When Yogi Bhajan arrived in America, he did not need introductions to smell the stench of the country's wholesale exploitation of women. That is why he organized his women students as early as 1971 and they picketed the red light districts of San Francisco and Los Angeles. That is why he started a camp just for women every summer, starting in 1976. And that is also one reason that the rich and powerful have targeted Yogi Bhajan repeatedly, in one way and other, over the years. The following is a talk he gave at Khalsa Women's Training Camp in New Mexico. (Caution: Yogiji speaks of sexual abuse of women in America in both general and specific terms. Some readers may find it triggering.)
HOW AMERICA KILLS ITS WOMEN
It has been seen from time immemorial throughout the history of man - and it is a four million year history - that there is only one way to kill a woman: make her insecure. This is the first job a male does when he does not like a woman. Some women - what you call as women - think they need to feel "somebody loves me, somebody likes me, somebody will have sex with me, somebody supports me, somebody brings me flowers." It is all nothing but a white lie! Woman can eat, she can pluck the flower herself. The polarity of the male which woman requires is only because of the aura. The way the woman is grabbed and ruined is to make her insecure. And any man who makes a woman insecure doesn't know what a woman is.
This "love you" and "darling" and all that jazz is only on the surface, because the majority of the women do not know if they are women or not. The United States of America is a great country with a very high per capita income, but here woman is treated like a doormat. Come in, wipe your shoes, walk over it, go in, have your booze, have fun, and get out - that's it!
I see these ladies drinking four martinis, six martinis, to pass the evening when the sun energy is low. They have to think who they are, and they have to be themselves - women. And there is no warmth in the house, there's no love in the house. They are living phony, they are thinking phony, they are relating to the entire phony world around them. Then it will be nice to have a few martinis and be a pig.
"Soor jeev" - it means a life of a pig. You know that a pig can sit in any dirt, eat anything in the world? Now a woman is supposed to be the most delicate instrument ever created by God. She cannot only perceive the divine and experience the dignity and divinity, but can create. That part of a woman, nobody can imagine. She can create divinity!
She is just as beautiful as God is because once a woman wants to create the divinity, she can override God's Will. If you read all logical mythology - Greek, Indian, Chinese, anything - you'll find one thing very common: whenever the Goddess takes over, God gives in. But when the Goddess is a pig... "P.I.G." - do you know what that means? It has come to me right now: "Public Institutionalized Goodie.” That's what the men think about the women in this country!
I am in pain. I am telling you the truth. They think she is a public thing: institutionalize her, put her behind doors, tell her she is Mrs. So-and-so - and then swap her! And if that is what you want to be - good luck! It's fine with me. I know you have gone through these nuts, but do you want your daughters to go through this? Do you want your daughters to be ping-pong balls that everybody with a bat can hit back and forth? Is this what you want your life to be? Is this what this country is - home of the brave and free and all this nonsense you talk about?
There is a characteristic, and that characteristic has a criterion. Woman is an institution, therefore she should be afraid to be "institutionalized.” She is an institution which can give birth to the Godhead. Therefore, she must be afraid to be a pig. She is the one who has to go through nine months of pregnancy. She is the one who is to carry the attachment of the emotion, she is the one who has to give her blood and her self to create another life. Therefore, she must know what she is up to. And if woman is not standard and stable, the children are all neurotic. That is it! Actually, to be very honest, when the father is shaky, the children are cowards, but when the mother is shaky, the children are neurotics. Disobedient, undisciplined, neurotic kids are the sign the mother is insecure.
As life comes, we must think what life is. First, you get born, then you grow, then they tell you: "Go and chase your own man! Find it out. Just go out in the market, go and find your man!" You are not even aware what a man is! When the girl is shoved out to find a man, she does not know what a man is. She only knows man is another instrument with which she can have sex or go to a movie, or go to dinner - that's all. Nothing more she understands of man.
