Siri Singh Sahib
Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi
Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji (born as Harbhajan Singh Puri)[1] (August 26, 1929 - October 6, 2004), also known as Yogi Bhajan and Siri Singh Sahib, was a charismatic and influential proponent of Kundalini Yoga and Sikh Dharma. He is best known as the spiritual director of the 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) Foundation, which today is one of the world's largest yoga-teaching bodies, and for his outspoken defense of the holistic doctrine of Sikh teachings. He was widely known as a master of Kundalini Yoga and taught thousands to be teachers and spread the teachings.
Youth and schooling
Harbhajan Singh was born on August 26, 1929 into a Sikh family in Kot Harkarn, district Gujranwala, in the province of Punjab (British India). His father, Dr. Kartar Singh Puri, served the British Raj as a medical doctor. His mother was named Harkrishan Kaur. Theirs was a well-to-do landlord family, owning most of their village in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Most influential of Harbhajan Singh's relations in his early development was his paternal grandfather, Bhai Fateh Singh. Fateh Singh taught him the essence of Sikh teachings and instilled in him a respect for all religions and an awe of the silent mysteries of life. As a teen, Harbhajan Singh spent several years under the strict tutelage of Sant Hazara Singh who declared his student a Master of Kundalini Yoga at the young age of sixteen.
Harbhajan Singh's schooling was interrupted in 1947 by the violence that former neighbors, of different religions, unleashed upon each other during the partition of India, when he and his family fled to New Delhi as refugees. There, Harbhajan Singh attended Camp College – a hastily put together arrangement for thousands of refugee students – and organized the Sikh Students Federation in Delhi. Four years later, he graduated with a Master of Economics.[1]
Indian Civil Service
In 1953, Harbhajan Singh Puri entered the Indian Civil Service. He also married Inderjit Kaur in that year. They were soon to have three children, Ranbir, Kulvir and daughter Kamaljit.
Harbhajan Singh served in the Revenue Department, where his duties took him all over India. Eventually, he was promoted to the post of customs inspector for the country's largest airport, outside of Delhi.[1]
Yogic study in India
Throughout his life, Harbhajan Singh continued his practice and pursuit of yogic knowledge. His government duties often facilitated his traveling to remote ashrams and distant hermitages in order to seek out reclusive yogis and swamis. Sometimes Yogi Bhajan would find them to appraise their worth, for India always had a surfeit of supposed "holy men." At other times, he would sincerely go to learn the specialized knowledge possessed by this or that sadhu.
In the mid-1960s, Harbhajan Singh took up a position as instructor at the Vishwayatan Ashram in New Delhi, under Dhirendra Brahmachari. This yoga centre was frequented by the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and diplomats and employees from a host of foreign embassies.[1]
Migration to North America
In New Delhi, Harbhajan Singh was faced with a stark choice: to serve his government by joining the Soviet military's psychic research program in Tashkent or leave the country. The Canadian High Commissioner, James George facilitated his immigration to Toronto, Canada in 1968.
Although a promised university position as director of a yogic studies department did not materialize because of the death of his sponsor, Harbhajan Singh the Yogi made a considerable impact in the predominantly Anglo-Saxon metropolis. In three months, he established classes at several YMCAs, co-founded a yoga centre, was interviewed for national press and television, and helped set in motion the creation of eastern Canada's first Sikh temple in time for Guru Nanak's five hundredth birthday the following year.
Late in 1968, bearded and turbaned Yogi Bhajan went to visit a friend in Los Angeles, but ended up staying to share the teachings of Kundalini Yoga with the already long-haired members of the hippie counterculture of California and New Mexico. In effect, he had found his calling.[1]
Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan
Yoga practice and philosophy is generally considered a part of Hindu culture, but Yogi Bhajan demonstrated that yoga was not limited to practitioners of one religion.
While adhering to the three pillars of Patanjali's traditional yoga system: discipline, self-awareness and self-dedication, Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan does not condone extremes of asceticism or renunciation. Yogi Bhajan encouraged his students to marry, establish businesses, and be fully engaged in society. Rather than worshiping God, Yogi Bhajan insisted that his students train their mind to experience God.[1]
Yogi Bhajan became known as a master of Kundalini Yoga, but it was actually Raj Yoga, the yoga of living detached, yet fully engaged in the world that typified his life and teachings.
Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization
In 1969, Yogi Bhajan established the 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) Foundation to further his missionary work. It served his premise that every human possessed the birthright to be healthy, happy and holy. It was only a matter of unlearning one set of habits and replacing it with a kinder, more uplifting set of habits.
For some of the free-spirited hippies, Yogi Bhajan's discipline was more than they could take. Others, however, took to it almost naturally. Most of them were already longhaired. Many were already vegetarians. Some experimented with drugs to experience what they saw as elevated states of awareness. They also deeply wanted to feel they were contributing to a world of peace and social justice. Yogi Bhajan offered them all these things with vigorous yoga, an embracing holistic vision, and a spirit of sublime destiny without the use of the psychotropic drugs.
By 1972, there would be over one hundred 3HO yoga ashrams mostly in the U.S., but also in Canada, Europe and Israel. Student-teachers would rise each day for a cold shower and two-and-a-half hours of yoga and meditation before sunrise. Often, they would spend the rest of the day at some "family business" be it a natural foods restaurant, or a landscaping business, or some other concern. A Sikh was supposed to earn honestly "by the sweat of their brow" and many did just that.[1]
By the 1990s, there was a culture shift. There were few communal businesses left, and rising early and overtly being a Sikh was considered more of an option than an implied directive. This period also saw an increased interest in yoga world-wide. To serve the changing times, Yogi Bhajan created the International Kundalini Yoga Teachers Association, dedicated to setting standards for teachers and the propagation of the teachings.[1]
In 1994, the 3HO Foundation joined the United Nations as a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, representing women's issues, promoting human rights, and providing education about alternative systems of medicine.[1]
Aquarian age timeline
In spring of 1969, soon after Yogi Bhajan had begun teaching in Los Angeles, a hit medley "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" was topping the music charts and being played everywhere. The performers, The 5th Dimension, happened to be signed to a record label owned by one of his students, musician and entrepreneur Johnny Rivers.
Like great teachers everywhere, Yogi Bhajan used any material that came to hand to good purpose. In this case, he incorporated the story line of the dawning new age into his teachings, a case of melding Western astrology with Sikh tradition. "Guru Nanak," proclaimed Yogi Bhajan, "was the Guru for the Aquarian Age." It was, he declared, to be an age where people first experienced God, then believed, rather than the old way of believing and then being liberated by one's faith.[1]
The timeline for the arrival of the Aquarian age varied over the years, but in 1992, Yogi Bhajan fixed it at 2012 and gave his students a set of morning meditations to practice until that date to prepare themselves.[1]
Aboriginal connections
Some of Yogi Bhajan's earliest students in Los Angeles had spent time in New Mexico influenced by aboriginal, especially Hopi teachings. To fulfill their wishes, Yogi Bhajan accompanied them in June, 1969 to their summer solstice celebration at the Tesuque Indian reservation outside of Santa Fe.[1]
At the next year's celebration, a delegation of Hopi Indian elders arrived. They spoke of their ancient legend that before the end of present age of darkness, a white-clad warrior would come from the East and create an army of white-clad warriors who would rise up and protect the "Unified Supreme Spirit." A sweat lodge ceremony was held and a sacred arrow given in trust to Yogi Bhajan. The elders explained that they had determined he was the white-clad warrior of their legend.
Seven years later, Yogi Bhajan purchased a large parcel of land in the San Juan Mountains where the Hopis had indicated sacred gatherings had taken place for thousands of years. The elders had said this land needed to be prepared so "the Unified Supreme Spirit can once again be experienced by the great tribes and spread through all the people of the world." The land was named "Ram Das Puri" and annual solstice prayers and festivities celebrated there every summer since. Since 1990, these have included a Hopi sacred prayer walk.[1]
Pilgrimage to Amritsar
For Yogi Bhajan, the greatest test of his teaching came in the winter of 1970-71, when he brought an entourage of eighty-four Americans on a pilgrimage to Amritsar in India. It was a hard, grueling trip. The Punjabi Sikhs had never seen Westerners in turbans before. At first, they were suspicious.
For their part, once Yogi Bhajan's students had overcome their hardships, they felt a real kinship with Sikh culture and embraced it. Twenty-six of them took vows to join the Order of Khalsa as full-fledged Sikhs.
The Sikh administration in the holy city of Amritsar was in a turmoil. Once they understood that the devotion of the Westerners was genuine, they reflected on the best way to honor Yogi Bhajan for this most unexpected group of new initiates to the Khalsa.
