by Yoga Bhajan: Excerts from “Establish Your Relationship,” The Mind: Its Projections and Multiple Facets…

You have incredible faculties in this human body and brain. But without a relationship to your mind what will happen? You won’t have control of yourself to face your mind. Then your habits control you. And when your habits control you, you are a robotic disaster. Call that condition anything you like—interlocked neuroses, crippled awareness, stereotyped behaviors. Whatever your terminology, it is essentially a web of habits that rules the psyche and then you.

This happens because the mind has a capacity to act like a recorder. A habit enters the recorder and then begins, automatically, to play itself back in your behavior, feelings, and thoughts. Layer after layer of habit forms in the subconscious mind of each person. Used with awareness, habits help you act quickly, and they automate actions that require little change. Used without a relationship between you and the mind, they steal your spontaneity, uniqueness, and projection. You have a choice: live in excellence and awareness or live subject to the stereotypes of your subconscious habits.

How can we accomplish this relationship between you and the mind? That is why we meditate. That is why we do jappa and naam simran. In the world of your mind, you feel, you have emotions, you have habits, you have sensory actions and reactions. You may have control or no control. In meditation you begin to realize that there is a world of you. There is a world of your mind, and a world of you. In the world of you, in your basic elementary situation, in your identity, your mind is your servant—not your master. That is why we do Kundalini Yoga. That is why we do sadhana.

Normally, your mind doesn’t work that well. You forget to develop the meditative mind and your awareness. You forget to care for this body as a temple and as a most sophisticated creation and instrument. Your brain cannot compute well because your hormonal and neurochemical base is poor.

Then your power, which is in your basic structure and brain, is not facilitated to understand, to analyze in depth, to compute, and reconstruct the thought forms of your entire psyche. Further, you are not trained to use your mind to synchronize your own magnetic field with the cosmic magnetic field, which has a complete interconnection with all other humans, other existences, and realms of material existence.

That synchronization gives you guidance and pathways through every problem. Did you know that? Do you know that as an experience, as a practical skill? You, through your meditative mind, should be in the position to control your projection, attitude, and acknowledgement towards the entire globe. Equally you should be sensitive and in control of the entire global acknowledgement projected towards you. You and your mind are that sophisticated and rich in design!

Without meditation, and without a relationship to your mind, you fail to use the power of the mind. You fail to rely on yourself. You complicate your approach. You do not use the beautiful designs given to you by birthright in this body, that link the effectiveness of body, mind, soul, and you.

I know for all my best efforts, many of you will not understand the depth and effectiveness of these truths now. You were trained to prefer emotions and your own fears above simple truth. When you clear your mind and come to the state of fearlessness, then you will understand these truths, their applications, and implications.

If you engage your mind, you can be your real self, and you will realize happiness is your birthright. You will decide to at least try to drop your mind’s bad habits to be commotional, fearful, and limited. Try to engage your mind in sadhana. Try to get up in the early morning. Try to understand that the time is now and now is the time. Those who feel they love God are fine, but those who get up in the morning for sadhana, God loves them.

Do you know that God wants to love somebody, too? God created this whole Universe just to love. God has a special time available to each of us—when you rise in the 2-1/2 hours before the rise of the sun in the ambrosial hours, and synchronize your mind and heart to praise God, God listens. God feels it so much and falls in love with you so much, that it seems unbelievable.

In return that Creator touches you with vastness and cleanses your mind. You become fearless, innocent, and pure. Through that clear mind you can see the light of the soul and from the light of the soul you see the entire Universe which is bountiful, beautiful, and nothing but an act of love. We can conquer our failures and win our life if we have a clear effective mind.