Yogi Bhajan Lecture Archive
Lecture by :
Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji
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Lecture on: 02/21/1988
Category: Gurdwara
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Public

Kindness

Tere meher daa bolanaa, tudh aagai ardaas Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Aad gure nameh, Jugad gure nameh, Sat gure nameh, siri guru deve nameh.

Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh!

We are very grateful that Guru Arjan Dev gave us the truth in Adi Granth and put it in a poetry and put it in a music. Truth can hit you more than a canon and if we are not mentally, spiritually and personally acceptable, strong enough, truth can tear us apart.

Everybody wants to listen to the truth, everybody wants to know the truth, but there are very few who can live the truth. And here this world, today, is based...the power which keeps this earth going is kindness. Daya dharam ka poot hai. Kindness is the son of Dharma.

People are not normally born kind because we have animal nature and our animal nature is grab as much you want, more you want. And we want to have security. Security for Infinity. Not Infinity as a security. We are reverse, upside down. Because if we are kind, then we are tolerant. If we are kind, then we have patience. If we are kind, then we have endurance. If we are kind, then we have manners. If we are kind, then we can serve. If we are kind, then we are human.

All rudeness comes because we are not kind in attitude. All our problems are that we are not kind. We are not kind to OURSELF, forget about being kind to others. I used to have a friend. One day we discussed and...I was posted in Amritsar....and I said, "Well, what time?" He said, "Nine thirty, we'll meet." I said, "Where?" He said, "Well, why don't you come by my house so that I can come out. I need somebody to kick me out of the house." I said, "My God, you don't need to be kicked! Why you need to be kicked? Why you couldn't say, 'I like the company to come out of my house?' Why you are using these unkind words?" He said, "No, no, no, no, you don't know me." I said, "I know you as my friend for a long time. It's all right. I'll come and pick you up." So I went there and I saw a very professional, kind man, very nicely treating himself. His mother was giving him the chapatis. He had a plate in his hand and he was walking toward the door. And finally he came where I was and I told the driver, I
said, "Switch off the jeep." He said, "No, no, no, we've got to go..." He was eating, half food in, half out. I said, "We are not going anywhere. You can very properly go in, eat this meal, wash you hands, clean yourself, and then come. I'll take you." Finding no other alternative, he went in, might not have eaten, thrown the food away, whatever, but he came out as eaten and complete. That much I know. So he sat down in the jeep and I said to the driver, I said, "Please move. So slowly." He said, "No, no, no. Let's rush." I said, "Look. What do you mean by rush?" He said, "We've got to go! There is a meeting!" I said, "This all can wait. The problem is not whether we go fast or slow. Question is where we go and reach there or not." Believe me or not, we were about seven minutes late, and hardly there was anybody sitting in the room. They were all strolling outside, anyway, saying, "Hello, how are you?" So, it was okay, it was not that bad. And we sat down and we had a meeting, and whole thing. And then immediately
they decided they had to go to inspect a place. "We GOT to go!" And he said, "I can't go." I said, "You are a representative of the department. You've got to go." He said, "I am hungry. I am dying. I didn't eat." I said, "What about your mother giving you food and you went in and you ate and you told me the whole thing." He said, "No, no, I can't." I said, "You are very unkind to yourself."

Solution in life is not what you have found. Solution in life is what you have learned. Solution is not what you have learned, solution is whether you apply. You can have all the knowledge but if you do not apply knowledge....applying knowledge is called Wisdom. And in the spiritual world, applying wisdom to ourselves is very difficult. It is very easy counsel another person and it is easy to tell another person what to do. It is very easy to make a facade.

All great men have achieved their greatness by great sacrifice. There is nothing which is free. Everything has to be paid for to the last penny. Do we have that patience. Answer is no. Do we have those manners? Answer is no. Do we have that attitude? Answer is no. Do we have that sublimity in us? Answer is no. Then what we are doing? The answer is, if we sublime ourself to crystallize ourself, we can see through everything and we can gracefully come through.

It is coming, it is the deliverance. It is not walking, it is not going, it is not reaching. Suppose you try to go to San Francisco to attend a very important meeting, and you make it all the way, but when you reach San Francisco, you sit on the chair, and you say, "Let us start," and you have a heart failure. What is the idea? The deliverance... and deliverance has an attitude. You have to accept yourself very kindly. You have to accept the entire knowledge very kindly. You have to accept all the etiquettes and manners very kindly. Everybody wants to be a teacher, sure. But do you know what goes with it? Everybody wants to be a happy person. I agree. But do you know what goes with it? Everything has a framework.

