Yogi Bhajan Lecture Archive
Lecture by :
Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji
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Lecture on: 04/14/1988
Category: Khalsa Council
Location: Los Angeles, Ca
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Public

I am not the Siri Singh Sahib

Please be seated. There is a situation which you and your generations who you feel shall follow you... you and your generations which shall follow you... you and the surrounding of the generations in the humanity which shall not follow you, but be around...and the generation of the people which shall not follow you and shall not be around but shall oppose you... and the people who shall oppose you to the point of a kind of a insanity. Even in that, what you have got spiritually, that is what the fight is going to be about.

People have lost their spiritual connection therefore their mind is dry, and a dry mind is a creating mind but a very painful confusion. Look at it very honestly. How many people you meet a day and how many people are trying to make their roots deeper and deeper, and deeper and expanded and supportive on the earth? Do you mean to say, if I make a pillar and I go two hundred feet down and expand its root support, because of it maybe in a quarter mile area and built into an anger, and create the dome situation to give it the impact against the violence of the wind and the circumstances of the storm, and I cover the earth with a whole wonderful science of engineering I know, and after that I want is just to get up and get to heavens? Will that ever happen? No! That can't happen. Therefore the principle of the beauty of life in which you live light, and spread light. There are two principle factors which are the challenge of the humanity today: Live light and spread the light. World will be at your feet.
Hey, in the dark room if the darkness is started moving around, nobody will notice. But in the dark room the relationship between darkness and light is, whenever the candle is lit, how huge that darkness may be, within the vicinity of the voltage of the candle light, darkness is gone. Many of you move in life but forget you are a living light. And that is the handicap you are facing. Otherwise the world in the darkness just needs just a hope.

It's not within my power to change the environments and the circumstances. It is not within my power to tell a donkey to become a cockroach. But it is the hand of the power that when a teacher misses the style of the life bestowed on him, the path of being teacher, the next life for him is a cockroach. That I know. There's no bigger ego and insanity, and logic and reason, than a spiritual ego. A man with spiritual ego will put all the logic and reason to justify that which he already knows consciously is wrong. So to discuss with spiritual people what is right or wrong, it doesn't work. When they are wrong, they have all the capacity at their command to reason it out. Whenever in life you start reasoning and logicalizing the soul... the spirit, you are absolutely phony. Logic or reason is human. You are above angels.

Gur kirpa de bhagat kamaaee
Taaee maanas de-ee paa-ee.
Is de-ee ko simarat dev.

The angels want this body which you already got. And you look different...because you are different! The strength of you is your consciousness, your intelligence, and your understanding... the depth. How well deep rooted you are in the planet earth... your depth... how heavenly you are being on the earth. That's the exchange, that's the change, and that's the exchange for prosperity. Be selfish. You will have prosperity, you'll have virtue, and you will have strength. If you are commotional, emotional, moody, what you can do? You can prostitute yourself, you can live moment to moment, you can live from mess to mess. You will live person to person, you will live situation to situation.

I was telling somebody this morning, the army units of America which are serving in Germany have become Germans? The base command is the base command! And our base command is our spiritual Self and our arrogance and our light to show the world that we are commited Sikhs of the Guru. The joy to belong... and belong in the sense that that is the priority in life and that is the understanding in life... there's no ecstasy to match it. Nothing can match it. Your personality is zero, but when it stands with the One, it becomes "10". We have to stand once for experience with the one who knows the One. That is why Khalsa was given the Siri Guru Granth so that once said, hundred times said, million times said, it should be nothing but True. That Truth, "Aad sach, jugaad sach, heibhee sach, naanak hosee bhee sach." Man will interpret wrong, man will say wrong, man will say things under accumulated fear. A man can say under subconscious phobia. Man can say to grind his axe. Man can say to dodge
and dominate and make others dummy, and to draw people's attention to him or to reject people. Man can do so many things. But a Sikh does one thing!... he does read the word of the Guru and act to please the Guru. One action, One God, one action, one statement of acts. Read the word of the Guru and please be the world of Guru. Read the word, "w-o-r-d", read the word of the Guru and please the world, "w-o-r-l-d." Please the world of the Guru. That's what Sikh does. Nothing else. And when he does with absolute purity, then he's a Khalsa.

