Yogi Bhajan November 10, 2001, Espanola, NM
The Breath of Life
This meditation is recommended by Guru Dev Singh during this time of the corona virus pandemic.
Total of 25 minutes
First Part
1. Sit straight in a cross-legged position.
2. Hold your hands in Sarab Gyan Mudra, in front of the heart, fingers interlocked with the index fingers pressed very tightly together, extending upwards.
3. Eyes are closed.
4. Meditate on your breath as you do Long Deep Breathing, inhaling and exhaling so deeply and completely that you can hear your own breath. Each breath should be a voluntary, mechanical breath.
Second Part
1. Same posture.
2. Do Long Deep Breathing in rhythm with the mantra: “Sat Naraayan Wah-
hay Guroo, Haree Naraayan Sat Naam,” by Matamandir Singh
3. Inhaling during 1 complete sound cycle (2 repetitions of the mantra, about 20 secs) and exhaling during 1 complete sound cycle (2 repetitions of the mantra).
4. Continue for 11 minutes
Third Part
1. Same posture.
2. Do a powerful Breath of Fire.
3. Continue for 3 minutes, doing your
best during the last minute.
4. To end, inhale deeply, hold and
exhale. Repeat one more time. Relax.
In this meditation you must concentrate on your breath. The moment it starts affecting your metabolism, you start feeling light, then knowledgeable and then your sense of security starts increasing. You should breathe, not your body! Meditate deeply on your breath and
increase your self-control.
Sat Narayan Waheguru
See class video and lecture on Library of Teachings
Lecture
Now we will talk something, very simple and straight and if it doesn’t suit you, it is okay. You was standing, right and you sit down, who sat down?
Student: (….)
(Student’s laughter)
YB: You have become very clever now.
(Student’s laughter)
If you remember, that you stood and you sat, it was not you, you are the most divine person, but you are only remembering it now, you are not going to remember all the time.
(Student’s laughter)
Corruption is in our genes. Though the genetic corruption is, without breath of life is useless, it means death, but still, with our genetic corruption, we think, we are living, that is not true. Breath is living in us, this is a structure, body is a?
Students: Structure.
YB: In which the breath of life lives. Why it lives? Because it has a karama, it has come here at a longitude and latitude, it has collected two parents to do it, it is born, the environments are useful and it goes. Whatever you are getting normally, is already predestined, because your birth is predestined, your parents are predestined, your relatives are predestined, your environment are predestined. Therefore, what you earn here of goodwill, compassion, grace, kindness, lalalala, indiscipline.
In?
Student: Discipline.
YB: If you are a Moslem and you call everybody else non–Moslem, infidel, that is not dharma, that is not religion. If you are a Christian and you call anybody else who is not Christian. No, no, it is not dharma. If you are a Jew and you say, I am the chosen one and everybody else is nothing, it is not dharma. Whenever you reach a saturated point. Whenever?
Students: You reach a saturated point.
YB: You are a dead idiot, not only dead idiot, because your flexibility is gone. Physical flexibility is gone, you are very sick, but when the mental flexibility is gone, you are very, very sick. It doesn’t give you anything. There is nothing, no sin you can commit and there is no nice, graceful, thing you can do, only question is how flexible you are. Ultimately, today, tomorrow, or day after, this body will become stiff, there is no way out. It will consume itself, because the breath of life will not be consumed that’s why Pranayam is way of life. We are not asking that everybody should do yoga, oh it is Eastern thing, it is Western thing. What is Eastern and Western thing? My East is New York, my West is Hawaii, what is East and West? We have made phrases to demarcate ourself and separate ourself from life. This is Chinese, this is Japanese, this is American, this is Canadian, we have marked and divided the world by boundaries and divided the people by signs and symptoms, by language. It is amazing, our life is amazing, we live on one Earth and one Universe and we are not universal. We are not. And the worst thing, which has happened to us is our spirituality. Spirituality has become power, now they are fighting in United States whether there are six million Muslims, or million and a half. They are fighting, if you really want to ask me, I don’t think there are more than two, three Muslims, real ones.
(Student’s laughter)
Whenever I used to go to New York, I used to see Christians, you know there is a big graveyard in New York? Miles long way, with lot of crosses and Jesus and all that stuff, that is the only Christian population, New York has.