Some people think if they become rich, they have solution to everything. Have you seen in whole Los Angeles...there are about in greater Los Angeles, about 15 million people live here. Let's not talk of greater Los Angeles, let's talk only Los Angeles, 3 million people. Have you seen one shop which says, "Happiness on sale?" Have you seen any department store where there's a corner called "happiness?"

Happiness is equal to your endurance with the applied intelligence. Remember this formula: Happiness is equal to your endurance with applied intelligence over consciousness. It's a formula. It will never be any other way.

H = E + AI/C.

It's a very mathematical formula. It cannot be two ways. If you are trying to find some other formula....and with this formula not only you become happy but all the people who seek happiness shall become your avenue. This formula is so powerful, not that you'll become happy, but all the people who seek happiness shall seek you.

Nobody loves anybody. What did I say? (Nobody loves anybody.) If you ever think you are in love with anybody, you are so wrong. I enjoy this when I see people loving each other and talking love talk and all that. Fact is, nobody loves anybody. Everybody seeks everybody's energy, some intimately, some violently, some slowly. And in this game of energy, the attachment, the pull is so powerful, we call it love. It is a psychomagnetic phenomenon proportionate to the psychomagnetic physical endurance of life intertwined with the projection of our daily chore.

If you are so much in love and you sleep, what happens to you? Suppose you ask somebody, "I'll have a date with you and we'll meet at six p.m." See your energy reaching the optimum point at about 6 p.m. There will be so much make it, "Look how my tie look, look how my that looks, how I am...." You will make it six o'clock. And she may slap across your face, that I'm not saying, we do not know. She may be the most irritated. Her dress may be have total torn off by a straight arm and anything can happen on the other end. But you at six o'clock at the prime of your energy, you muster the totality of your psyche and the electromagnetic field and set the field of your vibration to be there. Now, the other person has to come, which normally is proportionately negative. Normally. Whatever you project cosmically, that other person is receiving, therefore other person will go astray, or something. It always happens in appointment, if one in appointment is little extra, the other is a little down. It's a law of the magnetic
field. But suppose you are totally A-1 condition and the other person is also in A-1 condition. Now two positives are going to meet, it is going to spark. Because you pull yourself to the optimum, she pulled herself to the optimum, and two optimums is going to make a zero. It's a law, it's a simple law of physics. But if you go with absolute normalacy, with total endurance and tolerance and receptivity and the other person comes with that receptivity, you will both blend, merge. It'll become oneness.

I have never seen a one person, a human being, who is not a cheat. One person! You cannot be human and not cheat. You cannot be human and not lying. You cannot be human and not insecure. There are certain faculties of us as a human. We don't want to accept it. "No, no, no, I am truthful. Ha ha ha. I never lie." That's a lie in itself. Because the animal nature in us, the basic nature in us, the animal in us, is absolutely selfish. Its survival is based on its selfishness. The angel part in us is selfless. In between we exist. In that existence we make an adjustment. Some develop their angelic power of kindness, compassion, tolerance, peace.

I never knew that relaxation is abused. I learned this morning. I told somebody, "Relax," and I got the biggest lecture on the earth. "What do you mean? What are you talking about? What relax? What is this new thing?" Everybody has to relax. I said, " Ok, Don't. Jump out of the window." Honestly, if you can't relax, you can't relax. I thought telling somebody to relax is a good thing, is a compliment, is a direction a person should know to go, deal with. But this morning I learned to tell somebody to relax is to face a war. "Why you want me to relax?" I said, "It is a good thing to relax." "No, life is to work hard, to make it happen, to survive, to raise your standard of life, to use this time effectively to get what you want." I said, "With all that, if you are not relaxed, you won't achieve a thing."

Relaxation is a medium through which achievement can be enjoyed, digested. If you go somewhere and somebody gives you 35 dishes and lay it out and defray it and perfect, and you don't have a stomach, how you are going to eat? How you are going to digest? People think relaxation is when you lie down or you sleep and you calm yourself. That is not true. Relaxation is a body behavior, is a personality. It comes from endurance, tolerance and intelligence. It is not anybody's affair. You are supposed to be relaxed all times so that you can think right, you can act right. Non- relaxed attitude can totally temper away with you neuron energy and your brain cannot think right. Your own servant, brain, cannot serve you. Your own psyche cannot cover you. Look at this, your brain, your neurons cannot serve you, your psyche cannot cover you, your attitude does not fit you. And still you think you are a human being? Temporarily, yes.