On March 3, 1971, in front of the traditional seat of Sikh temporal authority the Akal Takhat, Sant Fateh Singh and Sant Chanan Singh bestowed on Harbhajan Singh a ceremonial sword and a robe of honor and a unique designation. They had reasoned that Yogi Harbhajan Singh had indeed created "Singh Sahibs" (noble lions), and to continue in his work he would need a higher designation. For this reason, they gave Yogi Bhajan the unprecedented title of-- "Siri Singh Sahib" (Great, Noble Lion).[1]
Inter-faith work
In the summer of 1970, Yogi Bhajan participated in an informal "Holy Man Jam" at the University of Colorado at Boulder with Swami Satchidananda, Steven Gaskin of The Farm (Tennessee), Zen Buddhist Bill Quan-roshi, and other local luminaries. A few weeks later, Yogi Bhajan carried that inspiration forward and organized a gathering of spiritual teachers as an opening act for the 200,000 attendees of the Atlanta Pop Festival.[1]
These seminal events served to awaken interest in inter-faith discussion such as had not been seen since the 1920s. In 1972, Yogi Bhajan participated in religious panels at Harvard University, Cornell University, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That same year, Yogi Bhajan visited Pope Paul VI and advised him to convene a gathering of friendship and understanding for representatives of all religions. He reminded Paul VI that the word--catholic meant "universal" and suggested that, as head of the world's largest religious organization, he would be the most suitable leader to host such a meeting.[1]
Yogi Bhajan maintained his relationship with the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II, they met again in 1983 and 1984. When the Golden Temple came under assault from the Indian Army with the loss of life of many hundreds of pilgrims, the pontiff offered his official condolences.[1]
During the United Nations Year of Peace 1986, Yogi Bhajan instituted a yearly Peace Prayer Day for people of all denominations at the Summer Solstice near Santa Fe | Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe.[1]
In that same year, Pope John Paul II convened a gathering of religious representatives of the world such as Yogi Bhajan had proposed fourteen years earlier. Unable to travel to Italy for the event, Yogi Bhajan participated in a ceremony held the same day in Los Angeles.[1]
All though the 1970s and 80s, Yogi Bhajan actively engaged in and chaired numerous inter-religious councils and forums, including the Inter-Religious Council of Southern California, the World Conference for the Unity of Man, and the World Parliament of Religions.[1]
Gender relations
Yogi Bhajan, the son of a graceful mother, was deeply shocked and offended by the exploitation of women in America. In 1971, he taught a gathering of his female students that they were the "Grace of God." Thus began the Grace of God Movement for the Women of America. Strip clubs in Hollywood were briefly picketed, but Yogi Bhajan's real emphasis was on re-educating America's largest exploited class.
This work began in earnest in the summer of 1975, when Yogi Bhajan held an eight week camp in New Mexico where he taught the psychology of a successful woman. Successive camps included subjects including martial arts, rappelling, fire arms training and healing arts to build the character and confidence of the women in training, which is why the camps were designated "Khalsa Women Training Camps."[1]
It may or may not have been a coincidence that within a couple of years of Yogi Bhajan's bold assault on the psychological defects within the typical American gender imbalance, a best-selling book called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus came out which popularized many of Yogi Bhajan's distinctive teachings.
Although Yogi Bhajan did teach a few weekend courses for men, his emphasis was on women because he recognized in them the foundation of any society, and he wanted to fundamentally end the disempowerment of Western women and the destruction of families. In his words: "God lives in a cozy home."
While encouraging his female students to practice natural childbirth and championed breastfeeding (practices which were not widely adhered to in the early 1970s) Yogi Bhajan also revived the ancient Indian custom of celebrating the arrival of the new soul at the one hundred twentieth day of pregnancy. This laid emphasis on the dignity and divinity of motherhood. By adhering to this historic custom (in Catholic tradition, which is very significant to this issue, this would be pre-[[Wikipedia:Pius IX | Pius IX), Yogi Bhajan also encouraged his women students in family planning. They should only embark on motherhood if they were fully prepared to accept the responsibilities – and if they were not, then to terminate a pregnancy before the second trimester was far preferable (and certainly not a sin) compared to bringing a soul into ungraceful circumstances. Here Yogi Bhajan parted company with the Pope who forbid any termination no matter what the circumstances.
