The Oriental Woman: Women in Training Vol 6

By PhD Yogi Bhajan

Recognizing the need to educate women about women, Yogi Bhajan created a special summer intensive training program for women called Khalsa Women's Training Camp (KWTC). The women in training program took place in Española, NM, USA, during summer starting in 1976 and continued for twenty years. Every year he spent up to 8 weeks directly teaching

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kundalini Research Institute
• Release date: Jun 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781940837956

PhD Yogi Bhajan

Yogi Bhajan was declared a Master of Kundalini Yoga at the age of 16. He came to the United States in 1969 and openly taught this transformative technology for the next 35 years, until his last breath in Aug 2004. In the turbulent drug culture of the 70s, Yogi Bhajan first reached out to the youth. He recognized that their experimentation with drugs and "altered states of consciousness" expressed a desire to experience themselves and a longing for family, for connection to their soul and their community. In response to this innate longing, he created a family known as 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization). Soon, 3HO ashrams began springing up across the United States and throughout the world.He sparked a movement whose tendrils have woven their way into numerous aspects of our culture. Yoga and meditation have gained widespread acceptance in the West and the holistic health movement he introduced through diet, herbs, and lifestyle technologies. Born Harbhajan Singh in what is now Pakistan to a family of healers and community leaders, Yogi Bhajan studied comparative religion and Vedic philosophy in his undergraduate years and received his Masters in Economics with honors from Punjab University. Years later, he earned his Ph.D. in communications psychology from the University of Humanistic Studies in San Francisco. Yogi Bhajan emerged as a religious, community, and business leader with a distinguished reputation as a man of peace, world vision, wisdom, and compassion. He founded several food companies that manufacture and distribute natural products based on these teachings. He fostered economic development in communities around the world. He is also the author of several books on yoga philosophy, business, and communication during his lifetime.The Kundalini Research Institute continues his legacy through The Yogi Bhajan Library of Teachings, the International Teacher Training in Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan®, and the publications of lectures and kriyas to serve the community of teachers, students, and practitioners around the world. See www.kundaliniresearchinstitute.org to learn how you can help keep the legacy alive!

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Spirituality and the Alleys

July 5, 1981

Wherever you are, whatever you are, let it be known to all around you that you are a man or woman of God. Blessed you will be and blessed will be your surroundings, and blessed will be your inner and outer environments.

The subject which I want to cover with you today is a very beautiful one. I am grateful and dedicated to the man who covered it with me at a time when I was very young, because I fully understand that if I had not have been told the sequence of this subject in detail, there would have been a lot of misunderstanding and suffering as a human. Just as there is a road which you call a service road behind every house, an alley between houses, there are alleys related to spirituality. I am going to go very slowly so you may understand this subject.

God created this earth and the tattvaas and the combination of tattvaas creates elementary situations like metals and trees. All of creation, living and non-living, is based on the aura. The non-living was given an aura of a foot and a half; the living was given a three and a half foot aura, and the intellectual and intelligent life was given an aura up to nine feet. There is nothing beyond this.

It is the auric body which concentrates on different chakras and that is where your consciousness has to relate from. The rhythmical movement from one center of consciousness to another, from one chakra to another, is called the movement of the spirit in its alleys. Your soul actually travels — it does not lie in just one part of the body. It is a huge volume of light which reflects many different colors but it beams at one part of the body more powerfully than at any other part of the body. That is called the beam center of the spirit. That means if the reflection at the ajanaa, or the third eye, is very bright, it is so because the auric body is beaming at the ajanaa and the reflection from there is spreading out. It means the person is in ecstasy, in a very, very high consciousness. When the beam flows from the heart center, that means the person is very much in love, very much in service and very much in giving, in sacrificing. If this very light is at the second center that means the person is extremely horny, very passionate, very earthbound. In the level of rhythm of consciousness there is no difference. Strangely enough a lot of the people who do not have a clear mind have a multiple beam.