In Sikh Dharma Sikh represents the Guru, not himself. There's a difference in this life, there's a difference also in achievement. There's an easiness. When I represent myself, then I have to pay the costs of my attitude. I have to pay the cost of my behavior. I have to go then my way. Then I will be just one, one against all, and one against God. That is how I can harm you. When I am to be I am, and my activities are my activities, and it is my attitude, then I am the one and the only other person which is one is God. There is One God, and one me. Try to understand how it works. There is a One God and one me. Whether I am no big or small, forget about it. But I am, I am, and God is, God is. There will be a conflict. And this conflict will continue. That's why all those people who have reached the stage of nirvana could not find peace, could not find relaxation.

It is very easy... you meditate, God appears with you, he says, "My son, what do you want?" and he says, "I am very happy. Give me this," or, "Oh no, thank you very much," and God goes. That's one time deal. No big deal. But there are one whom all the time God asks, "What do you want?" Think of those. Those are those people who represent God's attitude. That is called, "Gurmat."

Guru ke mat too(n) le iaane.
Bhagat binaa bahu doobe siaane.
Guru Arjan Dev,
SGGS, pg. 288

Oh innocent, take the "mat", take the wisdom of the Guru. Without "bhagatee," without devotional love, many wise people have drowned themselves. Oh innocent one, take Guru's advice. Guru's applied wisdom is called "mat." Bhagat binaa bahu...without the devotion of this, all wise men have drowned their lives.

Any movement which shall move has two aspects to it: one is harmony, other is conflict. We call them vibrations. And in society, what do we call them? Dow and Jones? What do we call them? In the stock market? You remember these days, it is coming on very well. And sometimes, what do they call them? Bears and bulls? That covers the economic world. And in the social world, what is it called? Passion and pull. Very attractive. Passion and pull, relaxation and applied intelligence. "I feel." I feel, but I don't deal. When feelings and dealings are not subjected to intelligence and consciousness, life is ruined. There's no way out. That's why they say, "The crown of spirituality cannot be conquered. It is bestowed. It is bestowed by the spirit."

I have seen in the anquish of our life...I was in Espanola looking at our children and I found out something very special. It is the parents who make the child insecure. It is the parents who ruin the child and his courage. It is the parent who destroys the competence of the child. And I found out that it is the parents who want the child to lean on them. It is a very soft feeling. It is very good and makes very comfortable people. Old people are brittle and they have lost their flexibility. They have lost the joy in their life. Normally they nibble at each other, fight with each other, those kinds of things. And these innocent creatures called children are their best victims. I saw one scene there, a mother was telling the child, "Eat." And he said, "Mom, I am not hungry. I tell you I am not hungry. Please leave me alone." And this idiot woman, this white American woman was such a rude, unkind bully, I couldn't understand. Finally he took himself apart, ran inside, and sat on the desk where, that bench where I was sitting and turned
around to me and said, "Siri Singh Sahib, I am not going to eat." I said, "Don't." He said, "Thank you, Sir." I said, "Very good." Later on I investigated what happened. Why he doesn't want to eat? Because he was being forced and his little stomach couldn't take anything more. And this lady, this mother, who kept him patiently nine months in her belly, doesn't want one minute to wait whether that person is hungry or not.

Don't give advice to those who are not hungry for it. Don't make those happy who are not ready for it. Go slowly, patiently, & calmly. Walk with people the distance of life. That's called friendship. Walk with people the distance of life and in life the most precious jewel of life is maturity. It is maturity in life which makes you worthy of being human. It is not being a human that means anything. It is not being a rich human which means anything. It is not being a very knowledgeable human. I always say if you take 200 bibles and load a mule, will it become priest? It's carrying all that knowledge, gospel truth. It won't.

I was in that place between San Francisco and Los Angeles, what do they call that place? Big Sur. I was in Big Sur sitting on top of the mountain and this boy of mine who was student, he said, "I want to build a temple here, and I want to find a holy place." I said, "Well, why don't you pray? Let us pray. God will show us which place is holy." And we closed our eyes and we meditated. When I opened my eyes, I said, "See that paper?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Go after it, but don't catch it. Let it rest." After a while that paper went this way. He went after it and then the paper took a round and came and almost by my side it sat. And he came huffing and puffing and I said, "I told you to follow the paper. You could have followed by sight. I didn't get up." I said, "Follow that paper. I didn't say to physically go and run after it. Here it is now, read it." And it was a torn page of Bible. And it said something about a holy place. And he said, "Then this is a holy
place?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I don't believe it." I said, "I agree. You don't believe it, that I agree. I'm not asking you to believe it. You wanted to know which is the holy place. You have been told this is holy. Now believe. Not believing is a game which you can play. I have nothing to do with it." "How about if I built a temple there?" he said, "What that will mean?" I said, "Nothing. It will be a temple." He said, "But there must be some difference if I build a temple here or there." I said, "You know something?" He said, "What?" I said, "You are going to build it there, not here. And that temple will stand as empty as emptiness can stand. You are not going to build it here." He said, "Why?" I said, "It is so written on your forehead that you will build a temple, but it is also written on your forehead that you shall not be known for it." He said, "What else?" I said, "Don't provoke me. I am not an astrologer or a psyche. I'm not going to tell you what is going to happen, but this is
what I am seeing. I am seeing you building a temple over there and there is a temple there, but it shall be visited either by you or one or two of your friends to come and visit that place and meditate and drink and eat meat. But you will call it a temple, people won't." He said, "What is the difference if it looks like a temple?" I said, "Life is not what you think life is. Life is those vibrations of courage and projection which can attract the reality."

