The Psychology of the Graceful Woman: Women in Training Vol 7

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: 9781934532232

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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A Graceful Woman

JULY 2, 1982

Life is a gift too beautiful to be handled by your ego. It can only be handled by your grace. Life is the most beautiful thing that God is, and that is given to you as a gift.

When God created woman He did not think that women were going to live in the United States or Canada or South America or India or Japan. For God, a woman is just a woman — His own creativity. God created man in His own image and woman in His own creativity. Woman is the totality of His play, the Prakirtee.

I am often accused of one thing — that when I discuss things with you, you do not understand them. I know it is not my fault. You don't understand because you have not been educated, and to tell somebody who is fourteen or eighteen or twenty or twenty-seven or thirty years old how to behave, how to act, how to think and how to be is the most difficult thing. Still, the idea is not to teach this course for your sake. The idea is to teach this course using you, so that the future can be saved. Tomorrow can be saved.

I will give you an example of how neurotic we are. There is a woman who was very divine before marriage. She never missed one single day of saadhanaa for years. She never messed up with her baanaa or with anything. She actually wanted to get married, but there was a certain situation which came up. There was a boy who at that time was three or four years old. The mother of the boy was not alive and the husband wanted to get married to someone who could understand this in depth. There were a lot of marriage possibilities and she was one. It is so surprising that a simple thing like accepting that little, innocent child and not making a big thing about it has taken her about three or four years.

One day I was thinking that there has been a teaching for thousands of years, there's been a dictate for thousands of years, there's been a relationship for thousands of years in which we say that she should accept another child as her own. But there was no mind, no heart, no training for it.

It's a known fact that if you nag your husband (and it doesn't matter if you wear white or blue or green), you are going to miss something in your life as a woman which will be irreplaceable. When you nag a man, you don't just nag a man; you poison your root. It's a known fact which we have been taught from time immemorial to the material time of today. Even in the time of Sat Yuga we were taught this thing and today we are being taught the same thing. You don't nag a man. Why not? You may have the right to nag but then don't marry. Don't indulge in marriage. If you want one right, you cannot have the other right. There two won't fit together. Period. If you want to stay on the North Pole, stay. You have the right to stay on the North Pole, but you can never be at the South Pole at the same time. If you want to stand on the North Pole and say this is the North and South Pole both, you must be crazy.

It doesn't matter how humble, how much a banana, how simple, how useless and how good for nothing the man you are married to is: The fact is that if you nag, your marriage will not be happy. It's useless to marry and then nag a man. You have the right to nag. I am not taking away your right, but I am telling you what you are going to get. Normally you say, What should I do with my ego? I say, Well, hang it.

Secondly, there is something you do called first attack, and about forty percent of all women do it. First attack is when you say, You didn't do this for me, or You didn't give me this. You start with negativity. It's called a first attack personality. A man will never trust you when you do that, even though you may be totally divine. He may not leave you, but he will never trust you. We always say this kind of thing: You didn't give this to me, you don't care for me, you didn't come home in time… Those are first attacks. It's a personality trait with a woman. Normally if a woman is the last child, or if there are four brothers and one daughter, or if she's an only child, I think it's a risk to marry that woman because she will have this personality.

I stayed at an ashram once and my room opened into another room. I looked in and I saw that it was quite a big room and it was filled with all kinds of toys. I looked at them and I looked at that boy. The child was not bigger than a toy himself, he was just like another toy. There was a whole room filled with a variety of toys which were astonishingly, amazingly wonderful. But something happened to me. I came back and I sat in the living room. I asked that teacher of mine, Did you buy all these toys for this child of yours?

He said, No, sir.

I said, Who bought them?

He said, His grandmother brings a carload of toys every week and we do not know what to do with them. We have told her so many times not to bring them, but they are here.

I said, Your child plays with these toys?

He said, Yes.

I said, You know that the cycle of life is eighteen years, the cycle of intelligence is eleven years, and the cycle of consciousness is seven years.

He said, Yes, sir.

I said, When he is eighteen years old, he'll need different types of toys. Will you provide them? Will his grandmother provide them? Who's going to provide them? At this time you are catering to his ego. You are making him live in a certain style. You are treating him like he is a prince and he can get any toy, he can tear up any toy, he can do anything. Then after eighteen years he will take any woman as a toy, play with her, throw her away, tear the relationship apart, and not care for her personality. He'll do this with his friends, he'll do it with his job, he'll do it with everything. Who at that time is going to ask him to change?

Sir, what should I do?

"Give him values, don't give him toys. Teach him the meaning of Japji, pauree by pauree." I was four years old when I learned all the thirty-eight paurees by heart with the meaning of each one. I learned one pauree each day, or in three days, whatever I could easily do.

There's a personality of women called copy personality. We'll call it stereotype personality. My mother married six times, how can I be married only once? My father used to do this, how can I not do it also? How can I be different? My elder sister had nine boyfriends, how can I be satisfied with three? We call them stereotypes or copy personalities. They don't live their own lives, they're not interested; they just copy things. They have to take some inspiration, some scenario, and then spin it again.

