Beads of Truth, #36
by Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji

We are the by-products of yoga. There’s no untruth about it. We are not going to justify ourselves to any­body. This is the way it is. We have adopted this dharma because we raised our consciousness, not because it was thrust upon us. The problem is that there is no man to be worshipped…it is the Infinite God whom we worship. It is the most difficult thing on this planet to have an ego and then to wor­ship the Unknown.

You should try to understand how political power works. Somebody is a minister today and tomorrow he will be in jail. Who knows? This is the earth trip. It is so today but tomorrow it may change. But, dharma is one thing which never changes.

Somebody once asked this very ques­tion: “How does one change karma? How can one be free from karma?” Guru Gobind Singh gave the answer: “By living Dharma there is no karma.” It is very simple yet very, very difficult. What power do you want? You may become very succesful on this earth but of what use is it? Guru Nanak says: “Your life may become as long as four yugas; it may be a billion or a trillion years long, and it may be multiplied ten time. Then, man, you are the fool because that is not what reality is.” If you have not felt your relationship with God, the whole thing is useless. Karmas are karmas, and karmas are going to be karmas and those who want to live karma will live them. This is a very distinct difference which you have to understand.

Jesus came and left; Moses came and left; Abraham came and left; Guru Nanak came and left; Muhammad came and left. Everybody left-but nobody left. They all said the same thing, and they continue saying the same thing. They goaded people, they guided people, they climbed mountains, gave this ser­mon and that sermon, and gave this counsel and that counsel. It is all cat­alogued and nothing has changed.

Neither they have stopped trying nor have you stopped listening. It is a tug of war. Everybody has said the same thing from time immemorial to now; and you have two ears yet neither have you listened nor are you willing to listen.

God told Guru Gobind Singh, “Go and establish a religion of righteous­ness. Let the human worship the Un­dying Being, the Akal Purkh, not the dying being.” Jesus said not to worship idols yet I have never seen a single church where he is not hanging on the cross outside. Is that not an idol? Moses said to love all and worship one God, yet Jews feel they are the special chosen beings and everybody else is out. The Hindus were told to see God in every­thing. Their God is in their temple, sleeps at a certain time and gets up at a certain time. Otherwise everything goes beserk. That is the hypocrisy of religion.

Now if somebody wants to try to make the religion of Guru Gobind Singh a hypocrisy, one thing for certain is that the person can’t stand. You cannot be a Khalsa and a hypocrite; the two don’t go together. Some people ask me why there are the “five K’s” and why there is a “rehet” for this religion. The answer is very simple and was given by Guru Gobind Singh in his lifetime. A goldsmith asked Guru Gobind Singh the same questions and Guru Gobind Singh told him to come back the follow­ing morning for the answer. The next day when the goldsmith came, Guru Gobind Singh gave him a piece of gold and told him to check it out. “It looks genuine but I need my touchstone.” So he brought his touchstone, rubbed the gold, looked at it and said, “This is 24 karat gold; it is pure.” Guru Gobind Singh asked him, “You have been a goldsmith all your life; why couldn’t you test the piece? What went wrong?” “Sir, to be one-hundred per cent sure I need a touchstone.” Guru Gobind Singh said, “To be one-hundred per cent sure we have to have a “rehet’ for the Khalsa. It is as simple as that.”

We are almost ten million Sikhs in the world, and barring a few handfuls of idiots who cannot escape their guilt consciousness and are making a mockery one way or the other, everyone loves you American Sikhs, regards you and respects you. I was given this mes­sage by the President of the S.G.P.C. to communicate to the entire sangat, that whosoever is a Sikh and a Khalsa is with you forever and ever and they are grateful. His words were, “Politics or no politics, government or no government, we look to you as our own and we are your own.” So please don’t misunder­stand. The handful of boozers who eat beef at night, who drink wine, trim their beards and live a non-righteous life, if they somehow manage to get to you and mock certain things you do, they count nowhere. They are nobody. Khalsa is not measured by the measure­ment of wealth and influence; Khalsa is not answerable that way. Khalsa is answerable to its own Guru and to its own rehet. Live rehet, live righteously, but there is no need to be fanatic. Sometimes people are ignorant; you should use your judgement whether the person knows anything or not. If he doesn’t know, tell him what to do. There is no need to be uptight. We are merci­ful, compassionate, commissioned people; we are commissioned repre­sentatives of the rehet maryada and we are judged by our daily consciousness. That is why we avoid judgement day. Who wants to hang on to be judged one day? We want to be judged right now. When I got up this morning I judged myself.