In the spiritual world there is one danger, and it is the most powerful danger of all: when within your spirituality, whether you are good or you are bad, you become satisfied. This curse exists alot, especially in Sikh Dharma. There is no worse curse in the spiritual world than this, and it will happen in every other religion, but every other religion does not start with the power of the Naam. Every other religion takes a long route, a long path to come to the meditative capacity of the Naam. If you study Christianity the way I have studied it, right from the base to the top; when people reach the point where they are called realized people (not reverends or priests, who are part of a particular social preaching system), you will be surprised to find they will just be into Hail Mary and nothing else. They want to meditate on one word. In every religion, even in Buddhism, it ultimately boils down to one word: Gurmantra. When you become a Sikh, Sat Naam is your word, and when you are baptized, Wahe Guru is your word. You always stick to one word. That is a very powerful thing in spirituality.

A lot of people get lost thinking they are the true believers and everybody else is not. These are the sickest people on this planet. There are those who feel they are Gursikhs. The definition of a Gursikh is one who is humble like water and flows under the feet of all humanity, good and bad alike. It is my prayer to Akaal Purakh that such people who are confined to their own selves or to the realization that they are the Gursikhs be dead before they even think that. It is the spiritual sickness of ego from which there is no escape, no way out. And in the spiritual world you cannot confirm somebody or confront somebody by saying you know more or you recognize the other person knows best. That's not true because the path of self-realization is a regal path; It is a path of God.

Everything which has been created here is a balance to something else. Things are balanced with each other; therefore things are a challenge to each other. When God will be kind to me and free me from this cage, this ribcage where my soul is stuck, I'll be delighted. Until then, I am delighted to have a chance to serve those who would not have been served otherwise. Now I can be limited as to whether I am understood or not. How can a student ever understand a teacher? Never, ever. You may know the entire city, but you will never know the alleys of the entire city. You may know this entire little town of Espanola and its main roads, but still somebody will know an alley he can carry you through. Where is the limit?

Once I met a very great sage. I had a hard time reaching him to get an interview, but when we met, we sat down, we talked and it was very heart-filling. He asked me, Yeah, Yogi Baba, you have a day to spare?

I said, Yes, I have a day to spare. What do you want with that day?

He said, There is one man here, I am going to go meet him. Would you like to come with me?

I said, "Baba, do you ever, ever want to meet a man? The world comes to meet you! Look at me, I have travelled four hundred miles to meet you!"

He said, No, no, I am not telling any of my disciples. I just want you, because these disciples are crazy. They think the way you think, but I know you know better.

I said, Well, what do I know better? What do you want?

He said, This man is crazy, he is extremely abusive and he beats up people. But it's good to go and see him.

I said, God. He's aggressive. Do you want me for protection?

He said, Well, you can take it that way. Once when I went to see him, he took a big stick and ran after me for about a mile to make an attack on my life. I ran away. But this time, I think with you I'll be safe and we can sneak out early. No, don't discuss it. Just tell me if you want to go with me or not.

I said, Okay, I'll go. So at four o'clock in the morning, we actually snuck out. There was nothing to do, we didn't tell anybody, we didn't dress properly, we didn't take any precautions for the journey, we just walked out. We travelled a great distance and when we saw him, he laughed. Hey there! Look at this idiot, this bogus person, telling everybody he has reached God! Hey, you don't know anything about God, you idiot! Why have you come to see me and bother me this morning?

So I understood. I got the gist. I told myself it was going to be rough. Again the saint started yelling, Why do people go to you? Why do you do this? Why do you do that? He went into a turmoil and though I am sitting here, I am bound down not to verbalize what actually happened. But you can well imagine.

Finally, he calmed down and asked, What do you want? What do you want? Why are you after me? Why do you want to come to me? I don't want to see you at all. Let people see you. Hasn't God blessed you that all these people come to you? Why do you want to come to me?

At that time I spoke and I said, Everybody needs to go to someone once in a while. That's why we have come to you.

He said, Who are you? And his abuse of me was so long you couldn't take it.