(Student’s laughter)
It is permanent, it is there, it is forever. Not to understand compassion, is not to understand God. God is a impulse of expansion and man is a compassionately, understandingly, expanding, how much, you don’t understand, you contract. Then what is the use of life? Will you know each other? No, your whole life, you work hard, you can never know each other, that’s the first law to remember. The only thing you will remember when you are compassionate and so vast like ocean, that everybody else is like a little boat on it. Everybody is a part of you. If you do not understand that everybody is a part of you, then you do not understand who are you. You know on every corner of the road, there is a synagogue, there is a temple, there is a church, there is swamis and yogis and God knows,…. lot of people, lot of teaching, libraries are full, organization are so many, it is unbelievable. But nobody is there to tell you, you are a idiot. They don’t, they don’t want to. Because the problem is, not that they don’t want to say you are a idiot, if they say you are a idiot then you will say okay, make me non idiot, that is where they get stuck. In the name of Christ, from the pulpit, there are so many lectures you won’t believe it, but He went for a fast, do they go? Have they practiced anything which His life has left in living? Anything? No. It is not possible. We have come to go. Have we prepared ourself for going, we are always ready for coming. Coming is important, going is not, go, we must, know we must and the most important thing is show we must, that we are ready to go, if you understand that you will never fight with anybody. You will never hate anybody, you will not squeeze, it is very difficult for you then to separate yourself from the universe at total large, you must.
I have seen in my life, people who are very, very fanatically, religious and then all of a sudden, they break and there is nothing. Because, when they were religious, they were very, very, squeezed into themself, they were not vast. Religion is a reality, which is very vast. You identity yourself with religion that doesn’t mean you are special. That means you are general, that means you will hug those who do not deserve to be hugged. You misunderstand the meaning of religion. Religion is your own reality, deep in you, there is a reality. You may see things, happening around you, which you don’t like, you can politely protest. When I came to United States, I had a great chance to meet with many great people and I used to laugh, I say, you are already great, what do you want out of me? But they had different greatness, they have greatness of wealth, there are greatness of beauty, they were power, they were this, they were everything, but themselves. And I understood, leaving Hollywood and being worshipped by these people is useless, because they have a habit, they have a emptiness, they are hungry for spiritual growth, they don’t want to work for their spirit. They can’t.
I once asked one lady, I said, “Do you know how much wealth you have got?”
She said, “I can call my head accountant.”
I said, “You do not know how wealthy you are?”
She said, “No, I have never bothered, I don’t know how wealthy I am, all I know, I want to spend money and I get it.”
I said, “Do you know how many dresses you have got?”
She said, “Well, there is one switch, if you start, that you know that laundry roller?”
(Student’s laughter)
Around that whole house, there was ten feet wide laundry roller on which dresses were hanging, she has to put a computer number and press the button and that dress will come, so she can take it out.
I counted the lady has seventeen fur coats, different colors.
“Did you ever wear them?”
“Sometimes.”
She said, “Why you are asking me these questions?”
I said, “You sit down, you will fall, when I explain to you.”
She said, “I’ll like to know why you are asking these questions?”
I said, “You even do not know who you are, that is a separate question, you do not know how much you have. If you do not know how much you have on this Earth, hereafter what you have, you do not know at all, is there something for over there? You got to go, do you have something?”
She said, “Where I am going, I am not going anywhere.”
I said, “You are going, one day, you will go.”
“Okay, explain to me, okay I’ll agree, if you explain to me.”
I said, “How many poor people you have fed? How many poor people you have clothed? How many birds you have fed, forget about human? How many birds you have fed? How many trees you have planted? How many times, you have fasted?”
She said, “Is it necessary to fast?”
I said, “Yes, to give body a break, you should fast, once a while, not eat.”
(Student’s laughter)
“Oh that is fasting?”
I said, “Yes.”
(Student’s laughter)
I mean, she didn’t know the meaning, what is fasting is. Is that a life?
“Why we should fast?”
I said, “That gives us stamina, that gives us control on our hunger. That’s why we fast.”
Self control is the way of life, a sharing your own life with your self is the way of life. Closing your eyes and meditating is self-control, trying to calm down yourself. You can fight with your mind better than otherwise. These are simple things, people don’t understand them.