That's why, in this country, every marriage falls apart. There is no such system as marriage because nobody understands the institution of marriage. The institution of marriage is a union of the two polarities to go through everything devotedly. Now, where there is emotional upset, what devotion is there?
It can happen that there is no difference between a human being and an animal. It has been observed, animals are more considerate because they are not rational. Animals are not rational, they are very irrational. Through their irrational approach, they have nothing but direct, straight devotion. Everybody knows that they have to hatch an egg, they have to feed the baby birds, they have to train them to fly until they can find their own food, and let them go.
We neither learn from birds nor we learn from animals. Animals do the same thing. They get in heat, they get pregnant, and they have their little ones and they raise them. The difference between an animal and a human being is that an animal does not know who is the sister, who is the mother. A male dog, when he grows up, can have intercourse with his own mother, with his own sister, so they do not have the chance of gene development. That is the difference.
I'll tell you a very strange story. I talked to a girl who had to leave 3HO because the circumstances were beyond her control. Now this lady married a man, and she had these three daughters from her previous husband. Now this is the United States of America, that great land, and this is the story of almost every house. This woman married the man and the daughters grew up in the eight years of that marriage. One became nineteen, another eighteen, the other fifteen years old. Now this man thought - and he was very sure of himself - that these daughters are also with the mother. So he raped one first, then he raped the second, and then he raped the third. And after having three daughters raped, still that woman never woke up. She never woke up!
There is another story. There is another child who left 3HO. I took care of her education for five or six years, and put her in the best school. At a time when she was going to pass her final school exams, her mother came with the sheriff to possess her. She didn't want to give her two days so that girl could qualify herself through the examination! Somehow, between the sheriff and the state department, we wangled those two days, but now I understand the psychology. The psychology is: "When I have gone through the stripping, why should my daughter become educated and divine?”
If a man takes tons of heavy equipment and wants to build a cozy home, it will be impossible. Woman can build it with one needle! The beauty, the glory of woman, I can honestly say is forgotten in this land. The only priority for which woman is used in this country is as an emotional dump! Psychologically, logically, and socially, woman is a necessity in this country as a social dump, as the emotional and social dump of the male.
Do you understand that going from the Infinite Creativity of Godhood to the position of being an emotional and social dump of the neurosis of a male is low, low, low, lower than an ordinary animal relationship? And it is accepted publicly! Now, look what they are trying to do to a woman in this country. They are going to give her "equal rights" so when there is a war combat, the enemy can enjoy to rape our women!
Ask these men, what do they think a woman is? Every woman, whether she is creative or non creative, her pelvic bone can open up to one foot maximum. But if a man's pelvic bone opens up three millimetres, he can't even walk! What is happening in this country is that the men are totally perverted. They don't enjoy the delicacy of the woman or the dignity of the sexual relationship. Now, they want those Romans who used to fight and kill, those gladiators, in their beds. They want women to drive heavy buses, heavy equipment, build roads, do the whole thing - become muscular. They want them to leave their feminine nature, and become totally insensitive to their delicate, intelligent approach, and they want to have boxing women.
You know, that's one of the main facts! Put a woman in the ring, and clap around her. Have your martini and drink and let them have black and blue eyes and get beaten up. In public! In public: topless! bottomless! They want to strip the woman of her moral dignity. The whole work is being arranged socially to strip the woman of her moral dignity - and when a woman does not have moral dignity and moral security, out of her shall come a breed of human beings that I don't want to name, but for the future generations, I will call them "chaotic.” And that is being produced right now, a generation of people who will have no respect for life or values of life. This is the true story, and you do not have to believe my words. Just do a little bit of research.
In eight years, I have found so many things. I was reading in the newspaper today that one million children are added to the population every year through unwed mothers. One million! Now, thanks to the Catholic religion, they will not have even the possibility of having state funds, so even if they want an abortion, they won't be able to go through with it. First, it was a mistake on their part to get pregnant. Secondly, because it was an emotional pregnancy, the other guy doesn't take care of it.