And I said, I am the same One in you who has asked me who I am, and who has really described me. I am really that One.

He said, You admit it, you admit you are that ugly, you admit it?

I said, Yeah. There is nothing bad to admit because that is what you see. We have come to see you, that's what you see, and that's what we want to admit. You should have sat there then; a few minutes afterwards this whole man was transformed. He started quoting scriptures to us, talking to us about beauty, telling us about God and the ways to God, reciting scriptures,

Brahm brahm anand, sarb braham anand, man anand, sarab man braham anand.¹

God divine and divine consciousness, all divine consciousness, ecstatic in mind, all mind divine bliss.

I couldn't believe it! As far as learning is concerned, everybody has a little advantage because of whom he studied with. You do not understand the spiritual world. In the spiritual world it matters a lot with whom you have studied. It saves you a lot of hassle, and it has always saved me a lot of hassle. So I was very well saved there, too. When he started talking and relating to me, I couldn't believe what a great advantage and grace it was just being in his presence.

Well, we sat there for a few hours, we enjoyed the spiritual union, and I asked him one thing. I said, Baba, what is this? Why do you scare people?

He said, "Do you know Yam?" It is the deity of God which is there to punish you whereas an angel is the deity of God which is there to serve you. Your equivalent to Yam is the demon or the devil. The devil takes away your will towards God and then punishes you for that. Don't misunderstand. The devil cannot punish you. There is no such thing as the devil. Take it as granted. You cannot be punished for anything, but it takes away your will, your commitment, your saadhanaa.

What is saadhanaa? It is a process which you do every day to grow, to be. There is afight in this lifetime: to be or not to be. Nobody can destroy you, but when God will destroy you nobody can save you. You destroy yourself by not being yourself. To be a yogi, not to be a yogi; to be a Gursikh, not to be a Gursidh. To be a Gursikh means to have the property of water, and when you have that you can shape yourself in any shape and still say, Wahe Guru. Then you are a Gursikh.

Naanak kai ghar keval naam.

Guru Arjan (1136)

In the house of Nanak, there is only Naam.

Wahe Guru, one shabad. Now what is this one shabad? He explained to me the words, Wahe Guru, and said, "They are the highest words used in appreciation of the Lord God. When you start appreciating God and you are not humble, not flowing, not ‘to be’, and the only thing you can do is isolate yourself and cut yourself off from somebody and define your boundaries — I am Satguru, I am a Gursikh, I am a chelaa of Wahe Guru, I am a meditating man, etc., that is where you go wrong. Such people will not like to deal with everybody. This state is called Shaktee Pad. And sometimes when you are in this Shaktee Pad you react to that, you destroy your whole kriya, you destroy your whole Gursikhee."

Guru belongs to everybody. Guru belongs to everybody who is skinny or who is fat. There can be a woman so fat that ten people can't lift her or somebody so skinny he's the size of your little finger. So somebody can be very beautiful or very ugly, very graceful or totally disgraceful. To all these Guru belongs. Can you tell me that all this creation, good and bad, yellow and brown, white and black, red and pink, has been created by any individual? The total creation is that of God and the total creation is God. To accept God is to accept the total creation of God. To accept the total creation and to accept that God is, requires saadhanaa. You can't accept it. I know you. That's the main problem — you cannot accept God as total creation. If reading the baanees, taking Amrit, wearing baanaa, doing sevaa and simran and chanting all the time Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru only takes you to the state of consciousness that you can accept the total creation of God, and that God is the total creation, then you have linked with the Guru. The creativity to recognize the creativity, and to accept the creativity is divine.

Not only are the main roads and boulevards, the freeways and highways parts of the cities, but the alleys are also. In every house there is a place to dump the garbage, and that is also part of the house, right? Yet in your own consciousness you have no such thing as tolerance. So you understand? Your acceptance of God is limited! You are ugly! If you accept God then you accept whatever God is! God is plus your likes, dislikes, what you see and what you don't see and plus.

