What makes you a guru?

In an ordinary sense, anyone who teaches on any subject in any domain is a "guru".  One who teaches from the purity and integrity of their consciousness, we call them "Sat Guru."  Next is "Siri Guru."  It is a classified and authenticated Word that speaks to the heart of humanity for all time.  Siri Guru Granth Sahib is such a Guru.  So are the Torah, Gita, Koran, Bible and Tao te Ching.  Finally, there is "Wahe Guru," the experience of ultimate realization.

When my teacher, Yogi Bhajan gave me the name, he instilled in me the possibility that I might become something greater that what I was.  Such a name is called a "destiny name."  "Guru Fatha Singh" literally means "the lion who is the being of the divine Guru's victory."  It is my personal mantra.  God knows, perhaps one day when I am physically gone people may say that I was exactly that.  Time shall tell.  Until then, it is my project.

How does Kundalini Yoga relate to all the other yogas: Hatha Yoga, Bikram Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga and the rest?

All yoga in one way or another aims to awaken the latent awareness we call "kundalini," a state of conscious self-realization where I know who and what I am and become subject to none.  Ninety days of real Kundalini Yoga in the ambrosial hours before dawn will raise anyone's kundalini.  It will make them a changed person.  It will make them totally aware.  They may be a householder.  They may have a job and live in the world.  It doesn't matter.  Or they may achieve the same results from a stringent path of twenty-six years of Hatha Yoga and monastic living. 

It is up to you.  It all depends on where you want to direct your energies and how focused you want to be.  I say, the technology is here.  We have worked many lifetimes to get here.  Let's use it now and be done with it. 

Let others progress as they see fit.  Some will like to study two or more kinds of yoga simultaneously.  It is fine.  Ultimately, we are all yogis together.  There is no conflict.

Who is Yogi Bhajan?

Yogi Bhajan is the wisest man I have ever met, also the most gracious, humble, noble and the best teacher I have known.  He came to North America in 1968 and began to openly teach Kundalini Yoga in Toronto and Los Angeles.  He started the Healthy, Happy, Holy (3HO) Foundation with the idea that everybody has a birthright to be healthy, happy and holy.  It was an outrageous proposition at the time, but he stuck with it.  Thousands and thousands of people came, and thousands who couldn't manage also left.  But today, as a result of his efforts, we have a huge family of dedicated people around the globe all making quiet and gentle revolution, one heart, one nervous system at a time. 

When I first met Yogi Bhajan, I was eighteen.  He was speaking at Cornell University as part of a multifaith panel.  There were a rabbi, a priest, a Protestant, a Quaker, a Sufi, a Buddhist, a couple of Hindus and this Yogi Sikh.  He gave the best presentation on the oneness of God.

For many years, it was my routine to write Yogi Bhajan every month about my progress.  In his letters, he would always offer his prayers and blessings and share some inspiring thought.  Sometimes, Yogiji would advise me, although mostly he trusted me to figure things out for myself, to chart my own course, even when I would rather he just told me what to do!    

Once or twice each year, Yogi Bhajan liked to visit Toronto to teach a course and see how things were going.  On those occasions, the local director usually sent me on errands and kept me out of sight.  I felt like some kind of Cinderella in those days. 

Then, in 1983, Yogi Bhajan more than made up for our lack of time together by commissioning me to write his biography.  After a couple of years' writer's block, I finally resolved to try and see the world through his remarkable eyes, the better to authentically record his life.  With this end in mind, I intensified my practice, and for years now have immersed myself in his practice and  teachings.  Today, it is a life.  One day, God willing, it will be a book.