I applied for a job at Akal security after I graduated from college because I saw an ad in the paper which simply read, “Writer/Editor wanted, $52,000 a year to start.” Hey, good deal, I thought. The ad said nothing about the company nor the kind of work they did. I didn’t really know what I was getting into until I drove up to Española for my interview. I followed the directions I had been given on the phone and they led me right into an enormous Sikh compound with a huge golden gate around it. I almost turned right around at that point, but in the end I did not, largely because I had just blown $250 on a suit for the interview. I admit I had certain preconceptions about the Sikhs, largely because there is a huge Sikh community in and around Santa Fe, almost all of whom are white, almost all of whom are filthy, filthy rich. The turbans and the robes led me, in my naivete, to assume that they would be ascetics, but the white Mercedes and Jaguars they drove suggested otherwise. They seemed to enjoy going to movies, eating in restaurants, shopping for trinkets at expensive stores, in other words, doing everything that regular folks do. Their religion seemed to impose no restrictions on their behavior or their quest for material possessions. Whatever their beliefs, though, getting paid that much to be a writer certainly sounded pretty nice.

Anyway, I stumbled upon an article in today’s New York Times about the company where I applied, in which I found the man who interviewed me, Daya Singh Khalsa, speaking about ‘spiritual net worth’.

Among Sikhs “there is no stigma in being financially successful,” Mr. Khalsa added. “Prosperity does not take away from spiritual net worth. You can have both.”

I have never heard of this concept before. Can anyone explain? It does go a long way toward answering my questions about why all the Sikhs in Santa Fe drive very nice white European luxury cars and own million dollar houses. White cars, always white cars. The writing sample I took for the interview was an anti-war editorial for the college newspaper that I had written on the night of Bush’s inaugural War-on-Terror speech in mid-September 2001. I wonder if that had anything to do with my not getting the job?

in japan there is a white-car majority as well, i mean in that a car of another color really stands out. and i asked a lot of people why, and the reason was that the resale value was higher. they never seemed to question beyond that. of course, that's from the country that brought you:

Q: "why is the wine cold?"
A: "because it has been in the refrigerator."

did they make you do that sentence about the sixth sheep? because maybe you flubbed it, and that's why you didn't get a job. they're very sensitive about their tongue twister representation, those sikhs. especially when they're sick. the sheeps, i mean.

i've heard a variation on financial/spiritual worth put forth (by a christian) as being: if you're poor, you think about money all the time, and that leaves you no time to think about god. so you should be rich, and then you can concentrate on god without being distracted by your longing for things.

Didn’t the Hindus have something about renouncing one’s attachment to material things? I think it was somewhere in the Bhagavad Gita. Ah yes, Google says, “The fruits of work should not be your motive,” and “Those who seek the fruits of their work are verily unhappy.” (Of course, material things are just one way to interpret the phrase.) Well, duh, of course you’ll be less concerned with the fruits of your work if you’ve bought one of everything! How come the Hindus never figured that one out? They’ve been living in poverty and filth for centuries when they could have been shopping the whole time.