I was once counselling a very skinny girl who comes from a very hot background. She's a married woman and she somehow got to a nursing school. She asked me, Is it wrong to achieve success?

I said, O, sick woman, all her life woman prays for one thing: to have a home and a husband. You have a home, you have a husband. Now she wants to blow it. I have counselled a lot of people, but I have never counselled such a sick mind. I am very old now and I talk to a lot of people, but I have never seen a calm, good Gursikh who, for that little nursing job, could not accept the reality of life. Her husband is very loving. I have never seen such a sick mind.

Maya means when you want to attribute and contribute your total power of life, your praanic life, to succeed on this earth by hook or by crook…

So there is always a fight between reality and non-reality. Why? Why is there a fight? Why is there divorce here? Why is there fighting between people? Why are people not happy? Do you know why? There is a very simple answer: we think the earth is permanent. If we would just accept the earth as temporary, then we would have to accept whatever we do here, and our behavior would have to be absolutely decent. But we don't want to accept that. When we talk about maya, it does not mean money, it does not mean silken clothes or jewelry or a good car. You do not understand the word maya. Maya means when you want to attribute and contribute your total power of life, your praanic life, to succeed on this earth by hook or by crook. Maya means the temporary stay on earth becomes permanent, and the permanent stay of God becomes temporary. That is Maya.

You came from God and you will go to God. All things come from God and all things go to God. That is a fact. If all things come from God and all things go to God, then where do you stand? Then your permanent home is God.

I will give you another example. A beautiful girl I know, once came to me. I like her very much and she loves me too, and we have a good rapport and good communication. One day I asked her, Do you want to get married?

She said, Yes, but you select a husband for me. So I did that, matchmaker as sometimes I become. After marriage it was all right. But the moment she got her first child, forget it. After that first child neither was there a saadhanaa nor was there me, nor was there the husband, nor neighbors. There was totally nothing, just the child, child, child — we say, Aad Wahe Guru, jugaad Wahe Guru, (In the beginning there was God and God is now.) Our Guru Nanak has given us a beautiful mantra: Aad sach, jugaad sach, haibhee sach, Naanak hosee bhee sach.² For her the mantra was, Child was, child has been, child shall be, and ‘Nanak’, child is the only thing. Everything else is rotten. I couldn't believe it! The worst thing she did is she changed the diapers of that child so much that the whole area became a total rash. She was changing the diapers all the time and tightening them so badly that she messed up the child's pelvic area. There was nothing you could tell this woman.

Today you have come here and I understand seven or eight ladies are here for one week only and they have to leave. I am very fortunate I was not here the first week. You were asked to meditate for one hour. I enjoyed that distance and I enjoyed your meditation. But I would like to see them in the afternoon, to say hello and to say goodbye. We make this camp for only one thing — that whosoever comes here benefits in higher consciousness, benefits by learning to be graceful and by getting rid of their fears, their traumas and their dramas. This camp does it. I don't do it. There are a lot of people who serve me so closely that between me and them there is not a distance of even eighteen inches; but when you see them misbehaving with me you have never seen anybody so neurotic on the planet earth. So I don't have any supernatural powers. But I do have technology, a methodology, a Guru's way which I have found. cleanses my consciousness and cleanses the consciousness of others. There is one area where we all suffer; we very deeply suffer within the range of our ego because here there is no husband to yell and scream at, no household or ashram to order around, and there are a lot of games which you cannot play. Some people can only afford not to play these games for a week. It is my wish and prayer that someday they may come for the entire six weeks.

In Los Angeles I was talking to one of my sons and he said, Well, so and so is at camp and she is supposed to come back in two weeks.

I said, Forget it, kid, that was just bait to get her there. You're not going to see her at all.

He said, Well, when am I going to see her?

I said, You can come and I'll give her a pass out. But as far as being with you is concerned, see me in Europe. I'll take her with me.

Here the idea is not to give you hardship but to make you sit at the feet of the Guru and understand that this earth is temporary, this time is very short. The lifespan is sixty-five years which is not a long time. The first ten to fifteen years you don't grow at all and the last ten to fifteen years you do not know whether you have grown or not. The time in between is for growth and if you do not grow then you will not know who you are.

