Self-deception and Redemption, a True Story
I moved to Houston in 1980 and was living in the Sikh Ashram there. I needed money for rent and talked one of the other single men that lived in the ashram to let me hang the sheet rock for a remodel project that he was in charge of. I had never hung sheet rock before. I recruited a non-English speaking Hispanic man to help me at the lowest hourly wage that I could get him to work for. If I remember correctly the job paid $700. I thought it would take 3-4 days, 2 if we worked extra hard. The truth was that I didn’t know what I was doing, and I think it actually took two weeks to get all the sheet rock hung. By the time the job was finished the Hispanic man that I hired was owed $500 of the $700. I told the guy that I had underbid the job, I was sorry but I couldn’t pay him what we had agreed on. I told him that we had worked together equally and I would split the money equally with him, $350 each (the rent I owed just happened to be $350 also). He would have none of it. He said he had agreed to work at an agreed upon wage and that he was owed $500 and it wasn’t his fault that the job took longer than I expected. I am ashamed to say that I told him that all I would pay him was the $350, take it or leave it. I knew he was an illegal immigrant and knew that he could not complain to any authority. He was just an illegal immigrant. I justified my actions by telling myself that I had worked just as hard as he had and I was entitled to just as much of the money as he was, that I was a spiritual person that did my spiritual practice every day and deserved that money. Inside myself though, I felt that what I was doing was wrong. I knew that I was ripping the guy off. I had calculated previously how much the guy’s wages were adding up to. I added them up daily in fact as I stressed about getting in over my head. I could have told him at any point that I could not afford to pay him for any more of his time, but I didn’t. I intentionally misused him and had decided on this plan to complete the job and still make my rent. Despite any rationalization I could come up with I knew in my gut that it was wrong. I knew that it was my own stupidity that had taken on a job to hang sheet rock when I knew nothing about it. Talk about delusions.
The money discussion with the guy turned into an argument, and I eventually gave him only $350 and told him to get lost. I remember the look he gave me when he left. It was a look of disbelief that I could treat him so unfairly after he had worked so hard every day to help me finish that job. It had truly been hell humping those sheets of sheet rock up scaffolding, holding them in place on the two story ceiling while one or the other of us got a nail in the stuff. It had been truly awful but he had given his all every step of the process and I had misused him for it. Although he couldn’t speak English that parting look said, “I can’t believe you can treat me like this. I actually thought you were a good person. You intentionally cheated me. I don’t see how you can live with yourself.”
Time passed. I never saw the guy again. I never told anybody about it, I was too ashamed. I pretended like it had never happened. I forgot about the whole nasty affair. Fast forward seven years to 1987. I’m married with two kids and Houston is in the midst of a recession. I’m unemployed and decide to start my own painting/sheet rock business so our family can survive. I had three or four jobs going at the same time, one of them being a very large job on a wealthy person’s country home on their ranch outside Sealy, TX, more than an hour east of Houston. Things were not going well on my jobs. I was stretched too thin to attend to all of them properly. Consequently the money was not coming in fast enough to cover expenses. Luckily I had a large chunk of money that I was supposed to receive on the Sealy job the next day as long as the required amount of work was complete. I needed to purchase materials for the jobs I had going in Houston and I did so with a check that I did not have funds in my account to cover. I figured I could have the draw on the Sealy job deposited the next day and that would cover everything before the materials check hit my bank. I had a real bad feeling when I wrote out that materials check but I kept telling myself that the Sealy draw would cover it.
I was supposed to pick up that draw at 11 the next morning. The work that was supposed to be complete in order to pick up that draw was not finished but we were close. I told myself that I could get our crew out there really early and maybe get everything done before 11 and schmooze it with the owner lady if it was not. The next morning I was loading the truck at 5:30. The phone started ringing. Problems with one of the Houston jobs. As I was dealing with that, problems with the workers on my crew had to be dealt with. At 7:00 I was racing off to deal with an unhappy customer at one of the Houston jobs. I still had to deliver materials to the other sites. The customer kept me waiting at the first site, then when he finally showed up he had a whole line of contractors there that he had to deal with. I had to wait in line for my turn. All morning I was racing from one job site in Houston to the next. I had told my Sealy crew to be at my house at 7:00 so I could drive us out to that job. At 10:30 I was still racing to another one of the Houston jobs and I hadn’t even picked up the crew for Sealy yet. On top of that EVERY traffic light I came to was red. I was about to explode. I started cussing out loud at God when there was another red light. I seriously considered running it and every other red light until I was on the road to Sealy. It was such a perfect storm that I had no doubt that it was being divinely generated. I asked God why EVERY traffic light had to be red. I felt like I was about to have an emotional outburst of rage and frustration. Then it dawned on me that it was just a test of whether God could reduce me to a screaming lunatic. I decided there was no way that I would give God the satisfaction.
