Inner Life: My Path of Childhood to Joyful Enlightenment!
Through the bewildering maze of childhood I sought Truth, as children innocently do. Occasional realizations gave me moments of unspeakable beauty, and sometimes loneliness because they were unspeakable. These truths are now my memories of becoming, of ever being, a Sikh.
My first such memory came from a story my mother told me that took place in 1953. She said she leashed me to the big tree in front of our house when I was a toddler because I liked to follow stray dogs. One day she left me there while she went in the backyard to hang laundry when, “out of the blue,” an angel spoke to her crying, “Go get Nancy! Go get Nancy!” My mother ran and found me tangled in the rope, strangling, and untied me. I’m sure it was last time she tried that!
Beginning in 1956, some early sacred discoveries were made at Saint Thomas More, my Catholic elementary school in Alhambra, California, our hometown. I loved my first grade teacher, Sister Mary Rosalie, and decided absolutely that I, too, would grow up to be a teacher and a nun.
In many ways I have fulfilled those two ambitions, having taught children for over thirty years as well as yoga and healing arts, and having become a minister in 1973.
During second grade at Saint Thomas More my class began to read the catechism. The first lessons went to my heart:
1. There is One God. 2. God is everywhere. He has no beginning and no end.”
That evening I felt compelled to express my understanding and gratitude for these truths. Carefully, excitedly, I wrote a card to my teacher:
God is like a circle. He has no beginning and no end. O Man is like a line. He has a beginning and an end. —
It was a thrill to draw my thoughts, to make truth tangible. So began my love of symbols, of trust that the unspeakable is real.
I now wear the sacred symbol of a circle like a handcuff around my wrist. It is a Kara, a stainless steel Sikh bangle that reminds me of my link to God.
The Catholic religion instilled in me a deep desire to be pure. I took confession with appropriate fear and awe, and was devout in reciting Hail Marys as penance. So as to measure my state of purity (heaven forbid I lie to a priest!) I would imagine my insides as having a white sheet. Black dots upon it were my sins, which I gave back to God.
Now, as a Sikh, I wear white clothing, the pure awareness Sikhs represent.
In 1958, when I was seven years old, our family moved from Alhambra to Rolling Hills. Occasional catechism classes at a local church down the hill felt academic and distant from me. I craved truths that were relevant to my inner life and teachers who knew my heart. Finding neither, I turned more and more within. There, as an eleven-year-old, in moments of blessing, I experienced my soul.
These experiences came upon me as I lay in bed waiting to drift off to sleep. An angelic presence lovingly, unquestionably compelled me to challenge my will by holding simple-seeming postures for interminable periods of time—such as keeping my feet or my buttocks a few inches off the bed or wiggling my toes. Each challenge forced me to rely on my breath and call upon my soul, my whole being, to keep up. When I felt I had done it as long as possible the angel encouraged me to go beyond my imagined limitation for a few moments longer. After meeting the challenge I would relax into a pristine awareness, consciously conscious, my mind the cosmos, my being immersed in a sea of peace.
I never told anyone. It was more real than words in the Bible or the touch of human interaction. It was unspeakable.
As a teen I explored the intrigue of a psychic and visited local parishes and religious youth groups hoping to find a path that resembled my inner reality.
The years 1969 through 1970, my first year at UCLA, were packed with
new experiences, people and concepts—so much to absorb, so much fun and
excitement! I engaged in anti-war protests, Crosby Stills, Nash &
Young concerts, housecleaning for graceful elderly professors and
reading for an Hispanic blind student. I had exotic, black, princely
Pakistani, earthy, stoned, naturally high and Mensa boy friends, a
stint as a summer camp counselor for diabetic children, visits to my
Jewish roommate’s family home in San Diego and solo bicycle excursions
to the Veteran’s Administration. There I met wise and colorful seeming
war heroes washing their clothing in outdoor sinks, and spoke with a
holy man who leaned for hours against a power pole, staring at the sun.
On January 7th, 1971, following months of indecision and inner turmoil, I purchased a one-way ticket to Rome.
Was going to Rome my portended “Call to Adventure,” the “unknown zone”
I was to explore? In reading Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand
Faces”, I learned “The perilous journey” was “a labor of not attainment
but of re-attainment, not discovery but re-discovery…. the hero is
symbolic of that divine creature and redemptive image which is hidden
within us all, waiting to be known and rendered into life.”
