Yogi Bhajan lecture: We cannot live in isolation

Man is a social animal, said Aristotle.

During development - the innocence, the love, the affection, the care we enjoyed as a child, we need more and more and all the time. Meanwhile, as life grows, we become sad, depressed, angry. We miss the care of our inner child. We do not remember, or even try to remember, that we have lost our innocence; we have lost our openness; we have lost our vastness. We become rational; we reason, and then we only want to see where the benefit is, where the loss is, who is right, who is wrong, and in this judgmental attitude we also become judgmental to ourselves.

So when you become isolated and try to be only in your own world, the one that suits you, then whatever doesn't fit its image, we don't want to have anything to do with it. Then we also become very emotional, attacking, very withdrawn and indifferent. We develop a certain pattern to our personality. Once we are caught by this pattern, it is very difficult for us to change it.

We become insensitive to the existence of others. All human traits are the result of our inability to recognise that we are adults. Don't try to blame or not blame, try to be right or wrong, and try to be sensual and sexy or corrupt or very pious or whatever you want to call it. Basically the result of all this is a loss of innocence. You never recognise that you have just lost it. It takes one second to recover.

Be open. Be simple and be yourself. Easier said than done. So there must be certain qualities in which we can grow. We cannot live with our cold depression. We cannot live with our open denial. We cannot live with our isolation.

We cannot accept a teacher; we cannot accept a master; we cannot accept divine guidance. Therefore, there is a void in our lives and this void we cannot fill. Because this emptiness is the call of the soul. It is a bit like when a candle longs to be lit - and although the candle will be consumed by the flame, in the case of the soul it will be redeemed and set free. But it is there CALL. You have your passions, you have your intelligence, you have your intuition, you have different manoeuvres, but that is not what your soul needs. The soul has a calling for itself. The soul needs another soul to ignite.

Every person must wake up. Every soul must see the light and get rid of personal darkness. There is maturity in this. There is fulfilment in this. There is joy in it. It is beyond existence, it is reality, it is royalty.

You are nothing more than useless animals , If you do not understand what your needs are, what your hunger is. You are very, very hungry. You have a deep, deep, very deep hunger. The soul needs another soul. The soul does not need a soulmate for sex. Soulmate means that the soul needs another soul to awaken, to be lit, to burn, to be bright, to shine.

We are all a source for each other. We all have an appeal to each other because we are all self/one. One of the things you have been taught wrong - that you are you. You were never you, you are never you and you will never be you. We are all connected to each other mentally.

We have always tried to create communities.
Blessed are those who gather together to simply get together. Together they connect, meet, communicate and walk together. Blessed is the soul who sees that everything, is God, and that God inside and outside is one in consciousness. May we all live in peace, tranquillity and grace. Sat Nam.

© Yogi Bhajan Teachings
Excerpts from a lecture given on 28 August 1996 in Espanola, NM

IKYTA is a global association of Kundalini yoga teachers.