Yogi Bhajan Lecture Archive
Lecture by :
Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji
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Lecture on: 08/13/1992
Category: Class Lectures
Location: Espanola, NM
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Aquarian Times magazine Yogi Bhajan Lecture Excerpts

Bhoj Kriya

Yoga gives extraordinary energy. There are so many aspects of yoga. Today, we will do one simple thing. It’s called Bhoj Kriya. Bhoj means food. Kriya means how to eat it.

You eat to live. You should not gobble food, because the secretion of the stomach is ordered by the pituitary and on the command of the pineal, so when you quickly fill your stomach, bloat it up immediately, and give it a shock, then it gives your body a shock for the next three hours. This is what we call an upset stomach. For food to be rejuvenating and to give strength to keep the body young, you have to use the saliva of your mouth. If you do not mix saliva in every morsel of your food, you are eating poison.

If you procedurally eat the food which you usually gulp in fifteen minutes, it will become your best friend, your best strength, and your best self. Usually when you eat, your entire nervous system moves and you move your mouth and tongue together. But you just swallow things, you don’t eat them. When you swallow food that is not chewed properly, it swallows your strength, your life. Then nothing is left of you. Slow eating is one of the best meditations on this Earth.

Preparation:

1. Bring the dish you like the most. Put it before you as though you are being served in a restaurant.

2. Now please sit calmly and fold your hands in Prayer Pose, and close your eyes and feel you are going to be blessed. Calm down and empty yourself to receive the gift of God. If there is no emptiness, nothing will come in. It is for your nourishment, for your acceleration, for your healing, for your purity. It is something today, at this moment, marvelously wonderful, blessful, blissful. Please concentrate. Bow your head in prayer a moment.

3. Please open your eyes and place your hands on your shoulders, right hand on right shoulder, left hand on left shoulder— a sign of strength. Then place your hands on your knees—a sign of strength. Then place your hands over your heart, one hand over the other— a sign of compassion. Then touch your forehead with the palms over the eyes.

4. Place your hands, palms down, over the food to bless it. Concentrate and bless your own food. Calmly and quietly make a relationship with your food and your spirit. There is God in you—feel it, feel the food piece by piece, touch it, and request of it, that when you become part of it and it becomes part of you, there is a union.

Part One:
5. Now please, with your hands, choose what you are going to eat. There is no spoon to be used. You have to use your hands only. When you put each morsel in your mouth, it should have the touch of all five fingers. Id—you, Jupiter, Saturn, Sun, and Mercury. Whatever little portion you have, put it in your mouth, like a kiss. Chew it totally, freely, openly. Your lips do not have to be closed. It must have twenty-five percent of its size mixed with saliva. Saliva is the most nurturing, health-giving, young-making stuff. It’s right in your mouth. Chew it, don’t swallow it.

6. Now with your tongue feel the food. If there is any hardness, keep chewing. When the food is soft, like jelly, bring it to the tip of the tongue you will find out that it is sweet. If it’s not, keep chewing it. Food should not go to the throat or into the stomach until it is sweet to your tongue.

7. Very slowly, take it in. Then clean the inside of your mouth with your tongue, including around your teeth until there is no food left. There should be not one trace of food left in your mouth.

Now calmly and quietly, using this procedure, please eat. Keep eating and keep relating, keep meditating, keep talking to your food. Your entire mental energy should be in the food. Just imagine you are sitting in the heavens and God is serving you with food and you are nurturing your self. Each time you take in food, you have to repeat this process.

Continue for thirty-five minutes. Don’t totally finish all the food because I have to show you the difference, so keep some part to eat little later.

To End:

8. The hand you used to eat with, take that hand and bring all the fingers together in a point, and put that in the palm of the other hand. Close that hand like a fist over the food hand. And feel it. Meditate. This is a healing by your own food. Your hand has touched the essence of the food. And concentrate. Continue for 3 minutes.

Now go deeper and further inside, and digest your food. Turn it into nectar. There is a saying: “If you cannot bless your food, and cannot befriend it, you have no relationship with your own life.” You have two minutes to feel light. Your food must digest by the will of your mind. Continue for 4 minutes.