But is a woman a part or a whole? A woman is the total play of God. Bad and good both. A woman is not just an individual. Purkha, the One, is impotent. You all like to worship One God. One God is Akaal. Ek Ong Kar. Ek is one. Ong: what is Ong? It is shunia, zero. Kaar is the Prakirtee. For the play of the Ek, Ong has to be created and that makes it ten. Put one and put zero, what does it make? Ten. Keep on putting zeros and keep on multiplying. But each one is each one and each one is impotent. If God is a totality, God is everything: Almighty, All-potent, All-saint, whatever. Whatever God is, if God is the North Pole, then God is the South Pole also. That One is that One God, that Akaal. If God is Akaal, then what is Akaal for? If God is undying, then who is dying? Because dying has to have undying and undying has to have dying to create a balance. That is what this whole game is about.

Grace has disgrace in it. If you are a graceful person, you can fool around and it's very disgraceful. You feel that you are graceful, but there's a lot of disgrace with it. When you feel graceful, that's one act of consciousness, but there are a thousand acts of consciousness that came with it. One thousand acts are the price of one graceful act. You have to be tolerant, you have to be patient, you have to be diplomatic, you have to be a stateswoman, you have to be nice, you have to be kind, you have to be effective, you have to have character, you have to see things, you have to think things, you have to imagine things, you have to relate to things, you have to plan things, you have to organize things. I can go on until night. If all that long list is perfect then out of that will come one little thing — a graceful woman. Who wants it? None. Who can live without it? None? Neither can you live with it nor can you live without it. That's called life. Life is a gift which you have to keep going. That's the problem. You do not understand your problem. Oh I am neurotic, I am bad, I am sad, I am mad, I am humble, I am big, I am rich, I am thin, I am thick. It's all nonsense. The problem is simple: life is a gift to you which you have to keep going. That gift is so precious that to keep it going means a lot which you have never been taught and you have never learned.

Suppose somebody gave you a fifty carat diamond, clear and perfect and said, Keep it. You will shake, you will shiver. What should I do about security? Where should I keep it? Which bank? There are a million questions. Life is a gift too beautiful to be handled by your ego. It can only be handled by your grace. Life is the most beautiful thing that God is, and that is given to you as a gift. It is not so you can possess it or own it, you can manipulate and play games, and you go this way and you want to go that way. It's ridiculous.

I called somebody and said, Where were you yesterday?

She said, Well I went out.

I said, What for?

Oh I wanted to do this. I wanted to do that.

I said, Don't you think it was too late when you came back?

She said, Yeah. I really was thinking it was too late.

I said, That's enough, to be just too late?

She said, No, that's not enough. It was too late, and then I couldn't sleep. Then this morning it was a boring day and I am feeling dozy now. The whole thing is off.

I said, Life is on and off, off and on, on and off, off and on. It is a continuous, smooth, progressive attitude.

She said, Good! I should have learned all that you said. ‘Early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise’.

Life is a gift. And it's very precious. It's much more precious than you even think. But you don't think about life. You think about your ego. That's the problem. I don't care how much you are suffering, how sick you are, how neurotic you are, how bad your childhood was and how many times you have been raped, insulted, beaten up, spanked or mistreated. Make a list of negative things and run it through a computer. It may be ten miles long. I don't care about that. Just relate to the fact that it is your life. Care for your life. Just care for your life. Just feel alive. Now. Every minute. Take it from there. I am now alive. I am now living. It is my right to live. I am just alive. You don't think about whether you are alive or not. You think, I am alive. Am I secure? Am I insecure? Am I getting attention? Am I not getting attention? Am I happy? Am I not happy? Who cares if you are happy or not? Who cares if you get attention or not? Who cares if you are good or bad? Whether you are alive or dead is totally a secondary question for you. But actually that is a first priority. Are you alive? Are you keeping yourself alive? Two simple things. But whether you are alive or not gets none of your attention. You worry about if you are getting attention or not. That's why you manipulate. As long as you are alive and you do not know you are alive, but you want to feel you are alive, you have to manipulate. Period. When you manipulate you will lie, you will exploit, you will have a drama, and when your drama doesn't work, you will create a trauma. When your trauma doesn't work, you will be depressed. when depression doesn't work, you will go on pills. If pills won't work, you will bug yourself to death. That is what is happening in America. You want to feel that you are alive because you are not conscious that you are alive. You are not satisfied that you are alive. You are not grateful that you are alive. It is not enough just to be alive.

The situation is that if you really get to the point that you are just alive and that's all, everything will start living around you. There will be no problem. I can give it to you straightforward in writing. There shall not be a problem. It cannot be. Why not? I will give you the scientific answer. Life is a magnetic field. To be alive is to relate to your own magnetic field. Any frequency of a contained magnetic field draws all magnetic energy towards it. It is a simple law of physics. If you live well, you feel good, you are smiling, you are charming, you are graceful, you are happy, you're not nagging, then everybody likes to talk to you.

