Never before have we as a global group of women been holding so much potential, so much power, to shape our collective future.

Yet, what is the pathway to awakening the fullness of our authentic power as women? Where should we put our energy and attention in order to make our greatest contribution? And how might we work together and support each other in this process?

Ladies, now is the time for us to understand and step into our Grace. Our society has changed and will continue to change. The consciousness of the planet is shifting back into the feminine. We are the mothers of this Earth. Without us, we would all cease to exist.

With this comes a great responsibility. We must stop mistaking our sexuality as our power. We must understand what the word Grace means, for it is the foundation to all that we hold. It is our roots, our power and our greatest gift.

Yogi Bhajan came to America in 1969. He was inspired and impressed with American women. He saw their strength and passion to break the mold that had been holding them in place for decades. He knew their potential but saw that they needed guides in order to become not only strong women but graceful women. He spent much of his time teaching women, focusing his teachings on topics that were relevant to helping them find their truth.

The teachings that Yogi Bhajan gave us are ancient. They are based in yoga but truth to all paths. The principal teachings are to guide women to find their Grace, Dignity and Divinity. Being the creators of humanity, we hold the same power as the Divine. In yogic philosophy God dwells in all things, however women have the power to create the divine by carrying it in their womb and giving birth. It is a cycle that only women experience.

Our world is shifting and humanity needs–now more than ever–the healing presence of the universal mother. Every woman on this planet has the right and power to hold this space. If it is true that the energy is shifting into the feminine, then we as women need to question ourselves—are we ready? Are we ready to carry the torch of responsibility for this Earth and the well-being of every living creature on it?

The world sees you the same way you see yourself. We need to look at the way we carry ourselves. If we demand that the world looks to us for our wisdom, and respects and honors us, we best show them how to do it by starting with teaching them how! We cannot wait for them to hand over the reins. We must make change and the way we do that is with our fierce presence, our radiant selves that are unstoppable. Once women embody GRACE the world will melt at our feet. To do this we need to know ourselves. We need to understand that our power is our soft hearts. It gives us the ability to see the unseen through our intuition. Yogi Bhajan often said that a woman’s intuition is 16 times stronger than a man’s.

We must stop competing against each other. It is not our nature to be this way; it is only because women have been pushed and shoved so much that they have developed a competitive mind. A woman in her true nature is designed to give, to give everything for the survival of her young. She will not eat if there is not enough for her children. We are designed to give, do not forget that!

We must develop a neutral mind. Women were given the ability to feel everything. For the most part we are also good at expressing what it is we feel. So how do we embrace this gift of feeling and at the same time not let it run our lives?

We need a foundation. I like to think of this foundation as a garden in my belly. Close your eyes. Bring your attention to the belly. The belly is the center of our being. It is our strong house, when we have a soil foundation we are grounded which gives us strength to bend and not break. Once we have this foundation based in grace, it is all trusting to every situation put in front of us.

This foundation of grace can only be developed with a meditative mind. It is a training of the mind to cultivate a deep knowing of trust and connection to all that is. There is no short cut; you cannot attain it by reading and intellectualizing. It is a practice and with persistence we get stronger and stronger.

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Wahe, daughter of Gurmukh Kaur and Guru Shabd Singh, was born into a lineage of yogis. Schooled in India, Wahe is a true modern day yogi and global citizen who still travels the far reaches of the world in her spirited commitment to serving humanity, Mother Earth and all its creatures. As a Kundalini Yoga teacher and student of Yogi Bhajan she uses the technology of yoga and its teachings to navigate through life and uplift all who cross her path. You can find her working and teaching at Golden Bridge or catch her on one of her soulful teaching treks around the world.

I designed this camp to give women a standard of

Excerpts from a lecture by Yogi Bhajan, June 27, 1976

Come join us at Women’s Camp to realize and remember your true value as a woman...At Women’s Camp, we are asking you to look at yourself, patch up what is torn apart, leave what is excessive, and fill in the gaps. You can do it. The idea is that all of you who believe in one reality, one thought, who have one goal to achieve and a common spirit to live righteously, should get together and help each other create a new energy. The energy should build up character one by one, micro-consciousness and macro-consciousness. That is what our future is based upon.

Women’s Camp is totally for your positive development. There is no silence. You can talk to everyone, befriend everyone. Here we want to build a family of equals who are honest, disciplined, virtuous, can give up negativity and share their positive qualities. The first fundamental criteria for this camp is to offer an open and honest invitation for you to become what you want to become, to have the chance to overcome your difficulties, and improve your capability to handle time and space.