As I had these thoughts I noticed that I had I was feeling intense anxiety that felt like it would overwhelm me. I associated this overwhelming anxiety with God pushing my buttons and decided, “Bring it on. Give it your best shot. I am not afraid of this anxiety and to prove it I am going to allow it to overwhelm me.” I then consciously allowed the most intense feelings I was having to happen to me. My fear mounted similar to the way it does when you slowly climb that first hill on a roller coaster, crest that hill and begin hurtling to certain death. Surprisingly, at the point where the intensity seemed like it was going to overwhelm me it began to subside. I asked myself what was the worst that could happen. The materials check would hit my bank and cause an avalanche of checks to bounce causing my account to be closed, forcing me out of business? I hated this business. I had never enjoyed it. It was just what I did when I had to survive. Let the check bounce. Then an insight occurred. What I was afraid of hadn’t happened yet and just like the morning I was having had been completely unpredicted by me, something beyond what I could imagine was possible. It was even possible that the Sealy owner lady might be a little late herself and I could distract her from noticing that there wasn’t enough work completed for our draw.
At that instant I realized that the intense anxiety I was feeling was all about my impatience at being where I was and wanting to be someplace else. The anxiety conveyed the thought that where I was, doing what I was doing was not good enough, that I was just a worthless piece of shit that was never good enough and never going to be. I realized that I was actually doing everything I possibly could in that moment to live up to my obligations to my customers and my family. I realized that I actually was at exactly the right place at that exact time doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing to the best of my ability. I was still sitting at that red light. It hadn’t even changed yet. I looked around and noticed that it was a very beautiful fall day in Houston. There was a magnificent large oak tree to my right that canopied my vehicle with shade. It was superb and I had been so self involved that I hadn’t even noticed.
The light changed to green and I completed what business I needed to attend to and was soon on the road to Sealy with the crew. When I came to a red light I noticed the anxiety begin to build and I would allow it to wash through me as I had learned that morning. Each time I did, there was further resolution that I was at the right place at the right time. When we got to the Sealy job it was well past noon and there was only one other vehicle there. It belonged to one of the carpenters. I got the crew lined out doing what we needed for the draw. Then I hunted down the carpenter and asked him if the owner lady had been by. He said he hadn’t seen her, but that he had just gotten there himself and there wasn’t anyone there when he pulled in, no work crews at all. This was not good news, but I figured we needed to finish our work to get the draw anyway, we were all the way out in Sealy now, we just needed to do our work. Less than a half hour later I saw the owner lady’s car pulling onto the ranch. I thought, “Here it comes. She’s pissed because she was here earlier and saw that we hadn’t completed the work for our draw, and she’s doubly pissed because there wasn’t anybody working there that morning, and I am going to catch her anger for all of it.” I decided to walk out to her car and take it like a man, expecting to get fired.
When she saw me she said that she was very sorry to have not made it out there that morning as she had promised, that she knew I was relying on that draw and so even though unimaginable hassles had kept her from making our appointment on time she had come out there regardless of the lateness to make sure I got my money. She went on to tell me that she knew that she had promised to walk through our work with me so that I could have her decide on the incidentals that had come up but that there were things that she absolutely needed to attend to back in Houston. She apologized but we would just have to reschedule the walk through for another day. I graciously accepted her apology and her check. Five minutes after I saw her car leave the ranch I told my guys to pack it in because I needed to make a deposit before the end of new business at 2:30. I made that deposit at 2:25. I am completely convinced that had I not learned to relax there would have been a very different outcome with the owner lady at her ranch. I think that her circumstances would have changed so that she would not have missed that appointment. The depth of me knows that she and I were affecting what was happening in each other’s lives that day.
Some of the anxiety that I felt at the stop light was a shame that I carried around with me from my first sheet rock experience. As long as we carry around unresolved shame, or anything that causes us to feel that we are basically flawed, we never feel that we are at the right place at the right time, and we cannot truly appreciate life. When I allowed those intense anxieties to wash over me and do their damnedest I was relaxing my control complex, and as soon as I did this I was able to notice and appreciate the panorama of life that surrounded me, most notably the wonderful canopy of the tree that was shading me (which has its own symbolism as well). Despite my best efforts to present myself to the world as if I were a good person I had issues of shame that I. I tried to pretend like I did not have those issues, but they were always there. I claimed that I wanted equality and justice and a new spiritual understanding to develop in the world and all the time I carried the burden of my own hypocrisy around until a situation developed where I could no longer maintain that facade.