Let it be very clear to you that if you are going to get away with a situa­tion it is called socialization and it is nothing. There are many ways to social­ize: you can socialize on an earth trip, you can socialize with God on a spiritual trip, but Khalsa is never alone. Khalsa always has God and Guru with him. Countless efforts cannot make us to be any more or any less. So, what are you going to do? You can only do one thing, and that I expect you to do. Live as Guru laid down for you to live so that by your living example your children can learn to live righteously.

You phony parents – you drink booze. go for cocktails, hang around and do all sorts of weird things. Yet you want a saint to be born out of you? Who are you fooling? We are the son and daughters of Guru Gobind Singh; it is as simple as that. A drop-out is a drop­out and he is a drop-out forever. Guru Gobind Singh set the example. Forty dropped out, didn’t they? They resigned in writing. They were American all the way. They knew Americans were going to be Sikhs so they laid the example for them. They told Guru Gobind Singh, “We want to drop out. We are not your Sikhs, you are not our Guru and here it is in writing and God bless you. You do your thing, and we are going to do our thing.” But at the last moment they changed their minds and returned to battle. Not only did they give their head but they gave their bodies. Wounded, and with tears in his eyes, Mahan Singh said, “If you can bless me, please tear up our signa­tures; it was a mistake.” The path is very well laid out; there is no hanky panky. It is straight and honest. It is a path of consciouness, of intelligence, of excellence, and of commitment.

Ecstasy comes to us by chanting the Nam and not by drinking booze. Still, even among us there may be those who feel that they can play the game, and to them I speak today. The time for games is over. The order of the Khalsa has been established. Each woman and each man who belongs to the order of the Khalsa shall survive according to the law laid down by the father of the Khalsa, Guru Gobind Singh. I don’t care how influential you are, I don’t care how high you are, I don’t care who you are. It is your choice, your con­sciousness, and it is up to you to determine to whom you belong. That has to be decided within your first thirty-six years of life. We don’t convert anybody; we have fought conversion for the past five hundred years. And we don’t need the support of a lot of people.

In Sikh history it was proclaimed that Sikh had been eliminated in the world, that all Sikhs had been killed. Eighty gold pieces were given for the head of a Sikh with full hair. People used to chop off a woman’s head and say it was a Sikh’s. After some time it was declared that there were no more Sikhs.

The strength of a man is known by his opposition and the flow of the spirit is known by the degree of torture on earth. Guru Arjan laid the foundation for you. I am not repealing something which is unknown to you. You sing, “Guru Arjan gave his life to stand for what was right. He was burned and tortured for five long days and nights. He could have stopped it anytime, just by giving in. His strength a solid wall, he never gave an inch at all. Sons of the Khalsa…” If you want to forget his example please don’t live in this house. Don’t call. Take off your turban and collect ten dollars from me for the barber shop. Don’t renounce Guru Gobind Singh and don’t live as a hypocrite. It is the realm of conscious­ness, a religious life, living for somebody who is your Guru. It is human living. You are not trees and you are not animals; please remember it. There should be no duality in the mind of the sangat of the Khalsa today. These groups who are playing the game of torture on us are not much more cruel­-minded and out of their heads than was the Mogul Empire. We have a history and we have a life of survival. We know how to survive. The British treated us with a lot of known inhuman treachery. We with stood it and now we are known as Akali, undying.

Look at our history. Whosoever has multiplied at our expense have totally vanished and we are surviving. The Mogul Empire in India grew at our expense, but we are such a big zero that we made them zero. The British treated us treacherously and now look how the sun has set on their kingdom for ever. They have three-hundred days of clouds and that little island will not find its place as it is now. I am telling you something which is coming; they have earned it. The Indira government in India, through “Emergency” multiplied with us, and now it, too, has become zero. There is only one test here: Keep up. We are not orphan, we have no guilt consciousness, we don’t know any karma. We know only one thing. We decided to walk on the path of dharma and here we go. No manager, no worker, no assistant, no yogi, no bhogi, no swami, no akami – all one. We will have neither vengeance nor fear. Work is worship to us. We aspire to live unto Truth, and God is the creator of everything.