Now look at this political stunt, this special God of the Christians! Why doesn't this church go out and see that no woman gets wrongly pregnant? They don't want to work for that. They don't want to create clean environments and educated environments. They don't want to educate the people. All they want is your vote. Because Jesus Christ was never a woman, Mary has no part to play? Therefore, in 1977 no woman can be a minister? Look at the social insult! These are the means used by these neurotic men. Woman cannot be a minister! She cannot perform any holy performance!
In English, there is a word used to address the woman, and you all know that. Can anybody tell me? In gentleman's English, they call her "the better half.” " She's my better half." Better half always comes to seventy percent. You can have the better half, my share of the property: this means seventy percent I can give to you. In gentle people's language, woman plays seventy percent of the part to build the human race. She's responsible for giving dignity and divinity and grace and peace and harmony and strength.
Cooking is not a small job. Who tells you cooking is an ordinary job? You are what you eat. To have a home is not a small job. To raise a child is not a small job. Who says the woman's part is small? It is the largest of all and surely, definitely, the most important!
But the entire psychology is being worked out in one way: destroy the woman, kill her! Why has she survived four million years? The male has a simple psychology: if you can't have it, destroy it! The only triumph this man has is: lay her in the bed and forget about it! That's one simple system. When they date you, they are different. Then, in the morning, when you call them, they say "I am in a conference."
Do you know what they think? Do you want to hear what they think? Five dollars on food, two dollars on gas, three dollars on a show... How much is it? Eight, ten bucks? And then they must lay you in bed, and then kick you out. That is their psychology.
Forty percent of the wealth of this country is through salesmen, and every salesman in every restaurant, in every hotel, has to have - now I call them "women.” Massage parlors, call girl situations, entertainment, all that industry is filled with filth, and the whole industry is based on one thing: exploit the woman. They have one mantra: "exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman..." There is no bank transaction which can happen without a topless/bottomless woman coming, and booze drinking, and all that jazz. What is happening to the woman behind the scenes is so shameless, so inhuman, and so cruel that if it ever happens to animals, I think they will protest!
One night, everybody freaked out. What has gone wrong with me? At one o'clock in the morning, I started to watch a movie on television, and I wouldn't move. They had never seen me doing this sadhana, but I loved it! That movie opened my eyes. It was an old movie where they showed how a business executive, to get the contract, to get this, to get that, used his wife and his daughters. It was so low, so mean, so inhuman - and that actually happens! These homes with long driveways, where people have a summer home and a winter home and this wall-to-wall carpet, this whole bogus thing is all money earned out of prostitution!
You know, you must understand that when a salesman lands in town, he is picked up by a chick. I heard somebody saying, "I am mad at you! You did send me those two chicks, but what happened to that blonde chick of mine?" And the guy was explaining on the other side, "There was an emergency. Somebody had already insisted on her, so I..." They're pawns! They're nothing! They're not human beings! They're treated like zucchini! Even beets have some personalities, some value. They are weighed, they are bought, they are done. Damn this consciousness where woman is not even bought! The guy gets on the telephone, "Rosie, report to room number 116 at Holiday Inn." And she doesn't know what she is getting into.
It's a flesh market! It is a trading post where woman is used as a commodity and exploited worse than crude oil. And then, after giving her two, three children, they kick her out. Do you know what they give her? She gets fifty percent of the community property, through easy payments. And this foolish woman thinks, "At least, I got half the property!" She has gotten nothing!
When I see you sitting here and listening to me, in reality I am seeing a miracle that in the United States of America there can be some woman who still wants to learn to be a woman, and can have the capacity to face the reality. They want your cheeks to be red. It doesn't matter that those chemicals may burn your skin. They don't care! Your lips should be red, while all that poison keeps going in your body.
There's a beautiful statement which Rishi Kalpa made. In his verse, he said, "Woman - if you ever understand you are a woman, you are better than God. I need not worship God. I am only in search of a woman who just realizes that she is a woman!
There's a whole systematic system happening in society to ruin this most valuable institution of the human race. There is a continuous process and ignorance. Woman allows the destruction of another woman! Don't you understand that if Mr. A is no good to you, he's never going to be good to B, he's never going to be good to C. If he is good to A, he is good to B, and he is good to C. However, the problem in psychology is when a woman becomes insecure, she becomes highly selfish. She wants the whole apple! And trying to get the whole apple, she never even ends up with the seed of the apple. In every realm of consciousness, there is one message for every woman: be a woman and find your place, because there is a place for every woman born on this Earth.
Once, a sage did a very great tapas. He became so one with God that God sent his angel to bring him to Him alive. So, in a human, sensitive body, this guy flew beyond the heavens and went in the presence of the great radiance called "God.” And God said to him, "My son, I am very pleased with you. And behold! I allow you to be in My Presence with your mortal, human body."
And this sage said, "How wonderful is Thy Experience, O Lord. I am great. I am feeling very happy. It is beyond any expectations that I in my human mortal body could be in Your Presence."
And God said, "I have a question. Can you answer me?"
And the man said, "Yes."
God said, "I am very confused. What is wrong with these women? They can create Me through the part of their body called the womb, but they can't seem to appreciate that what can create God is more than God!"
Even Almighty God is confused! Why is the human being, created in the best Essence of the Divine, with the capacity to give the Infinite God a human form, still insecure? If you cannot answer this question, you will never know who you are.
It is a very fortunate situation. You have all come to grow, you have all come to understand what grace is, what divinity is, and what dignity is. But please find out why that institution which created Jesus Christ, which created Rama, which created Krishna, which created Buddha, which created Guru Nanak, which created Tao, is insecure. What has gone wrong? Where has it gone wrong, and how can it be corrected? The time has come when this exploitation must stop!
The time has come when a daughter should be treated as a daughter, a mother should be treated as a mother, a wife should be treated as a wife, and over and above all, a woman should be treated as a woman! I was just telling somebody that there are two types of paper: one is toilet paper, and one is the paper on which people write scriptures. They wrote the Bible and they wrote other granths with it.
Let us forget to be toilet paper. If we have to be paper, then let us be scriptural paper. It takes the same amount of wood and the same amount of pulp to make both papers. I leave the choice with you, and thank you very much for being with me this evening. God bless you.
First published in Beads of Truth magazine, Issue 39, Fall 1978, 10-13. Republished in Messenger from the Guru's House: The Life and Legacy of Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Panth Rattan "Yogi Bhajan" - available in various formats at amazon.com. For info on teachers, trainings and events, please email: [email protected].
This "love you" and "darling" and all that jazz is only on the surface, because the majority of the women do not know if they are women or not. The United States of America is a great country with a very high per capita income, but here woman is treated like a doormat. Come in, wipe your shoes, walk over it, go in, have your booze, have fun, and get out - that's it!
I see these ladies drinking four martinis, six martinis, to pass the evening when the sun energy is low. They have to think who they are, and they have to be themselves - women. And there is no warmth in the house, there's no love in the house. They are living phony, they are thinking phony, they are relating to the entire phony world around them. Then it will be nice to have a few martinis and be a pig.
"Soor jeev" - it means a life of a pig. You know that a pig can sit in any dirt, eat anything in the world? Now a woman is supposed to be the most delicate instrument ever created by God. She cannot only perceive the divine and experience the dignity and divinity, but can create. That part of a woman, nobody can imagine. She can create divinity!
She is just as beautiful as God is because once a woman wants to create the divinity, she can override God's Will. If you read all logical mythology - Greek, Indian, Chinese, anything - you'll find one thing very common: whenever the Goddess takes over, God gives in. But when the Goddess is a pig... "P.I.G." - do you know what that means? It has come to me right now: "Public Institutionalized Goodie.” That's what the men think about the women in this country!
