Inverted Balance: Part 1

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Excerpt from July 2, 1984 lecture. The Excellence of a Woman. Women in Training IX.

by Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji

Today we are talking about “inverted balance.” It is very difficult to understand, yet very easy to act upon. If you understand to act and act to understand, you will enjoy how your life will change this minute.

Inverted balance. As human beings, we have the capacity to project. When we project out, we want to feel free. We want to relate to people. We want to be known. There’s a very powerful desire to do everything. Either it is subconscious, conscious or unconscious. There are only three stages to it. But there is always the desire, “I should do this. I should do that. It should be done.”

If you have a million dollars, you want to meet somebody with ten million dollars. You want to feel added to. He may not give you anything, but it will take you off your balance.

It is our desire to meet good people, to be with people, to run out and do things. It’s our projection. Life has a purpose. There’s a passion in life. For that passion we go out and do something. Even those people who die for the cause, who die for a truth, who die for God; who crucify themselves and become martyrs; who become saints, who become high caliber conscious people – even they do this. They want to know one or the other aspect of God. There’s a very outgoing desire. This cannot be ended or stopped as long as we live.

Sometimes our body or our mind may not be in a position to carry us. Have you seen people who become so emotional they can’t talk? Sometimes our feelings are so powerful that we cry or laugh without control. Our body starts acting automatically. Why is this a human condition? Because the nucleus of our inner self is not in balance.

Whatever your projection outside, it must be balanced inside, too. You are a complete person.

It doesn’t matter what you want to do, what you feel or what you are going to do. But along with action, with thinking and with projection, you must have an inverted balance. A balance which, in itself, is so strong, it can stop you if you have to be stopped.

You don’t have a desire to stop. You don’t want to stop. But sometimes you must stop so that history can record you correctly. Sometimes you must stop so that your consciousness can record you correctly. Sometimes you must stop so that you, within you, must know that you are correct. The law of life is the law of patience.

Don’t misunderstand. I am not trying to stop you from doing anything. In the West you enjoy life too much. You can corrupt yourself, and you can start all over again. You have all these attitudes, so there is nothing to limit you. I agree. I have now studied you. What we call corruption, control and messing up life is a normal phenomena in the West. It’s a way of life. If I drop Mr. A, I can go with Mr. B. If B won’t come through, get some little handicapped C. If that is not possible, I’ll try to go to the egomaniac D. If that isn’t better maybe I can hook on Mr. E. If that is not possible then I choose between A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. If that doesn’t work L, M, N, 0, P must be around. If that is impossible, let me wait for Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

This is the projectivity of it. It is a continuous process. It is passion, compassion, desire to be, not to be. Therefore, whatever is wrong is not wrong. It creates insensitivity. The momentary reaction which you have to things, and the reaction things have to you – it is not a matter of feeling at all. There is no sanctity. There’s no dignity. There’s no power to sacrifice.

Actually, to be very frank, the Western woman has been put through such a hassle that she has no sense of belonging. She belongs to money. She belongs to children. She belongs to the home. She belongs to the husband. She belongs as a wife. Actually this is all shallow because she belongs for the time being.

Love is for the time being. Love is a very temporary thing here. I have studied it very consciously, keeping myself beyond me, looking at it. In the morning it is a hot, boiling love of passion. In the afternoon it is a subzero north pole temperature. You can’t figure out what happened between the two. Today, “I am sacrificing for you.” Tomorrow, “My knife is in your stomach.” You can’t understand it. Why can’t you understand it? There is something missing in the criteria, and that is inverted balance.

Whatever your projection outside, it must be balanced inside, too. You are a complete person. You have ribs. You have hands. You have legs. You have toes. You have thumbs. You have whatever you have. It is a totality of you. Therefore, exactly the way the outside is you, the inside is also you. There are three things on the outside that you must do: –receive, achieve, or lose. You can lose or you can gain, but you have to balance it with your inside.

The problem is, if you cannot balance the inside with what is outside and if you cannot balance the outside with what is inside, you are out of balance. That’s the pain of every life. There’s no such thing as pain in life. You are not handicapped. You are not unintelligent. You are not a duffer. You are not dumb. All that is just a human lie.

LieWhen things are out of balance, you have to lie. What is a lie? A temporary truthful statement made under the pressure of time to not get caught. Well, that’s a lie. What is a lie? Somebody says, “Where were you?”

“Oh, I was sleeping in the back room.”

“I went there, you were not there.”

“Oh yeah, you went there … Oh yeah, yeah. I just got up and went to the bathroom.”

“I went to the bathroom. You were not there.”

“You must have missed me.”

“How can I miss you? There was one bathroom. I went to the other room and then I went to my room.”