A spiritual person learns and disciplines herself to use the positive mind, and the unspiritual person lives by the negative mind. Both powers are there, don’t misunderstand. Women’s Camp is to build in you the positive character of a woman, so that you do not act for profit and loss, because grace cannot be purchased or sold. Any human being who has a price is a commodity.

The purpose of Women’s Camp is to learn to ride on your thoughts. Do not let your thoughts ride on you. Thoughts ride on you to become desire, but when you ride on your thoughts, then it is your choice. That is the difference between a free man and a slave. So this is a direct opportunity to direct yourself. Let your weaknesses fall flat before you. Experience it; it will work.

The purpose of Women’s Camp is to create one intelligent, honest, creative woman who can discipline herself through every thick and thin of life; who can kill her own negativity and thus give birth to a positive child. Everything I do is based on this one thing only. Your future generations, your children are the by-product of your mind and only your mind. They learn by watching you.

Many of you are unfulfilled. You are unfulfilled as children and you experience that gap in adulthood. A fool picks up the goodness of the past and the devil picks up the evilness of past days; both are picking up negativity. An angel picks up goodness of today and lives with it.

Understand that it takes much less force to go down from the top of the mountain; it takes a lot of courage and power to make it to the top of the mountain. Those who make it to the top of the mountain are those who put everything into it and are very together.

We want each person to learn every facet of life; not total mastery but some knowledge so that you are confident and wise in the face of time and action.

©The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan

‘Everything’ is the answer.
Why should we pay attention to our women?
Why should we honor their rhythms and cycles?
Because they are our seers. They are our souls.
They are the bringers of life. Not only this gorgeous thing called our body but the life of the ideas.
They are the holders of the Seed.
When women don’t get nourished they become terrible. They become fiercer than Genghis Khan, they become Kali looking for blood, your blood.
If they aren’t given the time to create in grace they become hard like coal and will burn you with their fire.
If their song isn’t heard they become hoarse and listless. Their whispers paralyze your very being.
When women are looked at kindly, spoken to with reverence, acted toward with respect, touched with dignity, we will experience the greatest delights.
We will have honor because we have honored that from which we have come.
We will experience peace because our intuition will be alive.
We will experience hope because her prayer will be heard once again.
We will experience compassion because her depth has been awakened.
We will experience courage because her fear will bow to her trust.
We can dig ourselves out of this grave of fear through honor.
We can dig ourselves out of this grave through reverence.
We can dig ourselves out of this grave through respect.
She is a woman. She is your woman. Your mother, your daughter, your lover, your sister, and your friend.
See her in the face of every woman.
Encourage her to know what she really knows.
To turn off the radios, the TV, The computer and make friends with her silence.
To hear her deepest voice and delight in it’s magnitude.
To share her wisdom without fear.
When you hear these voices
When you see the glint of eternity in her eyes
Then you will know hope.
Until then we are emaciated souls awaiting emancipation.

Gurutej Kaur was one of the original students of Yogi Bhajan. She has continued to live, share, and create support products for these teachings all over the world for the past 40 years. With great love of these teachings, her joy, humor and ability to empower students is renown.
http://www.gurutej.com

Adi Shakti, symbol of the divine feminine, creative power. Art by Sewa Singh, www.sikhphotos.com

By Sat Purkh Kaur Khalsa

Mother’s Day is this month. I’ve never been very good at “hallmark” holidays, and my mother knows it—so she doesn’t expect much from me. And when I take a moment to absorb that truth, it sort of breaks my heart; because I still expect everything from her. But then that’s what children do. They expect the world to be given to them—safe, secure, abundant and loving—and their mothers do their best to comply.  They do everything possible to deliver the world to their children, if not a silver platter, then at least with a smile and a spoonful of honey. And when they fail, and they will, children do what children do when they don’t get what they want—throw a tantrum. We expect our Mother’s to be Divine Beings because they are; but we don’t allow them to be human (and they are human, too). Even as adult children we thrust these same impossible expectations on them—and they do their best to deliver.

It is said that you can never really understand your mother until you become one yourself; so there will always be that gap between me and my Mom. She loves me so fiercely that I sometimes want to ask her to “love me less,” because that kind of love demands the best—and sometimes I don’t feel up to the task. And then I see my friends who have children and witness the inestimable sacrifice it takes to become a mother; as a woman who’s lived the majority of her life alone, I simply cannot comprehend the selflessness it takes. I can only worship it—Jai Ma, Jai Ma Jai Ma! Mothers all over the world make sacrifices for their children; and most children simply take it for granted because it’s what mothers and children do.

