Yogi Bhajan Lecture Archive
Lecture by :
Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji
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Lecture on: 09/01/1973
Category: Interview
Location: Unknown
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Public

A Conversation with Yogi Bhajan

“…Convert your anger into compassion, convert your hatred into compassion, and convert your betrayal into compassion. Suppose somebody betrays me, and I feel that God is very kind because he has given me the energy to tolerate it, and I never did it to anyone. I am not the one who betrayed. When somebody represents fear and a very low nature, and a very sickening clinging attitude, I think, “Look at this crazy guy, who doesn’t have love for his Creator and is so afraid of life; and look at me, God has liberated me from all this.’ That is why I don’t hate that man for adding to my insecurity.”

Question: “How do you distinguish in your thoughts between the higher and the lower self?”

It’s very easy. When you are limited to yourself, when you think of yourself, then it is just your small ego. But when you think that your Guru and God are with you, then it is your higher self and then you are free.

Question: “But I’m still not clear as far as the distinguishing of the messages.”

Any messages which come to you, which relate to the Universal Self of you, that is your higher self. Anything which limits you within your flesh is the lower self of you. You know… ‘I am cold. I should have a blanket. Others may die’. But the other way is, ‘Let me give my blanket to others and let me get some wood and burn a fire so that all can live’. That is the higher self. Anyone who is willing to share somebody’s pain, and willing to take the pain upon himself, is protected by nature. Anybody who becomes selfish for his own comfort, he’ll be avoided by a man of higher consciousness; that’s Mother Nature. Any person of universal consciousness will not like to meet that person.

In your life you must understand if you want to compete with me, you should be better than me, but if you use your energy to pull me down, you will be finished before you can think of it. Jealousy, hatred and slander are the three enemies of the self. When you slander somebody and put somebody down, when you are jealous of somebody, and when you hate somebody; these three things will kill you. When you forgive somebody, serve somebody and act with compassion, these acts will turn you towards God. So you have to choose between the two trinities. People say they don’t hate, but they still hate, people say they don’t do this, but they still do it. People say they are all right, they are not all right. When you are at a higher level of consciousness, then you are a universal person and you are very unlimited. When you are at a lower level of consciousness, then you are very limited. You are just a creature with a hundred and some pounds, who has a very limited energy, because your mind is not you. Mind is universal and when you bring it to a very personal low edge, you practically destroy yourself.”

Question: “How do you raise it to the high edge?”

Live, just live, and you will be levitated automatically. You hate none; you love all. There is no sinner, it is all His creation. Be kind, be compassionate, be serviceful to all. When you relate to all, all will relate to you, that’s the law. When you relate to yourself, your own self will belong to you. You must understand, you will be at whatever frequency you choose. If you operate on a cosmic law frequency, then you will become a cosmic man. If you operate on an environmental frequency, an individual frequency, you will become just an individual person. That is absolutely all there is to it, man has the choice.

Everything is cosmic; everywhere there is a cosmic vibration. Why do you attach yourself to ‘culture A’ and think you are changing yourself, or that you are going through changes? Why don’t you think, ‘What is that place on this earth which doesn’t have a sky?’ Do you know why we love the sky? Because it covers everything. When you cover everyone, you are compassionate to everyone, you are serviceful to everyone, you are sweet to everyone, then you are like the sky, you are the highest. When you are only dry, not wet, then you are earth; when you are only wet and not dry, then you are ocean. Earth is limited; ocean is limited, only sky is unlimited. That is why it is very difficult for somebody to pinpoint me, because I know the law of totality. I live in that realm. Some people sometimes hate me because they are too limited, they can’t find my totality and their limited self cannot live with my Universal Self. But I don’t have any hatred for them.

Question: “Yogiji, I talk about doing it, but…”

Talk is okay, but start meaning it. You must use your ego. It is very difficult to live in totality without ego, I tell you by my own personal experience. I love so many people, but I love all. I don’t love one and hate others. It is a totality, but people always try to pull strings so that only I love one and not the other, because their consciousness is low. They are helpless, so I have to live in that helpless state of theirs, and I have to hold myself above their helplessness. This is my attitude - if you tell me something against anyone, I will never punish that person for that thing. I’ll forgive him because you have already punished him by slandering him. So it may come back to you, it is going to come back ten times, but I am not involved in that, it is God’s problem.

Question: “What should my service be?”

Well, first of all, maximum service is when you commit yourself. Next is when you start walking in that commitment and third is when there comes a doubt or a stop or a dead-end, then you call and get clarification, and keep moving. Don’t break your speed. I always say that when there’s a hang-up, keep up, and mark time. Don’t get jammed. If you cannot proceed further, keep on marking time, somehow help will come. That’s the way to progress, that’s the way I progressed.

Question: “I have a question on the relationship of Yoga.”

Yoga is just a union; it is a link between the finite consciousness and the Infinite Consciousness. It’s the law of totality; it is the science of totality. Whosoever masters it will realize it. You know, as a psychiatrist, you can understand human behavior. As a psychologist you can understand the impulse of behavior. Psychology and psychiatry are two different things, but they are both sciences which relate to the behavior of the personality. Simply Yoga is the plus and minus of the totality of the being between his micro-consciousness and macro-consciousness.”

Question: “Can you reach the macro-consciousness through meditation and chanting?”

