Tuesday, August 25, 2009

MEDITATION KRIYA

Situational anxieties and fears are strictly external to our nature. They are learned behavior and they gain entry to our vibrational field through the subconscious. When something is about to happen that has happened before the subconscious mind directs the response. These knee jerk responses are like sand bars, or reefs, formed by the repetitive pounding of identical waves. These sand bars must first be reshapped and then removed.

Sit with a straight spine and inhale. Fill your lungs to the top, hold the breath for three seconds and exhale slowly. As you exhale, consciously relax the muscles in your stomach so that at the bottom of the breath the stomach muscles are completely relaxed. repeat the process and add the Mantra, "Sat Nam."

This is how to do it:

On the inhalation, as you draw the breath high into the lungs, silently vibrate SAAAAAT, to the top of the breath. and as you exhale, silently vibrate NAAAAAM to the bottom of the breath. As you exhale, consciously draw the Nam, the sound itself, the vibration of the Word, down,into the solar plexus so that at the end of the breath, "Nam," is gently vibrating against the walls of a completely relaxed abdomen. Like settig an egg in a nest.

Inhale and repeat: 27 reps, 54 reps, or 108 reps, and use beads to count the repetitions.

God bless you, you will go from fear to a lightness of being.

Sat Nam
yogi Bir singh Khalsa

Friday, August 7, 2009

MUL MANTRA

Ek ong Kar
Sat Nam
Karta purkh
Nir-bhau
Nir-vair
Akaal-moorat
Ajooni
Sai-bhang
Gur-prasad

JAP
Aad Sach
Jugaad sach
Hai bhi sach
Naanak hosi bhi sach.

TRANSLATION:
God is one
Truth is H name
H is the creator
The fearless
Without Enmity
The Immortal
The Unborn
Self-illuminated
By the Grace of the Guru

RECITE

True in the beginning
True before ages began
True at present
Nanak True He shall ever be.

Friday, July 31, 2009

CAN YOU SHOW ME GOD?

On one occasion, at a White Tantric Yoga course this fellow came up to Yogiji and said, "if you're such a great Yogi, can you show me God?" Yogiji answered in the affirmative, and the two of them left the room walked outside and got into the guy's car. As soon as they were on their way, Yogiji pointed to the intersection ahead and told the guy to run the red light. When they came to another intersection Yogiji again told the guy to run the red light. The third time a cop pulled them over, and Yogiji said, "meet God."

Sunday, July 26, 2009

THE OTHER REAGAN LEGACY

The Reagan years produced a culture in America in which political affiliation became unfashionably blue collar, and the American voter responded, in significant numbers, by abandoning both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, choosing instead to think of themselves as "Independents." Now instead of aligning ourselves politically with people with whom we share the same interests, we choose instead to identify with some abstract notion of who we will be when the trickle down trickles down.

The concept of a Trickle Down Economy was the love child of the Reagan Administration. It is the idea that what is good for the rich is good for the country. That at some point the wealthy will start leaving a little on the table for you, just because you're a team player. Trickle down is the idea that you can spend beyond your means as long as you vote in the interest of the corporate giants, on whom you depend to keep the furnace of the economy hot enough to burn the debt incurred. Americans elected law makers on the promise of promoting these ideas, and promote them they did, largely through deregulation of the activity of the oligarchy.

Now we are thirty years later. We are a divided, divisive, nation, so perfectly divided that it almost seems by design; how delicately placed, is the fulcrum upon which the balance of our social, political, and economic existence depends. And the thing most absent from the dynamics of modern American governance is a sense of solidarity.

I once had a college professor who liked to say, "If you sign your pay check on the front, vote Republican, if you sign it on the back vote Democratic." That is exactly the way it was the last time the middle class had any significant political collateral. Government is mostly about economics, and economics is about distribution of wealth, and so representative democracy works best when the electorate is lined up according to economic interests.

The two party system is not working as well as it has in the past because we have three parties; the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Independents. My Yoga Teacher often said, "If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything." That characterizes the Independent voter. He stands alone and so he is always up for grabs. Political campaigning has become largely about seducing the Independent voter.