All humans cannot be saints and a saint does not have to put billboard on his life that says, "I am a saint." Idiot will know a saint is a saint because his behavior will prove it... whether you follow the passion or compassion.

In Espanola I didn't work much. I was counseling a couple and this man said, "I have to get rid of my wife and take care of the children." I said, "Sure, sure. Do it." Two, three days back and forth juggling, he said, "What I am doing?" I said, "Nothing, you are very intelligent, you are doing all right, and that's the way you have to do it." "What is the way?" I said, "You are intelligent to construct something beautiful and you are intelligent to destroy what you have built. A simple personality which will never change. Now, you are going to destroy your wife and your family life and your child. Later on you will take care of the children for a while, then you will destroy your children, they will go totally haywire against you. You have destroyed already your career, and you will destroy your business. It comes in stages. But if anybody on this planet earth says you are not intelligent, I don't agree with you, because you are not intelligent against odds, you cannot construct
anything, because your obsession is to destroy. You must have to create something first to destroy it later."

There are two types of people: who are obsessed with destruction, they destroy everybody they touch. They are the worst. Second people are: they will destroy to enjoy. And third is: they will destroy because it is their dharma. Dharma, when supported by karma, becomes a self-destruction itself. But when Dharma becomes compassionate, daya dharam ka poot hei, and it gives delivery to kindness, compassion, tolerance, endurance, that is also dharma. That's worth something.

In this life of ours, there has to be a solution. We have problems. But we find no solution. In every dharma...everywhere there's a church or a synagogue on the corner, so why people are not happy? There are yogis, swamis, priests, so why people are not happy? People are not happy because they do not take the applied wisdom of the Guru. When "I" is too strong, "Thou" is equally weak. When "Thou" is strong, "I" is equally weak. In this proportion, life moves.

Therefore, please remember:

Gur kee mat too(n) le iaane.
Bhagat binaa bahu doobe siaane.

Oh the little innocent one, take the wisdom of the Guru.

I have seen wonderful people take the amrit but they do not live it. They take the hukam of the Guru and they don't understand it. It was very funny, somebody said, "I am sick and tired of this hukam." I said, "What is that? How can you get sick and tired of a hukam?" And the person said, "Every time I take a hukam, this comes." And I said, "What it says?" He said, "It says, 'humble yourself, don't harm yourself, relax and be nice, and be this and the whole thing.'" And I said, "Well, try some time to take another hukam." And the person said, "All right, let me try again." And he opened the Guru, and it opened right there. And the person said, "Guru is not with me!" I said, "I don't want to hear that." Because my faith is based on one thing, "Ang Sang Wahe Guru." With every limb of mine, Guru is. And if you are asking for the hukam and Guru is giving the hukam, then stick with it. We want a Guru who should give us a hukam as we want it. We want a spiritual teacher who
should cater to our foolish ego. The breakfast of the teacher is to eat the ego. Lunch is to eat your flexibility which gives you relaxation to do wrong. (I'm using positive words for negative chord.) And the evening tea is to eat you totally, top to bottom. And at night, whatever is left of you, that should be called, "Seed." Beej antam. A process of a student and a teacher where the teacher meets the student and from morning to evening, student becomes the basic seed. The totality and the neurosis, the passion and non-reality is all vanished. In other words, you see a whole almond tree, big enough but at night it becomes an almond. If life cannot become to that, one process they call in yoga, it's called prathahar. Pranayam and prathahar. Expand yourself like a God and contract yourself like a beeja of God.

Beeja of God is Atma (soul) and God is called Paramatma. When each day you go out, be like God, but whenever you do anything, become the soul. That's why you have been given God everywhere so you will not have to find it. And you have been given soul inside you so you can have it. You understand? Hey! yes, yes, now you are very enchanted with me, but that's not what you do. The soul inside you, because of which you live, is with you, because every judgement, every intelligent judgement, every emotional judgement, every commotional activity, you must do asking your soul. Let the soul be your judge and let God be your support. Because... that's why God is everywhere. Otherwise soul is inside. You will never find unhappiness. You will be happy, you'll be graceful, all things will be taken care of.

Somebody asked me this morning, "What should I do?" I said, "Have you asked your soul?" The answer came, "I don't know where it is." I said, "Hallelujiah. If you do not know where soul is, how you are alive?" Without soul you cannot live. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can have a soul and not talk to it, you can have a soul and not befriend it. You can have a soul and reject it. You can do all weird things. But ultimately you are nothing but a soul. An almond tree is nothing but that almond to begin with. You can see almond trees, miles and miles long, it can be an almond tree world, but ultimately it all came from that one almond. Don't ask your passion, you idiot, and don't blind yourself because you are just a grown up absolutely brittle human being who has lost the flexibility of kindness and who has got tempered wih the power and the passion of your maya and you think you are above God. No! The worms in the dirt will eat you in the end and nobody will ever remember you. And
this world is to leave your memory behind through your wisdom, through your caliber, through your consciousness and through your intelligence. So if you touch people, if you touch somebody's heart, it gets awakened. If you touch somebody's forehead, it's destiny gets awakened. If you touch the body of the being of the person, it's time may get awakened, and if you look at a person, his space of reality gets awakened. That kind of person is what God made us to be. Not an idiot who doesn't know which side is the bathroom, and which side is the living room.

You do not understand your security....let me tell you once and for all: Your security is with God, and your life is with your soul. If you bring anybody else to decide the matter, you are wrong. You are so wrong, that there nothing can be right for you.

That is why I am saying we should be grateful to the Guru that he gave us the truth and gave us the biggest truth of the world in 1430 pages but gave us with a music and in poetry, so we can tolerate it. Truth is bitter, they said, but it is coated with the sugar of the music, and the poetry, it has a harmony of the rhythm, it is the notes of the music, on which the words of the Guru get to us! It is my prayer that we should understand it. It is my prayer that we should realize it. And if we do all that... it is my prayer that we should live it. Truth is great. Living truth is a challenge. Those who accept their challenge, the planet earth never forgets them. Those unfortunates who have never gotten this challenge are never known to ever have visited the earth.

This morning I'd like to remind you that you are taking sadhana very lightly. It has gone far away from your priorities. Please change your schedule and ask yourself... the whole life is based on consciousness and sadhana feels, builds, and nurtures consciousness. So it shall be very beautiful if the leaders of the missals, jethadars, can recapture their role and schedules and their missals start working together in very extreme harmony and we come to an understanding that the morning time belongs to saints and sages, and to the Sikhs, to praise the Lord.

May this day be with you in achievement. And you may be very wise, but your wisdom is useless if you do not have endurance because the wisdom does not last long in the face of the opposition of the neurotic projection. So please learn to be very patient, calm, quiet and bright like your soul. And then feel God even in your enemies. Because God is everywhere. God has no limited space. There is no territory where God can be found there and not anywhere else.

Sometimes you get blinded by your passions and you think this is it! And Narad who was the...Narad Muni who was the greatest Muni with Narayan once was reading the hand, palm of the woman, and he read, "Whosoever shall marry this woman shall be immortal." Actually he read it wrong, reversed. What was written was the immortal will marry this woman. So he thought, "Let me marry her and become immortal." The great rishi learned the hard way. So sometimes there are three things: gurz, merz, and urz. Gurz is when we need something. Urz when we want to request something. Merz means when we are in disease. These are the three things, cause of every pain: Un, Dhan, Man. These are three powers: food, wealth and mind. These six things are there in cross for the Jaan, for the being.

Ab Jan Oopar Ko Na Pukaare. Human being has three powers to destroy him and three powers to make him, but out of all those six powers, there's a one power called, "Man." Chit man, suchet man. You have to understand, is that mind is for you, or over you? If mind is your servant, you are the king, the king of kings. If you are subject to mind, you are the slave of slaves.

Man jeetai jag jeet.

By conquereing your mind, you conquer the world.

Guru Nanak, SGGS, pg. 6

Everything is in mind. And winning the mind is winning the world. World cannot be conquered by armies, neither by wealth, neither by power, nor by this, nor by that. World is only conquered by conquering your own mind. World is only happy by relating to your soul and world is always great by guiding yourself by the word of the Guru.

Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh!


- END OF LECTURE -



2/21/88 YOGI BHAJAN, 1988


Above Article Copyright © Yogi Bhajan 2002. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.



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