Part Two
9. Now please open your eyes and see the food you still have left. Eat the food any the old animal-like way, gobble it. You have to do that now. Become as animals, gobble it, go, go, go, go, go. Fast, unchewed, swallow. Grab it, put it in. Just see the difference. Go, go, fast, finish it, so that your body will create a resistance to this animal-like eating. There is an animal way of eating and there is a human way of eating. There is also an angelic way of eating. Angelic eating is ‘sattvic bhoj.’ Continue for 4 minutes.

To End:

10. Now you have to get up. Go wash your hands, face, elbows, eyes, earlobes, above the eyebrows, and the back of the neck. And take the water and sprinkle it on your face.

Comments: Your power is in your mind. Your body is just a vehicle. You are not eating food, you are eating for your health, your vitality, your energy, your prosperity, your strength, your “fateh”—your power to conquer. When you eat food, it is God’s own self. Bhoj kriya, done correctly, makes you healthy, mentally powerful, physically sturdy, and spiritually absolutely very beautiful and saintly. If you eat like this every day, you will be skinny. You don’t have to diet at all. You can eat one good meal during the day like this and take about an hour. It doesn’t matter what you eat—even stones—it will make you healthiest. Your life will be long and your power will be great if you taste every morsel of the food you eat.

© 1992 YB Teachings, LLC

Know the God in All

June 15, 2003

God created man, and then man created religion. Religion was to make man realize the reality of one God. But it ended up dividing man in many ways, to the point that if you look deeply into it, behind almost every war, is a difference in religious belief. The problem is, the basic belief is, “My religion is better than the others.”

Today we live in a world where we are not saying that, but underneath it is like lava boiling to burst out. It is a fight in the name of “God,” or however we say it, all of which actually mean the same, but the difference in language and words creates enough difference to justify killing each other.

We say we are very religious. We also show that religion is a priority with us. But when it comes to practice, we totally forget. Then our collective thoughts make us fight. One example is in Northern Ireland where Catholics and non-Catholics have been fighting for so many years, killing each other—and nobody actually knows the reason for it. The reason is that the Catholics want to prevail and the non-Catholics want to prevail. Thousands of men, women, and children and property worth many millions of dollars have been ruined. Every world leader has tried to go there to figure it out—why two religions that belong to the same Christ are such bitter enemies. In reality, it is not a question of Christ, it is a question of domain. Domain gives man dominance. And every group wants to collect all those it can collect to create dominance.

Religion is intended for personal purity—so people can be clear and honest. Religion teaches us that we must know our self and the God within us, and the God within everybody, and that we may love and live in peace, and live to help each other in compassion. Unfortunately that is not reflected in the Universe in which we are living today.

My prayer is that the sun should show us the light and make us walk on the path where we can see the brightness of God’s creation and fall in love with it. May this be the day when we have all changed our attitude and our reach, and extended ourselves to each other, because there is one God, and we are One under His doing, and there is no such thing as dominating each other for individual or personal benefit. The Dark Ages of history have taught us that.

May we all be wise on this day to once again hold each others’ hands, and to understand that our commitment within us is Divine, and therefore we have not to live in any duality.

© 2003 YB Teachings, LLC

Reach Beyond Your Limits

February 9, 2003

We are the product of electrons and protons, and neutrons are the combining force of all. On that we agree. But when we say, “Our body and mind are combined by the force of our soul,” then we don’t agree. Isn’t it amazing? One thing we accept as a fact, the other we don’t want to accept.

Our molecules and atoms change within 72 hours. We don’t want to accept that either. But when we say, “By nature, everything has a cycle of change,” that we accept. Similarly, we do not accept that there is the hand of God which is guiding us, but do accept that between you and me there is another force. In theory, we accept that there is some Creator somewhere.

Some religions say that, once you become a human, you end there. Some say from here you go to heaven or hell. There are different theories. But the fact is, you create hell and heaven here, every day, every minute. Whenever you make yourself limited, you confine the ability of your soul to guide you. Without that guidance, whatever you do will be nothing but trouble, pain, and tragedy.

We never have developed our magnetic field, the Infinite force in us. That is why we don’t attract things. Everything is a molecule, and when your molecules dance with strength they attract everything.

All the passion you have from the Universe you can use for creativity, for greatness, for purity and piety. But often you use all that for attachment or greed. What a mistake.