Have you seen anybody go by a child who's clean, neat and playing innocently and say, I'm not going to relate to this child? No one will do it. You start speaking their baby talk. You may be a graduate, you may be a Ph.D. in language, and you'll start saying Ahhhhh. Why do you do that? Why do you speak the language of the child when it doesn't mean anything to you and you don't understand anything? Because you want to relate, you want to communicate. You cannot communicate with the innocent child in your language, therefore you have to play exactly what the innocent child is playing. It says, Erggghhh. Then you say Erggghhh. Have you seen people when they play with children? They go nuts. It's natural. And it says something very good and very great — that there is a grace in innocence.

But the same child, when we have an ego, when we are Mr. Ego or Miss Ego or Ms. Ego or Mrs. Ego, is going to be trouble. The most disgraceful thing which a woman does, the most disgraceful, call it extra-super-disgraceful, is when she says, You didn't do this for me. When she uses this line, You didn't do this to me, or this for me, it's a super disgraceful thing she is doing because she's Prakirtee and she's talking to a purkha. Purkha, one. That One, the most important One, he's the polarity of the most potent One, the creativity of One, the kaar. The total creativity of this universe is that kaar, and that is that woman. That is why every man whether he's married or unmarried, divorced or not, peeping or sneaking, you take any man on this earth including Shiva, Vishnu and four-headed Brahma, he wants to relate to a woman in one way or another. Believe me or not, Brahma has the prettiest of all, Saraswati. Vishnu has Lakshmi and Shiva, who doesn't even want to wear clothes, has Parbati and you can hardly see any part of her body. Doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't it relate to you in one way or another? Doesn't it tell you that God has done nothing more for you and God cannot do more for you and God will not do anything more for you except that he has made you a woman? After that the matter ends. Do you understand the deal? God made you a woman; don't try to become a man. Do you know what you have become? You will become a tomboy. Neither will you be a man, nor you'll be a woman. And that is the only trouble we have. If a woman becomes a woman and a woman lives as a woman, she lives in the Will of God and such a woman cannot have trouble. If she has trouble, then she is not living that way. God made me a man. If I start dressing up like a woman I will be called a transvestite. Now, some of you may be mental transvestites and that is where the problem comes. Whenever you deal with anything just ask one question, How will it affect me as a woman, and how will it affect my grace and my radiance? How will your radiance be affected? It doesn't matter what you do.

There is a story about one tribe that went sneaking at night and attacked another tribe and took away all their children and among them they took away the princess also. They ran away in the darkness and went to their camps. In the morning, there was horror in the state. What had happened?

So the King decided, We'll not fight but we'll do something really decent. So he took a huge army and encircled the camp of those barbarians. He surrounded it so well that no one could pass. Finally, they came to a point of thirst and hunger and decided to surrender. The surrender took place; they surrendered their arms and were all taken prisoner. Then the King's armies were taken to the camp where those children were. They were hungry and very feeble. It was very difficult to recognize who the princess was. So the grand vasir was sent for to recognize her and he said, Lord, I can't recognize her. They are all sick, feeble, dark, totally tanned by the sun, tortured by hunger and it's just impossible. I can't recognize my own princess. I regret very much but I do not know what to do.

To carry them all was impossible. It was desired that the princess should be carried immediately and taken care of, and the others would be taken care of there until their parents could come and carry them. That was the responsibility. The King said, They are all hungry. If they are all hungry, put before them the food and you will immediately see that the princess will eat like a princess and the people will eat like the people.

So they took all of them and put food before them. Everybody ran and began shoveling food into their mouths with their hands and gulping down water. But there was one woman, a little beautiful child of the age of the princess. She walked and looked at the food and she sat. Somebody went to her and said, What do you need?

She said, Can I get a spoon? They immediately knew who she was. They went and brought a steel spoon. She said, This is not yellow, because she had the habit of eatting with a gold spoon. So immediately a gold spoon and gold knife were brought down and she said, Can the food be raised a little bit? She could hardly speak. The food was raised to exactly where she was sitting. She first folded her hands and did a prayer, and while doing the prayer she fainted. So they brought her back to consciousness and she again went into prayer, but this time she survived, and then she started eating. As a princess she was taught never to eat without a prayer, never to eat beyond manners. She was told people expected her to be so.

A child has to be raised from day one to the day of death to be. To be is to be. You are born in the image of God to be. Be so, so be it. Don't make matters complicated. Don't bring in religion and no religion, science and no science, art and no art, west, no west, east, no east. It doesn't work that way. God made you a woman. Female. You are the ‘fe’ of the male. What is the ‘fe’? ‘Fe’ means the nucleus, the center.

What do you mean by grace? Can anybody tell me what you mean by grace? To act as God on earth. Simple. Your actions, your deeds, must prove that you are God on earth. But you must not say it. You must not play it, you must not pronounce it nor announce it. Just live it.