Our method is for the finite to vibrate unto infinity. Our law in Kundalini Yoga is a basic law: finite to Infinity. It is the science of realization, not the science of knowledge. There’s a difference between knowledge and the realization. Knowledge is the technical know-how. I give you knowledge, and that knowledge should lead to experience. All of those people who have changed because I shared this knowledge, should experience it on one condition, that they have to pay me back, because the coming generation will need you. You must stand recognized, that you are the ones who belong to them. I made a very straight-forward contact. I will turn your head to experience infinity – a head for a head. If I die tomorrow there are many left, they will carry on the work. They are the ones who are the pioneers to write the new history.

Question: “What exactly do you mean, ‘head by head?’?”

Head by head in the sense that all the knowledge that is given to you should be given to all others with the same humility, and we should be recognized as teachers. We want teachers, we don’t want students. We are not on a money trip to have disciples. If you become my disciple, just suppose, and you serve me, what do I get? Nothing. I’m not a beggar, I can serve myself. But if you take my knowledge and you teach, then through you I serve thousands. That is how I look at it. To some people it may seem like a great pressure. I always tell them that they can go, have fun. I am to make a rope, and it takes the blood from your hands to just hold onto it, it’s a hard job. But with that rope, we can save our boat. We can anchor it, and if we have a stronger rope, we can stand well. I don’t want to take a risk and that is how I transmute and translate my selfishness.

You know, I give you something and I want something, but what I want is very universal, very desirable, and very cosmic. I get angry. I get angry with myself. I am very selfish. I am selfish that I should be in a position to give all my knowledge honestly and truthfully. And I should make somebody ten times better than me. It is very selfish of me. It is very cosmic though. There is no limitation involved and that saves the situation. A lot of people do not understand it, because I am very cosmic and then I am very personal. I can dive and go to reach you, but then you have to come all the way up because I am not a fish and I breathe in the air like a whale. A whale cannot remain indefinitely under the water.

Question: “That is very clear, it has never seemed so clear to me before.”

Those who give, Mother Nature gives to them. Beggars take, God gives. It is not giving if you come and give me everything and then grumble about it. If you give everything and do not learn from it, you know like these gurus who come and make a lot of money from people and get rich quick… That’s not giving and that’s not taking.

Question: “Actually, when you are giving you are receiving.”

That’s it. You know a person came once and brought diamonds and jewels and placed them before a guru, and said, ‘This all belongs to you, sir.’ He blessed it and said, ‘Take it away.’ The man said, ‘No, I feel insulted. I’d like to be a giver. Whatever you want, I am the greatest giver.’ The Guru said, ‘I am the greatest rejecter. You are proud that you can give. I am very proud that I have never taken anything. So where is the compromise?” I personally feel everybody should earn through the sweat of their brow, and give what they easily can. There’s no harm in that.

Question: “Well, I feel just in working with people, if we can help them to learn what they can give to themselves and to one another, it is the greatest help.”

Yes, but some people get sentimental and emotional satisfaction in these tantrums because normally it is a habit in America to give and then to hate. In your relationships you will find that many women, whenever they have sexual intercourse with a male, will be uptight time and time again. Because they don’t meditate, they don’t worship it. They don’t relate to it as giving, they don’t say, ‘Well, this man was tense and he relaxed in me,’ and consider it an achievement that they have given something. They have no such imagination. They feel they must be given a diamond necklace. With the young people today you will find that sex is done just to communicate. Something which is sacred has been reduced to sentiments only.

Question: “Psychologically, sex can also be used to create a distance between people.”

That is true. When you relate to sex as security it creates such a heavy pressure you blow your top. Whenever you use any physical relationship for communication, which is totally mental… mental can reach to the physical but when the physical wants to lead to the mental, it creates a perversion and this is the main problem in this country. This country has just got things into a reverse order.

Question: “How is it in India?”

India is normally very calm. It is 60% all right and 40% messed up, whereas in America it is 60% messed up. It is just the reverse. That is why India, in spite of all that poverty and all social ills, is a very calm country, because that basic human behavior is going in the right direction. That makes a big difference. Women in India are still very secure, very original as women, very emotionally attuned to themselves. Their belief is that woman is the divine, that she is Mata – mother. Their mother image is very strong. It is pure, and there is so much attached to this image that it will take a long time to pollute it.

Once a student of mine said to me, ‘Yogiji, I have been raised watching Mickey Mouse and you have been raised watching Lord Shiva. Where can we meet?’ That is the image of America, Mickey Mouse. And what is the image of India? Lord Shiva meditating, that’s the image of India, and that is the difference. We raise our children with Mickey Mouse; India raises its children with the concept of meditating on Lord Shiva.

Question: “Is it this way for the populous of India?”

Here people are very shallow. Once I saw someone who told me, ‘I love you. I love you,’ and the next minute that person asked, ‘Do I love you?’ The same person. Can you imagine such shallowness? In India, Lord Shiva, meditating Yogis, Saints, and Sadhus, they are all popular. Otherwise you must understand, with all the social ills India has, if they did not have such a heavy counter-balance, the country would have fallen to bloodshed and revolution long ago. They have such perseverance of patience that they can extend themselves to death and not utter a word. That is a very strong image.


© 1973 The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan

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



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