There are very few elementary people. An elementary person is one who consciously considers himself, within his consciousness, to be grown. That faculty is the faculty of ether, akaashaa. Akaashaa means sky. The sky is over everybody and it is the same everywhere. Wherever you look, it is the same sky. That is the first aspect of akaashaa. Its second faculty is air. Air has temperature, it can be hot or cold. The third faculty which akaashaa gives us is water. It may be here or there and has the faculty of fluidity. It flows through everything. Then there is the fourth faculty, represented by the sun which gives us twelve hours of light and twelves hours of darkness, except in Alaska. Then what? Then there is earth, which represents your karma. After this gurdwara go out and instead of eating gurprasaad or karaah parasad, take a handful of earth asnd put it in your mouth. You do it everyday. Earth represents ego. If you really want to taste the earth, take a handful of earth and try to swallow it. You can't. In American English we call it Putting your foot in your mouth. That is the faculty of earth. We have come to akaashaa in our consciousness to relate to our higher consciousness so that we may uplift ourselves and do exactly what should have been done, with or without help. We just lay the groundwork so that with help you can all grow.

While this keertan was going on I saw you all sitting here. I thought, I have come to bow before the Guru, and Guru's Court is in the heavens. It looked very temporary, very beautiful. But if you want to see yourself from a certain perspective, just go back ten or twelve years ago and see who you were then and who you are now. If that does not inspire you and show you how beautifully you have grown towards your higher self, the akaashaa, I don't think anybody else can satisfy you. The idea is to know the Unknown, and to remember the Unknown is in everybody: those who insult you, those who command you, those who disobey you, those who love you, those who are with you and those who are not with you. Every facet of life, if put together, is that of God. You have to have the heart, you have to have the courage and the privilege of a human life in this life to know God.

I'll tell you a funny story. One woman told me she was a Gursikh. I said, Far out. The husband said he was a Gursikh. I said, Wonderful. They had a sex problem. My God, what is a sex problem for two Gursikhs? I can understand it is an American problem — she is frigid and he is too hot. Guru says one line:

Khasam visaraih te kamjaat

Guru Nanak (10)

When she ignores the Husband, she's a prostitute.

…Maya means the temporary stay on earth becomes permanent, and the permanent stay of God becomes temporary.

Khasam means master here; Guru established a relationship between man and Divine. We read it in Rehiras every day:

Khasam visaaraih te kamjaat,

Naanak naavai baajh sanaat.

Guru Nanak (10)

Without Naam man's life is that of a ghost.

Sanaat means ghost. Let me define ghost: ghost is the soul in the subtle body which cannot cross the electromagnetic field of the planet earth. That is the worst curse one can have.

When you grow a little bit, you want your husband to cater to you. Actually, he wants you to cater to him. What happens then is called middle age crisis. What do you do? You decide to get a job for eighty or one hundred dollars a week, four hundred a month; you don't care. I have never heard a more shocking thing. I told one husband, You have four children, you have a wife, you are a Sikh of the Guru.

He said, No sir, I cannot take care of my children. My heart is not into it.

I said, Oh God, O unfortunate man, O cursed man, O unfaithful, untruthful man, the heart was given you to love; it was given you to pump blood. Have you forgotten you have lungs too? Have you forgotten you have a head too? Have you forgotten you have a stomach too? Have you forgotten you have hands and legs too? Passion, passion, passion. When passion becomes wild, it destroys the compassion in the human body. Without compassion man is a beast.

I'll give you another example. One couple said to me, We are rich now. Look at that. We are rich, we are blessed. Now we cannot live in the ashram because the people who live there are ugly. That is called the blindness of the eye, maya. Maya represents those earthly things that take you away from your teachings, from your spirit and from the subtlety of God.

