Personal Message in Memory of Yogi Bhajan, the Siri Singh Sahib

Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh.

Sat Nam.

In the days since Yogi Bhajan, also known as the Siri Singh Sahib left his body, I've watched our community struggle and grow into the responsibility that he left on our shoulders collectively. It has and continues to be a very human process. Each person sorting through their own memories of him and the teachings he left behind, striving to come to some conclusions about what we are without his physical presence here to guide us. And what we can reasonably expect to become.

Out of love, devotion and reverence for the amazing gift that he was to us, I have often heard in the last few years, "There will never be another person like him." "We'll have to collectively become 10 times greater than him - no one person will be able to do what he did." "How can there ever be another?" And in those voices, I hear the grief and the longing. Students honoring a unique soul - a Powerful Light - who came to the earth for such a brief period of time and who spread the technology of Kundalini Yoga and the practice of Sikh Dharma to every continent in the world.

Yet, as a student, it has not sat well with me - these protestations. I remember the Siri Singh Sahib saying over and over again that the minimum requirement of a student was to become ten times greater than the teacher. He never said "collectively." He said, "minimum requirement." And in the private conversations that have no public record, the memory of how great he was has, perhaps, created in us a fear. A fear of how daunting it would be to even try to become ten times greater. And how easy it is to resort to the human habit of looking at a great soul as some kind of god, as some kind of deity - who was special, who was different, and who no one else could ever hope to match.

It is, in its own way, a challenge to our psyche as we cross this thresh-hold from Pisces to Aquarius. That we in our grief and mourning deify the man, and proclaim that there shall never be another equal to him. Even though it goes against the very grain of his teachings. Where he said that he was not special, that he was not different, that any of us could realize what he realized. That it was our destiny to become that great. And in retrospect, when we honor him by saying, "No one will ever match him," somewhere deep inside my heart I wonder if in reality that's not the greatest insult, the greatest slap in the face we could give?

1000 days after his passing, in my meditation this morning, something opened up and I saw the trick behind it. The rub, as Shakespeare would say. It's difficult sometimes to put these visions into words. But in honor of him, let me have at least a little bit of courage to try.

I remember the Siri Singh Sahib saying so many times that whatever he did had nothing to do with him at all. It wasn't by his own will or his own ego, by his own machinations or own desires that he became what he became. He gave himself to the Divine - and that Divine Hand took his life and created something magnificent out of it. Something awe-inspiring and wonderful. All he had to do was to surrender to it - and keep surrendering, stay surrendered and allow that Power to guide and create it all.

The Guru says that the Divine has no limits. So when we say there will never be another like him, we are really cursing ourselves. Saying that the Divine has a limit. That the Divine could never do better than him. That the Divine could only make a life like that once a century or once an age.

But Guru says the Divine has no limits. So if we in purity of heart - each one of us - give ourselves to the Divine completely in that same state of surrender; if we follow the words of the Guru, "Man, tan, dhan - sabh tayraa." "Mind, body and earthly possessions - they all belong to Thee;" then what limit is there in what the Creator can create with our lives? What limit is there in what we can each of us become individually? Why not collectively be a billion times greater than him? Why are we limiting that Unlimited God - when everything he taught us, everything he sacrificed in order to teach us - was to give us the chance to realize that Unlimited God within ourselves?

It isn't that by our own ego we can become anything. Or by our own manipulations and machinations we can achieve anything. We can't. But we can surrender ourselves completely to the Unlimited One and in that way - 100 people, 1000 people, a million people could become 10 times, 100 times, a billion times greater than him. In the Will of the Divine.

Isn't that what's needed right now in the world? A nation of people who can do what he did - and more?

It's the prayer I hold for all of us as we cross this threshold of the 1000 days. That we experience and realize the Unlimited One within ourselves and within each other. That we let ourselves speak, project, pray, act and serve so that we do not live in the shadow of a memory of a great man. But rather - like a million suns, trust the Guru's teachings and burst into the experience of our own Light - to be a guiding force for love, healing and peace in a dark and frightening world.

May you find the Unlimited One within your own heart and allow it to create you to become whatever It chooses you to become.

All Love in the Divine,

Sardarni Sahiba Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa
July 2, 2007

(July 2, 2007 marks the 1000th day since the Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji's Light merged with the Supreme Light. The number 1,000 symbolizes both completion and mastery. As we mark July 2, 2007, the 1,000th day since the Siri Singh Sahib’s passing, we honor the experience of completion and we also honor new beginnings. This occasion of 1,000 days marks the completion of our cycle of integration as a spiritual family. It is the completion of our group karmas and the beginning of the universal destiny in which each person exists as a subtle embodiment of the consciousness of the Dharma. - Dr. Gurucharan Singh Khalsa and Guruka Singh Khalsa.)