A Lifestyle Designed for Every Day Life
There’s a yogic art and science to all aspects of human life. There’s a yogic way to get up in the morning, to go to sleep at night, to eat, to breathe, to brush your teeth, to take a shower, to communicate, to raise children. Every aspect of life has an enlightened, efficient, and effective way to do it. Yogi Bhajan studied and mastered this technical and spiritual knowledge in India, and brought this gift to the West.
The 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) lifestyle provides a blueprint for building a healthy, happy, and holy life. One of the first things that Yogi Bhajan taught is that it’s the birthright of every human being to be healthy, happy, and holy.
The 3HO lifestyle—the Kundalini Yoga lifestyle—is a yoga and lifestyle for householders, for people who have to cope with the daily challenges and stresses of work, family, business, and relationships. It does not require you to live on a mountaintop or in a cave.
“The purpose of all our efforts is simply to extend your awareness in your consciousness so you can have this foundation in experience and a base in positive habits. Then you can smoothly plan your life to any extent you like. You can radiate creativity and Infinity in all aspects of your life. That is the practical result of yoga. It is the capacity and right to live a healthy, happy, and holy life. That is why we called our yoga family 3HO.”
–Yogi Bhajan
Healthy
“The art of healing has to do with rhythm and reality. When the body is in rhythm, there is ease. When the body, or any part of the body goes out of rhythm, there is dis-ease.” ~Yogi Bhajan, October 7, 1974
The physical body is the temple in which you can build credit or create debt. When you are young you can often play mischief with the physical body without feeling adverse effects. But in old age, the body pays you back. The body doesn’t forgive debts; it records the results of your actions.
You do well to treat your body like a car that needs care and maintenance. If you give your car regular service and oil changes, it will last a certain number of miles. But if you don’t schedule regular maintenance, you will need a new car in a short time. This is not an option with your body, so you need to take care of it.
The 3HO lifestyle gives you the techniques and awareness to stay healthy. You gain a strong immune system, vital glands, a strong nervous system, good circulation, and an awareness of the impact of your habits. This foundation gives you energy and lets you deal with the mental and spiritual facets of your life.
“You have to understand the process of healing in the Age of Aquarius. What will give the healing is the flow of your soul energy.” ~Yogi Bhajan, September 16, 1999
Happy
“The secret of happiness is in your power to sacrifice and uplift others. Happiness is in giving, not in taking. God will give to you. Trust in the fact! Happiness is our birthright. There is no argument about it. Give your mind a chance.”
~Yogi Bhajan, August 27, 2001
In a world where many people believe that happiness comes from satisfying their own desires, the 3HO way of life teaches something very different. We are happiest when we can uplift another person, or uplift a difficult situation, even if it costs us something. This compassionate, serviceful view of life comes when we, ourselves, overflow with trust in our own relationship to the Infinite.
Kundalini Yoga offers many deep and profound meditations to develop human sensitivity and human vastness. In opening the higher centers, we begin to experience our lives as part of an endless giving cycle. We give to others. The Infinite gives to us. There is no lack, no fear and no reaction. Happiness comes from being in that flow.
Happiness is the crowning result of developing our consciousness and personality. When we enter the state of happiness, then we are capable of living for each other.
Holy
“You are holy. You have nine holes and this (points to the top of head) is the Tenth Gate or tenth hole. If you watch what comes in and out of them; if you can control in that way, you are great.” ~Yogi Bhajan, July 27, 1996
“Yogi Bhajan’s words summarize the very real, practical definition of holy in the 3HO lifestyle. Holy does not mean being sanctimonious or ‘holier than thou.’ The 3HO yogic definition is pretty straightforward. It has two parts: First, ‘Do unto others what you want them to do unto you’ and, second, ‘Receive each inhalation consciously, gratefully aware that each breath you receive is a gift!” ~Shakti Parwha Kaur, Kundalini Yoga: The Flow of Eternal Power, p. 2
Through the physical kriyas and lifestyle practices of Kundalini Yoga and 3HO, we create the ability to care for our physical bodies. We keep our form in an optimal state of health and vitality. Through deep meditation and chanting, we open our higher centers. We develop our personality consciously until we learn how to sacrifice for others and find happiness in ourselves.