But imagine that same selflessness, that same sacrifice, that same love, that same compassion dwelling within you as your own Guru Dev, your inner Teacher. Imagine that inner light shining and blessing everything you touch, every action you take, every word you say—to yourself and others. If we can comprehend the love of our mothers for us, then we can begin to comprehend the love of God. Yet most of us are still trapped in mother phobias that block us from the light of God, from our own inner light. Men act out their mother phobia by making effort after effort to demean women, or better yet to convince women to demean themselves; it’s a systemic, cultural phobia acted out each and every day in the West. Women act out their mother phobia through acting out, living from a self-righteous anger that takes them nowhere—the ultimate “rebel without a cause.”  Yet, if we can transcend our mother phobia and truly begin to recognize the Divine presence within our mothers, we will begin to taste the love of God and smell the fragrance of the Guru. Then we can awaken to a self-forgiveness and self-love that would change our relationship to our self, to others—and to our mothers—smile.

Happy Mother’s Day, mom. I love you. Jai Ma!

Sat Purkh Kaur Khalsa is a writer, editor, poet, singer and songwriter—and a pretty good cook, too. She serves as Editor and Creative Director of the Kundalini Research Institute. She has made three albums of sacred music including Queen Bee, Nectar of the Name and Beautiful Day. She is the author of Everyday Grace: The Art of Being a Woman, an introduction to women’s teachings of Yogi Bhajan. She lives with her two cats Fatty and Slim, and her dog, Vinnie. http://satpurkh.blogspot.com/

Excerpts from a lecture by Yogi Bhajan on June 28, 1994

Technically speaking, you are not what you look at in the mirror. We are talking about you. You look at yourself in the mirror; what you see is what you sell. You have never looked into your soul. That’s what you are and that’s what you are not projecting. Look at your dresses. You want to be sexy. What is that? Is your sex on sale? And the feel­ing is, why doesn’t somebody buy it? If somebody buys it, what objection would you have? Your whole mentality, sentimentality, and projection is, “How many men appreciate me?” And man’s whole projection is, “How fast can I exploit her?”

You gave birth to Guru Nanak, you gave birth to Gautama Buddha, you gave birth to Mohammad, you gave birth to Jesus, you gave birth to Rama, you gave birth to Krishna. You gave birth to everybody. You are the mother. And you suffer at the hands of a man because you sell yourself openly in an open market. You sell your body and that’s what you are. You are a flirt, therefore you are not alert. A woman who is a flirt is the worst enemy of herself. You flirt with your youth, you flirt with your adult age, you flirt with your old age.

I once met a woman in New York who was eighty-nine years old. And she brought a man to meet me and she said, “Yogiji, this is the man I’m going to marry.”

I said, “What’s wrong with you?”

She said, “Just look at his aura and please let me know whether he can be right.”

I said, “Why are you marrying him?”

She said, “I am lonely.”

I said, “Why would you want to marry this man?”

She said, “Don’t you think I am lonely?”

I said, “Do you have your God with you, do you have your soul with you, do you have your self with you?”

She said, “I never thought of it.”

I said, “It is a matter of principle that at this age of grace, having everything as a gift of God, you couldn’t grace yourself. That’s why. That is the point.”

And you do not know what grace is! And if you grace yourself at every moment and do not be cheap, there’s no question that God will honor you. And that is what a woman is. Whenever a woman is cheap she loses her grace. Once you lose your grace you’re just a nothing.

You have excuses, “Oh, I have my past, I have my future, I have my yesterday, I have my tomorrow.” Forget it, those are all excuses. Excuses are abus­es, abuse is personal. Excuses are personal abuses. You abuse yourself. You suffer at the hands of man, being the giver of the man himself. Jananee is the birth giver; the Mother of humanity; the source of incarnation of divinity, integrity, responsibility, and personality. Jananee.

It is very funny when Manu[1]starts writ­ing about a woman. He goes hundreds and hundreds of pages praising a woman: “You are the goddess. You are the self. You are the divine. You are the source of the Universe. You are the way of God. You are the tomorrow.” He goes on and on and on and on, and in the end he says only one line, “But, oh woman, when your head falls in your heels, you are your worst enemy.” And he stops. He never says one more line.

If every woman makes every man so born to respect, respect, respect, then there should be no cruelty, no disorder, no mental cruelty, no crime on this whole planet, the world would be just heaven.

You are the teacher, you are the first introduction. Can you deny it? What a mother teaches a child in the womb cannot be learned on the Earth. That’s why I asked you, after 120 days, just to meditate. Soul has entered. Walk and meditate, Charan Japa Kriya.[2]

You are the ultimate incarnation! You can redeem yourself four ways. Man has to become a man of God. You can become a woman of God, you can give birth to a man of God, you can serve a man of God, and you can bless as a jananee to make somebody Divine.