Within days of reading this book I attended my first Kundalini Yoga
class in January of 1971. Only then did I know my soul journey had begun,
for some of the exercises were ones the angel had given me as a child.
I had been practicing Kundalini Yoga for two months when my yoga
teacher, Baba Singh, suggested that we go home and do spinal flexes
while looking into a mirror, saying we would see our soul. I went home
and flexed my spine with powerful breathing for a few minutes, got up
and stood before a mirror and gazed unblinkingly, breathing in Sat
through my crown and Nam out my eyes in an attempt to see my soul.
To my surprise, my face underwent a metamorphosis, becoming in turn
various people, male and female. I calmly observed this movie until my
eyes locked into the penetrating gaze of a woman whose eyes mirrored
the wisdom of ages. When I broke the bond, the image dissolved into my
own reflection, but the power of that face was locked into my mind. I
hurriedly sketched the woman’s expression, the wisdom, depth and energy
and was awed by the drawing’s unsettling trueness. That afternoon my
younger sister visited me. I told her of Baba Singh’s assignment and
showed her the drawing, explaining how I had seen “her,” a
frighteningly powerful woman, and exclaimed, “No! It wasn’t her. It was
me!” With that statement and moment of realization I was flooded with
energy so immense that it felt as though I was a giant; my head was
near the ceiling, my hands huge, vibrant, full of pure healing love. I
was love. Love was All, everything. Like I could touch my sister and
heal all the wounds of her soul. Overwhelmed by such immense beauty, I
held my head in my hands, hiding tears of bewilderment, and immediately
resumed my normal size and awareness. It was not a religious experience
except as in a return to my origin, for the only holy apparition was my
own immense spirit.
During the months that followed I learned the particulars of a yogic
lifestyle through Baba Singh and, with his practical guidance, I began
teaching Kundalini Yoga classes in an off-campus dormitory ping pong
room, at times playing ping pong instead of teaching.
Baba Singh taught us as Yogi Bhajan taught him, about one God Whose
name is Sat Nam, Infinite Truth, Who created and dwells in all Creation
and within every atom of our being. G-O-D…Generating Power, Organizer,
Destroyer. Everything. We breathed Sat Nam in yoga classes—it is the
sound of the breath, and chanted long Sat Nams aloud three times after
each class. Sat Nam was our way of blessing food and of greeting each
other. I even drank water swallowing Sat Nam! Dwelling on the Nam meant
living consciously, breath-to-breath, soul-to-soul—seeing God in
everyone and in every situation. Living the yogic lifestyle meant
living as God made me, leaving all my hairs on my body uncut and
keeping my mind and body in balance by avoiding meat, drugs, caffeine
and alcohol.
Baba Singh encouraged us to work and earn an honest living and share
with others. Sharing could mean giving money, shelter, comfort, a
smile—hope. When I did not have any money to attend yoga class I gave a
feather or a poem.
Under Baba Singh’s encouragement, some of us in his yoga class banded
together and rented a house in West LA. That way we could support each
other as we pursued a vegetarian diet and practiced the sadhana of two
and a half hours of Long Ek Ong Kars in the early morning before dawn.
In the spring of 1971, Yogi Bhajan began teaching ongoing Kundalini Yoga
classes on Melrose Avenue. I gazed into his energy field, looking for a
sign he was my spiritual teacher. The only inner glimpse he gave was a
tiny spark of light in my heart. I knew it would be up to me to feed it
into a flame with chanting and a devoted yogic practice.
My curiosity grew about Yogi Bhajan, Baba Singh and other turbaned
Kundalini Yoga teachers whose classes I enjoyed. With a little
encouragement I got a fellow student and housemate to take me to an
Indian Sikh Temple. During that Sunday Sikh music service I sat
very still, hoping to feel the true energy of the temple as I had done
in each church I explored as a teen. Towards the end we stood while a
prayer was given. Listening intently, I became imbued with awareness of
being an ancient soul, full of love and the wisdom of ages. This time I
did not cry. I knew, in the deepest part of my being, “I am home.”
That summer I cashed in my ticket to Rome, giving me just enough money
to attend my first Summer Solstice spiritual retreat, where I naturally
and joyfully immersed myself in the heart of my Sikh Destiny.