I am in pain. I am telling you the truth. They think she is a public thing: institutionalize her, put her behind doors, tell her she is Mrs. So-and-so - and then swap her! And if that is what you want to be - good luck! It's fine with me. I know you have gone through these nuts, but do you want your daughters to go through this? Do you want your daughters to be ping-pong balls that everybody with a bat can hit back and forth? Is this what you want your life to be? Is this what this country is - home of the brave and free and all this nonsense you talk about?
There is a characteristic, and that characteristic has a criterion. Woman is an institution, therefore she should be afraid to be "institutionalized.” She is an institution which can give birth to the Godhead. Therefore, she must be afraid to be a pig. She is the one who has to go through nine months of pregnancy. She is the one who is to carry the attachment of the emotion, she is the one who has to give her blood and her self to create another life. Therefore, she must know what she is up to. And if woman is not standard and stable, the children are all neurotic. That is it! Actually, to be very honest, when the father is shaky, the children are cowards, but when the mother is shaky, the children are neurotics. Disobedient, undisciplined, neurotic kids are the sign the mother is insecure.
As life comes, we must think what life is. First, you get born, then you grow, then they tell you: "Go and chase your own man! Find it out. Just go out in the market, go and find your man!" You are not even aware what a man is! When the girl is shoved out to find a man, she does not know what a man is. She only knows man is another instrument with which she can have sex or go to a movie, or go to dinner - that's all. Nothing more she understands of man.
That's why, in this country, every marriage falls apart. There is no such system as marriage because nobody understands the institution of marriage. The institution of marriage is a union of the two polarities to go through everything devotedly. Now, where there is emotional upset, what devotion is there?
It can happen that there is no difference between a human being and an animal. It has been observed, animals are more considerate because they are not rational. Animals are not rational, they are very irrational. Through their irrational approach, they have nothing but direct, straight devotion. Everybody knows that they have to hatch an egg, they have to feed the baby birds, they have to train them to fly until they can find their own food, and let them go.
We neither learn from birds nor we learn from animals. Animals do the same thing. They get in heat, they get pregnant, and they have their little ones and they raise them. The difference between an animal and a human being is that an animal does not know who is the sister, who is the mother. A male dog, when he grows up, can have intercourse with his own mother, with his own sister, so they do not have the chance of gene development. That is the difference.
I'll tell you a very strange story. I talked to a girl who had to leave 3HO because the circumstances were beyond her control. Now this lady married a man, and she had these three daughters from her previous husband. Now this is the United States of America, that great land, and this is the story of almost every house. This woman married the man and the daughters grew up in the eight years of that marriage. One became nineteen, another eighteen, the other fifteen years old. Now this man thought - and he was very sure of himself - that these daughters are also with the mother. So he raped one first, then he raped the second, and then he raped the third. And after having three daughters raped, still that woman never woke up. She never woke up!
There is another story. There is another child who left 3HO. I took care of her education for five or six years, and put her in the best school. At a time when she was going to pass her final school exams, her mother came with the sheriff to possess her. She didn't want to give her two days so that girl could qualify herself through the examination! Somehow, between the sheriff and the state department, we wangled those two days, but now I understand the psychology. The psychology is: "When I have gone through the stripping, why should my daughter become educated and divine?”
If a man takes tons of heavy equipment and wants to build a cozy home, it will be impossible. Woman can build it with one needle! The beauty, the glory of woman, I can honestly say is forgotten in this land. The only priority for which woman is used in this country is as an emotional dump! Psychologically, logically, and socially, woman is a necessity in this country as a social dump, as the emotional and social dump of the male.
Do you understand that going from the Infinite Creativity of Godhood to the position of being an emotional and social dump of the neurosis of a male is low, low, low, lower than an ordinary animal relationship? And it is accepted publicly! Now, look what they are trying to do to a woman in this country. They are going to give her "equal rights" so when there is a war combat, the enemy can enjoy to rape our women!