Kindness, compassion, service...kindness, compassion, service, and nobility are your primary decorations. I don't have to convince anybody. Look at me! I am presenting my case before you. You arrange me to go to any holy of the holiest of the holy man. Moment I will enter, he will freak out. You bet with me. And I know nothing... and I'm not going to say anything because nobody knows the secret to know. Because when it comes to the test of life, spoken truth and realized truth are two different truths. While speaking the truth, you have to use logic, you have to use reason, you have to use environments, you have to use dramatization, you have to use drama to convince and draw and suck and have the attention. God knows how many things you are going to do. But when truth is realized, you don't have to do anything. Then your presence will do. Because I tell you, in the world of the spirit, if a man of God expects the other man has come, right away he's not a man of God. Now I'm telling you the inner story. You
understand? A man of God who has 30, 40, 50 people, 200,000, two hundred million, whatever... when he sits and somebody comes to him...that's why your counseling as Singh Sahib's, Mukhia Singh Sahib's and Sikhs is mostly wrong. You do not know the art of counseling. Because you presume the person who has come to you has nothing but need. It's not true. The person who has come may have come with no need, but to test you whether you are stupid or wise; whether you have learned compassion and kindness or not; whether you are real or you are not. What do you think? God has his agents, what should I do?

One thing I was talking to God this morning, I said, "What nonsense is this? Huh? You are God, you are Almighty, you are everywhere." He said, "No. I am not everywhere." I said, "Look, God, I have been taught all these years that God is everywhere and You are everywhere." He said, "No, I am not everywhere. I am just in the challenge!" And I said, "Where is there not a challenge?" He said, "Well, you know it... but others don't." So I said, "I'll go to the Khalsa Council... I'll tell them!" So that's why I'm telling you what conversation I had with God. Everything is a challenge, and there is a God. Most of the time you don't think there is a challenge. You think, "It is smooth... That's my baby... That's mine." No, ji! That is not true! SIKH GOES WHERE GOD IS, AND SIKH ALSO GOES WHERE GOD IS NOT. Life is a mission, it moves, it goes, it serves. Those who belong once, they belong forever. Those who belong once and then decide whether they should or not... they don't have
a chance. Because one challenge is enough to win... and to then go on creating challenges and keep on winning and losing, it is a mathematics. Nobody has ever survived through this. All spiritual people become blind, phony, absolute idiots because they think they are spiritual. The very thought of being a human and thinking you are spiritual is totally erasing your kindness towards God and giving your turn back. You become egomaniacs. When a person comes to you and you think you are superior and spiritual, you should feel superior and spiritual in the sense that God has given you the opportunity to serve. That's called humility, which God loves. God lives off those who become meek. The test of life is, "Friend, be mighty, but act meek. Be poor, but act rich. Be foolish, act wise." And for that you have to work, which you don't want.

You know what, you want a such a situation where wisdom can be packaged and delivered to you by ounces. Like ginseng or like Yogi Tea... like those kind of things that you can take, you can taste, you feel good, and then you feel good for a while. No, my dear, it doesn't work that way. In this lifetime, wisdom is the only thing which you have to create within yourself. Everybody can give you help to become wise. Everybody can give you knowledge to become wise. Everybody can give you help and environments to become wise. Everybody can bring the entire wisdom of the world before you to become wise, but to create wisdom within you, you have to work! There's no other way. Why? It's a very simple thing.

Hukam razaa-ee chalanaa
Naanak likhiaa naal.
--Guru Nanak, Japji Sahib

Hukam is order. Razaa is the good will. There are the two words used. Under the command of the God, and under the good will of the God. What is the good will of the God? Guru's word. This God has decreed with you... decreed... this is decreed. How the false walls of the lie can be broken?


