Yogi Bhajan Lecture Archive
Lecture by :
Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji
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Lecture on: 10/08/1989
Category: Gurdwara
Location: Espanola, NM
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Public

-= LIFE =-

WAHE GURU JI KA KHALSA, WAHE GURU JI KI FATEH!

It is my very pleasurable honor that I could serve the Guru... and in this place. This will be my Sunday which I will like to share with you. So I'll like to be forgiven if it is little longer because I am going to explain to you "LIFE."

You live. And not you, but everybody, lives by a process of a voluntary gift. God created humanity and it's not that life is on the planet earth... and if Darwin's theory is true then we are basically lizards, and from lizards we became apes, and from apes we became humans. And still the lizard is in us and it will never go away. Or, the theory which the Muslims believe is that God said: "Kuhn, Kuhn so be!" and it all happened and it all appeared. So, it doesn't matter. God does many things anyway, but whatever He did, He did. But question is that now it is 1989 and we are right here. Whether we are lizards but we are still in the body of a human, or it all happened, but whatever -- we are still here. We are now.

And we have to live our life. Life is a process, believe it or not, and life is not what you live. Like earth has its own axle but it has also its orbit. If you consider your life as yours, then you will always be a poor, unhappy, unfulfilled, and miserable creature. It doesn't matter how religious you are. I can bet from one to a hundred on it. Because you must understand that the force of life is not you. God is nothing but a pure energy. God is nothing but a purity. God is nothing but that Self which must see. These two eyes given to you can only read a billboard, but these eyes also can see what is seeing through them. These ears can hear the sound on their drums and can translate by brain, but these drums can also hear who's drumming in you. This tongue can speak good and bad, negative and positive... it can be slanderous and it can be appreciative... but if at a purpose behind you also can see what is the purpose of your life... and that is God... not the purpose of the
time and space.

So long a man serves time and space, he is poor. Rich is not that one who has all the wealth. Rich is that one who has the longest reach. When the finite becomes part of Infinity, and finite acknowledges infinity, and finite crosses the infinity within the finite, that is called 'yoga.'

Yoga is a science. Science of union of finite with Infinity. Some yogis started saying, "Let us give up everything." Some started saying, "let us take everything." Some started saying, "Philosophy is what you should know." Others started saying, "Being practical is what you know." Some said, "Seva is the only way. Serve and be humble." Some said, "No. You should be above all and nothing should touch you." So there came a lot of philosophies and lot of lines in the yoga to just dictate and people dedicated themselves to those dictates.

Finally came the time of Guru Nanak. He was an Udhaasee himself, he was a saint himself, and he was a Guru himself. He came out after all calculations with one idea: that man has to have imperial power as well as humility with it. The world of Raaj Yog came right then.

You should be very imperial in your living and you should be very saintly in your dealings. And then the concept of a soldier and a saint came which is not found before anywhere. You have to act like a soldier, but you have to think or imagine or process the whole thing as a saint. These are very important issues.

Guru Nanak said it is not a good idea to be poor. You can have all the richness of the world, but it is a very bad idea to be attached. He taught detachment in attachment. He thought that if you have wealth, it'll be fine. You can do so much good for others who deserve not otherwise the happiness... you can make them happy... and that's what you have to do. His teachings were very direct, very honest, very humane. He did not believe that we should lie upside down, tie ourselves with the tree, or put fire around us, or go through the sweat of it. He didn't teach us to do things which normally people do to test their courage and grit. He said: "Knowing truth is not enough. If you cannot live it, you will never experience it!" And that is enough. But also he said: "Truth can be individual, truth can be what truth is, but truth has to be that truth which is universal. There's one God and that one God has His own grace." He said: "Become the part of that grace."

That is why we became grishtis, we became householders, and in the house holding we started holding the grace of God. So the theory came out to be whether we dedicate ourself to God and Guru or not. Is our ego big enough? I mean, he said, "Homeh vadaa rog hei daaroo is maa-eh." Ego is the biggest disease, but solution is also with it and ego is big enough that it can take the Universal in it. Entire universe... can it merge in your ego? Or your ego is big enough that you can't see any other person?
Is your status big enough that you can carry everybody like a hen carries all the chickens under the feathers and saves them from the death? Or, is your ego big enough that you drop everybody and become totally isolated? Are you beautiful enough that you can spread and shine beauty and happiness to all? Or you are beautiful enough that you hate everybody because everybody is ugly to you? These are very vital decisions in human life which you have to make.

Religion is a science of life, and it is a life of the art of living. It cannot be separated. Main problem in my twenty years in counseling, meeting people, teaching, and talking is that I have found out that we have a problem and it is a human problem: We are all insecure and our whole concept how we want to deal with our life comes from our insecurity.

I understand there is a negative mind, and I understand there is a positive mind, but that neither the negative mind can work nor the positive mind can work for you. If you want to be anybody who can be respected, trusted or worthwhile, you have to let these two minds bypass. Negative mind will tell you what is for you. Positive mind will tell you what is positive for you but both minds will tell you what is FOR you. It is the neutral mind that will tell you what you have to do, and how you have to act. How you should be.

And I am very apologetic in saying it, "Jinaa raam pashaataa virale se janaa." They are very far, and far in between who even have the slightest consideration: "Let us think neutrally for a minute." Some people in their ego try to expand themselves beyond their skin. Some people in their ego try to contract themselves beyond their being. We become too small or too big all the time.

There was a one word I was told that day and it came out of the mouth of Prem, she said: "We have an exaggerated self-image and we cannot handle ourself within the face of reality, and we fall apart." And it was very innocently said. But it was such a truth. Since I heard it, I started repeating it all the time. We exaggerated ourselves with our image, and we expand it. It is just like it is a foot pump. We put so much air in the tires, that they burst up and then we have a burst tire... flat tire... and then we do not know where to go. That's a very reality of every life.

I am very shocked. There are eight major religions and this country is Judeo-Christian. The only place I have really seen the cross being worshipped and sitting there in calm and peace and quiet without disturbance is in the graveyards. It's very fine there. Nobody bothers it and it doesn't bother. Once in a while they bring the flowers and that's all it is about.

But do you understand what we are living for? If we are living for here... not to create a flow of life... we are not living. If we are giving people the elevation, we are not elevating other people. Our own elevation means nothing. That is why Guru Nanak refused to go to the caves and be part of the yogis, be part of the siddhas, be part of the nathas, be part of those great gurus of that time. And he told them: "You are all stupid." So much so that he said: "You are born out of woman who didn't make any sense." If you read his conversation with those great gurus... "Kuchaa ji. Maa kuchaa ji jaa-eh." "An unmannerful mother has given you the life. That's why you are doing what you are doing." Can you believe it? He abused their mother. He not only abused them and confronted them, he abused their mother. He said, "What are you doing? You have come out in the caves, you are isolated, you do miracles and you can enjoy yourself and you can test on each other. What about the world at large?"

You can live in Espanola, you have nothing to do, it is all great community, land is very perfect. It is going to be more wealth, price-wise high land than you can think. It is in a very better, good spot. You are enjoying it. You have a community here, you are feeling here. Then what about the world around you? How many people need you? How many people just want to see you smiling? How many people....

Uh, you know in New Mexico, one thing works. Smile. Shaking hands. And be sure that you are speaking shiningly few words. "Hi, how are you? Howdy, howdy, howdy." If you think here that great philosophy will work, absolutely you are wrong. Smiling faces, shaking hands... and be sure of yourself. Here if a person finds out you are very sure-footed, they love you. Naturally which a country where there is a lot of earthquakes, nobody wants to build a house. And a person whose life is nothing but full of earthquakes, nobody can love that person. Unfortunately your earthquakes are very beautiful: 4.5... 5.2... they are not very damaging but they are not very pleasant either.

It is something you have to understand: what spirituality is. Spirituality is a totality. It is a total commitment between you and God which is very difficult. It can be only achieved by the process through the Guru. Guru's word, Guru's shabad is an anchor. It will carry you through.

The blessed we are is that our Guru continues to say the same thing again and again. You can't change his mind. You open up a page, it will say exactly the same thing today, tomorrow and thereafter. There's nothing. It is said and done. You have no option. And you can't change it either... because you are not intelligent to create that music and those words in that balance, in that poetry, either. That's why it's very pure and very original... very pure and very original. There are a lot of disputes about it. But reality is a reality.

What is Sikh Dharma? Let me tell you in a few words. Sikh Dharma is not what you think or what I think. Sikh Dharma is an identity. It has a face and it has a grace. Sikh Dharma is not a religion like any other religion, but unfortunately because of the convenience, we say it is a religion. It is a very practical, well-balanced way of life. I cannot believe that one who practices what Sikh Dharma offers can ever be poor or can ever be unhappy. I practice on myself. I went AWOL and I just forgot everything and Golden Temple got attacked and whole community was scattered. And all of a sudden on my shoulders came the responsibility... how to lead 18 million people on this planet? I looked around. Leaders were all jailed. Everything was all gone. And outside, to be very frank with you, or inside, there was absolutely nothing at the moment. Constitutionally and legally I am the only one person alive who can authentically represent Sikh Dharma. But movement was so bad... agony and pain was so bad... reaction was so bad that
at that time if I would have spoken one word they would have shot me too. Everything there was nothing but fire, anger, desperation and depression. Then I thought: "All of you who have come in faith to the Sikh Dharma, without defending the other party, we should save the scene, save the day." And we have done so far successfully. Thank God that the books were off target, that everybody is now realizing that I was right and they were wrong.

But do you know that my security is still so vital that you cannot even predict that next minute somebody will not put six bullets right through me? There are people... very angry. Why they are angry? Because they started wrong, they continued wrong, and they are still wrong. They do not know how to justify themselves. Because there is a one very meek voice, sick enough... I now consider all my sickness was the only reason I got saved. Otherwise, if I would have been healthy and walking around and saying what I felt and what the truth was, I would have been the first person to be dead.

This sickness of mine did two things: First it kept the enemies in a merciful condition. And secondly it did a wonderful job. It kept you united. Because in adversity unity becomes very easy. Now our unity will be terrible. We'll not be united anymore. Because now our time of prosperity has come.

You'll watch my words. From now, in another ten years, one decade, you'll find we'll be talking in different tones, different notes. Prosperity does something. Prosperity brings a lot of strength, and if you cannot control it, you become a drunkard. Then you start walking... mocking... left and right. And it will happen. It is the way it is going to happen. And we have been very well prepared because first we were very little and very small and we were very useless. At that time we wanted to become useful and in that some were lazy, and some were crazy, and some were dazy and gazy, and whatever that was. It was going on. But now we have become a solid, respectable human community. We are a very vital part of the United States. We are extremely effective. Why? We have a Western mind and oriental wisdom. We have the wheel. We can really deal better and we can really be very impressive and we can really be going far above the average man. We don't have to run after opportunities... Opportunities will run to us. But
we have the use of the human mind which has an established history and track of thousand of years of balance.

I have been counseling you. "My wife's chemistry doesn't meet with me." "All right, put some water and dilute it a little bit so that chemistry can meet." Then they put so much water that there is no reaction to it. "Now there is no reaction." This is an ongoing process. Fact is, you do not know who you are. There's no chemistry and there's no psychology and there's no depression. All these psychological terms are to get money out of you. Fact is, you love to be idiot, you enjoy to be idiot, and you think somebody's going to come and take the idiot away out of you, and give you happiness on a silver platter! That's what you are. Between you and that fish which does the work in the Sea World, eyes don't see any difference. You want to perform and then you want a biscuit for it. No, my dear, nature doesn't work that way. Nature has already given you a big biscuit and that is the prana. That's life itself. That's being itself... the identity itself, and the intelligence itself.
Nature has given you more than you deserve. And when somebody gives you more than you deserve, and then you start scratching that guy, do you know what you are going to get? Try it with somebody. You are going to get a black eye, blue lips and broken ribs. You have a choice. The only concluded sense of these two decades that I have found out is that any person who does not practice to be grateful is going to suffer. Count your credit, count your merits, and count your blessings. Don't count your negativity.

I'm accused so many times, "You don't want to hear about anybody." I said, "What to hear? You have gone out, collected the garbage, and now why don't you throw it on me? Am I a garbage dump?" "No, no, you've got to hear! This person is terrible." "All right, I'll sit down. Tell me all about it. All right, this is it? He's terrible, he's miserable, he's a liar, he's this, he's doing this, freaking out, all that. Now what is the solution?" "I don't know -- You should know." "Solution I know? You listen to the garbage. Didn't you understand there is a teacher of yours who said: 'poke, provoke, confront and elevate?' When you poked, provoked, whatever you got, confronted, did you elevate or not? No! You have committed one of the worst human sins."

If you talk to anybody, remember, if you do not elevate that person you have done the worst karma of your life. Elevation is towards God. That is what resurrection is. That is the Phoenix that rises out of the ashes. Call it in any way.

I was talking that day to people and I said: "Do you see yourself in the mirror?" "Yes, sir." "Do you question yourself for who you are beautiful? Are you beautiful for God and Guru or you are beautiful for people and for the occasion? Are you beautiful for the time and the space? Are you out for hunting and making a bit out of it or you are elevated enough that you are beautiful as God and Guru has guided you? Decide it." If you are beautiful... and your mirror tells you not I tell you... if your mirror tells you that you are beautiful for the sake of God and Guru, I can bet you can never be poor. You can never be wrong. This is the greatest meditation. It is a practical yoga. I have found a practical yoga. Karam yoga, dharam yoga, seva, giaan yoga, kundalini yoga, hatha yoga, all mean one thing. Let us be practical about it. And practical yoga is that wherever you go, you must know God and Guru is with you.

In entire Sikh Dharma I bow myself to Siri Guru Granth. It is the wisest thing on the earth. I bow to you. You are the wisest sangat on the earth. But there is only one line which works. If you feel that you know, you understand, you are conscious, you are intelligent and you are intuitive, that 'Ang Sang Wahe Guru' then you are all right. You shall never be in trouble. I am not promising you that trouble won't come to you. I am not promising you that the bad time won't hit. Your samskars will come. Clouds will come. Darkness will come. Twisters will come. Pressure of the air changes low and high. But whether it will destroy you or not, that is decided on that one line. If you feel God and Guru is with every part of you, and you are aware and conscious of it, then you've made it!

These five kaka's we all have as Sikhs. They are only to remind us that the five tattwas... five kakar... which make our being, belong to the Guru. There's nothing more to it. There's absolutely nothing more to it. And it is the Guru's words: "Rehit piaare mohe ko Sikh piaaraa naih." The process of living, the process of living is very darling and dear to me. The Sikh is not.

Rehit means living. Practicing that truth that God and Guru is with me, here and hereafter... and dear to me. Sikh is not. "Rehit"

That's why when you get into any position, you forget what that position means to you. In Sikh Dharma position has a very clear meaning. Higher you are, more humble you are. As proportionate, it is required.

One day a chart was brought to me. "Well, this is Siri Singh Sahib. This is this, this is this, this is this." Whole thing was correct. I put Siri Singh Sahib on the top, I put Siri Singh Sahib at the bottom. And I told the gentleman, I said, "Go and read the Kabbala and take the Kabbala chart." What is high is below. Now can you reject Judaism on that? No. Do Jews practice it? No. Not at all.

Christ said: "If somebody hits on your right cheek, show him the left" but he didn't say, "Keep it bleeding," did he? He also meant that your cheek should be so strong that if somebody hits on the right, his hand should be broken there. He also meant that that strong your cheek should be and then show him the left so that other hand may be broken too. But nobody understands. They interpret it one way: "All right, if I hit on your right cheek, show me the left so I can hit on it." Isn't it stupid? That's not what Christ meant. He said: "Your grit, your strength and your being should be so strong that if somebody hits you on your right cheek, hit it, and offer him the left and then laugh at him." He didn't say you should go home with an absolutely torn cheek and tell your wife: "So-and-so hit me. Come and help me. Bring your frying pan and beat him up."

You know, scriptures are scriptures, but interpretation becomes sometimes individual, and individual truth is the worst enemy. You have to understand in Sikh Dharma what it tells you: All personal things are personal but they must be considered impersonally, and all impersonal things are impersonal and they must be considered personally. That's the only way we can walk. My idea is to give you the counsel... to stir you up... to let you... it was just to awaken your kundalini, awaken your laziness or lousiness or whatever you are, to understand that you have to be ready for the ownership of tomorrow.

I will serve you, I have served you. That's my job. It's no favor. But one who has to sit on that chair has to have the butt to sit on those sixteen spikes. You talk of your tragedy. You should be in a position to take 18 million people's tragedies and smile with it. If you do not have that capacity you have nothing but adversity. It isn't the life that matters, it is the courage you bring to it, and courage comes from many ways. Courage has certain aspects. Courage has intelligence, intuition, consciousness and grace. No man is a noble man who does not have the courage. It is that nobility which makes you the Khalsa. It is that nobility which makes you the Sikh.

Somebody has to fly these flags tomorrow. Somebody has to keep them flying tomorrow. I have flown them yesterday and I have flown them today. If time comes and I have to go home, time comes you have to get ready to take the responsibility. If you are stupid and your shoulders are not strong enough to carry the responsibility through the thick and thin, you will mess it up. If your wisdom is not wise enough, if your consciousness is not universal enough, if your intuition is not sharp enough, if your grace is not big enough, you cannot take a day, you cannot carry a day. You have to understand, if you are trying to be selfish, just understand that you are no more than the earthworm. You can crawl within your ego and you can be stupid for the rest of your life and you can even leave. I gave you a face, I gave you a grace, and I want you to live because that is what I brought you from the Guru!

I have added the experience of my own self that your prayer is very powerful and it gave me extended life. I owe you this life, I owe each day of it now to you. And I am mad and angry that you have held me from going home, but I am also happy that each one day I can do the prayer. Each day I can say: "Smile," and each day I can say: "hello" to you, I can say: "Sat Nam." That's an added opinion in my mind that I am getting one plus. But that doesn't mean that tomorrow you won't be tested.

I am very shocked that you are ALL merged in your own problems! I am asking, "What is the problem?" Your problem is a continuous process. As the wind blows leave it alone. Leave your problems and inspire others and solve theirs. Yours will be solved automatically. Nobody can solve one's own problems! "Prapabe bin sa ta rakhe." If God wants to keep you alive, He's going to keep you alive without the breath of life.

And in Anand Sahib there is a one line: "Har naal raho too man mere dukh sabh visaaranaa. Angikar oh kare teraa kaaraj sabh savaaranaa. Sabhanaa galaa samarath suaamee so kio manho visaare. Kahe nanak man mere sadaa raho har naale." If you just understand these four lines, you don't have to understand anything else. "Har naal raho too man mere..." Oh my mind, keep yourself with God. "Har naal raho too man mere dukh sabh visaaranaa." That will let you forget all your pain, disease, and difficulties. "Angikar oh kare teraa kaaraj sabh savaaranaa." Limb to limb, being with you, God will adjust your affairs. He'll adjust your affairs. "Sabhanaa galaa samarath suaamee..." God is competent of all competency. "...so kio manho visaare." Why let your mind forget it? Why your mind forgets that? "Kahe nanak man mere sadaa raho har naale." Nanak says, "Oh my mind! Be with the God all the time."

I know, I was here to get healed. Little better or little worse. I'm not sure tomorrow I'll get up or not. But you be sure that tomorrow you have to rise. Don't raise your kundalini. Rise your kundalini. Uncoil your strength and courage, your grit and your consciousness and take this time. Some of you are very involved with families. Some of you are very involved with your woman... and woman who wears the pants in the house, somebody else wears the fur coat. (This is what Barbara Walters says. I didn't say that.) And some of you are very much willing to wear the pants in the house and you think you are the greatest, but mind you, somebody else is going to wear the fur coat, not you. And the winter is very cold in life. And it is going to get to you. And some men do feel that their affairs are NOW! Not at all. You should be intuitive enough that tomorrow should be all planned out and perfected.

Man who cannot lead with nobility... woman who cannot lead her life with grace... are the most wasteful in the human kingdom in the eyes of God. Take it or leave it, it is up to you. I'll be gone. I've done my job, and I only pray to God everyday I have that every job He has assigned me may be done to that perfection, and may this be done as a seva, as service. To those who love me, and to those who hurt me, I say to you one thing: your animosity doesn't make any difference and your love does not make any dent. It is your radiance. It is your shine. It is your competence. It is your achievement which makes me and God and Guru happy.

I am an easy target. To get mad at me is very easy for you, but that's the beginning. When God will get mad at you, you'll have no escape. I'm just a reflection. I'm talking to you in a very personal reflected sense of everything. Don't be stupid. Don't look at me, look at yourself. Don't try to see what I am doing. Try to see to take the responsibility, which I discharge tomorrow, perfectly and effectively.

I have done humbly what I could, but I have not done all what I wanted to. That completion has to come for you. You have a way, way huge work before you! You are unable to solve your own life. Don't you understand that you have to solve Guru's life and God's life and the planet earth has to know you? You have to walk your own axle and your own orbit, and you have to keep everything in harmony and rhythm. Is it not the law of the principle of the universe? Is there going to be something different for you?

You have a great responsibility, and you have a great responsibility to act committed to tomorrow. You have a great responsibility, you have a great responsibility to be committed... united. What sense you make to me, I cannot even believe it.