Ask these men, what do they think a woman is? Every woman, whether she is creative or non creative, her pelvic bone can open up to one foot maximum. But if a man's pelvic bone opens up three millimetres, he can't even walk! What is happening in this country is that the men are totally perverted. They don't enjoy the delicacy of the woman or the dignity of the sexual relationship. Now, they want those Romans who used to fight and kill, those gladiators, in their beds. They want women to drive heavy buses, heavy equipment, build roads, do the whole thing - become muscular. They want them to leave their feminine nature, and become totally insensitive to their delicate, intelligent approach, and they want to have boxing women.
You know, that's one of the main facts! Put a woman in the ring, and clap around her. Have your martini and drink and let them have black and blue eyes and get beaten up. In public! In public: topless! bottomless! They want to strip the woman of her moral dignity. The whole work is being arranged socially to strip the woman of her moral dignity - and when a woman does not have moral dignity and moral security, out of her shall come a breed of human beings that I don't want to name, but for the future generations, I will call them "chaotic.” And that is being produced right now, a generation of people who will have no respect for life or values of life. This is the true story, and you do not have to believe my words. Just do a little bit of research.
In eight years, I have found so many things. I was reading in the newspaper today that one million children are added to the population every year through unwed mothers. One million! Now, thanks to the Catholic religion, they will not have even the possibility of having state funds, so even if they want an abortion, they won't be able to go through with it. First, it was a mistake on their part to get pregnant. Secondly, because it was an emotional pregnancy, the other guy doesn't take care of it.
Now look at this political stunt, this special God of the Christians! Why doesn't this church go out and see that no woman gets wrongly pregnant? They don't want to work for that. They don't want to create clean environments and educated environments. They don't want to educate the people. All they want is your vote. Because Jesus Christ was never a woman, Mary has no part to play? Therefore, in 1977 no woman can be a minister? Look at the social insult! These are the means used by these neurotic men. Woman cannot be a minister! She cannot perform any holy performance!
In English, there is a word used to address the woman, and you all know that. Can anybody tell me? In gentleman's English, they call her "the better half.” " She's my better half." Better half always comes to seventy percent. You can have the better half, my share of the property: this means seventy percent I can give to you. In gentle people's language, woman plays seventy percent of the part to build the human race. She's responsible for giving dignity and divinity and grace and peace and harmony and strength.
Cooking is not a small job. Who tells you cooking is an ordinary job? You are what you eat. To have a home is not a small job. To raise a child is not a small job. Who says the woman's part is small? It is the largest of all and surely, definitely, the most important!
But the entire psychology is being worked out in one way: destroy the woman, kill her! Why has she survived four million years? The male has a simple psychology: if you can't have it, destroy it! The only triumph this man has is: lay her in the bed and forget about it! That's one simple system. When they date you, they are different. Then, in the morning, when you call them, they say "I am in a conference."
Do you know what they think? Do you want to hear what they think? Five dollars on food, two dollars on gas, three dollars on a show... How much is it? Eight, ten bucks? And then they must lay you in bed, and then kick you out. That is their psychology.
Forty percent of the wealth of this country is through salesmen, and every salesman in every restaurant, in every hotel, has to have - now I call them "women.” Massage parlors, call girl situations, entertainment, all that industry is filled with filth, and the whole industry is based on one thing: exploit the woman. They have one mantra: "exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman, exploit-the-woman..." There is no bank transaction which can happen without a topless/bottomless woman coming, and booze drinking, and all that jazz. What is happening to the woman behind the scenes is so shameless, so inhuman, and so cruel that if it ever happens to animals, I think they will protest!
One night, everybody freaked out. What has gone wrong with me? At one o'clock in the morning, I started to watch a movie on television, and I wouldn't move. They had never seen me doing this sadhana, but I loved it! That movie opened my eyes. It was an old movie where they showed how a business executive, to get the contract, to get this, to get that, used his wife and his daughters. It was so low, so mean, so inhuman - and that actually happens! These homes with long driveways, where people have a summer home and a winter home and this wall-to-wall carpet, this whole bogus thing is all money earned out of prostitution!