Yogi Bhajan worked with the local Sikh Study Circle to provide us yogis
a way to become Sikhs by taking Sikh vows. As it turned out, we already
were Sikhs, yet took these vows to confirm it, and in so doing
clarified our identity.
From that time on my sincerest efforts were directed toward practically
living in the vast healing presence of my spiritual awakening and the
profound wisdom of my soul. I learned to read Gurmukhi that year, and
in 1972 married one of the few men in 3HO wearing a turban, even before
I donned one myself. We legally took on the spiritual names given to us
by Yogi Bhajan, became Sikh ministers, Ashram heads, and were baptized
as Khalsa. We started one of the first mail-order Sikh
businesses--Singh Brothers, supplying Kangas, Karas, kirpans, turbans
and chunis, and a Golden Temple (India) Import store in Palo Alto. I
dove deeply into every alternative healing and inner discipline
available to me, and studied Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu at the University
of Washington, Aikido, Wing Chung and Gatka as well as Swedish Massage,
receiving a massage license. Following the lead of Yogi Bhajan, I
organized spiritual community Unity of Man picnics in my communities
and took many teacher training intensives from Yogi Bhajan to fully
became a student/teacher of Kundalini Yoga.
During my second marriage beginning in 1980, I was introduced to a
Hawaiian Kahuna master. Over the course of four years I learned from
him the esoteric use of healing extensions known as "Kiatsu". When these
classes came to a natural end in the early 1990's I was swept into the
study of shamanism, wherein I forlornly experienced my vastness as huge
voids in both the lower and upper worlds, wherein Yogi Bhajan gave me
to the formless Guru.
My shaman yoga teacher introduced me to his healing modality, known as Sahaj, through which I delved deeply to carve ethereal pathways to
discover effortless ways of healing, and to be with my teacher,
whom I meditatively experienced as having been my brother and husband
in previous lifetimes.
The healing modalities I learned evolved to be ever more subtle and
divine. I relinquished what became a huge attachment to my shaman
mentor with the help of the Grace of God Meditation, the Ten Body
Meditation, grounding techniques, post-Tantric Yoga forty-day kriyas
and the help of a friend who simply asked "What can you do with all this energy to put it to good use instead of putting it into the relationship?" On March 22, 1993 I wrote, "Within an hour of our conversation I felt the solid barrier of my attachment dissolve--totally gone, and I was flooded with Amrit! My tenth gate was open, no veil of illusion. I am light, I am I am, God flows through me just to be."
Once I made a holy vow to commit to this pure consciousness, my soul became free to travel our once shared
etheric pathways to divine realms. While going into my heart to pray for a dear
friend to be healed of bronchitis and heart pains, I very unexpectedly found myself with
her at the Golden Temple of Amritsar, where I was directed to take my
friend into the pool surrounding the Temple and submerge her until she
relaxed and began breathing the water into her lungs. In the course of
that vision my friend was totally healed and a new healing modality was
made known to me--the Golden Temple Meditation, which is as easy to
teach as it was effortless to experience.
Not being a licensed healer, in 1995 and 1996 onwards I was compelled
to teach these subtle healing ways by writing: first, a Kiatsu manual
that I gave to healers in exchange for treatments; then a Sahaj manual,
from which I gave Sahaj workshops and retreats; and, finally, a Golden Temple Meditation Manual compiled of teaching guidelines that were
developed while giving Golden Temple Workshops up and down the West
Coast -- from Washington State, Oregon and California on down to New
Mexico.
My next writing project, beginning in the year 2000, was a home-based
business, Yoga Gems--where I published KRI-approved Meditations for the
New Millennium. These are synopses of Yogi Bhajan's final years of
classes and meditations first sent out as an email subscription and
later compiled together as CD-ROM Books.
At a small outdoor Italian party during the summer of 2001 Yogi Bhajan
chided me about bothering with colons and semi-colons in Meditations
for the New Millennium until I was in tears, and silently began
chanting EK ONG KAR, SAT GURPRASAD, SAT GURPRASAD, EK ONG KAR," to
reverse my state of mind.
The moment the mantra started, Yogiji Bhajan commanded me, "You are to
write a book on the deeper, yogic meaning of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib as seen through each of its authors' writings. 1000 people will contest
your book but it will come through pure."
