Yogi Bhajan Lecture: Crossing the Crises of Life

Excerpts from a lecture by Yogi Bhajan, given on July 21, 1987

The subject we are going to touch on today is crossing the crisis. Now, life without crisis does exist.

Life without crisis exists in a coffin. It is not that crises are bad. It is only bad when you cannot cross it. So how many of you want life without crisis right now? The problem is once you go in a coffin you cannot come out of it.

Crisis is a must. Crisis should not put you in a position of a contrast. Crisis, conflict, is a must. Let us say that you do not develop your intuition. So you do not know. So, when you do not know, when you do not develop your intuition, you have doubt, you have duality, you have conflict, and you have crisis. Then let us accept it. There are crises but crises should not root you out, should not put you on the contrast.

This is the way to get rid of the crisis. Reasonable is reasonable, logical is logical, rational is rational, truth is truth, grace is grace, divinity is divinity, dignity is dignity, beautiful is beautiful, wonderful is wonderful. But, “when you hit the s–t you must come out clean.” That is called experience.

“When you hit the s–t you must come out of the pit clean.” Now you understand? Please repeat it. It is a good mantra. God is: He, She, and It: He–Sh-It. There is nothing wrong.

You shall be in the pit to hit the s–t—that’s it—and you must come out clean. And that is called experience, intelligence, consciousness. That is all it is about. God, human, word, and liberation—everything is ‘bogacity’ to the order of the zero. There is no truth other than this: truth is when you confront the lie, you don’t become weak. You fight on. It is better to die fighting, than to surrender.  Give up nothing! Keep up! The difference between ‘keep up’ and ‘give up’ is very little. If you give up, you cannot keep up; if you keep up, you cannot give up.

There is nothing you can get without giving. Balance. You have to make a sacrifice to achieve. Every victory has a price. Every defeat has a pain; therefore, don’t let your ego play an unnecessary role. The best is to accept the Will of God—and the Will of God is what is the best for all, not what is best for you. That is the only difference. What is best for you, is best for you. It is not the Will of God; it is your will. If you sacrifice your will over the Divine Will, then you wish good for all and you shall be the best. That is the way to cross the crisis.

….In your mind, there should be no date, which can bait you to do wrong.  Doesn’t matter what anybody says…

Crossing the crisis is not difficult. The problem is when you are facing the crises, you should not feel that you are not going to cross them.  Crises do come, they shall come, they will fight you, understand? And you will win. The beauty of crises is they will let you win, if you just persist. The only way to win crisis is to go into silence and smile.

But there is no such thing on this planet as a life that is not full of crises. The problem is with your neurosis; the problem is not with you. As your age grows, your flexibility starts becoming less and less. You become brittle and bitter. Old steel. Iron is considered very strong and steel is the strongest, but when it becomes very old, and it is not maintained and nurtured, it is not tempered. The best way is to put old steel back into the fire and temper it in oil. But if you don’t do it, it will break up on you, blow up on you.

Life has to go through exactly the same process, call it re-tempering. The re-tempering of life is when you do your sadhana. Sadhana is re-tempering your life everyday. But to re-temper your life is a crisis.

Getting up in the morning, leaving the warm quilt, husband says, “Don’t go today.”

The wife says, “I am going to go.”

He says, “I am not going to go—you go. Let us both not go. Who will look after the children; somebody will break in.”

God knows, there goes so many things in those seven or eight minutes, you can’t even believe it. But remember—you cross the crisis.

Crossing the crisis is like crossing a little river. It is cold and feels good. Life without crisis does not exist. There is a conflict, there is a duality, there is asking, “What am I, who am I, where am I going, who is she, who is he, oh, what do they know about me, what do I know about them?” You have not developed intuition.

But the fact is we do not have intuition, which is the only factor given by God to protect ourselves. Our intuition is the only horn, hoofs, and strength to protect us. Intuition will give us the intelligence and the consciousness to protect ourselves. We can do it in a second, but if we don’t develop it, then what? Are we going to die? No, in that case there shall be conflict; there shall be crisis.

There is no way out. But as you start winning, you will start enjoying it. In simple English, it is called a state of self-confidence.

The law to cross crisis in life is to remain within the orbit. It is called Divine Shield. If you exist in God’s Will, there cannot be any trouble which cannot be solved. Consciously understand that you belong to God. You are created by God. Let yourself intelligently sit still. If you don’t move, the Universe will move around you. If you move, the Universe will sit.

That is called your free will. It is your choice. If you want things to come to you, you sit; they will come to you. Or, you can run after them and find it out. When you run after things, you will find some, but all, you cannot get. But if you sit, all will come to you. It is called the law of the magnetic field. But in order to be a powerful magnet, you have to have a powerful frequency. You have to have a powerful magnetic field. You have to create a frequency.

God gave you this head; use it for higher consciousness. Don’t be cheap or you shall weep. Sweep the entire world with your persistent consistency, and with your grace.

Getting up in the morning and doing sadhana is just filling up your tank, tempering your own destiny. Temper your life by your will—Aradhana is when you do something by your will—then you become God’s husband—Prabhupati. Now what else do you want?

Watch the full lecture video: