Yogi Bhajan Lecture Archive
Lecture by :
Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji
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Lecture on: 03/26/1981
Category: Class Lectures
Location: Unknown
.
Public

Spirituality, American Style

I have studied Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucian thought. Right from Vedic history on down, I have found one thing: every religion or way of life has a methodology to bring you to commitment and to teach you commitment. Whereas, in the Sikh religion, in the transition from a Sikh to Khalsa, we expect you to come with commitment. You should first come with commitment and then we’ll give you the divine experience. Sometimes it happens that you say that you do not know whether you are committed or not. We do not understand it, because biologically, sociologically and consciously the human being is in fact, committed on some level of consciousness. The human being is not a prostitute; the human being is not a pimp or prostitute of opportunities. You remain Khalsa for three months, prostitute for four months, do your pimping for another three months, then meditate and become yogis for the rest of the time until a year has passed. Well, that may be the American style.

It is like that show I saw on television; “Love, American Style.” It taught me to really realize your approach to life. You want to have, “Spirituality, American Style.” Guru tells us, and I believe it, that no woman should marry a man at all if she has to question tomorrow. If you ever want to have an iota of happiness, you should not love anybody. You should not fall in love, you should not love anybody, you should not marry anybody, you should not have any relationship. If you’re really an honest human being, you should ask all questions and deal with all the nitty gritty, whatever you want, beforehand. After creating a relationship, after making a commitment, that is not the time to start questioning. That wrong procedure is the source of your mental acrobatics, and that is the source of your entire unhappiness.

Guru says: “Where you bow your head in obedience, don’t question, or you will be uprooted.” Guru says this, not me. One day you can come along and ask your father to prove that he is your father. You are questioning the status as father, and he will go around and show you that on your birth certificate his name is there and he’ll tell you that he had a relationship with your mother and out of that intercourse you were conceived. But, to be very honest, nobody can prove it one hundred percent. Genes may be the same, the features are there, and so on. But you may say anything, and may insist and in the very end say; “Dad, actually, very honestly, truthfully, I don’t believe you are my father.” He has nothing to say. Actually, you really don’t believe your father is your father or that your mother is your mother. You use your parents as your emotional pits, and you use your spiritual teacher and spiritual search as your pit of neuroses, where you dump your neuroses and feel you are very divine. Someone so beautiful as your spiritual teacher, you relate to in a very ordinary way.

“If anybody can tell me about my Beloved God, I would sacrifice my entire being for the company of that person.” This is what the Guru Himself says. Whereas you do not have even the projection of love which is required between a student and a teacher. I am fully aware of it through my own experience of these twelve years. But fundamentally, we must understand from what training and past we have come.

Jao tao prem khelan kaa chaao.
Sir dhar tale galee meree aao.
It maarag pair dhareejai.
Sir deejay Kaa naa(n) Keejai.

Fact is, it’s a very simple thing. Why repeat the same mistake every day? Why not to finish it today? It is simple. If you want to love me, if you want to play the game of love with me, then put your head (ego) on your hand, and walk on my path. Only God is egoless, and without God and love, nobody can be happy.

Do you know why you follow me? Sometimes you ask this question yourself. I have a nose as you have a nose. I have ears as you have ears. I have eyes as you have eyes. You are obnoxious and you see me as obnoxious, because the obnoxious perceives only the obnoxiousness. If obnoxiousness is there in you then I am obnoxious plus. Because when you tell me that there is no God, then I tell you there is. When you tell me you can’t make it, I tell you that you can. When you tell me you don’t know if you can commit, then I tell you that you are already committed. How can you understand the word commitment if you don’t already have it? Because word is all that there is. If you know the word you know it, and now you are trying to deny it. This is called ‘mental prostitution,’ and it comes from your negative ego.

One day you come along and you tell me that I am not your spiritual teacher! Oh, hallelujah, God bless you! It means one more sick person has gone out of my range of responsibility. Perfect! Then you will take 8.4 million lifetimes and then be born as a human being, and then try to find a teacher, and if that teacher blesses you to take you to the Guru, from the Guru you may have the experience of God, then through your God-experience you must ask apologies from your previously denied teacher, and if he forgives you then only will you be redeemed. Read the “Song of Bliss” from Peace Lagoon. It is written there, in the English translation. The reality is that I love you and I can love you regardless of whether you love me or not. Now, you want to do love business. I am not a businessman of love. Because I didn’t take you to a dinner yesterday, it doesn’t mean that my love is dried up. And, Chinese food would not have given you more love than me, and the Italian restaurant would not have provided the atmosphere for my love.

I am preparing myself for a second stage; to declare myself as a spiritual teacher. I have never been doing that at all, but I have fewer years to live now, therefore those who deserve to have an experience of a spiritual teacher must have it. Normally my attitude is, that I am just a humble human being who is here to serve. That’s why I invite your confrontation and fight back. It is not because I am a ram and I belong to the sign of Aries. That’s not my attitude. I want peace of mind, I want to sit peacefully and pass my days, but the need is there to poke, provoke, confront and elevate. Otherwise, I need not have long telephone discussions and communications. They mean nothing. The best, professional saint will just say, “Bless you and thank you,” and he will take one apple and give it to you and send you away. That is the best way to get rid of obnoxious students, put an apple in their mouth, they will eat it, their jaws will move, their depression will go away, food will go into the stomach and they will be relieved of the stress. They will feel good. It’s a simple, psychological treatment. But as a teacher the problems come in.

According to my information, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and love is in the heart of the being. So what I am saying is that you are using your head, and the head cannot answer for love. I love people, I cannot answer why. I cannot answer how much. In the face of love, what are my duties? It’s a matter of heart, it is not a matter of head, and if love demands me to be what I am today and then if my love demands the total reverse of it, I’ll go through it. If I am a man of God, I’ll not let a student be lost up to the last breath of my life. That is the Will of God. Otherwise do you think I would allow it? If I have any other choice do you think that I would subject myself to these idiots who do not even know what a spiritual teacher is? But no, that’s not the way. My way is the way. It’s simple, it is unique and it is authentic. It is a simple matter of denying none and accepting none. That’s why I have never initiated you. And that’s why I’m always ready to counsel you.

You must understand the way I work. I never hire, and I never fire; I inspire. And anybody whom I inspire, if he has to work with me as his teacher on the spiritual path, he has to perspire. It’s a very difficult path, and you should have the capacity to control your first, second, third, fourth, and fifth chakras at my command. Your control should be to hold yourself up to the first five chakras. The sixth, seventh and eighth chakras are the trinity of a divine person.

Whenever you go to a holy man, neither desire, nor wish. Neither desire, nor wish, nor say, nor demand, nor utter. Just listen, and then obey. God will be right in your heart. That’s why God is very near and very far away. God is nearer in those who can obey, and He is further away for those who discuss. The law is very simple. Those who are in tune with me in the Name of God, God shall be attuned to them through their generations. Those who give to me in the name of God, God shall give to them through their generations. Those who love me in the Name of God, God shall kiss and hug them and raise their elevated consciousness through their generations. The bargain is already laid out. Why should I have to give terms and conditions and why should I have to become a businessman? For what?

All I beg of you is that you should never utter a word against me, because the whole universe will go against you. That is how it is written. Somebody once asked me if I am afraid of anything? I said I am afraid of one thing; I’m afraid of God. I have a great fear of God and so I don’t want to judge anybody. When you equate yourself with God, that judgment will come back on you very heavy, so I am afraid when I see you doing these things.

If you want me to love American style, I can’t do it. My attitude, my aptitude, my life, my principle, my fiber, my self, my being, the way I am woven and knitted, the way I think and live and feel and understand, walk and crawl, it’s a one way traffic. I believe love is an experience of oneself within one’s self. It’s endless, bottomless and infinite. Now, for fifty-two years I have believed and I have meditated and being a yogi, have in my mind meditatively accepted this definition. So now if I want to change it, I can’t. Had I not been in love with you, I would not have tolerated you.

All I’m telling you is that I have taught you how to love. And being the best students I have got, still you don’t know me at all. For twelve years, I have lived among you, eaten among you, been among you, talked among you, understood among you, misunderstood among you, you slandered me, you did every good thing and bad thing. But couldn’t you understand one simple thing? I told you the first year that I have come here to train teachers and I have come here to learn nothing. Yes, you can teach me certain things if you volunteer: how to love and betray, how to close off your communication from those you love, how you hate wisdom, how perfect you are in treachery, how you give your word and break it and then justify that you are alright, how you prostitute yourself morally, socially, ethically, and spiritually, and still feel very proud. There are a lot of things I can learn from you. But I have to learn nothing, because my mind is not entranced and I am not in ecstasy: I am, I am! I don’t need you, but you always forget that.

If you need me, you are most welcome. But what do you need me for? You need me to bring you to Guru and God, and I will do it. If that is not your relationship with me, then I am nobody. This body of mine is only here to make you habitual to one ecstasy of God consciousness, so that you can see yourself in the reflection, in the reflection of your arc body. That’s why I came to earth. Otherwise I have no purpose here. I am your halo. I have no other relationship with you. You are trying to build up relationships, I am telling you no. Neither you are black, nor you are brown nor you are yellow, nor you are this nor you are that. Neither I hate you nor I love you, neither I like you or dislike you. Neither you are mine, nor I am yours. These are all expressions. These are your mental acrobatics. I have nothing to do with it. I’m just telling you what I am, and if you like me, fine. If you dislike me, wonderful! In this lifetime, you have to learn to be yourself, you have to dress yourself up to be yourself, and you need a halo to see the reflection of your arcline. That’s all.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m a prophet, and I can predict things. I’m not saying that I’m a messenger of God, that I have brought you a message. God can give His message to everybody and anybody, through time and space. God already has these two things set.

Even if you want to leave me alone, I won’t leave you alone, because I don’t love you because you love me. I love you because you are, you are. You are very tribal, and your mental attitude has to get out of the tribal jealousies, tribal reactions, and tribal gain and loss. You start judging that those who wear turbans are great Sikhs, and those who don’t wear turbans are not Sikhs. Whereas you should understand and feel that those who wear turbans have just raised their consciousness, and those who didn’t, could not. They could not understand it, and they have not raised their consciousness. It is simple. Those who love 3HO, they love 3HO. Those who don’t love 3HO they may love Las Vegas. Somebody has to love Las Vegas, too.

It is a very simple thing. Take hold of the lotus feet of the Guru, and go across. Why live in duality and in hanky pankies? All of your actions will subject you to a certain fatigue, a certain hardship, except one action which will direct you or make your trend toward the commitment of reaching Infinity. That is why I say that we start from commitment. Sikh Dharma is a religious path from commitment to experience.
© 1981 YB Teachings, LLC
Above Article Copyright © Yogi Bhajan 2002. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.



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