Being holy is a stage of complete awareness. We are revealed to ourselves in a way that is totally naked. We know our own strengths. We know our own weaknesses. Armed with this knowledge, we consciously monitor how we use our senses and our sensuality. Holy is when we make sure that whatever comes into us or comes out of us represents our authentic Self. Holy is when we speak and move in alignment with our soul. It is when we do not allow ourselves to be exposed to or participate in anything that degrades our relationship with our Inner Divinity. Living in this awareness is a life-long process.
“If you have nine holes, you are holy. If you let everything come in right, and let everything go out right, at the right time, and the right place, in the right direction, and if the governing principles are compassion, kindness, and love, you are okay.” ~Yogi Bhajan
Yogi Bhajan Lectures on Healthy, Happy, Holy Living
One Human Family
In this lecture excerpt, One Human Family, Yogi Bhajan describes how we can find reality in the oneness of our breath and our hearts. This lecture was given on May 20, 1995.
Let us understand today that we have come here for a purpose: to clean out, to change the pattern and restart, so we can live with an open heart, open mind, with love and affection. That is the purpose of human living.
If we squeeze down, close down ourselves, and start judging and punishing and laying rules on each other, all we are creating is fear. We can only win by love. Love has no side. Love is not a box. Love doesn’t mean that you love somebody and you can put somebody in a box and close the lid. Love is an openness of heart, vastness of mind, and the brightness of the soul.
When the pair of opposites doesn’t work—when appreciation doesn’t bother you and abuse doesn’t disturb you, you remain neutral, and then you are united with your Creator. We have come here to watch the play of God. This is His planet, He rotates it, He can take care of the routine. That’s the way life is.
There are five tattvas and you have seventy-two nerve centers. So when you recite the mantra, you become an instrument of seventy-two strings and you vibrate. When we chant mantra, our being becomes an instrument of seventy-two thousand nerves, and the five elements of the cosmos in the micro-consciousness relates to the macro-consciousness and we create a unisonness, a oneness of you and God within you.
Life is to be happy. To be happy is our birthright because God is a totality; God is a happiness. Let us not cause pain to each other by our shallowness, by our duality, by our belittleness. Let us become as vast as God is and hug each other, love each other. So it is in that heart of us that we all live. It is the beat of the heart which is common among us. It is the breath of life which is common among us. It is the Creator in us which is common among us. So we are all one, like one sun. We are all the rays.
Let us be warm and shining and beautiful and bright. Let us not waste our time in hatred and pulling each other down and trying to control. If I want to give something to somebody, forgive. Forgiveness is the biggest gift you can give to yourself and to others. That is the way to go. Please understand that we are all one for one God, for one clay of five elements. Our existence is for oneness, in duality we lose everything, in oneness we find the reality.
We are just one family of one God and it’s all good and bad—it’s just a judgment. That is what Socrates said, because there is no reality. Good and bad is my momentary judgment, and the moment the moment passes, good can change into bad, bad can change into good. So everything is non-reality. The only thing which is real is, we are one and one God and we are one human family.
© The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan
This complete lecture can be found at the Yogi Bhajan Library of Teachings.
The Legacy of 3HO
In this lecture excerpt, The Legacy of 3HO, Yogi Bhajan speaks of the significance of 3HO and how it will live on in the coming age. A few highlights of his teachings are included. This lecture was given on January 5, 1994, the 25th anniversary of 3HO.
We started a healthy, happy, holy way of life, and that became 3HO. It is a dream come true. It is a very pure path in which every human is worshipped equally. Everybody is a potential teacher. There is no ‘yes’ and ‘no’; rather, there is a set discipline to follow.
If you just pay attention to yourself, you will find God within you. There is no such thing as God outside you. There is nothing outside you. Let me complete it with one sentence: “In the beginning is you, in the middle is you, and in the end is you.” It cannot change.