Kiv koorai tutai paal.

--Guru Nanak, Japji Sahib

Kooray tootai paal. "Paal" means the wall, "koor" means the lies... Maya, illusion. How this wall of the falsehood in us can be broken? "Hukam razaaee chalanaa, Naanak likhiaa naal." In the command and in the good will of the God. What is the good will of the God? Anybody knows? What is the command of the God? Huh? (Student: "Guru's order.") No, no, no, no, no! What is the hukam? "Ik Ong Kar Sat Gur Prasaad." You are the creation of the One, all is the creation of the One, and so it shall be! That is Guru's blessing. Gur Prasaad. Ik Ong Kar Sat Gur Prasaad. True Guru gives that blessing that you are the creation of the One.


Aval alah noor oopaa-i-aa,
Kudrat ke sabh bande.

--Kabir, p. 1349

There was but One God in the beginning and through it came the light and all creatures and creation come from that light.


Ek noor te sabh jag oopaji-aa
kon bhale ko mande.
--Kabir, p. 1349

From one light everything is born. Who can be good and who can be bad? That is where spiritual ego hurts. Where you think somebody who has come to you is inferior to you? No! You should see somebody has to come to you, it has given you a superior OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE!

I am very happy I am not well, because it is forcing you to become responsible. It is a wonderful opportunity that you can't bug me and expect out of me that I should be perfect... that everything should be running perfect. You KNOW I'm not well! And you do things very well which you are supposed to do. You know how polite it is? I am going for the evening walk to home and you've got to take care of the whole thing. Slow, steady, peaceful.

You think I became self-imposed? I crowned myself being Siri Singh Sahib? I never even knew what a Siri Singh Sahib means! That's a truth! One guy told him, "Make him Singh Sahib." He said, "You have Singh Sahib's here which are in your employ. He's not in your employ. Let us take him to the Akal Takhat, give him a Siri Sahib, and make him Siri Singh Sahib." And I was asking Bhai Mandir Singh, the secretary of the S.G.P.C., what is this 'Siri Singh Sahib'? What they are making me? He said, "I do not know. This is the first time I have heard this." So when he told me and I got the Siri Sahib, and they told me I am Siri Singh Sahib, I told him, I said, "Forget about this 'Siri Singh Sahib'... write down in English I am a minister, I can do marriages, I can appoint ministers." I never knew that I was reading or writing. That was Siri Singh Sahib itself! I never knew that Harbhajan Singh has become Siri Singh Sahib. It took me a long time when they challenged that I was not
Siri Singh Sahib. I woke up, "I am not?" I said, "No, I am!" He said, "No!" I said, "I AM Siri Singh Sahib! No...I am not Siri Singh Sahib!" Because I understood. I am not Siri Singh Sahib! That's right! Siri Singh Sahib is Siri Singh Sahib. I am serving the Siri Singh Sahib! I am not...it is true! Don't lie about it. It is true! I am not Siri Singh Sahib. But it also true I have been bestowed at the moment for time and space to SERVE Siri Singh Sahib. Siri Singh Sahib is above me. Siri Singh Sahib has his own independent dictates. Siri Singh Sahib has his own consciousness. And Siri Singh Sahib has his own assessments. My prayer is that God, Lord, Guru, makes me worthy to fit in and do it. Otherwise if the foot does not fit the shoe, calluses will be many and journey will be painful.

Jio jio chaleh chubhai dukh paaveh jam kaal seheh sir dandaa he.

--Kirtan Sohila

When as you 'll walk, this ego has a nail in your foot, as you walk it will hurt, it will hurt, it will hurt, and it will hurt tremendously! That's why when you read Kirtan Sohila: "Kaam krodh nagar baho bhariaa." kaam: desire; krodh: anger. There are two things: nagar baho bhariaa. Cities... cities.... individual homes are filled with it.

