that does not break.

The form does not matter. What matters is that Naam is woven into the architecture of your day, not relegated to its edges. The young Sikhiyasi who forgets Naam is, as the old metaphor has it, a building without foundation — and a building without foundation cannot bear the weight of Sarbat da Bhala when the weight comes.

ਕਿਰਤ ਕਰੋ · Kirat Karo

Work honestly.

Earn your living, with your own hands and your own mind, in work that does no harm to others and no quiet harm to you. There is no honour in inherited entitlement and no shame in any honest labour. A Sikhiyasi who is a surgeon and a Sikhiyasi who drives a delivery van and a Sikhiyasi who farms a hillside acre stand in the same Pangat and earn the same dignity from the same Guru.

This discipline includes a quiet but consequential demand. Kirat Karo rules out work that exploits others, work that depends on deception, and work whose principal product is harm. It does not rule out being a banker, a soldier, a lawyer, or a businessperson — every such role can be lived with Kirat. It does rule out the conduct within those roles that compromises others. The discipline is in the conduct, not the title.

Every Sikhiyasi commits, on declaration, to earn cleanly, to refuse to earn at the cost of those who cannot defend themselves, and — when the choice arises — to walk away from work that cannot be done with Kirat.

ਵੰਡ ਛਕੋ · Vand Chhako

Share what you have.

Share what you earn. Share what you know. Share what you have access to. Share what you have time for. The closed hand cannot hold Sikhi — that is one of the oldest teachings in our tradition, and one of the simplest tests of whether the tradition is being lived rather than performed.

The classical practice is Daswandh — the tithing of one tenth. We do not impose Daswandh as a Sikhiyas membership condition; we trust each Sikhiyasi to find their own honest answer to what Vand Chhako looks like in their life. For some it is Daswandh in money. For others, in time given to Langar, to community service, to mentoring younger Sikhs. For most, it is some combination — and the proportions shift through the seasons of a life.

What matters is that the practice is real. Not aspirational, not performative, not deferred to a richer year. Real, this week, in some honest form.

III. The Pran · The Pledge Taken Into The Day

The Pran — the Pledge — is what every Sikhiyasi takes on declaration, and renews quietly, in their own time, at the start of each day. It is not a vow in the irrevocable sense; it is a stated intention, gathered into words, that orients the day toward the posture we have chosen. The full text of the Pledge, with line-by-line reflection notes and practice guidance, is on the dedicated Pran page.

You will notice the first line. It is not a literal demand on the body; it is a metaphor with two layers. Open hair — the choice not to hide who one is. Open heart — the choice not to harden against the world. A Sikhiyasi who keeps neither kesh nor a Sikh name still keeps this line, in the way that line was meant to be kept. A Sikhiyasi who keeps both still has to do the inner work that the line really asks for.

IV. The Declaration

To become a Sikhiyasi, you write a single email — to hello@sikhiyas.org with subject line Sikhiyasi declaration — that contains four things:

1. Your name, age, and country of residence;
2. One paragraph, in your own words, on what brought you to this declaration;
3. The line "I take the Pran as my own."
4. Any local Gurdwara or Sangat within which you intend to root the practice — for routing into local study circles where they exist.

Within fourteen working days you will receive a written reply that contains your Sikhiyasi number, the name of the regional coordinator who will hold your enquiry from this point forward, the published list of study circles in your geography (if any), and an invitation to the next Sikhiyas online gathering. There is no welcome ceremony, no initiation rite, no public announcement. The declaration is a private act with public consequences — the consequences are how you live, not how you are listed.

V. What Membership Gives You

• Sikhiyasi numberA permanent identifier that travels with you across geographies and life stages
• Regional coordinatorA named person in your part of the world who holds your enquiry, year over year
• Study circlesStanding invitation to local and online study circles for Gurbani, comparative philosophy, and practical organising
• Annual SangatInvitation to the annual Sikhiyas online gathering and the regional in-person convenings
• Programme prioritySikhiyasis receive priority consideration for cohort places, mentor pathways, and the Chardi Kala Award
• The Pran LetterA short quarterly written reflection from the Directors and senior Sikhiyasis — sent only to declared members, not published online
• Standing welcomeTo the Kangra campus, by prior arrangement, for any Sikhiyasi visiting India

VI. What Membership Asks Of You

• The practiceThe three daily disciplines — in whatever honest form they take in your life
• The PranRenewed quietly each morning. Not recited at others; held for yourself.
• The ethicSarbat da Bhala as the working test applied to consequential decisions in your public and professional life
• The roomIf a Sikhiyas study circle exists near you, attend when you can. If one does not, consider whether you are the person who should start it.
• The SangatStay in honest relationship with your local Gurdwara and the wider Sangat. Sikhiyas does not replace the Gurdwara; it accompanies it.
• The truth-tellingIf your relationship to the practice changes — falters, deepens, takes a different shape — tell your regional coordinator. We do not assess you on it. We just want to know.
• The carryingThe Sikhiyasi badge is not a possession but an entrusted form. Carry it carefully while you hold it; return it cleanly when your active relationship to Sikhiyas changes. The badge belongs to the institution and to the tradition; it is lent to you for the duration of your engagement and returned, without ceremony, when that engagement ends.