On that day at the stop light I began to crack away at my facade because I started to deal with my self-deceit. I did not remember the incident from 1980 on that day at the stop light. I still had no idea the depth of the guilt that I carried. That came later as I continued to delve deeper into what I learned under that tree’s canopy. Shortly after this was when I met Sant Guru Dev Singh and he healed my broken rib (The Healing of Sat Nam Rasayan). Later it was learning Sat Nam Rasayan, the second side of the teachings, where I learned to systematically delve deeply into these issues and understand the connections. I found that in order to get beyond my shame I needed to learn to forgive myself.
In order to alleviate the feelings of shame and guilt that we carry around we first have to become completely honest with ourselves in order to admit what we are feeling guilty and ashamed about. We have to investigate within ourselves how we learned to react in the way that causes us this suffering. Inevitably this leads to a discovery that when we learned this self-destructive behavior it was at an earlier time in our lives when it seemed the only course to follow. Many times we find that this developed because we were embroiled in intense situations of fear and degradation. Developing the habit pattern that had become the source of our suffering was the best we could come up with at the time. It was just the way we had learned to survive. Delving deep into ourselves in this way develops the understanding that is necessary for us to forgive ourselves for learning to behave in the ways that cause us shame. In such a state of self-honesty we also realize the suffering that we have caused others and it becomes clear that in order to be truly responsible for what we have done me must not only renounce that behavior from that moment forward, we must commit ourselves to addressing the issues involved to make amends for our contribution to the moral decay. If we do not address the issues we now know so thoroughly, who will?
That was the pledge that I made to myself as I learned to face my own personal corruption, the issues that I was a slave to when I decided it was OK to not pay the guy I hired to help me hang sheet rock. It was because of this pledge that I am outspoken against the certification that IKYTA does. I know that this seems like a petty issue, but I know differently. I know that what I went through in learning to redeem myself, everyone must go through. I know that Yogi Bhajan had the structure of Sat Nam Rasayan developed so that it could be learned openly and safely. I know it works because I experienced the miracle of it. I know because learning it I learned to redeem myself, and I know that this is the true path that leads to becoming a Spiritual Teacher as Yogi Bhajan intended all along.
I also know that the IKYTA certification is only a way to pose as someone that knows something spiritual. There are no requirements beyond the ability to pose well in front of a class of yoga students. Having gone through the hell of confronting my own inner corruption I know that as long as there is an easy out we will not face that corruption. If there is any excuse available we will avoid dealing with our shame. This ties in with IKYTA because not only does the IKYTA certification process not teach what is necessary to produce Spiritual Teachers, it facilitates the corruption of all that participate in that process. It condones posing as spiritual as more important than being spiritual. For me not to speak out against this institutionalized corruption of the teachings violates my commitment to my own redemption.
The structure to redeem ourselves exists. Sant Guru Dev Singh teaches it, masterfully. If it works for someone like me, it will work for anyone.
It’s not the life that matters, but the courage we bring to it.
Blogs about Kundalini Yoga instruction: Catalyst Yogi, Kundalini Yoga-FAQ, Eyes Wide Open, Breakthrough healing, Savitree
Blogs about Sat Nam Rasayan: Darsana Wellness, Healing with Lea, The Yoga Cafe,
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Shifting from Religious to Spiritual, the Need for Spiritual Teachers
Humanity needs to shift its perception of itself and how it relates to the world it lives in on all levels. This tremendous shift requires a change in core beliefs. This shift can best be described as a change from religious to spiritual in the general way that humanity relates, shifting from believing and relating to the world religiously to relating to it spiritually. Religions produce folks that think that the religion that they practice is the best and the only true one. These bi-products of religious belief produce attitudes of the practitioners that they are somehow more special than those not of their religion. Borrowing an idea from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a religious person in the US (for example) could be described as believing that all Americans are equal but that those that practice the same religion as they do are more equal than others. It is a way of spouting equality while acting otherwise. The religious bias of inequality is a main part of the thinking that justifies exploitation, oppression and violence against others. A similar correlation can be explored about the way that attitudes of entitlement and elitism relating to natural resources have to be shifted in order to make human existence on this planet sustainable. (The effects of prejudicial religious attitudes seem so obvious that I am not going into the specifics necessary to make a formal argument. If this is too general please post a question or argument and we can discuss it further.) Thinking that is fundamentally biased in this way makes the future of humanity unsustainable and must be shifted.