All social change comes as a result of class wars. The middle class is increasingly unable to win these wars because their numbers are diminished by those who are enticed to desert their own in the hopes of becoming part of the other. As a result, law makers really don't know who they represent, so they represent themselves. As long as we remain divided and divisive there can be no mandate from the people, so lawmakers do what they want, and the safest thing to do is nothing.

Sat Nam

Yogi Bir Singh Khalsa

Friday, June 26, 2009

AS CLOSE AS HE CAN GET TO GOD

The few seconds it takes for the home page to come up seems an eternity. His heart pounds in anticipation. And then seeing no mail from her, he feels the weight of the world come down on his back, taking his breath, coming to rest in the aching hollow in the middle of his chest. He is completely consumed. A meditation on pain. It is as close as he can get to God.

Monday, June 22, 2009

ELMER GENTRY IS A FRUAD

Elmer Gentry is the blind leading the blind. Elmer Gentry is a man who gets himself worked up on his own hype, and with a certainty born of enthusiasm, sells that hype to others. He wants you to believe he has a personal relationship with God, and he wants you to pay to hear about it.

Elmer Gentry does his business in a converted gas station, or in the building that used to be the local minudo shop. His message is simple: Keep smiling, and keep telling yourself the shit in the world is roses by disguise. "Bite negativity off by the head," he says, "think Bliss."

Elmer Gentry encourages you to play the "smorgasbord game," taking a little of this and a little of that; a little Christianity, a little Zen, a little Yoga, a lot like chicken soup. Elmer Gentry wants to sell you spirituality without God. Spirituality without commitment. Spirituality that does not challenge your closely held ideas. He wants you to believe "everything is good." Elmer Gentry suffers from delusional hubris. Elmer Gentry is a fraud.

Elmer Gentry preys upon the weak and battered. He preys upon people who are marginalized, subaltern, on the fringe. He prays upon those that have been abused or exploited. He preys upon those that cannot contend with the dualities, and he sells them the idea that the polarities of the universe can be neutralized. He says that happiness is natural or God like, and saddness is a pervertion, proof certain that you have not found God. He says that your problem is your attitude.

Elmer Gentry preaches detachement from emotions. This is very cruel because it puts you at odds with your feelings. Emotions come and go all by themselves. This is a natural process resulting from the conflict between the conscious mind and the subconsious mind. The conscious mind sees the future through the present, and the subconsious mind sees the future through the past. Emotions are the subconscious and the conscious trying to reach a balance. Just watch them come and go. Be the observer and nothing more. Your breath is the proof that you are living, not your emotions. If you don't like the way you feel, wait for a while and you will have new feelings.

If you have the strength and the courage to sit quietly and watch the thoughts and emotions come and go, without hitching a ride on those thoughts, then you are meditating. Every time you meditate you experience Bliss. It may be fleeting but it is there, and more importantly it is cumulative. It is like charging your psychic battery with Bliss.

Take a look at this essay about science and meditation, taken from CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/dailydose/11/19/brain.meditation/index.html .

Yogi Bir Singh Khalsa

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

ARE YOU A "MAKE THINGS HAPPEN" PERSON

Before I heard Him say anything I heard things that He had said, like, "It is your birthright to be healthy and happy and holy." I went for that. The idea that Yoga could make me healthy, happy, and holy. I went for it because I believed it was a way for me to make things happen. I was very wrong about that.

In this society we place great value on those among us who have the motivation to "make things happen." In the world of the Yogi, this is a scatter-brained notion. The first Koan of the Yogi is how not to force things. Nobody likes a bully. If you want Her she must be coaxed.

In all methods of meditation there comes a point when the Breath, the Breather, and the Mantra become one. These moments are fleeting, but they are very powerful and the affects are cumulative. Two things you have to know. One, you can't make this happen, and two, if you watch for it, it will never happen.

This is as true for life as it is for Yoga, and when this truth becomes integrated with your Sadhana, it will also integrate into your life, and both will be more productive. When you want the Guru to visit you, first offer the invitation, then prepare the house, and then await His arrival. That is Yoga. Satnam

YBSK