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04/07/2002 Archived Entry: "2/26/02 Rishi/Sadhana"

Today is our son’s 13th birthday. Rishi Parbhaat Singh Khalsa. "Great Sage of the Ambrosial Hours." "Rishi" is "sage’ or "great sage," and "Parbhaat" is the "ambrosial hours." He was born 3:20 in the morning, which is the beginning of the ambrosial hours.

The phrase "ambrosial hours" refers to morning sadhana time, which can fall between 3 AM and 7 AM. Generally a full morning sadhana runs from 4 AM to 6:30 AM. Two and a half hours. Part of the concept is a form of daily tithing, to give 10% of one’s day to one’s higher consciousness, to God, to the Creator.

Most people I meet, who are not in this particular practice, always seem shocked at the idea of getting up so early, and devoting so much time to spiritual practice. If you are able to create a space where you can truly hear people, as I am blessed to be able to do when I lead the workshops I lead, or when I sit in a counseling session with someone. They think of it as a counseling session. I think of it as a listening session. I become a vehicle through which they can hear themselves.

When people open up and speak their inner thoughts, their fears, the inner emotional wounds and scars they carry, one can see a whole profound drama which covers every aspect of their lives, and which is mostly never addressed or acknowledged. Yet it is the most important thing for them to deal with. It impacts one’s work, one’s relationships, and one’s self-perception. Indeed, it is the filter through which one sifts all input. The daily spiritual practice is the place and the tool through which to clear through the miasma, the self doubt, the pain, the fear of not being good enough, not being OK. Yet, it is more than that. I read once that Freud said that the goal of psychoanalysis is to go from "neurotic misery to ordinary human suffering." I would say that the goal of spiritual practice is to go from ordinary human suffering (and where need be, from neurotic misery) to the awakening of one’s higher consciousness, transcending the times and circumstances of one’s life. I do not think that 10% of one’s day is too high a price to pay for that work.

Many blessings to my son on this day, may this be a year of growth, grace and fulfillment. As I pray each each day, for him, our other children and grandchildren, may you each fulfill your highest destiny.

"Destiny" is an interesting concept in the way that Yogi Bhajan uses the term. He says that our "destiny" is what we achieve if we accomplish what we were put here on Earth to achieve, that our "fate" is what we fall to when we do not realize ourselves in any way.