There's a story about a very, very poor woman. I was listening to that story and it totally sits with me now. The woman's husband had passed away. She had one child and she raised it. After that, you know what happens. People take away your possessions and this and that when you are single and unprotected. So that is what happened. But she was very well and was living in one room which had a little room in the back and behind that there was a whole hill. The child grew up to be about seven or eight and the mother would send him to take the animals of the people of the village into the jungle, feed them and come back. People would pay something on a monthly basis or give food or this and that. That is how mother and son were living, but they were very satisfied, very content, contained, graceful and never bothered anybody. They never did anything weird. Their food situation was that on Friday they would have a chapati and a little green grass or something. On Saturday they would just drink water and say, "Sat Naam". It was not much, barely enough to keep both going. The son had a big suit. It was a neighbor's shirt. The mother tore off the arms and put it around him and it was just like a cholla (a long shirt) which was worn almost half of the year. They couldn't afford cloth or any other clothing. The matter went on and one day in that jungle the king of that area came to hunt. He and his men were just resting under a tree and the king had an astrologer with him. The astrologer looked over to one side and laughed so openly that it drew the attention of the king. The king said, Astrologer, why are you laughing?

He said, No, no, nothing. But he said, No, no, in such a way that the king said, Wait a minute. What do you mean no, no, no? You never talk like that.

He said, My Lord, I saw this green, I was tired, I was looking around at the greenery, the scenery, the trees and the beauty of it and I was pleased and I laughed. I said, ‘Oh God has created trees for a purpose.’ You come and rest. If the trees had not been here we would have roasted.

The king said, Wait a minute. We have been coming through this forest all along. We have rested before too. You never laughed anywhere else and you laugh right now. Now listen to me. If you are not going to tell me why you laughed, you are going to cry. You know these king guys. They are egomaniacs.

The astrologer said, Well, if it is that way, I don't want to cry. You promise me that you will say nothing to me and you won't make me cry, and I'll tell you. Otherwise, if I have to cry I'll cry and it will be better not to tell you.

The king said, Okay. I promise. I won't do anything to you.

The astrologer said, Okay, now look to that side.

The king said, Yeah, I am looking. There are cows and buffaloes and little calves.

The astrologer said, Do you see that boy with the stick in his hands?

The king said, Yep.

He said, Tell me who he is.

No. I have seen him and I've read him and on his forehead it is written that he'll be your son-in-law and the future king. That's why I laughed. Can anybody believe this? Then I said, ‘Wha!’ and unfortunately you were around. Now I am afraid that you are going to feel mad, but you told me you wouldn't bother me, so I explained it to you.

The King said, No rich man for my daughter? This man who doesn't have a shirt on his body? What are you talking about?

That's what I told you. I am not talking about it, I am saying it is written.

The King said, Well, it will be very insulting that I couldn't get a reasonably well-to-do husband for my daughter.

He said, Well, King, that is your problem, not mine. I'm an astrologer; I just read. And I laughed. I am sorry, I regret it. I know I have ruined your hunting.

The King said, Oh, let's go back.

So they returned to the palace. Now how could the king, who had only one daughter, sleep or eat? The queen asked about it.

He said, Forget it. Don't ask me. Don't nag.

Finally the grand vasir came and said, King, tell me what the problem is.

The king said, No, no. It's not for you. It is totally horrible. It's miserable and undesirable.

He said, Well, that's what we are here for — to solve your undesirable, miserable, horrible things. Tell me what happened.

So the King told the story. He said, The princess has to be married to this guy. It's very unfair. He's poor, poor, superpoor.

The grand vasir said, How poor?

The king said, He had a shirt on in which there were so many holes that I could see his body. That poor.

There is no problem, he said. You are wrong that it bothers you so.

The king said, How can you say it is simple?

He said, He brings those animals to the king's land. That jungle is our hunting land, right?

He said, Yeah.

Nobody is supposed to come there.

The king said, But we don't care. A lot of people come there. We don't have policing there.

He said, Well, this time we will do a little policing. You just let me handle it.

So the next day, he sent the police to arrest this boy for bringing animals to the king's land without permission and the grand vasir gave the punishment: Either his parents or his people should pay two standard-weight rubies (a nine carat ruby is called standard-weight) or by the next full moon the boy would die.

The king said to him, Why did you do that?

He said, Simple. He is poor. If they can give two standard rubies then it means they are rich. If they can't we'll hang him and there will be no son-in-law. It works either way. Your objection to the boy is that he is poor, nothing more. If anybody can pay two standard nine-carat rubies he must be a very rich person. In our kingdom we have only one standard ruby. So if he has two he has more than you and he is all right. But if he does not we'll hang him and get rid of him. You'll not have a poor son-in-law.

That is okay, the king said.

When the boy's mother heard the order she was very, very sad and went and knelt in prayer because she was a very divine woman. In that prayer she had tears and she slept. In the dream her Guru came through and said, "Oh Mother Divine, you have served God and you have worshipped the shabad. What happened to your faith?"

She stood before the Guru and said, If it is God's Will, it is all true. If it is your blessing, it is all true. I'm just praying that it has no meaning. I don't have rubies and I know it is a set-up. The whole thing is made up just to kill the boy and I don't understand it. I've lived with poverty and loneliness and my husband being gone, but I didn't know that it would never stop. This is too hard a test.

You don't know who you are.

She said, No, my Lord. Who am I?

He said, Your husband was the treasure-keeper of this king's father and you are sitting on the treasury of this entire kingdom. Because your husband went along with the king's father they both died together. So neither could tell you why you are living in this one little room. This little room has the treasury of the entire kingdom. You require one standard ruby. It has tons of them.

She said, Lord, where?

He said, There is a back room. Go. In the wall there is a pot. Pull that pot out and see what happens.

So she got up happily and went in and didn't even wait. She pulled the pot and the moment it was pulled out, all the diamonds, rubies and gold came spilling out. The room was half-filled and it was still coming.

The idea had been to keep the ornament and the wealth of the kingdom in such a place that nobody would suspect it. If something happened they would always take the crown prince and send him to some honest people and keep the money in a safe place away from the palace. Later on when he grew up and he wanted to raise an army he would have everything and recapture the kingdom. Because when you lived in a palace or in a fort, if war happened and you lost, everybody died with it. So that was the old method of camouflage.

The mother sent the message to the king: You leave my son. You asked for two standard rubies. We'll give you ten. They are even bigger and you can come and take your own pick because they are different in color. When that news came the king was shaken. He was expecting that the full moon was going to come and he would hang the boy and get rid of the problem. He went and saw that the whole room was full of treasure. The mother said, Take it all. I don't care.

He said, Wait, wait, wait. He ordered the son to be brought, clothed, washed and cleaned. He apologized and he engaged his daughter right there. They took the boy back to the palace and brought all that wealth with him. There was great feasting and partying. Then the king decided, If God really wants him to be my son-in-law, why not crown him? The next morning, on the day when the boy was supposed to be hanged, the king put the crown of the kingdom on the boy's head and he himself went away into the same jungle to pray.

Why did I tell you this? God is, plus. So don't try to look into the plus of God. God is God, plus. The plus is His Prakirtee and He is the Parusha.

Ekaa maa-ee jugat viaa-ee tin chele parvaan

Ik sansaaree ik bhandaaree ik laa-ee deebaan

Jiv tis bhaavai tivai chalaavai jiv hovai

furmaan

Oh vekhai onaa nadar na aava bahotaa eho

vidaan

Aedes tisai aades

Aad aneel anaad anaahat jug jug eko ves.

Guru Nanak (7)

Have you ever understood the meaning of this? You read it so well. This is the simplest translation: There is one mother who is married to the universe and she has three disciples. One is he who gives birth, Brahma. One is he who maintains, Vishnu, and the one who lives beyond death is Shiva. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. As He wills, so He runs this universe. And that He orders.

It is very astonishing that He sees but cannot be seen. When you see Him through His potency He is seen but He is impotent, too. He is the Creation and He is the Creator and in the creation you don't see a Creator. What do you see in the creation? You see a personality. You don't see the seed; you see the tree. You see the fruit but what is in the fruit? The seed. Where is the tree from? It is from the seed. You know that in the seed there is a tree that you don't see, and in the tree there is a seed. That you know, but you can't see it and that is your problem. In every seed there is a tree and in every tree there is a seed. This pauree was chanted by Guru Nanak as a supreme yogi. Aades is the salutation of the great yogis. Raj Yoga. If you meet a yogi of any caliber he will not tell you, Sat Naam, ji, and he will not tell you, Sat Siri Akaal. He will not say, Wahe Guru ji ka Khalsa, Wahe guru ji ki Fateh. He won't say, Raam, Raam. He won't say, Peree paunaa. He won't say, Good morning. He won't say any of these. All he will say is, Aades. Salutations and only aades which is a salutation to the entire universe and the Creator of the universe. It is only from that aades that we all grew. It is called gratitude to God. In this pauree Guru Nanak is using the language of the greatest scripture of the Creativity of this universe and he says in the end, Aades tisai aades, Aad aneel anaad anaahat jug jug eko ves. Aad, the very beginning. Aneel, unconsumable. Anaad, He who has no beginning and no end. Anahaat, unknown, unmeasureable. In anything which you can measure, hear or see there is Anahaat — that which has no limit. Then there is a superlative which you have to understand. Jug jug eko ves. From time to time He is like this, He has never changed.

This story comes from Hindu mythology. gGd created Aad Shaktee, Uma, the Mother of the universe, the entire cosmos. She was so beautiful, so wonderful and so creative that she wanted to create. So out of herself she created Brahma. When Brahma was created he was very beautiful. He could see on all four sides because he had four heads. So she created what she wanted to create. Then she got very mad because she said to him, Come on. Let's have intercourse, and Brahma said, How can I? You are my mother. No, no, no. He was not a modern, contemporary American, where a father can have intercourse with his daughter without feeling anything and vice/versa.

The mother became very mad. I created you. I ordered you to do something and you disobeyed. So she hung him upside-down. Then she created another one, Vishnu, and asked him the same question.

He replied, No. She hung him upside-down. then she created Shiva and asked him the same question.

He said, You are so good, Mother, but why are my two brothers hanging upside down? She explained everything and Shiva said, If I say ‘No,’ I am going to be the third one?