If you get a gold coin, and you throw it into the mud, and then later on start looking for it in that mud, you will get dirty; and perhaps you will not find it at all. Likewise, why throw away your preciousness in the falsehood of maya and then expect mercy? For what? It is your actions which decide your heaven or hell.

You are the soul consciousness of God. Try to understand and realize your basic value. These values will become virtues. Virtues will bring you a lot of opportunities. Opportunities will bring you peace, and the story of success will begin. You will expand.

If you become a role model of virtues and values, your children will follow it. Definitely. You will live in peace, trouble-free, secure, knowing what to do or not do. All will be done. Nature works this way.
Practice this from today. Feel you are the Universe. Practice this for some time. If you won’t become the Universe, then all of Nature is wrong. When you relate to Nature, and Nature becomes you and your nature becomes the Nature, who can touch you? From where shall the power come which shall interfere with your prosperity, piety, purity, character, characteristics, values, virtues? Is there any power? None. You must reach a state that you must glow. When you are young, and through middle age, you must grow to the point that in the end you glow, and your light lets people feel the blessings, the virtues, the happiness.

Don’t waste time doing small things, playing small games, trying to hurt or slander people.

There are many human things that can cross but your soul shall never cross if it is being broiled and roasted in your hidden cold anger. Hot anger in you bursts out, but you get wrapped up in cold anger. Sometimes you can’t let habits go. The habit of lying is forever. The habit of belittling yourself is forever. The habit not to be virtuous is forever. We create these habits layer by layer, layer by layer, as with not speaking nicely to people and not having manners. These are not virtues; these are misfortunes. Who creates them? You! It is your essential character that you are the most precious body, mind, and soul, but you destroy them on valueless things. And then later on you complain that you are in trouble? Thank God you are only in trouble, not in a disaster.

There was one man who started rowing his boat. He went far out into the ocean. Then he thought, “I have come a long distance. Let me see if I can reach the other shore.” He forgot that his strength is limited. He should have returned. Later on a storm came, and his boat got filled with water. He also forgot to bring a bucket so he could empty the boat, and finally he drowned.

This is what we do. In our ego, in our greed, in our lies, in our wrong thinking, we go deep into the Universe. And then when the storm hits us, we do not know what to do. Our own mistakes drown us. This has become an everyday affair. It has become an everyday joke. And every time you are reminded, you say, “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” But the moment you go out the door, you forget. You are back in the same tune, same music, and same thinking.

Values and virtues come from discipline. The Cosmos works for those who have discipline, who have longing, who have some goal to reach in their lives, and who make a constant, constant, constant effort to reach it. That is dharma. Dharma is in every day, in every action, on every side of the day. Don’t waste yourself into the maya of this earth. In the end, what they say is, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” You are not ash; you are not dust. You are that precious soul who has used this body, the ash, just to achieve its goal, to walk the distance. It’s like a car in which you travel. It’s not you. It is some convenience that saves time.

Let us reach out, let us hail Guru Ram Das and heal the world from treachery and from torture, from this mental confusion, from permanent depression, from cold anger that never leaves, and let us only like our real self. The real self is gracious, is recognizable. The real self shines.

Try to understand, once and for all, the purpose of life. Why can’t you learn from a rose flower? The purpose of life is beauty. See the rose. It opens, it gives its fragrance, and its petals fall apart. But it gives, for four or five days, a beautiful color and beautiful joy to every eye that sees it, every nose that smells it. Value your independence and virtue, your sovereignty. May you always be sovereign in your personality, your nature, and your action. And may Guru bless you. Take the flag of nobility and walk with it. There is nothing like being noble. Nothing like being noble. Remember, nobility is the basic virtue to be human.

© 2003 YB Teachings, LLC

An Attitude of Deathlessness

March 12, 1989

Excerpts from a lecture by Yogi Bhajan

Meditation is not what you do in the morning; that's a practice. Meditation is the result of that practice.

We cannot survive through adversity without meditation. Meditation is a process through which you take your total self, your pride, your ego, and your spirit, and you put them on the line. Meditation is not closing your eyes. Birds close their eyes. Do they meditate? That’s not meditation. When the heavenly forces move at the command of the individual, that is called meditation.