There was a very beautiful psychiatrist, he was my student when I used to teach in UCLA, he was all the time upset. He was upset with his car, he was upset with his home, he was upset with his wife, he was upset with the children.
I asked him, he says, “It’s my habit.”
“You are reaching end of your life, your blood pressure is high, you sometime even lose your consciousness and still you are upset?”
He said, “I don’t know how to stop it.”
I said, “Well, lie down on a place, for ten, fifteen minutes and close your eyes and breathe long and deep.”
He got totally cured, totally and he told me, “That was the easiest medicine, I ever had.”
I said, “It is always there.”
When you do not know what to do, just take long, deep, breath, because your life is based on the breath. Shorter the breath, worse you are, long is the breath, best you are. Recently, there is a problem, there is a girl who is in love and things are not happening right, you know what I mean? Love does that, lot of passion, lot of feeling, lot of this, lot of thinking and these are the signs of lovers, no eating…
(Student’s laughter)
Just negative to everything and this philosophizing everything and they talk very high and they do not where ground is, oh, my eyes,…oh I see him, I see him, I see him.
(Student’s laughter)
So it goes on like that. So one day, she called and she said, “I am in too much pain, things are not happening right.”
I said, “Count your breath per minute.”
Thirty-five, thirty-five breath per minute. Normal is fifteen and well-balanced person breathes ten times a minute. And if you are really a practitioner and you want to be prosperous, then you have to breath within seven and nine, less than that, you are a yogi. If you want things to be done for you and you don’t have to do anything, then you must breathe from one to five, six breaths, per minute. If you can practice that, then you can attract the universe for you, it is no secret, it’s a simple thing. Longer and deeper breath is, your psyche attracts everything for you, that’s a way to prosperity. There are some people who are failure, everything fail, this thing no, this thing can’t. Give them ten breath a minute, meet them after two, three years, they will be so prosperous and so beautiful, because sense of communication changes. There is a fear in your voice, if you can eliminate that, you can be surely prosperous. If you are wealthy you will enjoy wealth. Because the living psyche is part of you and that decides everything. I know a person, he is a counselor, you know what he does? He put a person in a chair and tell him do, burrrrrrrrrrrr, after half an hour, person get tired of that, but the person is so relaxed. When you hate somebody, you do this, brrrrrrrrrrruuuuu, don’t you do that, he makes people do this. Nothing else and they get so relaxed, so tired, sometime they burrrrr.
(Student’s laughter)
Their lives have changed, I asked him, “But you are supposed to counsel them?”
He said, “Counsel with what?”
They are buuuurrr their whole life, so I made them to do openly and clearly, so that they may get tired of it, moment it will get tired, they sleep and when they get up, they are very new people and slowly and gradually, they are building their self. Constantly, you are fighting, you are sitting, you are fighting, you are eating, you are fighting, you are fighting, with everything. And you think by yelling and screaming and raising your voice and attacking something you are going to get something, no, you should never alert the psyche of another person, doesn’t matter what. Never, ever, challenge the psyche of another person, it is the frequency of the another person more than two point, God is going to get you forever there is no need. If God has made you to be, then to be, to be, you want to know something? Practice it, if somebody is very rude and crude with you, just laugh.
(Student’s laughter)
You look so, just make it up, just see, how miserable the other person feels, how much do they enjoy it. Because that anger, that projection, that rejection, that self, will all come out in one big blast. And you laugh little more they say, shut up what you are doing you are mocking at me, bah-bah-bah, then the dog will come in, bouboubou…
(Student’s laughter)
We are human or dogs? Our intelligence, our sophistication, is the key to our living. You know this Clinton’s wife, what is her name?
Student: Hillary.
YB: Hillary went on South America’s tour right and she found out that they all have one type of hair style and when she went to Argentina or some place, they dressed her like, you know, South American woman, she felt, that day very comfortable.
Somebody asked her a question, “What was it?”
She said, “I felt very together. Your dress, your everything, affects you.”