One major obstacle to making this shift is the lack of understanding of what spirituality is. Spirituality is not a belief system. Spirituality is based on experience of connectedness that produces consistent specific results. It is not enough to simply believe that all things are interconnected, there must be consistent experiences of this interconnectedness that can be examined and explored. This element of validation is a required element in all aspects of spirituality. Going back to the Karen Armstrong discussion of the need for a shift in the perception of God, simply replacing the religious belief based image of God with a spiritual one is not enough. For the spiritual concept of God to have validity there must be some direct experience that one can use as the basis for that understanding (Blogs visited: In Good Faith, Learn English with Turgay Evern, This Tumbleweed Life, by Hibernopithecus, Insight, Rethorykal Questions, Find and Ye Shall Seek, Prometheus Unbound, Slow Muse, March Fourth Blog, Run Motherfucker Run, Marmalade, Randall Butisingh’s Weblog, Empowered Thoughts).
There are those that understand this because they have not only had these experiences themselves, but they have an understanding of the what is required to to establish that experience. These people are Spiritual Teachers. Spiritual Teachers are the key ingredient that humanity needs to make the shift from religious to spiritual because they know the reality of spirituality through spiritual experience. One great example of this is the common concept of compassion compared to that concept presented by a Spiritual Teacher. People frequently refer to compassion, but when asked what compassion is specifically the definition becomes very vague. Compare this with what the Buddhist Spiritual Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (blogs: Danny Fisher, 108ZenBooks, RBO, Enlightened Horsemanship, the loveART blog, Feeling Up In Down Times) teaches: that compassion only comes from understanding. This indicates that both understanding and compassion are specific direct experiences, and it implies that compassion is always a predictable result of increased understanding.
Along this same line, the Spiritual Teacher Eckhart Tolle (blogs: Tao of Now, Sweet in the Middle, Eckhart Tolle: Uncut Interview, Evolutionary_Mystic’s Blog, Award Winning Books, Online Inspirations ) has a book, The Power of Now, that gives specific definitions for words that are used vaguely before they are understood through direct spiritual experience. The book even includes his vivid firsthand account of the most basic of spiritual experiences.
Another example is in the way that the Spiritual Teacher the 14th Dalai Lama (blogs: Paderborner ‘SJ’ Web Blog, Dare to Bare, Sojourn to the Past, inklake, BreakLines, Pakistanpal’s Blog, In Good Faith) answered the question of what is the best religion. He said that he meets many people and if they have a warm heart it doesn’t matter what religion they are, and if they don’t have a warm heart it doesn’t matter what religion they are.
I once met the Spiritual Teacher, the Supreme Patriarch of Buddhism from Cambodia, Maha Ghosananda (blogs: CHANROEUN, Making Peace, Ruby Ramblings, Democratic Peace Blog, Skip Schiel, Church of Skippy) and asked him what Dharma is. He began telling me the textbook definition of the eightfold path. I rudely interrupted him to explain that I understood the general theory but I wanted to know how one knows what is the right thing to do in life when one is actively practicing Dharma. How do we know when to do more and when we are to back off, etc. He genuinely smiled and held up three fingers. He said, “Here, Now, This. When you are here, be only here. When it is now, be only now, and when you do this, do only this.” I said “So if I practice this I will always know what to do?” and he exclaimed, “Precisely! and when I do not I only make mistakes.”
These are all examples of Spiritual Teachers teaching from direct experience, and validating direct experience over religious belief. When the Enlightenment of these individuals and the Sikh Spiritual Teachers that I have mentioned in previous posts, Yogi Bhajan and Sant Guru Dev Singh, is investigated and examined it is found that they all were students of Spiritual Teachers themselves first. There are notions that spirituality can be learned without a Spiritual Teacher, or that it can be learned from a book. The notion that Enlightenment can be achieved without a Spiritual Teacher is simply a way to avoid the reality of what is truly necessary. The intimacy with which we delude ourselves makes Enlightenment without a Spiritual Teacher an impossibility today more than ever. The reason it is more impossible now than in the past to achieve Enlightenment without a Spiritual Teacher is that technology is so available now to divert attention from dealing with harsh truths and cater to our self serving tendencies. This is the role of a Spiritual Teacher, to show the path, to know the requirements, and to confront the cheating along the way. No one learns without this level of involvement with a Spiritual Teacher.