When you are dead, the soul leaves you. When the soul leaves you, the soul’s purpose also leaves. You look like you are the same person, as beautiful as you are today, but the soul is not there. At that time, we put you on a pile of wood and light a fire underneath. There are some who are put on that funeral pyre and they burn to ashes, but out of the ashes their soul lives, like the phoenix that rises out of the ashes, because their words remain as their legacy. Their words stand.

Just remember, in your life there are three things: param, karam and dharam. Param means doubt. Karam means action and reaction. Dharam means when you have absolutely no action or reaction: at that time the Universe will serve you and you'll become a watcher. You may need two million things in your life, but you cannot go after two million things. You have to wait and let two million things come to you. Guru Nanak says, "Don't go out and leave your home in a search, because when God comes to your address, you will not be there.”

We all live a lie when we live in param. Living in param, living in doubt, is living a lie. Simple English. There are no two ways about it. So long as there is doubt, it's a lie. When you live in karam, it’s like living on a battlefield, with action and reaction. You will never be real. It's a strangulating struggle that goes on and on and on. There's no peace. In karam there is no peace—just action and reaction, equal and opposite. Newton's third law.

Then comes dharam, when there’s no doubt. There is a long history of the excellence of the human when he lives in dharam. When living in dharam, man becomes God. With the meditative mind of dharam, man has the faculty to conquer death and become deathless.

Do you know what love is? Love is consistent memory. With each breath it comes; it lives; it exists in you.

Body is the shell experience. Mind is the perpetual experience. Soul is the real experience. As you remember the earthly father, we, the Khalsa, remember our heavenly father who taught us one thing: deathlessness. Akal moorat, ajoonee saibhang, gur prasaad (image of deathlessness, never having been born, self-illumined, gift of the Guru). Understand that line and you will understand deathlessness. Deal with everything in your life today with the attitude of deathlessness. See what happens.

What you are collecting, what you are going after, what you are seeking, shall not work. What will work? When you will become as nothing, you shall see everything, you shall feel everything, you shall know everything, you shall command everything. That's the law.

Recognize and understand that your pranas are going away. You have limited prana—shakti. You don't have unlimited shakti. Don’t waste it on the body. Don’t waste it on the mind’s games. Do something for the soul. You are a part of that sun Shakti, that solar Shakti, that prana Shakti. You don't have to freak out. You don't have to do anything. Just feel the light in you. Feel the deathlessness in you. And feel it deeply. If nobody has awakened you, nobody has abused you, that is your privilege. If somebody has awakened you, somebody has called you a name, somebody has challenged you, that is also your supreme privilege. Face the challenge. It is the enemy that gives you strength. Friends don't. Friends are with you; you are with your friends. If you do not understand that life is there to challenge you on every breath of life, then you do not understand living. If you do not challenge your life yourself, somebody else will challenge it.

I don't want to tell you what to do and what not to do. I just want to tell you: Thought is the most powerful thing in the world. There is nothing more powerful than thought. Everything starts from thought. Your intellect has the absolute capacity to release one thousand thoughts per wink of the eye, so you have no dearth of thoughts. Just create your own thought, "I am deathless. I’ll see things deathlessly." And you'll become deathless. This is the faculty of the Khalsa. This is the faculty of purity. Purity belongs to God. Victory belongs to God. And you belong to God. Wahe Guru ji ka Khalsa: Purity belongs to Wahe Guru. Wahe Guru ji ki Fateh: Victory belongs to Wahe Guru. Why? Because you belong to Wahe Guru. And those who meditate and chant Wahe Guru, those who understand that Infinity and grace and ecstasy of Wahe Guru, those who want to enjoy that, well, where is the happiness? It is in that thought. In that deathlessness.

Just understand, you will lose all the happiness in your life because of the fear of death. You are afraid, and a man in fear and phobia has no intuitive sensitivity. It's simple psychology. What I am saying to you and sharing with you is—a thought. Make your own profile. Spend only half an hour on yourself. Go today and make your own deathlessness profile of activity, and see what it does for you. See what it can do for you. See how much experience of self you gain out of it. There is nothing more I can tell you.

© YB Teachings, LLC 1992

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



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