You are right.

If I say ‘Yes’, then you say it is going to be all right, but it is not possible. Then we will be breaking the law of sanity. Then there will be no mother and no son. There will be no humans. Then there will be only animals. Among the animals, their own born do the same thing. They don't have a super-consciousness.

Shiva said, You are creating the supreme being of all the Creativity.

She said, That's true.

He said, Then why don't you do one thing?

She said, What?

He said, You get reborn as a woman and leave these brothers for me to play with. I will grow by that time and then we'll get married.

She said, Okay. So Shaaktee was born as Uma and Shiva married her and that is the story of Shiva and Parbati in the mythology. Referring to that story, the great yogi of the universe said, God, you are God. You are God. That is the difference between all other religions and the Sikh religion. God is the God Almighty, the One God, plus. This plus is troubling everybody.

If you read this pauree of Japji Sahib forty times daily, then death and karma cannot strike you. They call it Mirtoo Bhoogatee Joogatee Shabad. This is the secret word of it. Mirtoo means death. Bhoogatee, the life to go through. Bhoogatee means payment of it. Joogatee means the secret, the technology. This is just one little pauree, one step in the forty steps which Guru Nanak sang.

If you teach this to an idiot, the benefit is one hundred-fold. If you teach a normal person, the benefit is fifty-fold. If you teach a rational person, the benefit is ten-fold. If you teach an equal, the benefit is just enjoyment of time. So find some idiot, it is always beneficial.

STUDENT: Could you please explain what you mean when you say death cannot strike you?

REPLY: Death strikes only those who live in ego. Beyond ego there is no such thing as death. That's what I mean.

STUDENT: Are there other conditions that we must fulfill?

REPLY: One thing in the house of Guru Nanak; there is no condition except one — there is one God, one Guru Nanak and one condition:

Amrit velaa sach naa-o vadiaa-ee veechaar

Karmee aavai kapraa nadaree mokh duaar

Naanak evai jaanee-ai sabh aape sachiaar.

In the early hours of the morning, repeat the

True Name

And reflect upon His greatness

By our past actions, we have been granted this

human birth;

By His mercy we obtain salvation.

Know that the True One is All-in-All.

Guru Nanak (2)

That's the only condition.

Guru sat gur kaa jo sikh akhaa-e,

So bhalake oot harnaam dhiaavai.

One who considers himself to be a disciple of the

True Guru

Should rise before the coming of the light and

contemplate His Name.

Guru Ram Das (305)

Dhan dhan raam daas gur,

Jin siriaa tinai savaariaa.

Pooree ho-ee karaamaat,

Aap sirjanhaarai dhaariaa.

Blessed, blessed is Guru Ram Das.

The Lord who created thee,

He alone adorned thee.

Complete is thy miracle.

The Creator Himself has installed thee on the

throne.

Sawaya in Praise of Guru Ram Das (968)

Things are very straight. That is why I became a Sikh. There are no complications. I don't need to go to a rabbi or to a priest to ask him to explain it to me. It is explained. Sikhism is the explained religion. It is called paved path. There is no interpretation. There cannot be any twist. There cannot be a different meaning or a different understanding. It is the same Christ-consciousness; it is the same light; it is the same beginning. It is the same now; it is the same in the end. It is all a paved path.

Sat gur gadee raah chalaaee-aa.

The True Guru has put me on a paved path with no bumps. The bumps are because of my ignorance, my diversions, my detours, my snags and my peeping around and doing stuff. As far as God is concerned, the Guru gave the path and it is a paved path.

STUDENT: Can you please define what a yogi is?

REPLY: A yogi is one who has depth to equal the height, who is equal to the north and the south as well as east and west. He can be equally good as an idiot or as an advisor. Whoever does not know the depth, does not know the height, so how can he unite? That is the metaphor, that is the formula that nobody understands. They think up and up and up. What about the down and down and down? Whoever knows the down and up, the north and south, and the east and west equally well, and is unattached and united with the totality and the reality, not with time and space, is called a yogi. When I started on that path, I had difficulty too. You don't become a yogi by being wise. It doesn't make you a yogi to do extraordinary miracles, and it doesn't make you a yogi to live like E.T. E.T. phone home doesn't make you a yogi either. A yogi is a yogi. In a practical, living sense I will call a yogi a human being who can sensitively, totally merge with anything that he is dealing with or relating to. He can be totally united in sensitivity and caliber of consciousness at exactly the same frequency. He is like a forklift. With his own weight, he can carry the weight and still go under and take it up.

Sometimes it is as difficult for me to come down as it is difficult for someone else to go up. But I go up and down so many times that it has become a routine with me. I call it movement. But some people try all their lives to go up and up and they never go up. And some people try to go down and down but they never go down; they hang in between because God created the human in His own image. You can never lose your total grace. God created human beings in His own image; therefore, you cannot be less perfect than God. That's why we have to accept who we are and be so. The beauty lies in being so. If I start playing with you, saying, You guys are this, you guys are that, that doesn't work, because I am you and you are me. I was once like you. Somebody touched me and made me what I am. Now I am touching a lot of people, too, to make them what I am. I am, I am. That is what I am. I am is. It is the touching, it is the feeling, it is the service, it is the giving.