My Spiritual Teacher, Yogi Bhajan (blogs: Kundalini Yoga I Am, Kundalininow’s Blog, Har-Prakash Khalsa, Catalyst Yogi, Spirit Voyage, Sosieji’s Weblog), considered what is referred to as the New Age as the time when the shift from religious to spiritual will occur and that this can only occur through a newfound discovery of the validity of Spiritual Teachers. Yogi Bhajan was very clear that the defining purpose of his life was to create Spiritual Teachers to facilitate that shift. He was also a pragmatist. He established the structure for the second side of the teachings, Sat Nam Rasayan (blogs: Darsana Wellness, Healing with Lea, Be the Lighthouse ). He made sure that this was established in an open way so that students from any Spiritual Teacher can learn to understand the inner teachings of their own lineages. At the same time Yogi Bhajan was also aware that the vast majority of his own students had made their reverence of him paramount and had come to rely on that relationship in such a way that made learning the second side of the teachings virtually impossible. He allowed this to happen deliberately.
It presented itself to do this because while it is necessary to develop the strength of commitment required to have a Spiritual Teacher in order for a student to fully face and resolve their self-centered delusions, the student must also get beyond their Spiritual Teacher and learn to exclusively rely on the Spiritual Teacher that lies within. Yogi Bhajan chose his own students to be examples of how this is not achieved when he allowed them to instigate the IKYTA certification. Allowing this stands as a clear example of how the teachings of a Spiritual Teacher become subverted into a religion by over-relying on the Spiritual Teacher and making the godliness of the Spiritual Teacher and the relationship to that Teacher more significant than the teachings that produce the experience of spirituality. In order for there to be a monumental shift from religious to spiritual there needed to be a very clear example of the pitfall of deifying a Spiritual Teacher which is the basis for all religions. Yogi Bhajan allowed his own students to be that example so that humanity could make a permanent shift from religious to spiritual.
It’s not the life that matters, but the courage we bring to it.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )The Healing of Sat Nam Rasayan combined with Kundalini Yoga
If it is true that Sat Nam Rasayan is the ‘second side’ of the teachings of Yogi Bhajan, the obvious question is what happens when these teachings are combined, and Kundalini Yoga is practiced using Sat Nam Rasayan. After I started learning Sat Nam Rasayan from Sant Guru Dev Singh I began doing my daily yoga practice by applying Sat Nam Rasayan to the yoga I was practicing. The next time I saw Santji I sheepishly admitted to him that I was doing this. I expected that he would tell me that this was improper. Instead what he said was that this was the way to master Kundalini Yoga.
In order to understand how this works it is important to comprehend that whenever yoga is practiced there is a healing that is being precipitated through the practice. The ultimate healing being the unification of the mind, body and spirit producing the recognition of the experience of the soul, which is what the word yoga means and refers to. On the other hand those that practice Sat Nam Rasayan need to understand that all we ever do in Sat Nam Rasayan is heal ourselves in relation to others. In Sat Nam Rasayan we do not decide what healing will occur. What we do is become aware of what is not balanced, and heal ourselves in relation to it. In doing this, because we are interconnected through the Oneness of All, our healing of ourselves in relation to another produces a healing in the other. This of course is absolutely miraculous and is even referred to as the miracle of Guru Ram Das.
The first time I met Sant Guru Dev Singh was in Houston in Sept.-Oct. 1987. He had been invited there by a Krishna Kaur and Tej Kaur to do healing work. At this time I had a broken rib that was causing me major discomfort because I could not lie down. When I would lie down the broken rib would produce so much pain that I could not take a breath. I was sleeping each night sitting up in a chair because of this. This isn’t so bad for 45 minutes, but it gets uncomfortable when one tries to sleep all night sitting up, especially when there is searing pain every time one has to move to adjust position. So I was not sleeping so much as dozing every night, and I was also in a foul mood. During this time I was walking down the sidewalk in front of the Houston Ashram one afternoon and looked up to see Sant Guru Dev Singh standing obviously waiting for some one to pick him up. Even though I had never met him I had seen him before, and so I knew who he was. As I approached him I thought to myself, “A healer! I’d like to see him heal something real like a broken rib.” When I spoke to him what I said was that I had a very painful broken rib, that I was very good at yoga, and I wondered if he knew of anything I could do to adjust the break. Something like that. He told me to inhale deep. When I did it caused the searing pain and my hand went to where the break was. It could be palpated quite distinctly. He then told me to turn my back to him. He then felt along my spine to a spot adjacent to the break that was very tender. He then pressed his index finger into this tender spot along my spine. The pain was immediate, but he was relentless. I did my best to relax into it and as I did he continually increased the pressure. When he stopped he told me to take another deep breath. This time there was absolutely no pain. My hand once again went to palpate the injury. I could no longer feel any break in the rib. My broken rib was completely healed. I was astounded. I asked him how he did that and his response was, “It wasn’t big.”
This was definitely a miracle, and it is an example of the miraculous power of Sat Nam Rasayan. It would naturally be assumed that after experiencing such a miracle that I would dedicate myself to learning Sat Nam Rasayan. That assumption would be incorrect. I considered myself one of the best yoga students of Yogi Bhajan. Sant Guru Dev Singh was overweight. In addition he was from Mexico, and I had been raised by parents that saw people from Mexico as inferiors who did migrant agricultural work. I had some of my parents prejudices, and they kept me from humbling myself enough to learn Sat Nam Rasayan from Sant Guru Dev Singh.
Until
Summer Solstice 1993 which was the first time that I attended one of Sant Guru Dev Singhs classes. I still thought that I knew as much about yoga as he did and that I was at least as good a student of Yogi Bhajan’s as he was. My thought was that Santji must know some trick that enabled him to heal my rib. I reasoned that I would attend his class and be able to figure out what that trick was. When the class started he gave us the instruction to pair up with a partner. I looked around to find one of his best students so that perhaps I could pick their brains to learn what I wanted. Instead I ended up with a woman that clearly looked as if she had done too many drugs in her youth and did not have any understanding of Sat Nam Rasayan. During the class Santji had us alternate roles with our partners between healer and patient. The first time I was the patient I fell into the most peaceful sleep, deep and sound. When I woke I considered that something powerful had taken place but discarded that idea. I told myself that it was Summer Solstice and that I was simply tired from all the activities and had fallen asleep. The next time I was the patient Santji instructed the patients to choose something that we wanted healed. I chose the ringing in my ears. As he began to give instructions to the half of the class that were the healers he told the patients to choose something other than our ears to heal because the ears are very difficult to work on. Once again I should have been impressed with his awareness, that he knew what it was that I had silently selected to have healed. Instead I stubbornly thought that if he was any good he would heal my ears. I also resolved myself not to fall asleep this time around, and sure enough a moment later he responded to this saying that the patients should just relax. Instead of following this instruction I intensified myself internally with all my will power so that I would remain awake. This is the last thing I remember until I came to, wondering where I was. I had been in a deeper sleep than the first time. This time I was certain that it was something that Sant Guru Dev Singh had produced. I looked up at the woman that was my partner thinking that I had also completely misjudged her. She was still asleep, sitting up, and it was clear that whatever had happened to me had happened to her as well . What ever had just occurred it wasn’t something that she had produced. I then looked around at the other couples. They were all in a similar state of returning back to consciousness. I then looked up at where Sant Guru Dev Singh was sitting and I could tell from his posture and meditative grace that he had produced whatever had hit me and the entire group. I realized that I had completely misjudged who and what I was dealing with, and that Sant Guru Dev Singh truly knew something that was powerful beyond my concept. I felt ashamed of myself for being so arrogant, and completely humbled.
With the passing of time I have developed a deeper understanding of this event. I have learned in Sat Nam Rasayan that in order to have this effect, Sant Guru Dev Singh healed himself by modifying his awareness in relation to the entire class, and the entire class was affected. Not only were we all affected, but the specific effect that was produced was a deep and profound peace. I have also learned that this is always the case with Sat Nam Rasayan that the healing that is produced is a state of peace. This is the reason that the class is split up into pairs of healer and patient. It allows each student to receive the instruction and also not only experience the profound peace, but learn that this peace is produced each and every time Sat Nam Rasayan is practiced. I have learned that this experience of peace is produced whenever the awareness approaches that of the experience of the soul. Since this effect is produced each and every time that the awareness approaches the experience of the soul. This ability to produce peace in another is therefore a measurable proof of the existence of the soul. Something that can be measured and proven scientifically.
After having my rib healed miraculously, and still maintaining a competitive attitude toward Sant Guru Dev Singh, I felt like a complete ass. After the class was over I knew that I had to speak to him. I waited expecting that he would probably be surrounded by a throng of students. He left the class alone. I followed him to the Solstice bazaar where he purchased himself dinner and sat down to eat it, alone. I cautiously approached him as he sat eating. I told him that I now understood that he knew something very special, and that I wanted to study with him, but that I lived in Kansas City in a very small ashram that was too far from any of the places that he traveled to to teach. His response was that he had never been to Kansas. I explained that where the ashram was in Kansas City was in Missouri. He responded as if I hadn’t spoken and repeated that he had never been to Kansas and that I should contact his person in LA to schedule him to visit me.