You know when I came in United States, one day I went to a Buddhist priest and he just started walking on a fire. And I said: "What is that?" "Oh, well, it tests the purity of a man and this and that." Well, what was the difficulty? I said: "Can I walk? I have to test my purity." "No, your feet will get burned." I said, "What for? If under the circumstances you can walk on this fire, I can walk it, too." "No, no, it requires practice." I said nothing. The six feet ground towards the walking of that burning coal is already totally merged with sand and salt. And that enough is required to soak your feet in that salt and sand and then you can walk through any fire. And for those 6 feet, fire is always five foot, totally. And I measured the length and I said: "It is a very technical thing. Why you are making big deal about it? Anybody who has got good feet and can walk through those six feet first can walk through those five feet." "But are you sure?" I said, "No. I am now sure because I have watched
fifteen of you walking and I timed it on the watch. There's a time factor also. If you walk those six feet, take equal time to walk those five feet, you can safely go out the other side without burning your feet. If you walk slowly and lazy, your feet will be burned and blistered. If you walk very fast, you'll look very crazy. So basically there is a style."

That is exactly what life is. There is a style to it. And I timed it on the watch. Style is to be very imperial and very saintly. "Eh Raaj Yog Hei." It is an imperial union with God. It is a religion of a saint and a soldier. It is a religion of shaaster. That is acknowledged wisdom is called shaaster. And also 'shaster'-- arms, for defense and protecting others. John the Baptist, when he gave Jesus his axe, he said: "Take it and cut down the devil and the evil." Nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about it. But they discuss our kirpan very much. "Why you are wearing this knife on the side?" Why John gave that axe to the Jesus? What are you talking about?

Somebody once asked me, "Why you are wearing this kirpan?" I said, "So that your neurotic nuisance may not cause me any disturbance." Was my explanation right? "Well, what does it do?" I said, "I am very prepared for you." That's all I tell. Whether I use it or not is my discretion. "And suppose I hit your right cheek?" I said, "You will have nothing left on the left. I can promise you." "What is a Sikh Dharma?" I said, "We seek harmony, we live it, but when we are disturbed, we disturb everything for the sake of harmony." It's a natural cause.

There are two forces: centripetal and centrifugal. They move the universe. And there are two things - one is fixed and one is infinite. Orbit is infinite and axle is fixed.

So please understand, as a community here, as a Sikh community here, as a resident community here, you have a responsibility for tomorrow. Now stop this bitching, bickering and the blah. Get out of it and face your tomorrow with strength, with intuition and with a smile!

Simple line I give you today: "Walk with a smile... straight... and you will not be sorry." Simple, straight and a smile is the criterion where no man can fail. I understand that you love your feelings, you love your emotions, you love your stupidities, and you love your neuroses and psychoses and you need therapy and counseling and everything. I agree, you need all that. You know why? Because you never use your intelligence, your consciousness, and your positive neutral mind, and you never go through your grace.

Do you know how beautiful you are? However ugly you may feel, remember that God made you. You didn't make yourself. What you didn't make yourself, don't claim it. That is the biggest lie you all live. I'm sick and tired of your lies! I see them every day. You live those lies. God made you. Bad and good, it is His problem. Take a piece of wood. The artist made an elephant out of it, a camel out of it, or a donkey out of it. It is the artist's problem, not of the wood. Wood cannot say, "Hey Mr. Artist, why don't you make elephant out of me? Why you make donkey out of me?" No. It can't. God made you. You didn't make yourself. God gave you the breath of life. You don't have it. If you think air is everything and your breath comes through the air and you can live, you are dead wrong. You are alive, perfect, and air is air. The connection goes. God IS the connection. Guru is the wisdom. You are claiming and usurping the property on which you don't have a title. You don't have a deed... Your deeds will register your
deed.

Entire Gita is in eighteen chapters. The essence is in one line: "Arjan karam kar. Palki yachan na kar. Pal meh de than." Arjan, do your deed, honestly, honorably and nobly. Don't expect the fruit. Fruit I give as I feel fit. You know what you do? You do nothing. You do and you expect big fruit and that's very tiresome. And that's every day!

