The Art and Science of Liberation
Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan®
What is a liberated being? And what is the reason we suffer in the hands of time? Every person has two sides. One is a carefree side. The other is a careless side. When one lives inhis carefree side, he is guided by his Divine faculty. When he lives in his careless side he is guided by his animal force. It is not the carelessness of breaking a glass or accidentally throwing away something you meant to keep. Materially we are considered careless when we are unable to discharge our material responsibilities. But in reality, we are truly careless when we lose our Divine personality—when that “something” which is very precious, beyond value, is lost just for passion.
Emotion and passion are the two buyers of our spiritual personality. If you analyze this thought you will realize that such a bargain is too costly. For what are we trading our spiritual Self? This world of ours is a transitory phase of life. It is not permanent, but we always associate ourselves with it as if we belong to it and it belongs to us. Subconsciously, behind every action is the desire to be recognized. But if you classify
your desire for recognition and the way you try to be recognized, you will find that you want
recognition without maturity. You want to be recognized as a mature being, but you have
not developed the mature attitude of a carefree being. The only carefree being is that person who is freefrom negativity. He is liberated. It is a Cosmic Law that such a person is never short of anything. A carefree man doesn’t know any misery. He may be humble, but that doesn’t mean he is miserable. Ever wise, he sails through time undisturbed. He does not need any correction by the hands of time. His
smooth behavior and calmness of personality are the signs that he is a liberated being. In a nutshell, he is the happiest person ever on the Earth.
This does not mean that you should be barred from having worldly goods. Matter is
media. It cannot be created and it cannot be destroyed. Similarly, emotion and involvement
in desire are also media, but their satisfaction is temporary, not everlasting. If you
understand how the addiction to liquor begins, you will understand this Theory of
Involvement. This is how it works: A man who does not drink comes under pressure and
doesn’t know what to do. He goes to the house of a friend for consolation, for a man is a
social animal, and by having someone participate in his grief, he feels relieved. The friend
offers whiskey for a soothing effect and the man is persuaded to take a drink. The alcohol
goes into the body and does its chemical action. It soothes the nerves, and energizes the
energy centers so that the man’s attitude relaxes and becomes flexible. It is only a
temporary relief, but the memory of the first taste sticks in his mind. He can never, ever
regain the smoothness of that first taste of liquor, but for the lust of that taste and to
recapture that experience, people become habitual drinkers—alcoholics. They believe that
the best way to escape from the pressures of life is to continue drinking and thus drinking
becomes a need of the body.
Similarly, whenever you involve yourself in any mode of life, you are entering a channel
in which you will go on and on and on, and you can never come back to the point from
which you originally started. When we forget our original basis of action and become
involved, we become a slave.
It has been seen in our entire concept of life, that we are 15% slaves to routine, to habit.
Man must have certain habits, for without them his life cannot go on. But he can attain
liberation by changing the character of these minimum required habits. There are two kinds
of habits: promoting habits and demoting habits. Demoting habits make you unhappy
physically, mentally and spiritually. Promoting habits make you happy physically, mentally
and spiritually. In your life, if you cultivate all the promoting habits which, you will end up
as a liberated, divine person. If you have demoting habits, you will always end up as a
physical wreck, mentally insane and spiritual defunct.
Habit is a must; it’s a natural part of your personality and your mind. When you are
acting under a demoting habit, you are totally in the negative personality. It is also a fact
that if you get into any one negative habit, you will automatically attract its four sister
habits, because they love to stay together. These five demoting habits of behavior and
attitude are greed, anger, lust, attachment and negative ego (pride). When one sister enters
the house, she calls the others to join her. Each habit is supported on two tripods:1)
Physical, Mental and Spiritual; and 2) Past, Present and Future.
There are two guiding instincts in man. He is either improving his future or blocking his
future improvement. If you are conscious of this, and have an honest and sincere urge to
improve your future, you will always have promoting habits. Oh man, if you are to care not
even for God, at least care for the future. When you care enough for your future to have
promoting habits, you will become a liberated person.
A liberated person is always a happy person. He does not lack in any material comfort.
He does not know any power on Earth that can insult him. He lives in grace in this world
and when he leaves the body he is respected for generations to follow. Everyone can be like
that. Yesterday’s greatest sinner can be a Saint this minute. The only thing required is a
decision. “Am I to guard my future and choose to be a liberated person, or am I to block my
future and go by the material-physical aspect of the world?” For any person who blocks his
future, it is a guaranteed fact he will suffer in the future. Any person who takes advantage
of the “now” and causes someone else’s loss, blocks his future. Anyone who takes
advantage of the “now” invites trouble from Mr. Future. Maintain a positive attitude with promoting habits for 40 days, and you can change your destiny. This psychological concept of human behavior is a pattern which can guide you to that goal which is described in our scriptures as Paradise.
In the Self, one has to sow the seed of divine vibrations and with the power of these
vibrations one has to dwell in the Ultimate which is a Truth, a reality and an ever living
primal force. This primal force has been named God by Christians; Paramatman by Hindus;
and Allah by Muslims. Some name has been given it by all, but the Universal
Consciousness of this Universal Spirit has one name, that is Truth, so we call it “Sat” and
we remember it as “Sat Nam.” “Sat,” in the language of Gods, Sanskrit, means “Truth.”
“Nam” means “Name.” So without dispute we can say that Universal Consciousness, that
Universal Spirit, that creative force in us, has a universal name and that is “Sat Nam.”
All those who want to liberate themselves and seek to dwell in the Ultimate must cleanse
their physical selves and direct their mental being toward the Sat Nam, the being of beings.
One who dwells on the vibrations of this Holy Nam, Sat Nam, in the prime hours of the
day, before dawn, when the channels for vibrations are very clean and clear, will realize the
concept of a Liberated Being through the grace of this Bij Mantra which awakens the
Goddess of Awareness in one. He then lives as a liberated man on the planet Earth.
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