Dendaa de lainde tak paahe

Jugaa jugantar khahee khahe

Hukamee hukam chalaa-e raaho

Naanak vigasai ve parvaaho.

He, the great Giver, untiringly gives more and more,

While those who receive His gifts grow weary of receiving.

Through all the ages, God provides and man

goes on consuming what He gives.

It is only by God's command that a man walks on His path.

O Nanak, the Master is joyful and carefree.

Guru Nanak (2)

The Giver gives. It is the taking person who gets tired. The Divine orders and is carefree. He lives that way. Ve parvaaho means carefree. He answers none. When you are you, you answer none.

STUDENT: Does that happen when we do what you say to do, to raise the kundalini for two and a half hours a day for ninety days?

REPLY: Whether you raise the kundalini in two and one-half hours or you raise it in two and one-half days doesn't matter. I'll tell you about kundalini. There is a lot of misunderstanding. A yogi in India came to see me and he was so factual that he exactly timed my tour to know where I would be at such and such an hour and he was there waiting. From the salutation he gave I knew that he was somebody. He said he wanted to talk to me so we sat on one side and I said, What can I do for you?

He said, "I am nagura. I have no guru and I want you to be my guru."

I said, What? What do you mean, you want me to be your guru? I am myself a Sikh. I don't care to be a guru; I am just trying to be a Sikh. What kind of question is this? I think you are much wiser than this.

He said, Yeah, yeah. I am wiser, but I have a problem.

I said, Well, state your problem.

He said, I slipped on the staircase and my kundalini rose. It is true, it can happen. He said, Now I have all the energy; I have all the knowledge; I know absolutely everything, but I do know know what happened to me. I need a teacher.

I said, Why do you need a teacher? That staircase is your teacher. It did the same job that anybody else might have done.

He said, Please don't joke with me. I have been searching for you. You didn't come for so many years. Now I am here, so please don't disappoint me. I told him what to do, which he did, and he found the guru within.

Would you like to do the same thing? Are you steady and happy enough to do that? You look like you are very enthusiastic, and have a lot of hope. Come, let us do it. Sit straight. If you don't want to participate, you should not. There is something going on in 3HO which I would like to explain to you. It is called peer pressure. Listen to me, but don't do it if you don't want to do it. You are already mad and angry. Why should I make you angry at me? I won't tell you what to do; I will just tell you what should be done. Do it or not. It is your choice. No peer pressure, no yoga pressure. No Siri Singh Sahib pressure. No pressure at all.

Now sit straight, and sit in such a way that your hands are folded in the center of your lap one on top of the other and the arms are diagonal. Try to make it such a comfortable situation that the elbows become sttraight and the arms are a kind of a support. It is not something very unusual.

STUDENT: Are your fingers locked?

REPLY. No, no, I locked nothing. I just made a place to take my weight. The spine, when it is stretched out, needs help.

Bhale Amar Daas gun tere,

teree upmaa tohe ban aavai.

Sublime are thine virtues,

O Guru Amar Das.

Thy praise becomes only thee.

Sawaya in Praise of Guru Amar Das (1396)

Guru Amar Das is the divine god of japa. You can see in the old pictures a piece of wood used as an armrest. The word for that armrest is biraagan. When you meditate, you can get so lost your arm can sleep, but if there is a support, an armrest, you can keep going. People also use a mala, or a rosary, as a technique to help repeat the Name of God. As these things are aids in meditation, so your arms are an aid. It is not something special. If you put this weight between the legs and the upper front and pull the spine, then you can sit straight. That is all that it is about. Now inhale deep. Exhale. Inhale deep. "Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru, Wahe Jio." You have to say it eight times in one breath. Don't breathe in the middle. You have to say it a little fast, otherwise you can't make it. Do if for thirty-one minutes with that breathing and at that rate. You will understand the meaning of a yogi.

STUDENT: Can we do it in a monotone?

REPLY: Any tone. Ultimately you reach a point when tone and monotone don't matter and you become you. Eyes are on the tip of the nose; project from the tip of the nose.

STUDENT: How many days?

REPLY: Sometimes if you do one day that is enough, and sometimes it takes a year. We don't put a time limit on it. When you perfect the state of consciousness, it will start giving you the joy of drinking honey. The taste and the feeling of honey comes in your mouth, in your body, and in your whole system. You feel very sweet. That is when you understand that it has started working. It is not only the pituitary that starts secreting. The pituitary commands because of that other little thing the pineal gland. There is also a little are called the moon of the brain, and there is a little membrane filled with juice. That is the juice you usually carry to death. That turns and you drink it and then you don't carry anything to death. Death doesn't bother you and you don't bother it. Your Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, did it for eleven months and eleven days near Anandpur.

STUDENT: You don't have to do anything for two and one-half hours?