Now time has come that we should be very cautious, very alert. It's time of prosperity. We'll make it. Tomorrow is ours. It won't go anywhere. Those who will continue and stay will have the courage and the grace and the blessing of the Guru. Those who will leave, they can leave. Those who want to go AWOL and those who want to say they want to leave our house, we have no problem. All fruits get on the tree but everything doesn't ripen. All that ripens doesn't go on the plate of the king to be his food, to be his breakfast. I know the law of nature. You can decide: do you want to go by the fate or by the destiny? But if you want to go by destiny, don't give this to your destiny, you egomaniacs! Then you are nowhere and you shall be nowhere. And that law will never change. That is written not by the fire of the heavens... that is written at the forehead of God.
And Guru Nanak said that: "Aapane athai aapanaa aape kaaraj savaareeai." With your own hands, your own work must be done perfectly, satisfactorily, and gracefully. You must understand that ups and downs are the time and space. Remaining neutral like a little boat up on the sea and keeping on going, that's the cycle of happiness. That's very vital to mans prosperity. You are going to be prosperous. Some are going to be more prosperous. Some are going to be less prosperous. But that doesn't make any difference. If you have reach with Infinity and you can reach as you will, you WILL become God's will! That's what a saint is. But if you keep your own little will, you'll neither have any will to perform anything which can only give you fulfillment and satisfaction. It is your ego, it is the mirage which is telling you that you are great. No! Even if the entire universe tells you that you are great, you are not great. If the Guru tells you that you are great, you start believing it. If God tells you that you are great, you
start trusting it.

You don't have a communication with your Maker? Is there anything in the world you can sell which has not written on it: "Made in China, Made in Japan, Made in U.S.?" How many of you carry the label: "Made in God?" You know what label you carry? "Made in me. Made in I." You have very bad manufacturing factory. And your salesmanship is very limitedly low and stupid. Get out of it! Little space on this earth which you've got and little breath of life, you want to waste it! It is terrible. That was given to you as a privilege so you can expand your radiant body so that time and space... you know what you should do? You should think this way.

Let time record you and let history read it forever. Within that understanding, act! Never react to others or you'll become equal to them. Always act -- you will become above them. Don't be attached. Sometimes your son will guide you to misunderstanding, your wife will guide you to misunderstanding, your neighbor will guide you to misunderstanding, your students will guide you to misunderstanding. This world is just a reflection of the big maya of that Infinite God. It is a yo-yo planet. It spins all the time, but remaining stable is the way of life. Rising of the Kundalini is rising above that level, so you may not get drowned. Your consciousness should be just above the level that you may not feel drowned. That's all it is.

I know you love me when it suits you and you hate me when it suits you, but I tell you: the suitcase you are filling is not going to go with you. It is going to keep you here. I was one day thinking, "Why I am getting healthy? That should not be. Going home is not difficult. What is going on?" But I think you are not ready. And God knows better than me. Just remember, I have to go. Before I go you all have to come in. Get in before I get out. That's the law. Avagavan. Come and go. One goes, ten come in.

I wish you best on your seats because that chair is pretty hot. You all want it. You should have the courage and the guts to sit on it. And then also have the wisdom and the intelligence and the intuition to stay on it. I thought that chair was a very comfortable affair. When I sat on it, I never knew that I can never get up and I cannot go anywhere. The chair goes with you. It has a crazy glue under it. There's no privacy. There's no personality. There's nothing. Absolutely.

You know, it is very funny thing. I went to hospital. I was in the... what they call it?... what is the thing they call when you are under special care? Intensive care?... all right, and a nurse will come, "Please try to sleep," and then they'll fit an injection in me. And after an hour she'll say, "Please sleep," and put another injection in. Now one hour I am crying with that pain, and another comes, and she fits an injection. Then another comes and she says, "I'm going to test this," and she fits in an injection. I realized in one night they gave me 23 injections and I said, "Where is the time to sleep?" And everybody tells you to sleep. It was the funniest situation. And Siri Ram Kaur one day brought me a statement, she said: "Sir, you mean if you go to a hospital and you are not healthy enough and we can flush the toilet. There is always an attendant there. What is this $25.00 for each flush?" I said, "Well, we'll ask Dr. Saram what is it." They come and flush your I.V.'s They put some medicine to keep it
open. And that touch which hurts and burns is $25.00 on your bill. Plus the visiting charges. So it is not very pleasant.

I told the nurse, "Don't give me morphine. Please. I'll sleep." She said, "No, you are not sleeping." I said, "I'll only sleep if you stop poking me." She said, "What should we do? We have to give you the medicine. There's no way. In spite of that, you should sleep." I said, "But don't give me morphine." She stuck it in anyway. At a regular hour when I meditate, I got up and all that spaghetti... all those things got totally broken and machine started crying and there was havoc. And everybody ran to my room and they saw me sitting up and I didn't know I was sitting up. And they didn't know what was going on. And finally, thank God for my own spiritual nurse, she came and she said: "Leave him alone. For God's sake, don't do this. He's not dying. You are killing him!"

That's what I'm telling you -- God protects you. God is with you. You are killing your future by being insecure, by being lazy, and by being lethargic. Guru has done a great favor to you. It has given you face. It has given you grace. It has given you touch of reality. Now carry that touch and take it to the ecstasy and the height and the excellence which is the religion, which is the reality, and which is the God of yesterday, of today and of tomorrow. Without resurrection nobody has th4e experience of ecstasy... and always come through the personal death.

My personal feeling is that this place, which you call Hacienda de Guru Ram Das... or this place you call it Guru Ram Das Ashram... is your direct responsibility. So when you cheat here, just remember you are cheating the Guru and you are betraying the God. Let me tell you in a simple English how powerful that karma is. That is why everybody can take account of everything but a cockroach. They are unnumbered, unlimited. Because every man of consciousness or unconsciousness who does not perform the balance... its own courage and ecstasy... his next life is very marked. Because that only shows the depth of the liking of the darkness. I am sitting here talking to you very personally but my message is very impersonal. If it hurts somebody directly or indirectly, I hope to be forgiven.

You know, the Shady Lane has become good, but from Shady Lane to your place of Gurdwara, there are still pits. "Painaa maanas madaar kaa sohe tohe taa beitaa." Plan your mind so clean and steep that all the dips and downs must be cleaned out. If you would have been really a Khalsa here, you should have, you SHOULD have, before they paved Shady Lane, you should have also immediately at that time, paved the divine lane! You didn't raise your pinkie. Look what the state did and look what your state of mind did.

I am very grateful to you that you have started to extend your gurdwara. You have a project. You are prepared now. Wake up! Rise! "Dendaa de lainke thak paah. Jugaa jugantar kaaeh kaah. Hukamee hukam chalaa-eh raah. Nanak vigasay veparvaaho." It is the Giver who gives. It is the one who takes who gets tired of it. He gives freely and absolutely without attachment, Nanak, He has been doing this from time immemorial and He IS carefree.

So please understand, you as a community, you as a personality, you as an identity and you as a person, have a direct responsibility to your own tomorrow. And together you have responsibility as an individual, you have responsibility as a family, and you have a responsibility as a total community. So I pray to God and Guru that you will not need any telling. You don't need any forecast. You will forecast your future graciously and to the best of your ability. My hope and prayer is that you must

understand: time in the future will be prosperous though it shall be very rough. Mammoth will take its toll. And it has happened before. It has happened in time memorial to time memorial. It shall happen now. Because once you get intoxicated with your "I" power, "Thou" leaves you. "Jis nu aap ku-aahe kartaa kasale chi aa-eh." If God wants to give misery to somebody He takes away the goodness of the heart. We are good people... we are good at heart and good at head... and we should be good in our performance. When God is God... and only God can perform good... and good performs goods. That's why I pray to you, I beg of you, I appeal to you, WAKE UP!! Wake up in your intelligence and consciousness and guide yourself into your ecstasy! DO NOT GIVE DISTANCE TO YOUR DESTINY! Don't even take a chance. That one slip out of the peel of the banana can make you limp your whole life and break your hips forever.

In Sikh Dharma, higher you are more humble you are. If that is not honest, there is nothing honest for you. Each one of you is a leader and each one of you is a servant. Because for that top brick that shines in the sun and radiance on the top of it, there is one of its equal kind and size in the basement of it, totally engulfed in the mud and the plaster. It is the strength of that bottom brick which keeps the top brick. If that is forgotten, something is wrong. Each one of you is equally important, as each one of you is not important because reaction are reactions, action are actions, but achievement is achievement and there's no substitute for victory. And our total existence is based on purity and our total achievement is based on victory -- and that is dedication to God.
That's why we say, "Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh!"

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END OF TRANSCRIPT
10/8/89
YOGI BHAJAN
Transcript by Tej Kaur Khalsa, Los Angeles, CA

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



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