"Yes sir, I can do that!" I mentioned to people sitting near me how I
had compiled a dictionary of Gurmukhi words from the Siri Guru Granth
Sahib and been doing Nit Nem Paath, the Daily Sikh Prayers, every day
since my 25th birthday. Yogi Bhajan looked on with knowing eyes and
added, "You can twist Guru's words any way you wish,"--like I am not to
play around with punctuating his words, but Guru's are okay! What he
said stuck in my mind, it was so outrageous.
Amazingly, in drawing upon old journals I discovered that this project
was also given to me in deep meditation in the early 1970's. On asking
the Gurus what kind of book would best help children understand the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, I was told to couple life experiences with
excerpts from the "Adi Granth." My journal mentions that the book would
be for children of all ages, and that I did not yet have enough
experience to write it.
During the years following Yogi Bhajan's command, I was in a
suppressive relationship and in great turmoil. When I begged him to let
me start writing in two years when my astrological aspects improved.
Yogi Bhajan exclaimed, "What are you waiting for! You are to leave a
legacy--Use your love of God! It will burn off all your karmas!"
A year later in November of 2003, the suppression had me so upside-down
that even chanting sank me into hopeless tears. Yogiji gave me five
minutes to two and a half hours a day of So Darshan Chakra Kriya to do.
His letter began with "Happy New Year," letting me know it had been a
letter sent out to all the ashrams. But the kriya is one of the ten
most powerful kriyas Yogiji ever taught us--I did it knowing it would
help me.
I fought my way through utter turmoil to clarity using this kriya in
troubled earnest for as long as ninety minutes at a time whenever I was
uncontrollably tearful and out of balance. Except for the extremes of
blissful community Kirtans and being berated at home, I did not know
what was wrong with me. There was an ever-present heavy pressure at my
third eye that I fought as though I was fighting karma or destiny--so
unclear, feeling upside down, the turmoil outside-in. Nothing made
sense, things did not.
A week later, in answer to a plea for help, Yogi Bhajan gave me 31
minutes of Sat Kriya to do each morning to rebuild myself: “You will
change and become clear and beautiful. You will no longer feel anything
lacking in you. 31 minutes of Sat Kriya every day will give you insight
into the Unknown: You will always know how your health is. Female
creative power will become GIANT. You will know things you do not even
understand. You will never be in old age. You will always look young, healthy and powerful because at the navel
point, you utter the sound Naam, and you get it right back 100 times
more from God. Do it and you will get it. Give yourself an hour a day where you
reconstruct, re-nurture, revalue and rejuvenate yourself and believe in
your own spirit. Connect with the Infinite through Sat Kriya and
Kundalini Yoga, and you will never feel alone- you will never be alone.”
Sat Kriya was another battlefield for me. I used it to penetrate the huge attachments and emotional currents in my mind.
That tumultuous relationship culminated in my being physically abused
and kicked out of my home a year later, only to learn that my daughter
was suffering from brain trauma incurred in a car accident. When I
asked Siri Singh Sahib what I could do to help her, he said to find the
best doctors and send her all my energy. Well, my energy was shot, so I
began doing the Ten Body Meditation calling on the ten Gurus to heal
her ten bodies.
While I was still married to my last husband I began the earnest study
and practice of Non Violent Communication, or NVC, meeting with a group of similarly inspired
folks to go through the entire workbook together over six month's time.
It was the beginning of breaking my attachment to my husband and
forgiving him.
On Yogi Bhajan's birthday following his passing in 2004, I sat down at my desk
to listen to a new sadhana CD and felt compelled to write, completing
the first draft of my book in two days. I naturally realized it was
simply my Memoirs, and knew exactly what to do--couple each episode of
my life with an excerpt, or Hukam, from the Siri Guru Granth Sahib,
which is all about life. The Siri Guru Granth Sahib and my life
illuminate each other.
Yogiji Bhajan taught us that we can master a meditation by doing it for
1,000 days. I have been doing three of the most powerful meditations
every day since early 2003--Sat Kriya, So Darshan Chakra Kriya and the
Ten Body Meditation.
Loving practice of these kriyas while calling upon all the Gurus to bless the
world has given birth to the subtlest healing modality, Gurus’ Healing Ardas,
entailing sublime communication with the ten Gurus and beloved saints in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. Such meditative practices and revelations have enabled the
book Yogi Bhajan gave me, which for the first three years seemed an
impossible task, to progress as a natural, yogic outcome, its purpose
being to bring deep understanding and peaceful acceptance to our
transition into the Aquarian Age.
