Issue 38 - December 2014

[Guru Fatha Singh Khalsa]

A Garland For Guru Nanak

Yogi Bhajan was known to have an exterior of stainless steel and a heart soft like gold.  Late one Saturday evening at the Sikh Study Circle, Yogiji looked to a picture of Guru Nanak hanging on the wall.  It was the night before Guru Nanak's birthday was to be celebrated. 

"Why isn't there a garland of flowers on Guru Nanak?" he demanded from Baba Singh who happened to be there.

"I don't know, sir."

"What do you mean, you don't know?  There should be a garland on Guru Nanak by morning."  It was an order.

"Yes, sir," replied his devoted student.

After Baba Singh had driven Yogi Bhajan to their home at the ashram where they both lived, he went out combing Los Angeles, looking for flowers.  It was about midnight.  No flower stores were open.  Baba went to the wholesale market.  A sign said it would not reopen until Monday.

Baba Singh became depressed.  The prospects did not look very good.  He did what he usually did under those kinds of circumstances, and checked into an ice cream place where he downed nearly a quart of "pistachio dream" to cheer himself up.  It did not help matters much.  Next, he went into a doughnut shop.  The doughnuts didn't offer any consolation.  He felt terrible.  What would Yogiji say?  There was simply nowhere he could go to buy flowers.

Finally, it dawned on Baba Singh that he might find an all-night supermarket that sold flowers.  Sure enough, the Mayfair Market had just what he was looking for.  Baba bought a few bunches and, with a needle and thread and an air of grim determination, headed for the Sikh Study Circle to sew a garland out of the flowers.

Some Indian ladies were already there.  They offered Baba Singh encouragement and showed him how to properly thread the flowers together.  He began.  By four thirty or five, it was done.  At last, Baba Singh hung the garland around Guru Nanak.  It looked wonderful!

The thought crossed Baba Singh's sugar-frazzled mind that he still had to go home and return for the actual celebration.  It seemed like such a long way to come and go.  Exhausted from a lack of sleep and an overload of junk food, he dragged himself home, back to the ashram.

Quietly, he opened the door and went in.  To his surprise, he found the tireless Master sitting on Baba Singh's bed.  Yogi Bhajan ordinarily never sat on his student's bed.  He had a bed of his own.  But there he was, propped up with his eyes half open and half shut.  The Master looked as though he had himself been up all night.

As his student entered the room, Yogiji looked up.  He said nothing, but warmly opened his arms.  The young man came and fell into those welcoming arms.  As Yogiji held him close, his wearied student fell asleep, his head embedded in his Master's shoulder.

As Baba Singh sank into that very deep slumber, he felt as though God himself were welcoming him into his arms.  He also felt that Yogiji had known the whole night what he was doing, had in fact been with him the whole while.  Only he had been too foolish to be aware of his most compassionate Master's presence.

They must have remained like that for an hour or so when the Master stirred him awake, "Okay Baba Singh, get up!  Get your shower!  Let's go to the Sikh Study Circle!"  

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Peace Lagoon

On April 20, Yogi Bhajan had a wonderful and much-anticipated announcement, which he delivered to his students during his UCLA class at Guru Ram Das Ashram.  “There are many books in this world, and in this country there are books and books, but there was a need for a book.  I'm not very much for books, but there was a need for a book when you got bugged somewhere, you have to talk to something and that something should be inspiring, should relate to your consciousness, and it should drive you to your destination which is your higher sense.

“One of our students made a painting of Guru Nanak and we have printed that in this book.  We have a copyright over it and that is the most beautiful painting we have of Guru Nanak, and we gave it to our Maharaj Ashram in Santa Fe.  One thing about this book is it is not written by a fanatic and it is written by a person who has practised Sat Nam, the real sense Guru Nanak taught.

“There is a saying of Yogi Bhajan in it which says 'Only that man who has experienced the state of true love in the human body...'  You know, sometimes I listen to my own sayings.  Excuse me.  I love it because most of the time I do not know what I am talking about.  Sometimes I walk down without wearing shoes, thinking I am wearing shoes and that kind of stuff.  My apologies for my state of consciousness.  That's the way I am.  So, sometimes I love to even listen to my own tape.

