Woman: A Living Legend

Khalsa Woman3

by Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji

Excerpts from a talk given on July 4, 1983

What is woman today? Woman is a coincidence of circumstances, times and tribal rituals. Woman has gone through the ups and downs of the time just as the weather goes through the seasons. In modern times, a woman has to go out and find a boyfriend, she has to fall in love, she has to convince him she loves him, she is used, she has to have a baby, one or two, and then he freaks out or she freaks out. That is the era today.

Now it is about psychological counseling and affection; “I love you, and I don’t; you are mine, I’m not yours; “Darling, I hug and kiss you; you’re a son of a bitch, you are an idiot, I hate you, get out of my sight.” This is what I have seen during my fifty years here. Amazingly, it has nothing to do with what I saw when I was a child of three.

When I was a child of three, I saw a woman who was brighter than an angel, more graceful than God, and totally worthy. I am referring to my own grandmother. She was very religious, very polite, very sophisticated, and very dedicated. I never thought there could be any problem while she lived.

I saw a grandfather about whom I thought that if one hundred angels could be blended and juiced together and crystallized, it still couldn’t match him. There are no words at my command to describe those two people. They lived separately, they lived together, they went away for months, they came in, they did this and they did that, but I never saw them irritable or cursing at each other. I never saw them yelling, screaming, or even arguing. Once I asked my grandmother, “How come whatever Grandpa says, you say, ‘Yes sir’?’ ”

She said, “What else can I do?”

I said, “Don’t you know that you should understand what he says?”

And she said very politely. “Whatever he says is pure wisdom; it is a test of my competence to see whether I can carry it out or not. It is a privilege.”

I said, “You mean to say Grandpa knows all?”

She said, “Mostly he knows all, and if he doesn’t he will discuss it, and we’ll sort it out.”

I said, “Grandma, how do you sort things out? I’ve never seen you both talking. When do you talk? I want to see you and Grandpa sitting and talking.”

And she said, “What is there to talk about? I know him; he knows me. Isn’t that enough?”

I said, “Impossible.”

One day, I was sitting with my grandpa and I said, “I have one desire, Ji. Can you fulfill that?”

He said, “What is your desire?”

I said, “I want you and Grandma to talk. I want to see it.”

And he said, “Don’t you see it happening?”

I said, “No, I have seen her worshipping you. You are very affectionate, and very saintly, but I have never seen you talking. I don’t know what you do. It’s kind of a whole semi-kingdom. I want to see both of you talking.”

So he said, “Come on with me.” He took me with him to a long-backed chair, sat down, and relaxed. Then he told me to go and call Grandma. This very sweet, beautiful, humble lady walked in.

He said, “Would you please sit down.”

She sat down and said, “Yes, now you are going to listen, and grant the request of your grandson. We have to talk. Is that true?”

And he said, “Yes, he wants us to talk.”

And then she said to me, “What do you want us to say?”

I said, “Just talk.”

After a couple of minutes Grandma said, “Yes, we can do it.” Then she got up and brought a storybook and gave it to my grandfather. My grandfather read it and began to translate it. She sat and listened, and once in a while she said, “Could you please repeat it again and explain it to me?” And then he would explain the entire scriptures in it. It didn’t satisfy me.

I went with my grandpa afterwards, and we walked to the Gurdwara. As we sat there, I said, “You guys don’t talk.”

At that time I remember my grandfather telling me that silence talks more. His exact words were: “Silence talks more than any argument and any logic.” Then he told me, “Silence is the language of God; whispering is the language of lovers; and talking is the language of humans.” I remember those two individuals, my own grandparents and how they related to each other.

Khalsa woman on horseYou who call yourself a woman and think you are a woman do not know the strength of the woman. Woman is the most powerful channel of God. You do not have an experience of what a woman is. To be very honest with you, woman is the entire “prakirtee.” (creativity). Whatever is the bounty, the beauty and the blissfulness, whatever is God’s grace, can be summed up by one word, which is “woman.”

Woman can purify herself through the power of her prayers. The contact power of the prayer lies in the heart of every woman. This is not the privilege of the man, and it is not the privilege of the beast.

Therefore, a woman who cannot live purely is not a living  woman; she is something else.

Woman gives birth through God, and she gives all the good luck and good will, and all the opportunities and all the grace as a mother. I have seen a cruel woman, who was pregnant. She was hustling and lying and not meditating. You do not understand that when you conceive a child, you can give that child any destiny. You are giving that child a body, you are giving that child praanaa (the life force) and you can give that child ANY destiny you want. It’s a guarantee.

Woman is a caliber of God. She’s a “prakirtee.” (creativity). She’s the “kartaa” of the “purkhaa.” Guru Nanak is one man of God who came and in the ecstasy of his divine majesty, raaj jog, said, “Kartaa purkh, nirbhao, nirvair, akaal moorat.” You cannot wipe out fear if your mother has given you fear. And if your mother has not given you fear or vengeance, you will never have it. Whatever your mother inscribed on you at the time of conception, that is what you are. Therefore, the institution of motherhood is the channel for this humanity.

Khalsa womenWoman is two things–the self and the psyche. Her power through her psyche is beyond the power of God known to man. Her power of self is the majesty of a teacher, which no man in his whole life can reach. The look of a woman is more penetrating, and more effective, than the entire mighty bullet, or the bounty hunter. What a woman can give to a man, God has to honor. It is a very simple statement.