She didn’t have long hair, but they put pins and everything and made her look like, their biggest sport is horse-riding. What we do, when we fight with our husband, we take the car, go fifty miles. Northern America has different life style, Southern America has different lifestyle, they are still with the Earth more than anything else. You see their homes, they have all big walls, outside and inside there is a garden. In Mexico, I went to somebody’s house, watch this, we went from one wall, there was servant quarters, then we went to another wall, there was a garden, then we went to third wall, there was a private garden, then were a house and there was inside the whole garden, what a living. We have apartments here, we must understand, our life is for expansion and it will expand. Up to death, it will keep on expanding whether we use it or not. If we use our life it will expand beautifully, it will benefit us beautifully, it will make us comfortable beautifully, but you can’t stop expansion, you were born like this, and you keep on growing.
Old age without wisdom, youth without success and childhood without smile, is worthless. Children must smile, youth must succeed and old age must be wise. These are the criteria’s to which a man has to grow, religiously. Self-expansion cannot stop, it keep on growing and without meditation, mind cannot be used, it becomes crooked. It has no boundaries then. And who is your first enemy and first friend? Your own mind. Your mind work in your sleep, it work in your awaking, it works all the time. And when you don’t meditate, it has no direction. It is a car, which can hit any pole. You use certain words, which I’ll like to remind you, don’t disturb me, now who the hell are you, disturb, you are already disturbed, don’t disturb me.
(Student’s laughter)
Somebody wants to talk to you, don’t disturb me, I am not in a good mood, I am just telling you, your idiot-ness, I am not in a good mood, how rude it is, that you are not in good mood. You are a human being. If somebody comes to talk to you, how worst it is you are supposed to see and meet head on and receive, learn, to receive the psyche of another human being, don’t see the body. See the projection of energy. If you cannot see God in all, you cannot see God at all. You can only see God in all, if you know, you have a God. God meets the God, devil doesn’t meet the God.
Let us meditate. Please put your index fingers like this, at the center of you, inhale deep, exhale deep, you must inhale deep and exhale deep that you can hear your own breath, forget about the neighborhood. Every breath should be volunteer breath, mechanical breath and you must hear the sound of your breath. Index fingers must be joined together and must be totally pressed with all the energy you have. Just on your breath. Lunch will be served, that’s good.
November twenty–four, you have a Tantric yoga, wow. You must understand that few minutes of just controlling your breath and meditating on it can give you more than you can expect in life. You can’t buy it, you have to do it. Hear your own breath. Put that tape in low tone, ‘Hari Narayana Sat Nam.’
Tape is played in the class….
(Over the tape) Within one complete sound you must breath once long and deep let it go. Concentrate on breath. By now it should start changing your metabolism. Moment you start attracting your metabolism, then you will start feeling light. After feeling light you will fee that you are knowledgeable and your sense of security will start improving. You will learn that you are beautiful if you don’t speak. And if you speak you must speak wise and for that you need the courage, self-confidence, sweetness. In the beginning there was a word, word was with God and word was God. Therefore every word you speak, it affects each one of us. You should breathe, not your body. Meditate deeply on your breath and exercise your self-control. It is very fortunate categorically to get together to do some spiritual practices and that give you multiple growth.
(Over the tape) Restart the breath of fire, now from the navel, honestly, if you can do the Breath of Fire, you will never misunderstand, life is beautiful. From the navel.
Breath of Fire will burn out everything, which can be a future disease to your lungs, it is so powerful. Any disease and many diseases are there which have to come, move the navel, you will not have any disease of the belly. It is not harmful, it is very useful. It is super, oxygenates your blood. Move your body, move the ribcage, where your soul is captured in. Move it little bit. It is called last run. Now in this breath of life, breath of fire, you have to use force. You have to use your alertness, you have to use your concentration. You have to make this day worth. People still who practice Sat Kriya are not sick. After thirty years, there is a gentleman who does it for thirty one minutes everyday, lives in a concrete jungle, there are lot of work, he is happy and together, no problem. You have a minute and half left, try your best. Try, try, watch is moving. Come on, put pressure on your navel point, help it out. Arey, this is your private matter, absolutely, inclusively, yours. Inhale deep, deep, deep, deep, hold. Exhale. Inhale again, deep, deep, deep, deep, relax.
End of the tape.