“You know, the oil pipeline is not the oil, so don't take the pipeline for oil.  When a teacher gets into an ego that he is a teacher and not a channel, he is the greatest fool.  And that is his downfall.  And that is why all these teachers die a miserable death, because they are cockroaches for the next life to come. 

“I don't kill a cockroach.  Why to kill a brother of mine?  Because when you are enlightened and you behave once in ego, you become a bug of darkness, that is what a cockroach is.  You see how many cockroaches there are?  They are all teachers.  Don't have any misunderstanding about this.  It's a matter of fact.

“A teacher has to choose very carefully whether he wants to be liberated or he wants to be a cockroach.  You know, it's not fair.  You can get caught into ego at any level and you have to guard yourself at every level of life.  There's no fun and the teacher is the most vulnerable person.

"These teachers, you know, they start learning a few words, then they start expanding themselves until they are great.  You're asking for a hell of a trouble because you can't have truth in you and you can't have a lie existing side by side.  You have to be very humble.  Truth is carried by a channel of humility.  Man has to boast only once and God is going to throw him on his nose.

“'Only that man who has experienced the state of true love in the human body can sing the praise of his love, which Guru Nanak sang in his native language, a song of the truelove and ecstasy which he felt with his one God.  And only that love inspired this translation of the language into American English...'

“It was a necessity.  English English has a very wrong meaning in American English.  'Gay' means a happy person, and in American English you know what 'gay' means.  And I have found so many words that carry different meanings that finally we decided if we have to have scriptures here, we have to have them in American English.  We can't afford scriptures in English English for American students.  That was the one reason this Peace Lagoon has to come out.  That was the real reason.  There was no other reason for us.  This book is being sold just for the cost that has gone in, so it is not a profit venture or that kind of stuff.

"This is for the children of the Age of Aquarius, so they can look to it for a spiritual guide.  This is the song eternal, song of love, and song of spiritual wisdom.  This book has the power that when somebody will meditate and open it up, it will give them direct guidance.  Now this is my declaration.  I stand as a written guarantee by this and I know it is true, and if I am a pipeline then it must be true.  Otherwise, I should withdraw being so.  'If somebody will meditate upon this, it will talk wisdom to the person's heart.  The beautiful children of the Age of Aquarius who are the children of higher consciousness and love shall find it a companion to their soul and heart.'  This is a few words which I could say at that time and I'll ask Premka to read the prayer and the Kalijug and one more thing which I love.

“She did a sadhana where you control your all vibrations from this world, when something in you happens.  When I went on that university tour I left her behind and one day she rang me up.  I was in Florida perhaps, yeah.  She said, 'I want permission for a few hours to go out and see sun and be in some park.' “And I said, 'The only permission I can grant is that you get out of your house.  There is a green lawn and there is a tree and there is a hedge around.  And you can stay there for thirty minutes, not more than that, and that is your park.  Then get back to your room and be at your work and I should listen to the typewriter working right here.'  It took her forty-five days of very intensive sadhana to bring this what we have today in hand.  It didn't come just as it is.”

Yogi Bhajan was effusive in his praise of Sardarni Premka Kaur and her accomplishment.  Then, at his direction, the students closed their eyes and Premka read out the dedication and prayer she had written as preface to the book, and a brief passage on the Kalijug, the Dark Age we live in.  Thereafter, she allowed the Peace Lagoon to open itself, revealing a certain passage destined by God, and she read those special words of counsel as well.

That day was the first public reading of the Peace Lagoon, the original rendering into American English of some of the essential guiding words of Siri Guru Granth Sahib.  

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Showdown at the Yogi's Corral

Sat Nam Singh had become a regular at Yogi Bhajan's classes.  He had gone to India and taken Amrit too.  Sat Nam played a guitar, sang wonderfully, and made enchanting melodies.  Aside from the rigorous yoga and cold showers every morning, life was sweet and easy.

But life was never sweet and easy for long in the company of the master of ordeals, Yogi Bhajan.  One day, Yogiji dropped into the house where his student stayed.  The Master posed a question.  "Do you love me?"

"Yes," came the reply.

"I want you to teach in Tucson.  Pack up and be out of town by sundown!"

It was a classic showdown.  The budding ego of the new student versus the cataclysmic force of the Master.  Luckily, the ego bent to the Master.  “Maha Deva Ashram” at 819 North Fourth Avenue in Tucson was the fortuitous outcome.