Today man thinks that by buck, buck, buck, by duck, duck, duck, he can convince, feel and communicate. The foolish man has lost the game. That’s why there is fear. There is a possibility that the human race is going to be destroyed, because men and women have forgotten to communicate with the psyche, with the light they emit, with the projection and the power. Even though we know scientifically that we are nothing but a magnetic field, vibrating at a certain frequency.

Woman has lost her penetrating projection today. She wants to call herself common. What is common in a woman? Whenever I go to the ranch I have two doormats. I always avoid them. To me those doormats are symbols of those humans who live just like doormats. This morning by mistake my footstep fell on one. I almost jumped, and I could have broken my knee, because subconsciously my compassion cannot tolerate putting my foot on a doormat. If you have chosen to live as a doormat, without any class, without any commitment, your psyche is not there. All you want to live with is time and space. Time and space are not permanent. They can never be permanent. You are not even in a position to be touched by time and space. How can you be in touch with Somebody Who gave you time and space?

The beauty of woman is not in her makeup, her fashion, her sensuality, her sexuality, her manipulation, and that kind of ugly, low-class, low-breed projection. The beauty of woman is in her majesty, her oneness as a woman, in her living, feeling and standardization of herself as a woman. All a woman has to know in her own life is that she’s a woman to begin with, and she’s a woman in the end. She’s born as a woman, therefore, it is a law of nature that she should die as a woman. And somebody should say when she dies, that on this day a great woman has passed away into her own heavens, leaving behind a legend because she was a legend. It’s a legend who can leave a legend, and I think this is the responsibility of each one whom God has blessed to be a woman.

We are talking of the bountiful beauty of God, the majesty of God. We are talking about commitment, we are talking about grace, we are talking of changing and giving people a destiny. We are talking of elevation, we are talking of anything and everything you want to know. If there is ever anything for humanity, for the human race, for nations, for countries, for people, for the world, for the earth, it will always come from woman.

A woman’s entire strength lies in her politeness and firmness. Woman’s strength doesn’t lie in yelling and screaming. She can’t make a dent that way.

Khalsa woman prayingA woman is a self-purifying identity. A woman is the vehicle through which God is perceived, received and experienced. The virtues of the woman are no less than the entire creativity. I have tried through all these years to make women realize, to make women learn. I am very sorry and I am very apologetic that I cannot allow the teachings to be so downgraded that the woman can feel the sensitivity, sensuality, and exploitation of the modern times.

We are not here to collect garbage. We are here to collect the divinity and the majesty of God. And I can promise you that if you ever want to see and feel the majesty of God, you can only see and feel it through a very beautiful, loving, legendary woman. A woman is a legend who will live forever and around her the entire universe and creativity of God will revolve. A woman is an unstopping coincidence of the psyche which God wanted to experience Himself.

 

Guru Nanak in his grace has referred to woman.

“Bhand jamee-ai bhand nimee-ai bhand mangan vee-aaho.”
Guru Nanak (473)

“Within a woman we are conceived, from a woman we are born, with a woman man is betrothed and married.”

He glorified woman beyond anything but, when I read that shabad, I feel much pain was in Guru Nanak’s heart when he said,

“So kio mandaa aakhee-ai jit jameh raajaan.”
Guru Nanak (473)

“Why say that person is bad and inferior who gives birth to kings?”

(Click here to listen to the recording of this shabad.)

He was asking and he was criticizing the exploiters who thought a woman was nothing but something to be used and abused and that she was just a doormat for the man’s ego. I have heard a lot of things. I have heard people say a woman is nothing but a fluttering fan for the ego of the male; a woman is nothing but a servant of the home; a woman is nothing but a maid in the house; a woman is nothing.

And I have also seen the divine mother, Bhagvatee’s eight-handed picture. In one hand is an iron, in the other is a sewing machine, and in the third is a cooking pot. If you want to look at it this way, it is only the capacity of the female that can keep the home and the man and the world together. How obnoxious, how poor, and how downgraded have been the efforts to make a woman what she is today.

But time has proven that a woman is still the hub, and the universe of the man goes around and around this hub. I hope that you will create in yourself the quality and the faculty of the invincible woman so that you can affect the surroundings of someone dear to you, someone born through you, or someone around you whom you love or you feel could be a real son of God. Jesus was not destined to be Jesus. It is the touch and prayer of Mary who purified herself and made the birth of Jesus Christ immaculate. There’s nobody to tell that reality and that story.

It is true that the father was not there to give his name to Jesus Christ, whose name was Jesu. Jesu was born to Mary through the relationship granted by God, but in the eyes of the world at that time it was not immaculate. Jesu, who was not Jesus the Christ at that time, came home and told his mother that he could not even go to school because the boys hated him, they taunted and reprimanded him. He asked, “Who is my father?” Mary, in the power and the concept of the mother, totally purified herself and said to Jesus, “Jesu, you were born by the Will of God, and I assure you, the angel told me so. You are the birth of an immaculate relationship in which there is nothing else but God the Infinite. So your father is God.” In all his teachings, in all his sayings, he has never referred to God as God. He has always referred to God as “My Father in the heavens.” Who told him that? Who purified herself beyond the light of God? His mother.

I want to see the woman become learned to that infinity so that even death cannot take its toll on her. That’s what I’m looking for. Open up your heart and be a woman, a real Grace of God, loving, compassionate, beautiful, and a legend. Let each one of you know each one, not through the head, but through the heart. There are a lot of other foods: moral, social, ethical, personal, behavioral, and many other aspects of the psyche that you can give to each other. This is all up to you to do. One thing for every woman is essential. She has to learn to live straight, and she has to learn to live with a smile.


Copyright the Teachings of Yogi Bhajan.

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