We had a terrible experience in Los Angeles. There was a doctor, an M.D., who was not behaving very well. Everybody was telling me he was misbehaving and wondering how a doctor could misbehave. I said, Why not? I don't understand why you think doctors have no right to misbehave. They are the sickest people. The difference between our doctors and other M.D.'s is that ours do saadhanaa, they chant the Naam, they are humble. They are with the sangat. Otherwise, after working hard eight or ten years and becoming a doctor and starting to make $100,000 or so, his mind goes crazy.

You will find most professional people are very unhappy and unsuccessful in their domestic life. Most rich people are very unhappy at home because their inside and outside are not unified. A professional person has an ego, granted. He can live, he can eat and he makes enough money. But what about the spirit, the soul? The relationship between the spirit and the body is not a temporary relationship; it is a permanent relationship. It cannot be made now and then. It cannot be made on a weekly basis by deciding to go to Gurdwara on Sunday, meanwhile going to a bar the otehr six days. It won't work that way. To reach to the spirit, to reach to the higher consciousness, to reach to the boulevards, to go through the alley of spirituality, you must understand that through every alley that you walk, no matter how dirty it may be, how beautiful it may be, how many flowers there may be, how many ugly things there may be, still you are you.

The words, I am, I am, mean that through thick and thin, through beauty and ugliness, through grace and insult, you will always walk as a graceful being. That is spirituality. It is available to you through the grace of the Guru.

Ang Sang Wahe guru

With every limb and with every part of you, God lives.

You don't need union with anybody; you only need union with God. This has to be remembered and it has to be realized. You have come to the Guru's house. You may have committed many wrong deeds or you may have committed many right ones, but it is one chance in life to be right, absolutely all right. During these six weeks, of which one is already over, concentrate on challenging yourself. Don't ask somebody to challenge you or there will be a fight and we will end up counseling. We don't want that. Challenge yourself; don't ask anybody to challenge you.,

Why I could not love the entire universe — that is the theme of this camp. Only those who will be spiritual will really enjoy the fruit of success. You cannot enjoy this human success by wealth and power, by possessions and by degrees. I have received my Ph.D., but I do not know if I am any better off with it than without it.

I was told today that there is a tape available from my visit to the U.S. in 1969 at Christmas time. I sound the same then as I do now. This is bad news for those who thought that in ten years they have beaten me enough to change me. They couldn't. Many people who love me and who are around me a lot have a very bad attitude towards me. They think with love they can change me. But they do not know that I also expect that with love I can change them. If I had ever been motivated to change because of their love, then I should have stayed with my customs job in India. I have no intention of changing. Those fools who have tried for ten years and failed, should find jobs somewhere else where they could be in a better position to change somebody else.

If you want any relationship with me, don't be foolish, don't be blind. I have come here to change you and I am asking you to change for the better because I cannot stand your suffering, I cannot stand your pain, I cannot stand your misery and I know it takes only a little change to get out of all the misery — though that little change is very difficult. To achieve that little change, we have to change you from top to bottom. God, that little change is still needed!

We have many changes to change. A chance comes two or three hours in the morning; we sit here under this tent every Sunday; we talk, talk, talk; we counsel, we approach, and we do everything known in the human psychology just to bring about one change in you. What is that change? To get rid of the hatred and be living. You don't say you hate but you DO hate! I don't like this! I don't like that! My God! Sometimes I feel I'm in a zoo and some animal has come into my living room or my kitchen. When is the house of the Guru a zoo? Who wants this noise from you, who wants this shrilling sound? Serving the house of the Guru is not to complain and make noise but to be humble, quiet, meditative, fulfilled and graceful. That is all. Do not be overjoyous and don't overyell. Be satisfied with what you have because that may be too much for you.

I knew one person who was very rich. One day I asked him With all this richness will it be possible for you to be just a little bit divine, too?

He said, Well, God has blessed me, I am always divine. But the hand of fate changed and he lost his fortune. When he had nothing he read 108 Jap-Jis everyday. This is called bribery. It will have an effect, I understand, but this is not Guru's way. Guru's way is:

Ghaal Khaao kich hato de Naanak sach pachaanai sai.