You are the nucleus of this Universe. Man marries you, man divorces you, man leaves you, man comes to you. But look at the man! All in all, a woman is why man is running around. And still you can’t control your world? What can you control in yourself? Your grace. Without grace, every woman loses the race of life and lives in strife. You can provoke, you can nag, you can be emotional. But all where does it lead you?

Strength and weakness follow each other. The question is, which side are you on? The question is not what the calamities are that you are going to face. Everybody has got to face that. The question is not whether misfortune is coming or not. The question is, how are you going to face it? If you face anything head on, it will go away.

Once you play games, once you flirt, the stupid half-brain male, totally insecure, neurotic, born of a woman, trained under the influence of a woman, will never trust you. He may say so, he may promise you. The chance with you is, ever be or never be. There may be a fifty year old man—if his mother has the guts to stand as a mother, that fifty year old man, no matter who he is, shall never cross her. You are a way to God because you are a way from God. You are the first teacher. The whole world goes around you. Whenever you are you, you have always won, but you are never you. You have always been defeated. The day you know you are a woman in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, God cannot defeat you.

Adi shakti, adi shakti, adi shakti, namo, namo. This God said to you. This is your mantra.

Adi shakti, adi shakti, adi shakti, namo, namo. Sarab shakti, sarab shakti, sarab shakti, namo, namo. Pritam bagvati, pritam bagvati, pritam bagvati, namo, namo. Kundalini, mata shakti, mata shakti, namo, namo.

I bow to the primal power.

I bow to the all pervading power.

I bow to the creative power at the beginning.

I bow to the mother of all power.

The Creator bowed to you. Without you there’s no Creator. Because without you there’s no Creation.

You are on sale on every billboard, in every magazine, on every talk show. Your existence has become sell, sell, sell. Has any­body put on a billboard, “I salute my mother who gave me birth?” Have you ever thought that you have nothing about you to sell except to cause a personal insult? Have you ever thought your values are your values? They are always your values. Do you under­stand that all relationships go around you and you are the hub of every relationship? And still you want a relationship. Have you ever thought that you are the giver, you are the destiny, and you are the moksha, you are the redeemer?

When I started the Grace of God Movement of the Women of America I thought this was something every woman would adopt. Ha! You want rights now! National Organization of Women! You want rights from those to whom you gave birth? The king is begging from the people, “Fifty cents please, I’m your king.” Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, God. Woman is asking for rights from the men. If all the women in the United States went on strike, not speaking to men for fourteen days you could get any bill passed, including that men will massage your feet in the morning before you get up! Your caliber, your consciousness and your self is sixteen times stronger than all the men.

Man has only one hemisphere of the brain. You have both working at the same time. Your intuition is given potentially because you are going to be a moth­er, so all dangers in and out are known to you. You have everything plus, plus, plus.

Woman has only one chance to be one step ahead of the man, and that is only because she is naturally intuitive and therefore there is no rea­son for her to give an inch. But when she flirts, she is no more alert, she is a sitting duck. And that’s why you suffer. And you’ll continue suffering generation after generation after generation. If this generation doesn’t teach other generations how not to suffer, the suffering will continue.

No man who has no gratitude for the jananee shall ever reach God spirit because that’s the jananee too. Prana is jananee. It is the source of life. As woman gives the life, so does the prana. What is the value of Purkha, the God, without Parkirti? And who created the Parkirti? Woman.

Have you ever thought that a man of God or a saint is a channel of God? True? Things flow from him? And the whole Universe flows from you. Have you ever seen that there is nothing more Divine than you? You have become what a mirror tells you and you do not know where your soul is! You do not know where your grace is! You do not know where you are. You have to find it.

Don’t lose your grace for temporary benefits. Think long-term. You can be, because you are the source of the beginning. You always shall be, because you created time. You are always affected because you are the master of the space. And you are always into that height of self because you are the lofty self. On this planet, you are the hub, you are the purity, you are the force, you are the mother, no other.

You must look beyond the mirror! You are the spirit, you are the soul, you are the self. You are the honor, you are the source of all sources. You are the redeemer of all redeemers. From you, this creation is born.

May the long time sun shine upon you, all love sur­round you, and the pure light within you, guide your way on.

Give us peace, peace of mind, strength of our soul, grace of our self. Give us the awareness, understand­ing. Give us the dignity, divinity and make us know the Infinity now, tomorrow and forever. Sat Nam.

©The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan

From The Creative Aspect of a Woman, Women in Training 1994

[1]A Hindu sage

[2] Charan Japa Kriya: meditation recommended for expectant parents. Walk 3 miles together daily, chanting ‘Wha Hay Guru,’ one step per syllable.