Guest guest Posted April 11, 2008 Report Share Posted April 11, 2008 Dear divine reader, Sat Nam. By the grace of Guru Ram Das, this is the 24th episode of the Yogi Bhajan story I am able to share with you. It is an honour and a pleasure to serve you and, in a small way, to help spread and preserve the legacy of that great Master. A number of you have asked: " When are you going to publish this in a book form? " Well, it is a big undertaking to do a really nice book. It costs the publisher to put it out and it costs the reader to buy it. Right now, we have a pretty nice situation, where aside from the time outlay for me to write and transmit, and for you to receive and read it, there is no cost whatsoever. That being said, I agree that one day the whole story should emerge in the form of a beautiful book. We could also publish now what I have transmitted so far as " Volume One. " As it happens, my dear sister, Siri Narayan Kaur of Buffalo, New York has graciously offered a significant financial contribution toward paying for the artwork of such a volume. And, if all this comes to pass, we are lucky to have a willing and very talented artist in Bachan Kaur of Vancouver, Canada. (Her web-site: http://huemanbeing.com) If you would like to see a volume of the biography this year or next, kindly reply to the questionnaire below and, based on your responses, I will see what can be done. There will need to be significant support in publishing the work and/or a considerable demand from readers like you to make it happen at this time. Of course, I am not exempting miracles. If you are interested, just let me know. I am at your service. PLEASE SEND YOUR REPLIES TO: GURUFATHASINGH. Questionnaire 1. I would be willing to contribute financially to the publication of Volume One of Messenger from the Guru's House in the amount of: a) US$10 b) US$25 c) US$50 d) US$100 e) 2. I would like to purchase a copy of Volume One of Messenger from the Guru's House for: a) US$29.95 or less + shipping b) US$34.95 or less + shipping c) US$39.95 or less + shipping 3. Based on the above estimate of pricing, I would be willing to pre-order 1 or more copies of the book, in the amount of: a) 1 book b) 2 books c) 3 or more books (Please give an approximate number.) 4. I would like to contribute to the publication of Messenger from the Guru's House, Volume One in some other way, namely: PLEASE SEND YOUR REPLIES TO: GURUFATHASINGH. ********************************************************************************\ ****************************************************************************** MESSENGER FROM THE GURU'S HOUSE Part Two: Raj Yoga †" The Soulful Sovereignty of the Divine ********************************************************************************\ ******************************************************************************* The Darkness Before the Dawn " Twenty million started out. Only a few survived. But we stood together in the heart of the land against all their power and lies. They wished that we'd never been. They clubbed us in the streets… " (from: The Khalsa Way [1977] by Livtar Singh Khalsa) " It's been a long time comin'. It's gonna be a long time gone. And it appears to be a long, Appears to be a long, Appears to be a long Time, yes, a long, long, long, long time before the dawn… " (from: A Long Time Gone [1969] by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young) The Yogi Bhajan story simply cannot be told without referring to the world in which he lived. Ganga was probably not the only one who saw in " the Yogi " the answer to the prayers of a generation, but the challenge for us now, nearly forty years later, is to comprehend the spirit and substance of those times. Much of what happened then may be difficult for us now, in our comfortable, polluted paradise, to believe. The euphoria of Woodstock was not to last very long. While the album and the movie of the event was being legally sorted out because of all the groups and record labels involved, history continued on its unswerving course. Sometimes it marched to war drums, sometimes to protesters' chants, sometimes as a dirge to the dead, dark and driven… marching, ever marching on. This was America at war, and to a large extent, it was at war with itself. It was Yogi Bhajan's gift to be able to see this and, day by day, to minister to its casualties, to garner new volunteers, and to train his gentle forces for a long march to peace, freedom and ultimate humanity. War was breaking out all over. The palpable frustration of the young and the bold boiled over into the streets. In Chicago, began a show trial of some of the younger generation's brightest political strategists. Outside the court, demonstrations grew, and finally on October 8, three hundred activists outfitted with helmets, goggles, cushioned jackets, chains, pipes, and clubs stunned the country by smashing cars and windows in the wealthy Gold Coast neighbourhood, charging right into a formation of two thousand riot police. By the next weekend, hundreds of thousands peacefully marched on Washington and campuses and state capitols across the nation demonstrating their opposition to the government's undeclared war across the sea in Vietnam. In November, a group of First Nations activists struck a blow against the empire by seizing and holding the rocky island of Alcatraz, off the California coast. It was a public act of insubordination and a strike for Red Power. Three days later, a reporter broke the story of the massacre of 109 civilians by scared and stupefied American troops in the village of My Lai back two months earlier. Then, come December, fourteen Chicago police took their revenge on the tide of violent activism by raiding an apartment and shooting dead two Black Panthers while they slept. Outside of sanctuaries where health, happiness and holiness were the regimen of the day, even the flower children were losing their innocence. Too many drugs, too many dealers, too much ripping off, was grating the tender psyches of the psychedelic crowd. And then there were the bad hippies. Before Woodstock was over, a coven of drug-crazed killers had been arrested for the widely-publicized murders of a pregnant actress and several others at their rural California digs. Finally, on December 6, came the great Anti-Woodstock: the Altamont Free Concert, near San Francisco. Instead of Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farmers, the organizers enlisted Hell's Angels to police the hundreds of thousands at the festival. The event was full of bad vibes from the beginning, and did not end without a near riot and the murder of a young spectator by the Angels while " Sympathy for the Devil " hooted and echoed into the night. For many, John Lennon and Yoko Ono served as voices of dispassion in an otherwise chaotic time. Their days of bedding in for peace at hotel rooms in Amsterdam and Montreal back in June had struck an incredulous chord around the world. Why indeed couldn't people just make love, not war? At year's end, they hired billboards around the world to say: " War Is Over If You Want It †" Happy Christmas from John and Yoko. " Lennon could be innocent and sweet, but was also capable of biting and cold, as in " Cold Turkey, " Lennon's hit from the fall. His next hit single, apart from the Beatles was " Instant Karma. " Things moved so quickly… A Senator from Wisconsin called on students to fight environmental degradation with the same intensity that they opposed war. The first " Earth Day " was scheduled for April 22, and preparations were going well. Meanwhile, three hundred hard-core activists held a council in Flint, Michigan and decided to continue their efforts to destroy the system from underground. Soon, the FBI's most wanted list would be expanded from " Ten Most Wanted " to Sixteen. Half of them were wanted for crimes against the state. Army recruiting centers, government buildings and banks were favored targets for destruction. According to a U.S. Department of Treasury survey, in 1970 every week saw an average of forty-two politically motivated bombings or acts of arson. Outside the court houses, the war in America was partly a war of symbols. To be young with hair over your ears would mark you for suspicion from the police if, you happened to be a male. In the U.S. South, it might get you put in jail and a free haircut. If you ate granola, it was a dead giveaway that you smoked pot. Granola was hippie food, and hippies smoked pot. In those days, it was irreversible logic and usually true. Hippies ate other things too: sprouts and wheat germ, yogurt and whole wheat bread, brown rice and tamari. That the foods were healthy was one thing. That they challenged the status quo made them insurrectionary and potentially dangerous. The revolution had its own music. The soft, plaintive sounds of mid-1960s, with the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Peter-Paul-and-Mary, and The Incredible String Band, was mixed with the more strident sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Crosby-Stills-Nash-and-Young, and potentially, the Beatles. Then there was also Ravi Shankar, in a class of his own. Hippie reading encompassed much that was practical and quite a lot that was purely visionary. The Whole Earth Catalogue, first issued in 1968, provided all the information you ever needed to set up a homestead and survive on your own. Romantics inclined more toward the lilting verses of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. Acidheads would prefer something by Timothy Leary who proclaimed LSD to be the avatar of our times. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five was a favorite read for its surrealistic take on the absurdity of war. Politicos would prefer something more rowdy, like Jerry Rubin's Do It! There was media too. Dissenting views and appearances were mostly excluded from the great television monopolies, excepting when CBS's news anchor Walter Cronkite would offer the kids a sympathetic word or when, once a week on select stations, the frantic musical Monkees would air their hair-raising antics. Mostly it was on FM radio that you would hear the longhair music, the longer cuts. Shorter three minute versions aired on AM. Where the hippies really proliferated was in print. Hundreds of weekly journals opened up with the Liberation News Service, a radical Reuters, linking them all together. Out west, there was the Los Angeles Free Press, the San Francisco Oracle and the Berkeley Barb. Atlanta had The Great Speckled Bird, Austin its Rag, and there was the Chicago Seed, and the Village Voice in Greenwich Village. Even Easley, South Carolina had its Aquarian Times. Up north, there was Vancouver's Georgia Straight, Prairie Fire in Regina, the Octopus in Ottawa and the Harbinger in Toronto. Over in Europe, Amsterdam had its Om and London its Oz, and there were many, many others. People created the fervent, the movement, the demonstrations, the ashrams, the yoga classes, the free schools, the free concerts, the free kitchens †" and the underground media reported it, mythologized it, and nurtured it by giving it other people's attention. ********************************************************************************\ ******************************************************************************* The Peace-Giving Name In the Aquarian Age, nothing exists in isolation. Even for those of Yogi Bhajan's students who immersed themselves completely in their new lifestyle, violence from outside occasionally intruded on their peaceful reality. In April 1970, when a gathering of the Master's devotees assembled at the arrivals terminal of the Washington airport, chanting softly in anticipation of his coming, the airport police thought they were demonstrators and forced them to leave. Once the Master arrived, he stayed for a week, teaching classes and encouraging the local Kundalini Yogis in their efforts. Yogi Bhajan also took time to visit local Congressmen, assuring them that not all America's longhaired young were violent insurrectionists. On a quiet Tuesday evening, Yogi Bhajan and his students found their way to a small lecture room at the American University. The Master delivered a talk on the power of Sat Nam and the dawning age of self-awareness. But just as he finished his presentation and the questions drew to a close, the sound of shattering glass resonated up the hallway. There, in the main auditorium, anarchist Jerry Rubin had just given a talk of his own, inciting his student audience to destroy the system, beginning with the very building they were in. There was a distinct smell of smoke as the rioters torched the place. In the room with the Master, someone picked up a guitar and the peaceful Yogis spontaneously began chanting to ride out the pandemonium. They continued and continued, until police and firemen finally arrived to guide them safely outside. The evening provided everyone with a violent reminder of the polarised state of the American union †" and the remedy of chanting the Name. ********************************************************************************\ ******************************************************************************* Sikh Vows Lawton Boseman and Richard Lasser lived together and regularly took Yogi Bhajan's classes. It was April 19, celebrated as Baisakhi Day, and the two of them were going to the Sikh Study Circle on Vermont Avenue. Yogi Bhajan had told them it was a special day, and they were going to go see what it was all about. As they made their way, Richard told Lawton that he was going to become a Sikh that day. " Why are you going to do that? " asked Lawton. " Because my teacher is a Sikh and I want to be like him, " replied his friend. " Okay, I'll do it too. " When Lawton and Richard arrived at the Sikh Study Circle, they announced their intention to the people they found there. These Sikhs from India had never before seen a non-Sikh who wanted to become a Sikh. They were stumped. What should they do? One of them phoned to ask Yogi Bhajan what he thought should be done. He advised them that all they needed to do was simply give these young people to the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. There was no need to tell them anything. The young men would know what they needed to do. A simple ceremony was improvised. Two men from the congregation graciously offered the steel karas from their wrists so that these new Sikhs might have them to wear. The youths stood before the Guru and the congregation. In front of the assembled Sikhs, most of whom had cut their hair and shaven their beards in an effort to " Americanize " , the president spoke, somewhat awkwardly, to the two sparkly-eyed Americans, " Well, you've got the beard and the turban... I guess you know what to do. " ********************************************************************************\ ******************************************************************************* The " Perfect " Turban There might be a great deal of pride among these new Sikhs. There could also be light-hearted comedic moments. One Sikh said to the other, " Yogi Bhajan showed me how to tie a turban. " The other said, " Yeah?' The first Sikh, " Yes, and I tied it myself and it's perfect. " For a moment, it was perfect, but perhaps the ego of the wearer spoiled the perfect alignment of the folds and creases of the turban because just at that moment, the frontal layer of the turban unraveled and fell comically from the crown and into the face of the first Sikh †" to the quiet delight and amusement of the other. ********************************************************************************\ ******************************************************************************* To San Francisco A good day's drive north of Los Angeles lay San Francisco, hub of the alternative culture. By 1970, that culture had peaked and was in sordid decline, but what a ride it had been! In 1964, the nearby University of California at Berkeley had served as the lively center of the student-driven free speech movement. The summer of 1967 was dubbed the " summer of love. " Psychedelics were pure and cheap then, and the innocent and idealistic were arriving in droves with flowers in their hair. This was the time of Allen Ginsberg and Richard Brautigan, poetry in the parks and indescribable Be-ins. San Francisco was politically aware and decidedly dissident. The city rivaled New York for the size of its peace marches. Nearby Oakland was headquarters of the Black Panther party. Berkeley was a constant hotbed of discontent. Buddhists and Sufis, hippies and Alan Watts configured the alternative spiritual landscape of the city of the Golden Gate Bridge. The music could be hard and loud or just gently psychedelic. This was the home the Fillmore Auditorium, the biggest rock palace in the world, but by now, especially after the Altamont festival disaster, things were going down. There was more drugs and less art, less free-spirited expressionism and more party line. God - the joyful trickster - was on the run. The day after Earth Day, Yogi Bhajan set out north to give a week of classes in San Francisco, at the University of California at Berkeley and the Sausalito Community Center. He was hosted there by Steve and Leigh Samuels, his teachers in the Bay area, whom he had just married at the previous Summer Solstice in New Mexico. As well as giving classes, Yogi Bhajan performed another wedding during his tour. In Yogi Bhajan's classes, he covered laya yoga, mantra yoga, mool bandh and maha bandh, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and gave vigorous exercises for transmuting sexual energy. Yogi Bhajan counseled his student teachers against fanaticism and judging others. He also encouraged them to think before speaking and to be humble. These are some of the other things the Master said: " Sadhana is never do what is " right for you. " Always do what is right… " I fully understand people do not like discipline and everyone wants something else, but out of the lot, maybe somebody can make it. Teaching en masse is so that some few may come forward and be the leaders of the public when the hard times come… " When an individual doesn't keep up their sadhana, the teacher suffers. That is the reason why others do not teach Kundalini Yoga. The teacher becomes the center of an energy complex and he pays the toll for the fault of his students… " If you are ever to hold yourself back from negative acts, do it while you are young. What credit goes to the aged toothless wolf who cries out that he is a vegetarian now? " ********************************************************************************\ ******************************************************************************* also at: http://www.gurufathasingh.com/myweblog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.