"Kaam krodh nagar baho bhariaa
Mil saadhoo khandal dhandaa he.

--Kirtan Sohila

But if you meet the disciplined people, then you can avoid it... Void it. Secretary of the religion, read this pauree of the Kaam krodh...

"Poorab likhat likhe gur paa-i-aa..."

All the destiny which has been written on my forehead, I have got it from the Guru. You do not get your total destiny by yourself. That is the misunderstanding you all have. You do not get the fate or the destiny by yourself. You get it either by the Guru or by the rejection of the Guru. That is why Guru Gobind Singh gave you the shabad Guru so that you may not worship a man. And after all, those people who say without a personal Guru there is no other way... I'm asking that question: What is it that a personal Guru says? Hanky pankies and different things in different circumstances which he changes and not changes? Why not to follow the Siri Guru Granth, which never changes one thing all the time, one time, over time, at night, and not. Can you get such kind of Guru? There's only one in the world which is called Siri Guru Granth. Gur, Guru, Sat Guru, Siri Guru, and Wahe Guru. And this is the only one Guru which is called Siri Guru. Everything else stops at "Sat Guru" or at "Guru." Why
this is Siri Guru? Because internationally, universally, it says the same thing. Same thing.

The problem I have seen, somebody told me once a very, it was very joyful to me. I really, I see how Guru works. Somebody wanted to take a hukam and the person took a hukam. Once the page opened. She said she didn't like the hukam. So she did another and then opened again and Guru opened again to the same page. And then she thought perhaps this is the place where it normally opens. And then she closed her eyes and tried to go a different side, you know, with the hand to open it somewhere different and then she tried to open it, and when she opened the page, the same hukam. Then it was the end of the day. She called, and luckily I picked up the phone. I said, "What is the matter?" She said, "Well, I am taking the hukam." I said, "Yeah? What is wrong with the hukam? You want some meaning to be understood? Should I explain to you?" She said, "No, there is something bad happening here." I said, "With the Guru? What bad can happen?" She said, "I have done this, I have done... at
same page is coming." I said, "Well, what should I do? This is the Siri Guru Granth." She said, "No, this is a holy book. It should only tell me. It is commanding over me, it is dictating me!" I said, "Yeah, it does. I can't tell it not to command and dictate. That's its job." She said, "But do you understand what is happening?" I said, "Now please, just close your eyes and casually open the Guru." She opened the Guru casually... same hukam. That's it! I said, "Read it to me. What is your question?" Question and hukam fitted so well, I can't even believe it! That's why we call it a 'living Guru.' Living soul of the ten Gurus. That's why we call it that. That's what you got. Yes? What you say? (Ram Das Kaur continues reading the fourth pauree of Kirtan Sohila.)

Kar sadhoo anjalee pun vadaa he.
Kar dandot pun vadaa he.

Dandot means prostration. You worship and you reverence it. It's a "pun vadaa he." It's a good merit. It's a great merit. Yes?... (RDK continues.)

Saakat har ras saad naa jaaniaa
tin antar homai kandaa he.

Saakat har ras....saakat means those who deny the heavens and make themselves deeper on the earth.... called "saakat." Saakat is the root cause of the opposite of the sakat. Sakat means the power. Saakat means who deny the power. "Saakat har ras saad naa jaaniaa." Is that true? The Saakat has not found the 'Har ras', God's juice from the sadhu, from the disciplined one. "saakat har ras saad naa jaaniaa, tin antar homai kandaa he." Why he did not know it? Why don't you know it? Because inside you is the thorn of that ego. Yes?...

Jio jio chaleh chubhai dukh paaveeh
jamkaal saaheh sir dandaa he.

Jio jio chaleh chubhai dukh paaveh: As you walk, it will hurt and hurt, and that will give you pain and pain. Jamkaal: then the death, the god of the death will hit your head like a baseball bat! That's what it says. I mean, it's nothing new.

Harijan har har naam samaane dukh
janam maran bhav khandaa he.