Guru Nanak (1245)

Earn by hard work and give a portion of it to others.

And Guru's way is to socialize in the way of the Guru, to enjoy in the way of the Guru, to communicate and talk with everybody. Salute every human being, love every individual and hate none.

In twelve years, the greatest mystery to me is why I am being advised not to talk to anybody. My staff tells me so and so is very obnoxious. Well what is wrong if somebody is obnoxious? I didn't create an obnoxious person, I didn't create a loving person. I didn't create a devotee. I am nobody. Creation is the part of God, my part is only to deal with them, and my part is to deal with them as a Gursikh. My part is not to deal with them as a rich man or a poor man, or even as a man, because over and above man I have accepted the Guru. Therefore my part is to accept them, to deal with them and be with them in Guru's way.

The idea of happiness is very simple: you must deal with everyone gracefully. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are, what the situation is, what the environments are, how much presssure there is, what is going on or what is going to happen. It doesn't matter at all! If I am to be hung tomorrow, I would like to be hung as a Gursikh. Period. Guru Arjun gave us that example. He dealt with the entire Moghul Empire with absolute patience and grace. He sat on the hot plate, hot sand was poured on him and he set an example.

Teraa keeaa meetaa laagai, har naam padaarat naanak maangai.

Guru Arjan (394)

Thy Will is sweet to me, O Lord.

All I want is to know Thee.

Yet some people are so shallow. They say they cannot live in an ashram, they can't talk with a particular person in the ashram, they can't deal with the ashram.

You are here. You are most welcome. You have come a long way, left your husbands, your home, your children, everything. It is my duty to warn you that you are getting a little neurotic as far as your children are concerned. They are not growing in the way I had hoped. You are over-lapping, over-loving, over-doing, and over-sick mothers. Children are supposed to grow. You are shadowing and shading them with your personalities, dwarfing them in their personalities. It is the worst thing you can do. Some of you are very sick. Because your husbands are not loving you, you use your children as a lever, as a leeway. It is a very wrong approach to use these innocent children in such a way. I am glad that some children are fortunate enough to be going to India, away from Papa and Mama. They will be gone for two or three years to understand the world, the beauty of the world and the education of the world. There will be no peer pressure on them. The school is beautiful, the environments are wonderful, and they will be happier there than here. Also it is a cheaper way to educate them.

I was discussing the children with Sardar Gurcharn Singh Tohra, President of S.G.P.C. He was telling me that they have bought two buses and they will make all the arrangements to equip them to take the children to the many areas they have not seen. Baba Nihal Singh Ji, who will be the guardian of the children, is also making arrangements. He will help the children enjoy their winter holidays. He is already planning a wonderful menu for them of good saag (vegetable dish), good butter, good milk and yogurt, and lots of other stuff. The children are still here, remember that. He was planning what to do with them, what kind of games to introduce to them to make them brave, teach them self-defense, and show them gatkaa (stick fighting). How fortunate these children are?! Can you believe how the hand of Guru is acting to bless them? One million kisses cannot make a child a man, but one word of wisdom can change his fate.

I am very happy that they are going and I will be going myself in January for two or three or four weeks, whatever time I can squeeze to be with them. It is a dream come true. I have tolerated you so that the children you bear could be educated in the real essence of life. Those children will become the messengers of God and Guru, and will show this earth the righteous path by their living example. That is what the whole thing is about.

I understand that when you were children you were sometimes not loved, and sometimes you were not taken care of. These events created neurosis in you, and these neuroses are making your lives very miserable. I want to tell you that the way to get rid of misery is to gracefully serve your husband. An example of this is a woman who is here in camp. She had a beautiful husband and they had a beautiful normal American life. She does not belong to 3HO. Her husband had an accident and the hand of God saved him but left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair. I have met this woman and her husband. The way she takes care of this man is an eye-opening truth, an eye-opening fact that you should all learn from. God could not have sent us a better lesson than this couple. I have seen how gracefully she serves him, handles him and cares for him. Oh foolish woman, oh idiot woman, oh unfortunate woman, your stay on this earth is very limited. Why prostitute yourself for such a short stay? Why try to change man after man, person after person? What is in it? If you have not learned what I have said in twelve years, learn it now. Look at this purely American woman who had a beautiful man. She is now totally dedicated to this man.