I gave these two personal experiences as examples of the miracle of Sat Nam Rasayan. Sant Guru Dev Singh teaches that the fourth Sikh Guru, Guru Ram Das was the perfect archetype of Sat Nam Rasayan. This means that the miracle of Guru Ram Das is the miracle of Sat Nam Rasayan. Clearly the healing of my rib was the most dramatic, but the miracle of me learning to humble myself has clearly had the larger affect on my life. The rib healing was more physically dramatic, but acknowledging my arrogance has completely changed my life. It allowed me to study Sat Nam Rasayan with Sant Guru Dev Singh. There is really no question in my mind which was the greater miracle.
It’s not the life that matters, but the courage we bring to it.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )Sat Nam Rasayan is the ‘second side’ of the teachings of Yogi Bhajan
At the beginning of the Master’s Touch course in Assisi on April 21, 1997 (less than two months before Yogi Bhajan declared Sat Nam Rasayan teacher Guru Dev Singh a Sant) Yogi Bhajan refers to a ‘second side’ of the teachings: “This course reflects my second side of the teachings, which I hid for twenty-eight years. I didn’t come here to collect students or to start a religion. That was not my idea(The Master’s Touch, p 225)“. Sat Nam Rasayan is that ‘second side’ of the teachings. Yogi Bhajan had taught these teachings to the teacher of Sat Nam Rasayan, Guru Dev Singh over a period of years. Guru Dev Sing says that this was taught in ‘the silence’ and that Yogi Bhajan never had an open conversation with Guru Dev Singh about the content of these teachings. Once Guru Dev Singh had demonstrated that he ‘got’ what it was that Yogi Bhajan was trying to teach, Yogi Bhajan then told Guru Dev Singh to organize these teachings so that everyone could learn them openly. As Guru Dev Singh began doing this Yogi Bhajan named this ‘second side’ of the teachings Sat Nam Rasayan which literally means True Identity Healing.
Sant Guru Dev Singh (Santji) relates that for hundreds of years the most powerful aspects of yogic teaching were kept hidden. Keeping these aspects of the teachings hidden was done through the use of initiation. Before a Teacher would begin to teach a student, that student would have to swear allegiance to the Teacher and the secrecy of the teachings. Then the Teacher would evaluate each student that came forward to determine if that student could learn the second side of the teachings. In the course of a lifetime of a Teacher these hidden teachings would be passed along to only one or two of the students. When these teachings had been passed on to the student, the teacher would leave their body and proclaim the student as the new Teacher. Since there were only one or two of a Teacher’s students that ever actually became aware of the second side of the teachings, and since a student that learned those teachings was eternally indebted to having learned them, those students were absolutely loyal to maintaning the sworn secrecy within the initiation.Yogi Bhajan’s goal was to not only pass on the teachings, but to do so in such a way that they could be taught openly. This corelates with Yogi Bhajan’s frequent statement that ‘I came to teach Teachers, not to collect students.’
Santji (Sant Guru Dev Singh) relates that Yogi Bhajan told him that there was something he wanted to teach Santji, and Santji needed to come to Los Angeles to learn. At the time Santji lived in Mexico City, so this required a major move. When Santji got to Los Angeles Yogi Bhajan told him to come to Yogi Bhajan’s house to be taught the next day. When Santji arrived the following morning, Yogi Bhajan seemed to ignore Santji all day as Yogi Bhajan conducted his normal business until late in the day when Yogi Bhajan apologized to Santji that it hadn’t worked out for that day and requested Santji to return the following day. Santji says that this happened everyday for 2 years before Santji realized that he was actually learning anything. Santji says it was 6 years before he actually ‘got’ what Yogi Bhajan was teaching, when Yogi Bhajan told him to organize those teaching so that they could be taught openly rather than in ‘the silence’.
I can also add that I am aware of when Yogi Bhajan tested me as a new student of his to determine whether I could learn the ‘second side’ of the teachings. It was at a Tantric course in St. Louis in the fall of 1978. I had started attending Kundalini Yoga classes in January in Madison, WI and had met Yogi Bhajan at my first Tantric course in April in KC, followed by my first Summer Solstice where I got my spiritual name. At the St. Louis Tantric course I spoke to Yogi Bhajan for the first time. I explained to him that I competed in martial arts tournaments which had only two weight classes, lightweight and heavyweight. I explained to him that because I was tall yet very slim I had to fight in the heavyweight classification and that I would like to put on some weight to remedy this. Secretly I wanted Yogi Bhajan to know that I was a martial arts fighter, and my slight frame had been a source of insecurity for me my whole life. So in asking Yogi Bhajan this seemingly unimportant question I had actually exposed how I wanted to appear special as a martial arts fighter and was basically insecure about myself. Yogi Bhajan spoke to the core of these issues in his response. He asked me why I wanted to be an elephant. He went on to tell me that what I considered to be my slight build he thought was a perfect physique, and that he had the exact same physique in his youth.