Now rest you should explain to them. I got my job done.

So basically what I'm trying to explain to you, in even your inner Kirtan Sohila, and it's the last time you speak to the God through the Guru's words, it explains to you life in such a clarity. There's a clarity, there's a purity, there's a dignity, there's a nobility. And be proud of it! Be proud of it not that YOU are noble and you are dignified and you are spiritual and you are this and you are that. Just understand that you have the opportunity to SERVE it. You are not Sikhs... you are humans who have the opportunity to serve the being of the Sikh. You don't understand that, huh? You think you are Sikh? Forget it. You are not Sikhs. You are human beings, raw material. You have been fortunate to be given the opportunity to serve the being of the Sikh in the body of the human. You don't like it? You never even understood it! You never understood the truth. You thought you had become Sikhs. No! You were born human. How can God be wrong? You were born human, you will remain
human. You will never become a goat or a ram, or a tiger or a cheetah or a snake. You'll continue to be human, but in this condition you are here to serve the body, the being of the Sikh.

And when you get baptized, or you are honored, or it is bestowed on you to be the member of the Khalsa, then you have the privilege to serve the body, the council, the being of the Khalsa. You are who are asked to serve... being Singh Sahib and Mukhia Singh Sahib and Siri Singh Sahib. These are the chances given to serve to the human. These things are not human. These things are that which a human serves and excels and enjoys. You are a human, you are not a spiritual teacher. You are a human, you are not a counselor. These things you aquire through your power of work and experience and prayer, and then you serve it. Then it is not your will. It becomes good will. Good will belongs to all. Will belongs to you, and free will belongs to those who do not have any will of their own. When the will becomes gypsy... those who run around... it finds no house in the zodiac.

Spirituality is a spirituality and it's a science of reality. Human being is a creative... and a mass of raw material which sometimes gets the opportunity to serve these high exalted offices and it's a service as a gratitude... with an attitude of gratitude. That's to reach the Divine excellence.

With these words and with my prayer to this Council, I'll understand the members of the council will become examples, and personify their personalities that through the words of the Guru, you have been honored to serve. For all these years, people who have come and attended Khalsa Council regularly might have a creative doubt what we are gaining. You are gaining nothing... but simply, you are not going to lose anything at all because you are obeying a sentiment of personality and emotional reality to bring into the observation of your magnetic personality that you know the power to obey. And law of spirituality is: Obey, Serve, Love, Excel.


Mane kee gat kahee naa jaaeh
Je ko kahai pichhai pachhutaa-eh.
Kaagad kalam naa likhanhaar
Mane kaa beh karan veechaar.
Esaa naam niranjan hoeh.
Je ko mann jaanai man koeh.

--Guru Nanak, Japji Sahib

What you have, what you can learn, what you can expand and what you can experience... nobody can, provided you have the guts to serve. Provided you have the courage to obey. Provided you have the ingredients to love. And provided you have the prayer to excel. Nobody excels without prayer.

You know, a lot of people say a lot of things to me. They say things against me. They say things for me. They say things to me. They say things to pull the rug under my feet. They do the things to just put a canopy on me. A canopy on you called "chutter". When the royal umbrella is spread over your head, it is called chutter, and shoe is called chitter. In Punjabi if you write chutter and chitter, chutter and chitter, there is hardly any difference. It is a very simple word. So those who are willing to demand that they shall have chutter, the canopy of majesty, also will be ready to get chitter, to beaten by the shoes. And the real ones are those who do not care, who: "Ja-ne jetiaa mukhaa..." Those who try to inscribe themselves as God, their faces are beaten with the shoes. That's why the death of the spiritual teacher is when he thinks he is the spiritual teacher. The life of the spiritual teacher is when he thinks he is the servant of the spiritual teacher which is bestowed on him.