Every Date has a Pit
Somebody said, “I am going on a date.” I said, “Be careful of the pit, because every date has a pit, and a pit is so hard in a date, it can break your tooth.” People don’t understand what they walk into. If you just make one knowledgeable personal decision, which is yours, not mine, that you shall not walk into any environment or any action, which does not enhance your grace, you will never be disgraced, no matter what the world does to you. That’s the law of unison.
Kindness, compassion, and caring are the three laws of Sikh Dharma, which I have learned, and this is Dharma. Be kind, be compassionate, and be caring, and don’t do this drama to exploit.
Caliber
Life is a comparative study. If you have caliber and you have intuition, that gives you grit and stamina. Then you can make it anywhere. If you don’t have intuition, you don’t see anything, you are blind. If you have no caliber developed, then you cannot expand, you cannot even recognize what you are dealing with. And then you don’t have the stamina to fulfill it. Then caliber and intuition are useless and you are a duck. All three [caliber, intuition, and stamina] are what human is meant for, and what gives all three is Kundalini Yoga.
What is Holy?
Open up the chakras, take care of the tattvas ,and control the gunas. Call it anyway you like. To be healthy, happy, and holy does not make more work than to be unhealthy, unhappy, and unholy. What is holy? You have nine holes, control them. See what goes in and out. You are holy. You have two eyes, see with the third eye, see between the two eyes, the center point of everything, that’s the third eye. Look where you should be looking, not what you are looking at.
Every moment of life, you should be what you ought to be, ought to be, ought to be, ought to be, there is no other way. If you are swing and sway, you shall be miserable. It shall not make any sense. Majority of the actions you do, many of the things you do, do not do anything. You don’t understand one thing: all you will satisfy is your emotions, that’s all. And all this lifestyle and lifetime that you spend on satisfying your emotions will be enough to kill you. Everybody has to die, folks, but some shall die fulfilled and many without it; that is the tragedy of being human. Die fulfilled. When you die fulfilled, you shall be grateful, being you. So far through all this time and reality, we have not learned one thing, and that’s a very simple thing: I be I, and I can confirm that I am I.
The Teacher
A person has traveled the distance to come and meet the teacher. This is the law of Karma. When soul got the body, God promised, “You shall meet your teacher for a moment.” That’s the promise which God has to fulfill. He never said that you will stick with him or her. He never said that person will continue teaching you; that was not what was said. “You shall meet for a moment your teacher.” So distance is there, destiny is there. You should travel the distance, you meet the teacher, you recognize it or not, that’s your choice.
A Living Legacy
We built a foundation called the 3HO Foundation: a Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization of people. The first song I sang was, “We are the people, the people of love, let us people love today.”
Certain little things started happening in a very unique way with all of you. All of those who have left, all who are with me, who shall be with me, or who shall leave me—all play a very important role in the development of 3HO—a lifestyle of the Age of Aquarius where humans shall be first and foremost purely human, and will do everything graciously.
I came with nothing and I shall leave with nothing. I own everything as though I own nothing. It shall all belong to the generations now and to come. I have just played a role as a custodian and a caretaker. I have taken ownership with a great perfection. My basic idea is very simple: don’t let anybody down, don’t let yourself down, and don’t participate directly or indirectly in any letdown.
That shall be the legacy of 3HO. A group of young people had the will to conquer the times and made a space for themselves in history. Time could not conquer them. And this is not a small thing, in spite of what you may think. This 3HO shall be the most important legacy on this planet for the Age of Aquarius. Sooner or later, people will experience a tremendous amount of emptiness, which always brings a void. A void brings unhappiness. Then people will want to find a place where they can be healthy, happy, and holy. It all fits in.
Who could have dreamed that after twenty-five years we would be what we are today? With all the heaven and hell we have gone through, we have survived with a very unique pride with which we have walked tall in the face of the entire Universe. Today, anywhere you go, you will find that this is a living legacy which is not only for now, not only for the next one hundred years, but for the coming two thousand years of the Age of Aquarius, when mankind will find shelter in the 3HO way of life. And then, you who are here now, who are just considered to be a handful of people, shall be considered as the most Divine. Isn’t it amazing?