REPLY: Look at this businesswoman. You do that two and one-half hours to exist. This you do to enjoy. Clear? Two and one-half hours is one-tenth of your time. If you give it, you will be time-free. This will make you space-free. There is additional space in life and you have to be free of time and space. The human race is supposed to live free of time and space.

STUDENT: When you say untouched by death, does that mean you don't notice?

REPLY: No. We have a deal. You know what a friend will do. When you call, it comes, and when you say, Go back, it does go back. Sometime you may like it. I have been crying for the last several years because this bitter melon is a nuisance. What do I want to live for? God wanted me to be a saint and one day a priest brought me the habit and now we are wearing chollas. I am a very good cook and I want to cook the best food and eat that way. Now I can eat nothing. Those saltless and bitter melons make you wonder why you are eating at all. There is some hand of God that wants to make you a saint, or at least make you look like a saint. I resisted this sainthood from the very first day. I don't believe in it. I believe in a different kind of feeling but it doesn't work that way. So what should we do? There is a fear of dying. There is a fear of being a failure. Some people feel that they are ugly. They feel that they are unsuccessful. They are feelings. There is no ugly; there is no unsuccessful. It is totally ridiculous but you can't tell them. One said, I always fail. How should I not fail?

I said, Just don't fail.

How?

I said, Why not? This is a silly question. They just want to fail; they want to be miserable; they want to be negative. Some people love their depression. Why do they do this nonsense? It is ridiculous but they enjoy it. Do you want to eat something?

No.

Do you want to sleep?

No.

Do you want to sit?

No.

Do you want to stand?

No.

Do you want to be?

No. What can you do with them? They are simply crazy. But they are all right. They are also created in the image of God. Do you feel you are wise? You will be tested right there. Every graceful man will be tested by insult. Every brave man will be tested by torture. These are certain things in life that happen. You can't beat them.

STUDENT: I'm interested in what you said about the risk of marrying certain women.

REPLY: The child who is the last child is catered to. They are very demanding and become egomaniacs. It's the same with a sister who has four or five brothers, plus a dad catering to her. The poor husband can't match those five.

I am going to bring you through this course, The Psychology of a Graceful Woman, very slowly, very subtly, and very systematically. I just want to share with you. I will give you the classes according to the way I feel. I don't read books, I don't have notes. I don't know anything. I just sit down and it comes and goes. If you love me and want to share with me as I feel and as I am, fine. If you don't, go and play badminton, tennis, or go swimming. I don't have many years to live, so I just want to be with you and share with you what I can. I don't have a problem anymore. I knew I had to live to be forty-eight. I was all set for it. But God is God, plus. So this damn plus is now working. Either I have done so good a job that I can't go, or I have done so bad a job that I have to do something good. God knows what it is. It seems endless, but it is okay. We'll carry on.

Sing that song, Noble Woman. We should actually inspire ourselves to sing and to learn the words. The people who sing the songs of their glory, and the nation which sings the songs of its history can never die. Remember that. Singing is not an art or a pastime or a money-making venture. Singing is just to be one with God. When you sing the glory of God, you are the God. Have no doubt about it. So, my dear folks, learn to sing. God has blessed you one way or the other. Almost everybody I have seen in the Western Hemisphere can do a lot of rip-off things but one thing that I am very happy about is that you all can sing. Just sing. It will purify you; it will bring you to your destiny; it will bring you your grace.

Do you remember the story of the Nacha Devi? There was a dancing woman. She danced and danced every night for money and for people. All the rich people of the town would come to see her dancing and throw money at her feet. She was very rich. One day she was dancing by herself because the people had already gone. A man of God walked in innocently, and he sat down and saw her dancing. After she finished, she saw this poor beggar, kind of a saintly sadhu, sitting there, and said, What do you want?

He said, I don't know, I came late, saw the light, and came up. You were dancing, so I watched you. You are so divine.

She said, What do you want?

He said, I just want some food and a place to rest.

She said, Okay.

So she served him food and offered him a place to rest.

He said, My God, you are so divine. If you can dance for people and they give you so much money, you can dance for God and He will give you the universe.

It stuck to her and the next morning she took all the people who were musicians and went outside the village. There was a temple of Lord Shiva and she went there and started dancing. It was an old temple with beautiful floors. She got into it so much that she danced and danced. People who traveled on that highway saw her dancing and heard music being played, so they stopped there. A lot of them stayed; a lot could not. They came to the city late and were asked, Why are you so late? You were supposed to be here at eight o'clock in the morning.

They said, On the way we saw some woman dancing in the temple and we couldn't believe it. We wanted to stay for the whole day. Let us finish the business; we want to go back.

So everybody came back and brought with them a lot of people. By the evening, there was a hugh crowd watching her dancing and people starting to throw money at her feet. But she wouldn't lift a penny and danced and danced and danced. One day, while dancing, it is said, she got so into it that there was nothing left. Even today, in the more contemporary and modern period, at that temple, on many nights, people go and hear music, songs and dancing. And Nacha Devi means Dancing goddess. That temple is so well known that people in Rajisthan go and bow to it. What I am trying to relate to you is that if