You serve the cause and the principle as you, within you, for others. Understood? And the college which practically teaches it and binds you together and gives you the experience and the purity and the dignity and the nobility of the Khalsa, that is the Khalsa Council of the Western Hemisphere! So you are the great, great ones, to belong to it. That is why I always hesitate to take away that privilege with my authority. Because I still love to give everybody a chance to straighten out their act. Because bestowed privilege is the very act of kindness of God, and blessing of the Guru. Those who blow it, they do not just blow "a" chance... they blow THE chance! Therefore I am trying to explain to you... realize, evaluate, assess yourself. Know yourself. Find yourself. Go deeper in yourself. Do not give away cheap. For a little conch, a little seashell, you are giving away the pearl. Nobody will judge you wise in this game. Please remember, you are a great oyster. Minus pearl you are just damn muscles and somebody
is going to put a little lemon and little olive oil on you and swallow you to be his poop tomorrow. And I know who does that and his name is Time. And I know the stupidity is called the space. Because space is a flaw, a creative flaw, but it looks like a reality. You are Western people, you know science. What this oriental Indian knows? But I knew all that when I was three years old... that space is a space, looks to be real, and creatively it is dark and empty and it is endless in which there are certain oases of life like that in the great Sahara in which experiemnts are going on. All over, millions and zillions of lives living, are all transparent. Only the earth has the grossness of experience and sensitivity through which the reality is experienced and consciousness is expanding to understand the identity, and qualifying and crowning the identity is the purpose of life on this earth. Not to eat bagels from New York and Eastern style pizza and Western style spaghetti, and becoming emotional and consciousness and
creating fuss! Life is a reality in the magnitude of Infinity, where a person realizes the deep understanding and the strength within itself to collaborate its own self, to crown itself with that experience which God is crowning, to make it real and realize it. That's called experience of ecstasy. Not to gossip and understand not understanding at all. Are you meterologicals, that you discuss weather all the time and waste your twenty dollars on a breakfast? You pay more money to AT&T and other companies. "How's the weather, how's it going? How many clothes I should bring? What kind of clothes? Do you think the weather will handle it or not?" If you were weather-proof and weathered yourself, you would understand that weather is just weather, and weather can change while you are on the flight. Weather changes with everybody... but you just discuss the weather which you want to discuss, though it might be changing for you, too. Therefore it is my prayer and my understanding
and that's why I'm not a coward that I don't want to act. And I'm not that compassionate either that I'm a coward.

Some of you are so irregulars in the senior camp that you think that I don't take action because I am afraid of... kind of. That's not true. I'm not afraid of anything. I just don't want to take away anybody's opportunity. My human does not allow my being to become a party to write the fatal words for those whom I have loved, nurtured and nursed. Please understand it very clearly and consciously. Don't ever trust me. I'm a spiritual teacher. I'll follow the spirit, realized and loved and contained and stained, sustained in my very being. So if you have a misunderstanding somewhere you can buy me and sell me, you are wrong. You are trusting your own foolishness.

When I came in this country, I walked in. I never knew one of you. And I may not know it still. And you never knew me either. And still I'm just the biggest puzzle in your life. But aren't we going on together and that's all that matters? I came under the will of God to do the Guru's work and you are here to do the Guru's work. You are the future, I am the past. We are discussing nothing in present except to keep up. Didn't I sum up everything in the universe just saying, "Keep up, you shall be kept up"? Rest is a hodge podge! And what does "cherdi kala" mean? Later on I understood, all my life I have been saying: "Naanak naam cherdi kalaa..." Nanak by the virtue of the Holy Nam, you WILL keep up! Now look, what is the difficulty? And then you will wish good to all. "Serbat ka balaa." Actually when you are keeping up, you want good for all. When you are not keeping up, that is where you do the sneaky things. So simple!

So my humble request is, don't make simple things to be complicated. All right? Do I have the assurance that this body of the Khalsa will avoid creating complications?

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


- END OF TRANSCRIPT -
4/14/88

Copyright YOGI BHAJAN, 1988

Transcript by Tej Kaur Khalsa, Los Angeles, CA


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



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