This however did not satisfy me and I pressed him for something that I could do to put on more weight. He then told me to do cat stretch, and I found myself stammering in front of him wondering if he meant for me to do this cat stretch right there in front of him at that moment. Although I did not articulate this directly he indicated that he wanted me to do cat stretch right then and there. I was relatively new to Kundalini Yoga and had only heard of cat stretch once or twice and was initially not clear on what in fact he was referring to. As I stood there though, it became clear that he meant that I was to lie on my back and stretch one knee across past the opposite leg keeping my shoulders on the ground. I understood that this is what he wanted me to do even though I had never learned it was called cat stretch. As I became aware of this I also realized that I was wearing my new white kurta that I had payed a lady in Madison to make for me. I was very proud of this kurta, and I didn’t want to get it dirty rolling around on the floor there. I therefore acted like I was unclear about what he actually wanted me to do. This dance went on for a few moments until he stopped it indicating frustration, communicating that he wanted to teach me something and that I was not allowing him to. Chance missed, he then entirely stopped talking to me about this cat stretch thing. Since hearing from Santji of his trials learning from Yogi Bhajan in the silence, I now understand that Yogi Bhajan was testing me to see if I was ready to learn in the silence. That Yogi Bhajan was teaching me in the silence when I became aware of what cat stretch meant, and he knew that I understood what he wanted me to but that I was feigning that I did not. it only took a few moments to fail the test by acting that I did not understand when in fact I understood.
I, like the majority of Yogi Bhajan’s students, had communicated that I was unable to learn the second part of the teachings in the silence. However, also like the rest of Yogi Bhajan’s students, I had recognized that Yogi Bhajan was an Enlightened Master, and my Teacher. As I mentioned previously in my post The Problem with IKYTA simply recognizing a spiritual Teacher is a major milestone in the spiritual development of each and every person. It is said by the Buddhists that there is a specific experience when one recognizes their spiritual Teacher. They describe this as experiencing the words of your own heart in what the Teacher is saying. Speaking for myself I can definitely attest to this being my experience when I first met Yogi Bhajan at that first Tantric course in KC. I was utterly amazed that he knew the issues that I had but could not relate with others about so intimately, and it was as if he was speaking directly to me the entire weekend. Every one of Yogi Bhajan’s students has had some form of this experience. In addition each student has had to humble themselves and admit that they have submitted to a spiritual Teacher in order to be a student of Yogi Bhajan (Note that this is also true of students of any other Teacher or lineage.). Notice that it was a lack of submitting when Yogi Bhajan told me to do cat stretch. The conclusion to draw from this is that the way to learn the hidden ‘second part’ of the teachings is in learning to submit ourselves to the Teacher in more subtle ways. This ultimately becomes the Teacher within until we become Teachers ourselves.
Sant Guru Dev Singh mastered this submission of the self through learning in the silence and was recognized for this by Yogi Bhajan. Accordingly, Sat Nam Rasayan is the structure that Sant Guru Dev Singh was instructed to establish so that slobs like me and the rest of Yogi Bhajan’s students could systematically learn to humble ourselves to God’s Will, to what is presenting itself, to the Guru’s Hukam, to the Teacher within.
Furthermore, this is a conscious journey. When a student recognizes a Teacher, both the Teacher and the student are aware of the fact. It only happens when the student becomes humble to they realize. If I had done the cat stretch instead of pretending I did not understand what was meant, I am sure I would have had an experience that would have confirmed to me that I had a connection with Yogi Bhajan that was present in the subtle instructions he was giving me. This experience and confirmation of a deeper connection would then have been the base for learning more of the second side of the teachings, but that would only have been possible if I made the necessary realization. In this way, the advancement of the student is always determined by the student’s own awareness.
I make this point because many think that the Teacher can simply bestow a blessing upon a student and enlightenment blossoms instantaneously because of the devotion of the student. This does not happen. The second side of the teachings must be consciously learned in order for the student to modify themselves to understand the next step. It is a painstakingly slow and gradual process of self awareness where the student is cognizant of what is being learned every step of the way.
Ong Namo; Guru Dev Namo
It’s not the life that matters, but the courage we bring to it.
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