My hope for you is that you prosper and understand. If you have never understood what life is about, this is the chance. Challenge yourself. Woman can do one thing, and it works faster than anything: she can challenge herself. Challenge yourself, get rid of your neuroses and insecurities and you will find the word of Guru will come true.

Jisno hakhshe sifat salaah, Naanak paatashaahee paatashaah.

Guru Nanak (5)

You will become king of kings when you take His gift, when you take His way.

And He will give it to you. The greatest gift is that God has brought you here.

Ek bhee na(n)de-ai das bhee hir le-ai

Too mooraa kaho kahaa kare-ai.

Guru Arjan (268)

If God takes away your ten gifts and does not give you anymore what can you do?.

Please try to understand that ego is temporary. It is just your own mirage, your own hallucination, your own LSD trip. It is not a reality, it has destroyed you and it will continue destroying you. Get rid of these nightmares; they are not real, they take away your juice, that praanic shaktee, through which you could have been with God. It is the same praanic shaktee that links you to earth, that can help you find God and make you happy here and herafter.

In conclusion, recognize that earth has ways and means, and it has alleys. Let your soul recognize all of it and still be grateful. God is, God was, God shall be and God is the total creativity of everything. To accept God requires accepting everything with it. That is why when you start in life there are yams and neeyams — do's and don'ts. Because there are always do's, there always have to be don'ts. If you don't accept the don'ts and you accept the do's, it does not mean anything. You have to accept the don'ts as well as the do's to push forward, just like the boat which won't get anywhere if it pushes both forward and backward.

Sometimes you ask me questions like I have been doing this for ten years and I haven't grown. Why am I not growing? Because you didn't listen. You still don't listen. Your first job is to listen.

Sunte puneet kahte pavit.

Guru Amar Das (922)

Purest are those who listen.

One who speaks can only speak the truth, whereas one who listens can learn. First listen, then learn and then practice. If there is still any discrepancy come and discuss it with the person you listened to. If I tell you to do something in a particular way for so many days, don't question me, just do it. If something goes wrong, come and catch me by the neck. But you don't listen because you feel handicapped. You feel your ego gets hurt. It gets limited by listening. Ego is a degree. You have it but you cannot cure a person with a degree. If I have an M.D., I cannot touch somebody with that degree and have his fever go away, his every disease go away, his tuberculosis go away. A surgeon who has a degree cannot put it on a broken leg and heal the leg.

The Word is the only thing which lives forever. That is why we worship the Shabad Guru. That is our living master…

You are mistaken. Your ego is just like that degree. I am a human being, I am perfect. What is the difference between me and anybody else? The difference between you and anybody with a degree is that they have done it and you have not. Somebody knows how to do it and you do not. You are not willing to learn it. Learned is the one who has learned.

Of all dangers I would like to warn you of one — that is, the spiritual ego. It is the worst of all. If I had a spiritual ego, this is how I would be: (sits with an arrogant, egotistical air and declares) Oh, I am Siri Singh Sahib. I would say it all the time. People would say I am a super idiot. What is Siri Singh Sahib? If Siri Singh Sahib does not serve, does not heal, does not work, does not meditate, does not smilingly deal with obnoxious people, is not always available, has no faith in himself, is not self-fulfilled, is not willing to share with others, all these many facets, then what is his depth? His depth must be Infinity. What is his dimension? His dimension must be Infinity. What is his direction? His direction is one: to by happy and to make others happy. That is all there is. Does anybody want to be Siri Singh Sahib? I am willing to take a temporary leave. Anyone can come and sit on this chair and it will let you know in two days which way the wind blows.

There are three very difficult things to