And please don’t misunderstand. In God’s court, one thing doesn’t happen. There is no election there. In the court of God, there is no election. And you will never be called upon to vote. That’s why there are elections here. Elections decide the earth trip. Selection decide the God’s trip. “Bhaisakhi Day…we were thousands, but only five had the courage for dying.” Now we live his legacy.” What more beautiful, self­ordained philosophy can any nation have other than the order of the Khalsa where, in one song of ours we have inscribed, decribed, memorized, sung, said, chanted, idolized, worshipped every aspect of our life.

And still, it is not clear to some of you, and it will never be clear, ever. You must be opposed. You free the human out from karma. Therefore, all karma, all ego must unite to destroy you. And you must survive because Akal Purkh is with you. You worship the undying. Thi physical tattwa doesn’t mean a thing. What is its value? It has no value. It has come to go, it has come to pay a karma. Now, all of you, each one of you, who have pronounced that you belong to Guru – something fails you, something is failing you, and something shall fail you when you don’t remember to whom you belong. Listen, if you don’t have a map and you do not know which way you are going, you lose your direction, you lose track, you lose days and nights. From Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh they laid down the trail. The map is right before us. Come here, to this house of Guru Ram Das, come and meditate. Here, when you bow your head, and touch your forehead, your karma gets washed. Here, when you walk, your sickness leave you. It is the House of Guru Ram Das. Think of that one to whom your thought belongs, then all thinking will cease. When you start thinking, just think your thought belongs to the Guru and no thoughts you can think. One thing guides me, “Khete dukh bukh sadhmar ha bidath teri datar.” I get stuck on this line, and this line guides me. I am just a by-product of this line.

“There will be hunger, there will be uncomfortable feelings, and it will strike hundred and hundred thousand times. But God, these are also your gifts.” Loss doesn’t bother me. Gain can happen, loss can happen. But when we lose the consciousness, that is something worth looking into. Please understand that you are the history. Therefore, you shall walk on the history. You are not for the present. Some people say, “Why am I a Sikh?” Answer: To repeat the history in the Western Hemisphere. We have a history to repeat, and it is the most excellent history. It never happened before and never it shall happen. That’s why your generation shall rule to the end of this earth: “Khalsa shall rule the world. All will be safe in its fold.” It is your song which I am repeating. I never sang this song in Punjab. Before any Anand Sahib, we sing it, to revitalize our faith and our guidance and our teaching to our own self. We have absolutely no doubt. We don’t live in any doubt. Today we don’t need any­body. either we need anybody to recognize us. or we care who slanders us. All we need is one thing. It is our last need. That we should be true to our Guru, the Father of our nation, the Khalsa. And Guru says, “Who’s a Sikh?” One who doesn’t live the Rehit is not a Sikh. Either that or Guru Gobind Singh was not a Guru. It is Guru’s house, and it is the call of the Guru. One who doesn’t come to the Guru’s house, doesn’t live for the Guru, therefore, we must be living for some­thing else. So please understand, karmas can be cut off, chopped off, and elimina­ted. One can free one from karma by living a life of Dharma. That’s why this way of life is called Sikh Dharma. I appreciate your training, your logic, your reason, your psychology, your economics, your freakiness,your perversions, your diversions, your obnoxiousness. I appreciate that you are magnified idiots. But, remember my word, if you live lie, you will die and go to lies. If you live truth, you die and shall go to the Truth. We have to go home. This earth is not your end. The earthly parents have given us birth to go to our heavenly parents, Guru Gobind Singh and Mata Sahib Deva. “Life of prayer is a life of a dare. Life of Dharma has no karma.” Ashram or no ashram, people or no people, Khalsa is living and Khalsa shall live. And this is the order and destiny of God. And if you have an iota of love for me and for the Guru, declare to the whole world, this is what is to happen.

It is the obligation on me to inform you that you have many, many blessings from the land of the Gurus and from the home of the Gurus. And people of the Guru are awaiting to hug you.

We are the Khalsa, we are the spirit of the Khalsa, therefore, be sure of one thing. Just remember one thing and nothing else: Ang Sung Wahe Guru. (Every part of me belongs to Infinity.) That is our religion, that is our medita­tion, that is our existence, that is our spirit and that is our totality. Nothing less than this and nothing more than this. And from this day, pronounce it. Let the whole world know that the order of the Khalsa which is the desire of Guru Gobind Singh, for which he was ordained by the God, has been established.

Let the world understand that we worship the undying being, the Akal Purkh. Let us rejoice, that the order of the Khalsa has been etabl ished, and human beings have learned to walk on the path of Dharma to eliminate Karma.

Copyright The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan