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A principle in life to remember is to travel light.
You are traveling all the time.
Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light.
– Yogi Bhajan
MY FIRST CLASS WITH YOGI JI
Memoirs by Kirpal Singh Khalsa
The first time I saw Yogi Bhajan is not a day I pleasantly remember. Never the less I will recount events as they happened. It was February 1970. I had been taking Kundalini Yoga classes for several weeks. My yoga teacher spoke glowingly about the Yogi who was coming to visit.
Since my first Kundalini Yoga class, Yogi Ji’s image was firmly fixed in my mind. His meditation picture glared at me class after class. Nothing in that picture endeared him to me. He looked pretty ferocious. I expected a spiritual teacher to be someone who lived in the bliss, who smiled a lot and shared pearls of wisdom that magically unlocked our doors of perception. Yogi Ji appeared to meet none of these conditions. Still, my yoga teachers spoke glowingly of him.
Until my first Kundalini Yoga class my spiritual path had been chemically induced. I was an avid follower of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert and their Psychedelic Experience. It was easy to blow my mind, glimpse the heavens and experience bliss. It was impossible to stay there. In fact, the psychedelic experiences that awakened my mind were also digging deeper and deeper ruts in my consciousness that were proving increasingly difficult from which to extricate myself. Had I continued along that path I would have ended up much more seriously mentally handicapped than I already am.
Old habits die hard. After only a few weeks of Kundalini Yoga I had not completely eliminated the use of chemically induced altered states of consciousness. When I heard the Yogi was coming, I knew I had to see him high. What a mistake!
My buddy and I drove to the class smoking pot. I figured a couple of joints would open my mind enough to really see where this Yogi was coming from. Our behavior attracted the attention of the local police department. We were pulled over and I ate the roach. Within 60 seconds 5 different police vehicles surrounded our little car. They obviously thought they had a serious drug dealer on their hands and organized a big bust. We were asked to get out of the car and assume the position. We were searched. They found nothing of interest in our pockets. 5 minutes later a 6th vehicle pulled up, this one unmarked. The officer produced a warrant to search my car.
Four different officers attacked my little Hillman. They took off door panels, lifted out seats, cleared out ashtrays, emptied the contents of the glove compartment and inspected every nook and cranny. All I could see were the dark blue derrieres of officers as they sniffed around for incriminating evidence. I was not in the least bit worried. Three day earlier I had cleaned my car. I had vacuumed the floors, cleaned out the ashtrays and removed trash. I threw away 2 years of substance abuse evidence. The contents of that garbage can could have put me away for a long time. There are no coincidences. Yogi Ji was protecting me even then.
The bust was really a shot across by bow. It was one of many messages I received at the time telling me it was time for a lifestyle change. I’m pretty thick headed, so God had to use extreme measures.
We stumbled into Yogi Ji’s class late. The place was packed. Our entrance momentarily interrupted the class. Yogi Ji ignored my greeting and told us to, “Come on, sit down.” Everything about him was huge: his white turban, his jet-black beard, his belly and his thunderous voice. This guy was no humble, blissful yogi. He wore an Indian shirt that barely covered his hips and tight, skinny pants. Two people had traveled with him from Los Angeles: an elder lady dressed in a sari and with a gray bouffant hair style who I later learned to love as Shakti Parwah and slightly over weight, clean shaved man who seemed more lost than I. Many years later Shakti explained that the man was her son.
Truth is, I remember very little of that class. I recall that he did talk about the dangers of drugs and that he put us through some impossible exercise. Other than that, my recollections are more impressions and vague images. I was turned off by his demanding manner. I was unimpressed with his overweight physique. He did not demonstrate any of the exercises and instead had our local teacher show the positions. It seemed to me that he was anxious to end the class and leave. In fact, I thought he had such a big ego that he didn’t care for us at all. But remember, I was “high” so I could better see where the guy was coming from.
Now, years later, looking back I better understand why that first meeting with the Yogi had so little impact. I was simply not ready to meet him. I went to the class hiding behind by drug induced “high”. It was a defense mechanism designed to protect my fragile ego. It amazes me that I remember anything at all. What I did see were peripheral images that conveniently obscured any depth of consciousness. But, in spite of my defenses and my negative reaction, I could not dismiss him as a charlatan. In fact, on a subconscious level I knew that I had missed him. I was left looking forward to seeing him again and this really meeting him.
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