Underneath all seven is the same single principle: a Sikhiyasi membership is an entrusted form, not a personal possession or a credential to be displayed. The practice we have asked you to undertake, the badge that confirms you are doing it, and the standing within the Sikhiyas community that the badge represents — all of these are authored by the tradition and entrusted to you for the season of your active engagement. This entrusting is what makes the membership meaningful. Without it, the badge is decoration; with it, the badge is an institutional instance of an older principle the Sikh tradition has carried for five centuries — that the forms we are given to carry are not ours, are held with care while in our hands, and are returned cleanly when our turn is done. The home page sets this principle out in fuller form; the Seva Placements page describes how it operationalises in active service contexts.

When Membership Cannot Continue

A Sikhiyasi membership ends in only two ways. First — and far the more common — by the Sikhiyasi's own choice. A member who wishes to step away from active membership may do so at any time, by writing to their regional coordinator. There is no exit interview, no required reason, no institutional consequence. The membership is voluntary self-declaration; stepping away is voluntary self-stepping-away. We honour both equally.

Second — and rarely — by institutional withdrawal. The grounds are deliberately narrow: a credible safeguarding finding against the member established through the Independent Ombudsperson's process; established financial misconduct in any context where the member's Sikhiyasi standing was material; or sustained, material harm to the work or to fellow Sikhiyasis where the member's Sikhiyasi standing has been the vehicle for the harm. The grounds do not include disagreement with leadership, public criticism of Sikhiyas, change of life path, drift away from the practice, or personal-life choices in the member's own private contexts.

Where institutional withdrawal is contemplated, the same review architecture applies as for the Chardi Kala Award — Independent Ombudsperson, Patron, external reviewer, written finding by panel consensus. Full statement of the architecture is on the Chardi Kala Award page. We name it briefly here so that no Sikhiyasi enters the membership unaware of the institutional terms under which it is held.

VII. If You Are Not Sure

Some young Sikhs read this page and write the declaration the same evening. Some hold it for a year before they write. Some never write — and live the disciplines anyway, quietly, without the badge. All of these are honourable answers.

If you are not sure, the suggestion we offer is this: hold the Pran for thirty days. Read it each morning. Notice what it asks of you. Notice what resists in you. Notice what changes in your week, if anything does. At the end of thirty days, write — or do not write. The declaration is more honest if it follows a month of practice than if it precedes the practice. We have learnt this from our own members.

VIII. If You Are Not Sikh

Tier One — Sikhiyasi membership in the full sense — is reserved for those who are taking on a Sikh identity, sincerely, even if they were not raised within one. We are not gatekeepers of who that includes. The decision is yours and the Guru's; we are the institutional door, not the threshold.

If you are a young person of another tradition, or none, who recognises the value of the Sikhiyas posture and wishes to walk alongside, the Friends & Allies tier is the right home — and we mean walk alongside in the literal sense. Friends are not asked to become Sikh. They are asked to honour the rooted-and-universal posture, and to bring their own roots forward in equal measure. Full detail is on the dedicated Friends & Allies page.

For young people from underrepresented communities who would benefit from structured shared programming with a Sikhiyas cohort, the Manas ki Jaat Solidarity Scholarship is open. Different financial structure, same intake process, full Sikhiyas welcome.

IX. A Word On What This Is Not

Sikhiyasi membership is not a substitute for Amrit Sanchar. It is not a step toward Amrit Sanchar. It does not authorise anyone to perform any Sikh ceremony, hold any liturgical role, or speak on behalf of the Panth. It does not register you with any Sikh institution other than Sikhiyas itself. It does not appear on any government record, any voter roll, any caste or community register.

It is, simply, a private commitment to a public posture, made through the door of a small youth movement that exists to help you keep it. That is its dignity, and that is its limit.

X. The Last Word

The work of being a young Sikh in the twenty-first century is not the work of choosing between roots and reach. It is the work of refusing that choice, every day, in small acts and large ones, until the refusal becomes a posture that does not have to be performed because it has become how you actually stand.

Sikhiyas exists for the young Sikhs who want to stand that way. If you are one of them, the door is open, and the practice is the threshold.