You did well. This is first time, I think, everybody tried to breathe Breath of Fire and mostly I think you have forgotten. I wonder, you do not know the beauties of those Kriyas, which you have been given in the last thirty-three years, they are great. I worked at the cost of my health, because don’t forget that for twenty-five years, I never sat and there was no regular life but running from one place to another and one congregation to another. We built up a knowledgeable community. I have failed, I have not built up a practicing community, I tried, I try my best. But what you know is more than what you know, simply, you have to digest it now. It is not a matter of the idea to put you on Saturday here, that I’ll be leaving soon still I want Saturday you should come and gather together and practice, pure for yourself. If you do not spread this knowledge and do not serve people, you will be guilty, it is not a matter of people, it is not a matter of being recognized, the benefit of it will recognize. These days, yoga is very popular, it’s a trend, it is just, they have done everything, they have taken Prozac and they have taken everything, it didn’t work. They have counsels, psychologies, psychiatry, what is not that is not available, but what is there is which is not for self and if the self start working, it will take care of things. There is nothing more important than yourself. There is no God but you, you have to change the frequency of your psyche and change the degree of your expansion consciousness and you have to understand the behavior of compassion. Arey, what you want that hundred times can come. Don’t live beggar’s life, I want this, I want this, I want this, it doesn’t work. I can tell you of my experience.
I have been a dirt poor, twice in my life and each time I was very rich to start with. Then I enjoyed. You won’t believe me, in Toronto, when I found there is a vegetarian pizza, there was no more joy than I can explain to you in words, I could eat, I go to any restaurant and I say, I want a soup, they say, Oh no, sir, there is a chicken in it. What they call, chicken something?
Student: (….)
YB: Yeah, and I say, can you just make it for me without it?
They say, “No, our formula, we don’t know anything else.”
Don’t be temperamentally poor and live like a beggar, give me this, give me this, God give me this…
God will give you, what He has to give you, His computer never fails.
I came here with thirty-five dollars and I have left you with millions and millions of dollars, but I have left it to you. I never brought anything and I am not going to take anything. But now you know to act responsibly. You have to act consciously. That is, multiply, not making babies multiply. That is multiply. Work, be more successful in businesses, make more money and help more people. Give them a space of peace and tranquility and grace. Let people trust you. That can only happen, if you trust yourself. There is no worth, if you don’t have your own worth on this Earth. You know, the power in you is a thought, just feel fulfilled. All the time, God give me this, God give me that…
God says, what is wrong with this guy? Ah? God gives you everything, question is, God doesn’t have your ways, God is Infinity and vastness, you are limited and small. It doesn’t work.
What different it makes if you are poor and what different it makes you are rich, if you are not tried to help somebody? If you do not develop the habit of a forklift, you are worst than any tool on this planet. Go like a fork-lift, lift somebody up, anybody. No obligation. Put somebody on the trail, let somebody move, let things move. Feel happy about it, that is a happiness, you will be rewarded for it.
I saw that day on television, one of the biggest thing, I cried and laughed. A Afghani child was saying every time the plane comes, sometime they drop food, sometime they drop pamphlet and sometime they brought bombs, we are very confused. We are not confused, we know, we have to feed two and half million people. We know that we have to educate them that fanaticism doesn’t work. We have to tell them, that pain begets pain. This is a very strange war, which you are fighting. It is not a war between countries, it’s a war between the haves and have-nots.
I told you, in 1972, there will be a war between haves and have-nots. And this is the war. It is not the World Trade Center you have lost, you were told that your happiness is not tolerable. You cannot enjoy prosperity. There is a network in this world, which is working fanatically, on this issue. You have to live alert, that freedom, we used to enjoy is gone. But still you have to live, you need sobriety, you need self control now, you need consciousness and you need to live in that peace and tranquility within yourself. Every sometime there will be a one mile long line and you need to stand. Your need for that patience. Well now you all…..
Here comes the dinner and lunch together, I think.
(Student’s laughter)
It is all mixed up.
The class sings: May the long tine sunshine upon you….
The class chants: Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat Naam.
Blessed are those who bless themself, gracious are those who understand their own grace, kind are those who are kind to themselves and their being and their surrounding and virtuous are those who feel the entire universe belongs to them and they belong to the universe by itself. May your Creator God, guide you to these aspects of life so that you can live in peace and grace.
Sat Nam.
