TWO THINGS ARE SIMULTANEOUSLY IMPOSSIBLE: Either we are not a creation of a Creator, and it is wrong that we are in the image of God, or there is no such thing as a sin. It is religious bigotry when we say we commit a sin. We can agree there is no sin and grant that there is ignorance. Some know more, and some know less. Emotion Becomes Commotion or Devotion. We can also agree that there can be tremendous differences in emotions. Emotions are essential, as life is essential. Everyone is emotional, but our emotion can become commotion. When emotion becomes commotion, then you enter a dangerous zone, because commotion can create a pattern, and then patterns start governing your life. As long as you are emotional, it is alright. It is a learning process. After all, in one second your intellect releases one thousand thoughts. Out of one thousand thoughts, you may not even pick one up. The intellect releases a lot of thoughts, but only a few thoughts become emotions—not all. As long as you are emotional, you are living, trying to live. Even when you become commotional it is alright, but it is just a matter of seriousness, because emotion can get into the subconscious mind. Emotion can have two options. Either it becomes devotion or commotion. If it becomes devotion and enters the subconscious mind, there is no pain. There is no sadness, there is no sacrifice which is not easily done. It is a kind of bewitchment of mind in which one is totally possessed. He is happy with what he is doing, his world is his own, his destination is his own, and he shall make it. That is the devotional part. But, suppose instead of devotion, the emotion becomes commotion and enters the subconscious mind. Then there is a problem. Then you have a pattern, a style of life. And then the pattern will govern you. Meditation is the art of breaking habits, to purify the mind and to take care of day-to-day things. These commotions become our pattern. We call them habits. First we create a habit, then the habit creates us. There is hardly any person who doesn't get into a habit. And it is very difficult to break a habit. If there is a wrong habit, you have a lot of trouble. Life becomes unhappy. Don’t think that in the past people were saints and now we are devils. That’s not true. You don’t live as adults; you want to test all the neuroses of your childhood. I have analyzed people. The subconscious psychology is so heavy in America that most people do not have smooth relationships at all. In dating, in communication, in social life, we show each other how powerful we are. But don’t blame the ordinary person. Even yogis, swamis, ministers, and spiritual people have a big façade to impress people. In our life there is one great weakness. We want to impress others. It is the salesmanship in our very genes, that makes us want to convince each other we are great. Had we taken the attitude that we would show how great we are through actions, our life would be very smooth and happy. We have not learned to win each other over through actions. We believe that through logic and reason, through arguments, we can convince each other and get away with our weaknesses; but the problem is those weaknesses will show up one day or the other. When I came to America at first I was not aware of the American traditions. I was so simple. And I wanted to be very simple. But I was surprised that a lot of promoters came to me. "We want to promote you." After all, I knew English and I knew the word "promotion." I sat down and thought, “Well, I am a yogi. How can this guy promote me more than that? What can he do for me?" I talked to some people. They said, "We can spread you in the United States. We can set up a corporation, twelve billion dollars, fifteen billion dollars, as much as you ask." I said, “And then what?” I heard all their proposals very peacefully and nicely, and then I sat back and I said, "My God, this is what they think a spiritual man is?" That was phase one. You can’t learn anything with ego. You can’t know things because of curiosity. Learning won’t come to you until you keep yourself pure enough that you can receive it. You can know a lot. You can talk a lot. But when it comes to learning, you should be ready to receive. Then somebody will be ready to give to you. THE DESIRE TO KNOW THE UNKNOWN. In the spiritual realm, ego has no place. Diamonds have no place, and small houses have no place. This is the realm of the Earth. It is good to have things. You can have whatever you want to have, whatever you can afford minus taxes. But that is not all you are. There is a part of you, which is very steadily ingrained in you, and that is your desire to know the unknown. Sometimes you wonder, what is this unknown of you? Look at yourself: You have no claws, no strong nails. As a human being, you have no defense mechanism. Have you been made defenseless? No. Your defense lies in your intuition. If you can intuitively know what is going to happen, then you will not enter the sequence and not end up with consequences. That’s all the defense you have. And what can give you that intuition? Your mind. How? If you have a meditative mind. HOW DO YOU MEDITATE? It’s a very simple process. Most of the people in the world do not know what meditation is. They think if they can buy a manual for one-hundred fifty dollars and sit for fifteen minutes on a chair, that’s meditation. Some feel if they attend Yogi Bhajan’s class and learn a meditation, that’s meditation. Lots of people have lots of feelings about meditation. But they do not understand real meditation. Meditation is a process. When the dawn comes, the sun power, the ray energy, is more scattered, and the mind is not controllable. At any time which is peaceful—the best is early morning time, before the dawn—you’ll be surprised, that in a couple of minutes, a lot of thoughts will start coming to you—those thoughts which you do not want to touch—the X-rated thoughts, the ugly, angry thoughts, all those kinds of thoughts. If you let those thoughts pass by, this is meditation. All those thoughts that can pass at that moment of your life can never enter your subconscious mind, and they will not bother you again. This procedure of cleansing the mind, of not dumping a lot of thoughts into your subconscious mind, is called meditation. It takes about three minutes to get those kind of thoughts. And sometimes they continue to bug you for about half an hour. But, if you physically don’t move, the mind becomes still. That is the foundation, or the beginning of the meditative mind. It is a purely physical process. It doesn’t need any mantra, or a teacher, or any technique, except that the place you sit should be cozy, comfortable and your body structure should be straight. Once your mind starts becoming still and not having any thoughts, you will feel cozy, and that coziness cannot be described even by me. All I can tell you is that it is very comfortable, it is very cozy, and you will want to do it again and again. But in the beginning you cannot do it for a long time. Gradually, as you develop that coziness, this thought-hitting process becomes shorter and shorter. When the mind is said to be intuitive and you develop it, it is as good an investment as your hair-do, as your good clothes, or your good language. Then whenever you want the answer to something, you don’t have to call on anything but your own computer. Just stop yourself. And, in a few moments, your own self will talk to you. You have to concentrate. It is the mind which can concentrate for you. The mind is given as a tool to you. The mind is not your master. The mind was given to serve you. You develop all other facilities of the world—air-conditioned rooms, good cars, electronic instruments—but the biggest computer which you have is your mind. You never developed it. Now people are trying to learn meditation, but the problem is there are a lot of groups and there are a lot of technologies, and everything is well branded. “This is my technique, this is your technique.” But let us talk about what the science of yoga says. The science of yoga says that whenever a mind can be developed to be under your control, when you do not have thoughts incoming, at that moment your mind is with you. When won’t the mind give you any thought? Don’t create a thought. Enjoy it. That is the first stage of the intuitive level. First the mind should be empty, and you should enjoy it. It is cozy. And you can hang in there with that cozy mind for a while. But you’ll not be in a position to hang in there for a long time. That, too, you have to develop. But if you can hold with your mind more than five minutes, you have set up your mind to compute for you. That is the beginning. If you can hang on with your empty mind, which is your mind, for eleven minutes, then you can use your mind for directions. You breathe fifteen breaths a minute. The reverse of it is, if you can have your mind with you for fifteen minutes, you can develop that time, you can compute every consequence of your life through any sequence with your own mind. Is that difficult? This mind is beyond Time and Space. It is part of the Universal Mind. It is given to you as an instrument to serve you. What happened? It became your master, you became the servant. The mind becomes a monster when it becomes your master. The mind is an angel when it is your servant. It is all in your mind. The meditative mind is a purely beautiful state of living. Using Mantra for Meditation Now I am going to discuss with you how you can develop the meditative mind very immediately. When you control your mind, a lot of thoughts come to you— negative thoughts—all garbage, ambitions, thoughts, known and unknown, float around in a negative direction. Negative is like this: If you cut it in the center, what does it become? Positive. You keep chanting the mantra in a positive direction. So each negative becomes positive. Within 108 seconds of that moment you achieve, you can see your own soul. After that you will become intuitive and will never be in trouble. So we pick up one mantra, which is a positive sound, a positive thought. Some psychologists have said if you only chant, "One, one, one," that will work. That will work for his purposes, but it won’t work for great purposes. You have to have a mantra which must idealize your isht. Isht means something you have a great reverence for. If a Christian has a great reverence for Jesus Christ, he can call, "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ." It can be his mantra. There is no big problem. Mantra is something which, according to vibratory thought level, must be in a position to tune into the subconscious. Everything cannot be a mantra, and not everybody can manufacture a mantra. But if the word can be tuned in at the thought-level basis into the subconscious, and it is the highest word of reverence for that person, that is the best mantra for the person. If that mantra is also repeated when those thoughts hit you, the minus becomes plus. In other words, we chant to make things positive and gain profit easily. It is to cut the time. Why does a mantra work for you? Because mantra is always that unknown of you. Some people receive a kind of mantra. I asked somebody once, "What is your mantra?” He said, “Nim.” I asked him what it meant. He said, “I don’t know. I was given it, I paid for it, and I have been chanting it for the last eight years.” "Do you enjoy it?" He said, "Yeah." “What has it done for you?" He said, “I don’t know, but I like it.” Though the person was innocent, and didn’t understand the meaning of what it did for him, his reverence for that word was so powerful that it always set in his heart something very special. That is all you need. Life is not equal for all, and it is not equivalent for all. You have to fit in at the frequency of your mind and your body. I have seen that the majority of people do not know how much their body can take. They have never assessed it. Everybody feels a body can take whatever you can give it. That is not true. Every body has a capacity. Every mind has a frequency. You have to bring the two together, and then you have to find out who you are. That is the easiest way to live happily. Yoga is a science. It is the purest art by which to live. Everything about it can be explained well. It is meant for a human being. It is not meant for angels. There is no such thing as sin. If it is true God has created you, then God has created you for a purpose, and to live only for that purpose is Grace. “STOPPING” THE MIND?” A student asked Yogi Bhajan the following question: “My mind is always full of thoughts and arguments. A friend told me that if I meditate I should stop all my thoughts and control my mind so it is quiet. Is that possible with meditation? My mind is awfully noisy. Yogi Bhajan: “It is not meditation that stops the mind. It is the surrender of the mind to the soul, and the soul to Truth. It is when you prefer the word of Truth to the word of our own intellect.” Those who intellectualize a lot should know that yoga means union with the Supreme Consciousness. It is only at that time, at that moment of union, that the stream of thought stops. In Kundalini Yoga you are given a perfect key for the lock of consciousness. The incessant intellect acts like a file that rubs off the levers from the key. Intellectualizing the Truth to suit your own circumstances and to cater to your fears will never work. So hold and behold the Truth wherever you are. People will mark the way to you. No person is superior or inferior to another in his potential. When you earn that vision and character, one person will want to see what you behold, they will want to use those eyes, and another will not. In both cases, your mind will be peaceful in the service of the Infinite. Prayer is when the mind is one-pointed and man talks to Infinity. Meditation is when the mind becomes totally clean and receptive, and Infinity talks to the man.