In
January 1996, at the age of 35 1/2, I was lying on a beach in Chile,
enjoying my vacation, recovering from
the last colon attacks I had had during the past couple months. I am
a lawyer. Two of
the books that I had taken with me mentioned the benefits of
meditation on ones health (Deepak Chopra
and Louise Hay) to recover from illness and surgery if you have been
a meditator. I decided I was going
to find out more about this. I also prayed to God with all my being
to take me out of the stressful work I
was dealing with because I couldn't find fulfillment in it and was
just getting sicker and sicker.
Home again, I asked my daughter's Karate teacher if he knew somebody who could teach me to meditate. It did not take long! A few weeks later, he introduced me to this woman, all dressed in white and with a turban on her head saying: "here is the teacher you were asking me for." I almost suffered a heart attack. I had never seen or even heard about anyone dressed like that, and she should be my teacher?! (This was before Internet became accessible to all!) But...a week later on March 15, I was sitting in my first Kundalini Yoga class. I felt that something in me had found what I had been longing for, forever.
Not much later, in May during that same year, I took my first Sat Nam Rasayan class, in Chile. But God wanted me to catch up fast with lost and wasted years in pain and suffering.... That same year I decided to go to Summer Solstice in New Mexico. I had no idea what it really was. It became an amazing experience, with many, many blessings: I had a face reading with Dr. Narayan Singh, a numerology reading with Agia Akal Singh, I received the most beautiful spiritual name for my daughter that I could think of, Ram Rattan Kaur, and last but not least, I had an appointment along with all the Chileans, with the Siri Singh Sahib. I must confess that I did not have any special idea or opinion about him. To me, at that moment, he was just a wise man. But when it was my turn and he started to talk directly to me, I realized that there was much, much more.... He was telling me things of my life that only I knew and said so many beautiful things about me that I never had heard before. I felt recognized for whom I felt deep in my innermost being I really was. It was the most elevating experience I ever had. I could hardly remember the words he said when we left the room but my friends repeated them to me later. But the feeling, the sensations of this experience I would never forget again.
Still I was rebelling against turban, bana, spiritual name. No reason to go that route... in my mind... Once back in Chile, my dearest and closest friend from many years moved far away and left me a letter where she told me she didn't want to contact me ever again. I did not understand her reasons and why she never mentioned these to me before. There was no fight. Just her decision. This was the moment I made meditation my daily companion. It would hold and sustain me through the challenge.
March 1997 I began with Sodarshan Chakra Kriya a meditation that has changed my life and is still transforming me. I have not stopped doing it for even a day since then! New Year of 1996-97 I decided to spend it surrounded by Yoga Students and some Sikhs instead of participating at the traditional family or friend gathering, also finally I was ready to receive my spiritual name. I also decided to become a Kundalini Yoga teacher and began around March 1997 the Teacher Training course in Santiago with Hari Nam Kaur, traveling every month 10 hours one way, by bus from Valdivia, down in the South of Chile, to the capital of my country. It was hard but I wanted to find out more about this amazing technique, which was changing my existence that I was starting to look at it through new eyes. Not much later I began to teach and was able to take Kundalini Yoga into the most remote and lost villages of this planet, down there in the South tip of America. People, who would never have had a chance to get to know a Sikh or Kundalini Yoga, had the chance to experience the depth and elevation of this wonderful technique. In a way it was a miracle. For them and for me.
The same year I went back to Solstice again. This time willing to tie a turban to avoid the hassle with the chuni blowing from my head continuously as experienced the year before. That's what I thought! But God had something else in mind... During the first day of Tantric I had an experience that would change my life for ever:
We had been chanting one of those many meditations and during the next break several people came to me to thank me for my singing and telling me, how healing it had been for them to hear me. I have a Soprano voice, I love to sing, and had participated in choirs all my life and also love Opera, so, although I have not had a formal singing training, I have an educated voice. BUT, before we got ready to start again the next meditation, a man, a Sikh, came to me and told me to adjust my singing to the group because people had complained. This man was Guru's instrument! I told him I would meditate about it. We started chanting and I started processing his words and past experiences related to the same subject:
people that had shut me up. Suddenly a HUGE understanding hit me: "God gives us the talents to use them, not to hide them under a carpet. My voice was healing people. There is no reason to stop using it." The same moment I decided I would never again hide any of my talents, virtues, or myself. I became fully conscious of the spiritual being I am and that I was going to be a Sikh and not take off my turban no matter what the cost would be. That is what I have done since then.
I had to close my office as a lawyer because I lost all my clients, I went through all the rejection and judgment of my friends, family and society, but I was ready to give it all up and stand for what I believe in. This spiritual path has taken away from me everything that would keep me attached to Maya. I lost everything on the material and emotional level, but it feels now like all the junk that was hanging on me, all the karma that was making my life lonely and empty, was taken with it. (Some things came back in a purified form!)
Living as a Sikh and as a Yogi, having had the unique chance and blessing of meeting my Spiritual Teacher who has guided me to see who I am and to trust myself, is worth every sacrifice that it took and it takes to be here, to be alive, to be a Sikh, to be a Yogi. It is a chance in a lifetime to elevate, heal, and move on. I decided not to miss it!!!
May this lifestyle of purity and consciousness inspire many generations to follow.
S.S. DHARMA KAUR KHALSA
Satnam,
Española NM, 2002
And here we are, twelve years later... still on this path, still meditating, still growing, learning and expanding. Living again in South America, now Quito, Ecuador, and traveling the globe as a Teacher, Counselor and Healer, with the sole intention of inspiring through example and sharing the teachings I was blessed to learn. The Siri Singh Sahib’s example and love, and Guru’s guidance and protection, show me the way.
Quito, Ecuador 2014
Special Event:
From October 3rd to 6th there will be a memorial gathering in honor of
Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Yogiji at his home in Espanola NM
Stay tuned for schedule details and live broadcast on 3ho.org