You know, you must understand that when a salesman lands in town, he is picked up by a chick. I heard somebody saying, "I am mad at you! You did send me those two chicks, but what happened to that blonde chick of mine?" And the guy was explaining on the other side, "There was an emergency. Somebody had already insisted on her, so I..." They're pawns! They're nothing! They're not human beings! They're treated like zucchini! Even beets have some personalities, some value. They are weighed, they are bought, they are done. Damn this consciousness where woman is not even bought! The guy gets on the telephone, "Rosie, report to room number 116 at Holiday Inn." And she doesn't know what she is getting into.
It's a flesh market! It is a trading post where woman is used as a commodity and exploited worse than crude oil. And then, after giving her two, three children, they kick her out. Do you know what they give her? She gets fifty percent of the community property, through easy payments. And this foolish woman thinks, "At least, I got half the property!" She has gotten nothing!
When I see you sitting here and listening to me, in reality I am seeing a miracle that in the United States of America there can be some woman who still wants to learn to be a woman, and can have the capacity to face the reality. They want your cheeks to be red. It doesn't matter that those chemicals may burn your skin. They don't care! Your lips should be red, while all that poison keeps going in your body.
There's a beautiful statement which Rishi Kalpa made. In his verse, he said, "Woman - if you ever understand you are a woman, you are better than God. I need not worship God. I am only in search of a woman who just realizes that she is a woman!
There's a whole systematic system happening in society to ruin this most valuable institution of the human race. There is a continuous process and ignorance. Woman allows the destruction of another woman! Don't you understand that if Mr. A is no good to you, he's never going to be good to B, he's never going to be good to C. If he is good to A, he is good to B, and he is good to C. However, the problem in psychology is when a woman becomes insecure, she becomes highly selfish. She wants the whole apple! And trying to get the whole apple, she never even ends up with the seed of the apple. In every realm of consciousness, there is one message for every woman: be a woman and find your place, because there is a place for every woman born on this Earth.
Once, a sage did a very great tapas. He became so one with God that God sent his angel to bring him to Him alive. So, in a human, sensitive body, this guy flew beyond the heavens and went in the presence of the great radiance called "God.” And God said to him, "My son, I am very pleased with you. And behold! I allow you to be in My Presence with your mortal, human body."
And this sage said, "How wonderful is Thy Experience, O Lord. I am great. I am feeling very happy. It is beyond any expectations that I in my human mortal body could be in Your Presence."
And God said, "I have a question. Can you answer me?"
And the man said, "Yes."
God said, "I am very confused. What is wrong with these women? They can create Me through the part of their body called the womb, but they can't seem to appreciate that what can create God is more than God!"
Even Almighty God is confused! Why is the human being, created in the best Essence of the Divine, with the capacity to give the Infinite God a human form, still insecure? If you cannot answer this question, you will never know who you are.
It is a very fortunate situation. You have all come to grow, you have all come to understand what grace is, what divinity is, and what dignity is. But please find out why that institution which created Jesus Christ, which created Rama, which created Krishna, which created Buddha, which created Guru Nanak, which created Tao, is insecure. What has gone wrong? Where has it gone wrong, and how can it be corrected? The time has come when this exploitation must stop!
The time has come when a daughter should be treated as a daughter, a mother should be treated as a mother, a wife should be treated as a wife, and over and above all, a woman should be treated as a woman! I was just telling somebody that there are two types of paper: one is toilet paper, and one is the paper on which people write scriptures. They wrote the Bible and they wrote other granths with it.
Let us forget to be toilet paper. If we have to be paper, then let us be scriptural paper. It takes the same amount of wood and the same amount of pulp to make both papers. I leave the choice with you, and thank you very much for being with me this evening. God bless you.
First published in Beads of Truth magazine, Issue 39, Fall 1978, 10-13. Republished in Messenger from the Guru's House: The Life and Legacy of Siri Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Panth Rattan "Yogi Bhajan" - available in various formats at amazon.com. For info on teachers, trainings and events, please email: [email protected].