Yogi Bhajan also encouraged mothers to swaddle their infants and families to sleep all together, another traditional Indian practice, although he afterwards stated that he lost nearly a third of his students over this one teaching.[1]
As far as homosexuality was concerned, Yogi Bhajan at first was shocked by the phenomenon. Through the 1970s and early 1980s, Yogi Bhajan taught that 'the condition' could be cured through intensive yoga and self-analysis. By the late 1980s, however, Yogi Bhajan resigned himself to the conclusion that "sometimes God goofs" and puts men into women's bodies and vice versa.[1]
During the Sikh Holocaust of 1980s
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s personal assault on the Sikh minority in India took advantage of their splintered leadership. After Sikhs, almost alone, had opposed her draconian rule during the Indian Emergency (1975-1977), it was to be expected that the formidable Mrs. Gandhi would retaliate once returned to office in 1980.
That year, Yogi Bhajan sent registered letters to two hundred members of the Sikh leadership, warning them of terrible consequences if they did not unite, which they did not.
When the peaceful campaign of civil disobedience waged by Sikh activists to address longstanding grievances with India's central government turned violent, Yogi Bhajan advised the leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to call it off and resume another day, which he did not.
Several times in the early 1980s during the Punjab insurgency, Yogi Bhajan went and tried to mediate peace between the members of Indira Gandhi's government and the Sikh leadership in Punjab, which he was uniquely positioned to do. He knew them all, but his efforts were in vain.[1]
When the wholesale assault on the lives and human rights of Sikhs in India took place in earnest in June of 1984, with the attack on the Golden Temple complex and the destruction of the Akal Takhat, Yogi Bhajan uniquely advised that the Akal Takhat had martyred itself to awaken the Sikh nation.[1]
While urging Sikhs in the West not to lose hope or descend into wanton violence, Yogi Bhajan attempted to organize relief supplies for victims and still to conciliate the opposing sides, which both included Sikhs. He especially encouraged the Sikh President, Zail Singh, not to resign in protest at the sacrilege committed by the Prime Minister. This, Yogi Bhajan believed would only further isolate the minority Sikhs and lead down a widening spiral of bitterness and bloodshed.
Despite rising calls for the creation of a separatist Sikh homeland, Yogi Bhajan continued throughout the crisis, from 1984 to 1993, to press for justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.[1]
Work for nuclear disarmament
Beginning in 1982, with the U.S. | United States|U.S. and the U.S.S.R. launched on an expensive, risky and seemingly endless arms race, Yogi Bhajan began to join other civil leaders in demanding mutual nuclear disarmament.
Yogi Bhajan's efforts took the form of his speaking at a number of disarmament rallies and his mobilization of his students, encouraging them to talk to their friends and relatives about the dangers of nuclear war.[1]
Shortly after Yogi Bhajan began his activism again the U.S. government's defense policy, the special Sikh exemption which allowed Sikh males to serve wearing their distinctive turbans and beards was disallowed.[1]
Sikh unity
Even as he ventured out of familiar territory, expanding the reach of Sikh teachings and calling reprobates to task, Yogi Bhajan also kept an eye on Sikh unity. While some in Punjab criticized his efforts – particularly his administrative titles, structures and symbols - as heterodox, others toured the domain and offered their generous approval. This happened once in 1974 when the delegation of Gurcharan Singh Tohra, President of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Mahinder Singh Giani, Secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Sardar Hukam Singh, President of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Shatabdhi Committee, and Surjit Singh Barnala, General Secretary of the Akali Dal, came.[1]
In 1979, the official Professor of Sikhism, Dr. Kapur Singh, came from Amritsar and addressed the Khalsa Council, Yogi Bhajan's governing council, and assured them they remained well within the fold of Sikh tradition.[1]
In 1986, as the Khalistan movement (Sikh separatist movement within India) exerted an increasingly divisive role in the Sikh community, Yogi Bhajan appointed Bhai Sahib Bhai Jiwan Singh of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha as Jathedar (Secretary) of Sikh Unity.
Although he was instrumental in creating a new culture of Sikhs in the Western Hemisphere – Gursikh yogis speaking English, Spanish, German and Italian – Yogi Bhajan did not appreciate artificial divisions dividing Sikhs from one another, whether they be based on caste, race, nationality or any other grounds. He valued Sikh unity and always considered himself a Sikh first and last. This was ably and aptly reflected in the new media of Sikhnet.com which serves Sikhs around the globe. It was begun by students of Yogi Bhajan while the internet was still in its infancy – and has since grown to be the biggest, multi-layered Sikh resource in cyberspace.[1]
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