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Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi Ji
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Identity

Today we sit here in a very great county called the United States, and mostly we are very proud that we are Americans. But we basically forget that this country, despite how great it is, also has something that is called “great pressure”. There’s a very tremendous pressure, very silent, but very definite, and this silent pressure is driving us totally out of our wits. It is to the point where we do not know if we are real or not real. We can’t do anything about our identity. We can’t do anything about our reality. We can’t do anything about ourselves. It’s a question of survival. And survival at what cost? That’s the question. Everybody is out to get you. In return, you are out to get everybody. But that’s not human, that’s not fulfilling. There’s so much pressure on all of us, that under pressure we select a job, under pressure we make a promise, under pressure we marry, under pressure we produce children. Under pressure we buy a home, under pressure we do the landscaping, under pressure….under pressure… under pressure…. And one day we find out we did everything wrong. There was nothing right. And then later on we find out we thought everything was wrong, and that was also under pressure. First we do everything under pressure, then we find out we did everything under pressure, and find out we were not right.
Silent pressure, traditional pressure, social pressure, environmental pressure – our nervous systems are not good enough to take all that pressure. We are adapting to drugs and finally to disease. The best way to get out of it is a very simple way – to give ourselves discipline. We must discipline ourselves. We must touch our own identity. As I said before, under all the pressures we feel, one day we wake up and discover that we did everything under pressure; we did everything wrong. So we change everything. And ten years later we find we have the same problem. Neither have we found our identity to start with, nor are we going to find it now, nor are we going to find it tomorrow. Because we are not trying to relate to the basic need. You have never been taught that you have to find your identity within yourself.
Your identity depends on your profession, number one. You identity depends upon your money play, two. Your identity depends upon your emotions. Your identity depends upon your emotional satisfaction. Your identity depends upon saying what you want to say, expressing your feelings. You have been told, “Drink, enjoy, be merry, tomorrow you will die, who cares?” It is extremely foreign to you to go inside and find out that you have an identity. It is very easy for you to go and pay $120 to a psychoanalyst and a psychiatrist to find your identity. It is very difficult for you, extremely difficult for you, to imagine that you can take your problems inside of you and solve them. What you have learned is to take your problems outside and solve them. You go to a synagogue or a church or temple to find your reality. It is foolish to think that what you cannot find inside, you can find outside. If the sugarcane does not have juice in it, where are you going to get it? You are like a bamboo stick. Bamboo sticks and sugarcane, when fully grown, look alike. But one has sugarcane juice, the other doesn’t. We have been told and told and told and told, under pressure, that there is an outside world, and that this outside world can give us our identity, our base.
You have an infinite connection with God and that is your soul. You are given this mind, and your mind has to obey you, but you have not been told how to teach your mind to obey. You have been told that whatever your mind says, you have to obey. You are a mental slave. You are not a mental master. You have been told that your body requires food. You have never been told that your mind requires food. The mind is hungry, weak, and berserk. All you have learned to say is, “This is how I feel. This is how I feel now, and this is what I want to do.” It’s just like saying that there’s some outside connection that can give you pranic energy, and you will live. You won’t believe that. You think that breathing makes you live. The breath, pavan, is the vehicle of the prana. And pranic energy touches you inside, giving you life. God created you, God created me. If you do not want to deal with your life-patterns and your blocks, and you do not want to free yourself and find your identity, and find your stance now, when are you going to? When you are 86?
I believe in one thing. Man is born to be excellent, and excellence is the only thing which can make you divine, period. I don’t believe in argument, I don’t believe in rational, irrational nonsense. I don’t believe in emotion and commotion. I think your excellent decisions in life should always put you above everybody, in whatever field you are. The only thing you should trust is your excellence. There’s no need to trust. If you are excellent, what is there to trust?
You don’t love. You say you do. But when you love somebody you listen, and when you listen, you find out the truth. When you find out the truth, you discuss and give feedback. That’s the first step in a love relationship. There’s no emotion involved, there’s no commotion involved. Love is a simple play in which you love and listen and decide, find the truth and tell the other person, “This is my truth.” Then you discuss it, because my truth may not be your truth, and your truth may not be mine. In life, if you do not compare the identity of your truths, there is no relationship at all. I am saying something, you are understanding something, you are hearing something, and the fact is that neither you know what I am saying, nor I know what I am saying. Because what I am saying you are not hearing, and what you are hearing I am not saying.
Your sense of identity is essential for your success, for your richness, for your health, for your tradition and enjoyment, for your essence, and for your environments. Don’t try to cover it under the play of love and emotion and go at midnight and do cutchie-cutchie business, and the next morning say, “How was it? Was it a great love?” No, it was a good bacterial exchange. Animals do that. Your commotional exchanges are mistaken for love.
Create a balance between your identity and your needs. Don’t overlay your identity with your needs. We load our identity with so many wishes, desires, emotions, and facets. We put our identity under a heap of unwanted nonsense, and then we want to make sense. There shall be a time in your life when you have to answer for your own identity. Your identity shall demand it. It is the subconscious wish of life coming to an end. It is called the “death period.” The moment death comes to the scope of life, it means a maturity; it also pressurizes you to live by your identity.
You may not be competent to understand my truth, and I may not be competent to share my truth with you. Let us deal with the factual reality. We have to progress now. We have to enter a period of excellence and self-confidence, and our identity should be more responsibly evident, like a lighthouse, than our personality. Now everybody has to part with their personalities and find their identities. Give your identity a chance, so people can trust your intelligence and personality, and the truth in you. That is what we are looking for. I hope Guru will bless you and give you grace, so that you can identify your truth and trust the truth in you.

©1984, The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan
Above Article Copyright © Yogi Bhajan 2002. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.



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