You try to go and trace it out in certain ways. The fact is you were not there at all. But you don’t want to tell the person you were not there. Finally the person says, “You’re lying!” You say, “All right, go to h—, I’m lying.” Then what are you going to do? You are willing to take the confrontation, but first you wanted to avoid it.

When a person lies, it is better to accept it and not push it. If somebody lies to you, the person needs space. After three days you say, “Last Wednesday or last Monday I talked to you and you said this, this, and this to me. What was the truth?” After three days the same person may tell you a different story. People want to avoid a confrontation because they are out of balance.

In life, we are very emotional. Our projectivity of consciousness is not balanced either. Whenever we can do wrong, we can do wrong only at one time; when we do not feel we have to preserve our nobility. We may be noble in thoughts, action, deeds, intelligence, consciousness and all that. But as long as we do not train ourselves to preserve our nobility, our status, and our texture, it’s very difficult to maintain our own humanity.

In life you feel, “What is in it for me?” That’s one of the greatest sins you commit. What is in this for you? If you look at it and say, “Will this preserve my nobility and the nobility of my fellow men?” then you are talking balance. You are talking about the higher self. What is in it for you? Whatever is for you, in reality means nothing at all.

Steps_mediumDo you want to look at it truthfully? In every aspect of life, make a step so balanced that that step is forever. Then the next step is forever. Then the next step is forever. It is a continuous struggle between unconscious and conscious people. It is a continuous struggle for spiritual people and unspiritual environments. You may not like it. You say, “Well I want to be spiritual. Why am I not being allowed to move spiritually?” When you walk towards the higher self, you must walk through sweat.

This is a principle. The law of equal forces. When you go towards the higher, you always have a stronger pull from gravity. When you walk towards God, you have the pull of maya. It cannot be denied. If you walk towards maya, you will feel the pull of God.

You have seen people commit suicide, and sometimes you do not have an answer for why. They got pulled by maya so much. They felt so empty, so shallow. Not that they didn’t have the world. There is that blond actress, the symbol–sex symbol of United States. You call her Marilyn Monroe. You all know about her.

When you walk towards the higher self, you must walk through sweat.

She’s one example. She had a very successful career. She was a sex symbol, everything was fair, she moved around with no restrictions. But she had no yoga discipline to answer to. No commandments to follow. She was a heroine of this country. A darling of many. The beloved of so many. And a wet dream for so many. All you can imagine and attribute to a woman you can give her. Can you tell me why she committed suicide? Inverted imbalance.

That is why, to enjoy life, you must keep your personal, personal balance.

When I talk to somebody I always look at two things: when this person is friendly, how good can I be to this person? When this person becomes an enemy, how good can I be to this person? Have you ever thought of that? Whenever you talk to somebody, always look at two things: when you are friendly with somebody and when that person is your enemy: how good can you be? How noble can you be? How self-balanced can you be? You don’t have to share everything with everybody. Don’t cause people trouble. Share with them what they can easily handle.

I’ll tell you about the biggest theory in psychology. There were two people who had animosity with each other. But, one person could not damage the other person. Somehow, the other person died. This fellow went to their family and said, “I apologize. I give up my family animosity. We were wrong. We could have been friends. We could have been best friends. It was totally a tragedy.” He shared everything, all their grief and all condolences. He did it wonderfully. He paid for the funeral, the burial and everything. There were a lot of expenses. It is easier to live than to die sometimes. At the time of death, if you don’t have a big balance in your checking account, it is very difficult. So this guy totally changed 180 degrees and they thought, “Well, all the animosity is gone.”

This man who died had one son –  very noble, very gentle, and very beautiful. So, the other man said to him, “You can take me as a father, and I will cover all your expenses. Here is ten thousand dollars.” Just like that. The help was very needed and very timely. So with ten thousand dollars everything that could be done, was done.

Then one day this man came and said, “You are very sad. Why don’t you go for a trip. Relax. I know your father is dead.” He managed the arrangements and sent him on a trip. It looked like good will. But he tried to pollute the boy’s consciousness. Slowly, slowly he eroded the boy’s discipline, and opened him up to things in life. You won’t believe how this man took his vengeance. Money was nothing for him, but he loved to take vengeance. In exactly eight years, he made that young boy of the man who died into a total alcoholic, neurotic, and almost insane person.

So when people say they love you, they can use it to destroy you. Don’t take things at face value. Take things at your own inverted balance. Make it your habit to work it out. To compute it. Anything which is projected towards you, take it. Not on the surface at face value, but take it for what it means. What it means to you. Are you willing to pay the price?

I am asking you one thing. Look at your self, and inner self. Look at your own heart. Do you want to deceive your own heart? Do you want to totally betray your own head? It doesn’t matter what is outside, what is being offered, or what the time and space wants to give to you. That doesn’t matter. You have you, and you have to answer to you.

Copyright the Teachings of Yogi Bhajan

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