alcoholism

August 15, 2009

Greetings all,I am wondering if Yogi Bhajan has said anything about the effects of alcohol. I am wondering what bodies it affects and if he said anything about why people get drawn to it. I know many people, myself including, who don't understand the attraction of getting drunk. But I guess like all things, it clouds the perception of the self since many use alcohol to not deal with their pain.

Anyways, I am wondering if he talked about alcohol.Thanks,Paula

August 15, 2009

The Art and Science of Liberation

What is a liberated being? And what is the reason we suffer in the

hands of time? Every person has two sides. One is a carefree side. The

other is a careless side. When one lives in his carefree side, he is

guided by his Divine faculty. When he lives in his careless side he is

guided by his animal force. It is not the carelessness of breaking a

glass or accidentally throwing away something you meant to keep.

Materially we are considered careless when we are unable to discharge

our material responsibilities. But in reality, we are truly careless

when we lose our Divine personality-when that "something" which is very

precious, beyond value, is lost just for passion.

Emotion

and passion are the two buyers of our Spiritual personality. If you

analyze this thought you will realize that such a bargain is too

costly. For what are we trading our Spiritual Self?

This

world of ours is a transitory phase of life. It is not permanent, but

we always associate ourselves with it as if we belong to it and it

belongs to us. Subconsciously, behind every action is the desire to be

recognized. But if you classify your desire for recognition and the way

you try to be recognized, you will find that you want recognition

without maturity. You want to be recognized as a mature being, but you

have not developed the mature attitude of a carefree being.

The only carefree being is that person who is free from negativity. He

is liberated. It is a Cosmic Law that such a person is never short of

anything. A carefree man doesn't know any misery. He may be humble, but

that doesn't mean he is miserable. Ever wise, he sails through time

undisturbed. He does not need any correction at the hands of time. His

smooth behavior and calmness of personality are the signs that he is a

liberated being. In a nutshell, he is the happiest person ever on the

earth.

This

does not mean that you should be barred from having worldly goods.

Matter is media. It cannot be created and it cannot be destroyed.

Similarly, emotion and involvement in desire are also media, but their

satisfaction is temporary, not everlasting. If you understand how the

addiction to liquor begins, you will understand this Theory of

Involvement. This is how it works: A man who does not drink comes under

pressure and doesn't know what to do.

He goes to the house of a friend for consolation, for man is a social

animal, and by having someone participate in his grief, he feels

relieved. The friend offers whiskey for a soothing effect and the man

is persuaded to take a drink. The alcohol goes into the body and does

its chemical action. It soothes the nerves, and energizes the energy

centers so that the man's attitude relaxes and becomes flexible. It is

only a temporary relief, but the memory of the first taste sticks in

his mind. He can never ever regain the smoothness of that first taste

of liquor, but for the lust of that taste and in order to re- capture

that experience, people become habitual drinkers-alcoholics. They

believe that the best way to escape from the pressures of life is to

continue drinking and thus drinking becomes a need of the body.

Similarly,

whenever you involve yourself in any mode of life, you are going into a

channel where you will go on and on and on, and you can never come back

to the point from which you originally started. When we forget our

original basis of action and become involved, we become a slave. It has

been seen in our entire concept of life, that we are 15% slaves to a

routine, to habit. Man must have certain habits without which his life

cannot go on. But he can attain liberation by changing the character of

these minimum required habits. There are two kinds of habits: Promoting

Habits and Demoting Habits. Demoting habits make you unhappy

physically, mentally and spiritually. Promoting habits make you happy

physically, mentally and spiritually. In your life, if you have all the

habits which are promoting habits, you will end up as a Liberated,

Divine person. If you have demoting habits, you will always end up as a

physical wreck, mentally insane and/or spiritually defunct.

Habit

is a must of your personality and mind. For that period when you are

acting under a demoting habit, you are totally in the negative

personality. It is also a fact that if you get into anyone negative

habit, you will automatically attract its four sister habits, for they

love to stay together. These five demoting habits of behavior and

attitude are: greed, anger, lust, attachment and negative ego. When one

sister enters the house, she calls the others to join. Each habit is

supported on two tripods-l) Physical, Mental and Spiritual, and 2)

Past, Present and Future.

There are two guiding instincts in man. He is either improving his

future or blocking his future improvement. If you are conscious of

this, and have an honest and sincere urge to improve your future, you

will always have promoting habits. Oh man, if you are to care not even for God, at least care for the future. When

you care enough for your future to have promoting habits, you will

become a liberated person. A liberated person is always a happy person.

He does not lack in any material comfort. He does not know any power on

earth which can insult him. He lives in grace in this world and when he

leaves the body he is respected for generations to follow. Everyone can

be like that. Yesterday's greatest sinner can be a Saint this minute.

The only thing required is a decision. "Am I to guard my future and

choose to be a liberated person, or am I to block my future and go by

the material-physical aspect of the world?" For any person who blocks

his future, it is a guaranteed fact he suffers in the future. Any

person who takes advantage of the "now" causing someone else's loss, blocks his future. Anyone who takes advantage of the "now" invites trouble from Mr. Future.

Maintain

a positive attitude with promoting habits for 40 days, and you can

change your destiny. This psychological concept of Human behavior is a

pattern which can guide you to that goal which is described in our

scriptures as Paradise. In the self one has to sow the seed of Divine

vibrations and with the power of these vibrations one has to dwell in

the Ultimate which is a Truth, a reality and an ever living primal

force. This primal force has been named God by Christians, Paramatman

by Hindus, and Allah by Muslims. Some name has been given it by all,

but the Universal Consciousness of this Universal Spirit has one name,

that is Truth, so we call it Sat and we remember it as Sat Nam. Sat, in

the language of Gods, Sanskrit, means Truth; Nam means Name. So without

dispute we can say that Universal Consciousness, that Universal Spirit,

that creative force in us, has a universal name and that is Sat Nam.

All those who want to liberate themselves and seek to dwell in the

Ultimate must cleanse their physical selves and direct their mental

beings towards the Sat Nam, the being of beings. One who dwells on the

vibrations of this Holy Nam-Sat Nam-in the prime hours of the day

before dawn when the channels for vibrations are very clean and clear,

will realize the concept of a Liberated Being through the grace of this

Bij Mantra which awakens the goddess of awareness in a being. He then

lives as a liberated man on the planet Earth.

(This lecture was one of Yogi Bhajan's first classes in the USA, and over the years he often said it was his best lecture.)© YB Teachings, LLC 1969

Kundalini-Yoga , Paula Lucidi <plucidi wrote:>> Greetings all,> > I am wondering if Yogi Bhajan has said anything about the effects of> alcohol. I am wondering what bodies it affects and if he said anything about> why people get drawn to it. I know many people, myself including, who don't> understand the attraction of getting drunk. But I guess like all things, it> clouds the perception of the self since many use alcohol to not deal with> their pain.> > Anyways, I am wondering if he talked about alcohol.> > Thanks,> Paula>

August 15, 2009

Here is something I found on my path through addiction :)The Art and Science of Liberation , excerpt from Yogi Bhajan lesson given on 01/01/69. ......If you understand how the addiction to liquor begins, you will

understand this Theory of Involvement. This is how it works: A man who

does not drink comes under pressure and doesn't know what to do.