This small little thing, which was started to give people a way of life, with love and dedication, shall prevail in the coming change of the Age. All the energy which poured in to build this foundation, to me is a wonderful experience. With that wonder, we shall continue.
Almighty Creator God, all those whom we have touched and who have come and gone in the touch of life as the time and space permitted it, it’s our prayer that all be healthy, happy and holy. Give this kind gift to the entire humanity, and guide them to the path of absolute resurrection, so they can find their true self. This is my prayer and the prayer of all those people here. We don’t have words to thank Thee for giving us twenty-five years to serve, to be healthy, happy, and holy, and to create environments and circumstances in which the knowledge shall flow till Infinity. Sat Nam.
©The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan
Happy 31st Anniversary to 3HO!
In this lecture excerpt, Happy 31st Anniversary to 3HO!, Yogi Bhajan talks about how 3HO has grown over the years, coming challenges, and the importance of being with one another in truth, grace, and service. This lecture was given on January 5, 2000.
Today we are celebrating 3HO’s birthday. It is the change of the Age into another era. 3HO Foundation (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) came into existence, and it started giving people self-improvement, self-empowerment, self-knowledge, and self-experience.
Many years ago, we all started functioning toward one thing: we want to experience, we want to grow, we want to see. The nation revolted. The revolution was so powerful and the impact was so wonderful that everywhere in the United States and Europe people started flowering and blossoming, and we started calling them flower kids. And from that we grew up and kept going.
We are now marching forward to that era when this Information Age will broil down everybody to a reality, and every person will act for higher self. It will not be the fact to build more earthly facilities, and just become isolated and corner yourself as much as you can.
Technically speaking, this Information Age will be very difficult for some people to handle because everybody knows everything. So there’ll be no place but to control one’s ego and one’s projection and one’s requirement in life.
One has to be “truth-bound” in the sense that there’s nothing wrong in the world if your mind does not tell you that you are wrong. There’s nothing wrong in the world if your mind can dialogue and come to a mutual understanding. There’s nothing wrong in this world if you do not hate somebody, undermine somebody, and you have no superiority conflict and put another person into inferiority complex. There’s nothing wrong if you value yourself and price yourself gracefully.
There’s nothing wrong if you do not undermine your own grace, your own commitment, your own character. And there is nothing wrong if you understand Ang Sang Wahe Guru – God is with you. Then the Universe will come along with you.
You have to act in your personality with such a vastness of brightness that everybody should recognize your reality as it is. You cannot blame your father and mother and environments; you walk on your own two legs. It’s not the four legs of the parents walking with you.
Every person has his own destiny, distance, and destination. And we have to be healthy, happy, and holy. We have nine holes, but there’s a tenth. “Tenth Gate” they call it. It must command your nine holes to see what you receive and how you operate. Healthy manners and healthy behavior is the source of happiness.
I have seen people blaming their parents. I have seen people blaming the environments, blaming their relationships, blaming everybody. So sorry to tell you, these people are just on a suicide track. You cannot blame anybody. You can claim everybody.
You have to reach out and heal people; you have to reach out and touch people. You have to mend your relationships, you have to adjust yourself, you have to build in yourself the unisonness of the human mind—psychologically and sociologically. Give beautiful smiles and songs to each other.
You have to come to grips with the reality of the coming time. You cannot avoid it. Therefore, let us walk ahead of it. Be united, getting together, holding each other’s hands for the best of tomorrow. It is my prayer that you will brightly bridge the life into beauty, bounty, and bliss.
© The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan
The One Who Rotates the Earth
In this lecture excerpt, The One Who Rotates the Earth, Yogi Bhajan explains how to develop a healthy, happy, and holy life. This lecture was given on July 20, 1996, and can be found in The Master’s Touch.
Your Infinity is you when you stop thinking. Have you stopped thinking? That’s the end of it. Awareness takes these things away from you: thinking, reason, logic, argument, fantasies, planning, scheming, knowing and worrying. These nine things must go before you can say that you are on the path of awareness. Do you know why? Because the One who rotates the Earth can take care of your routine. These nine things you do are unwanted. They only satisfy your ego. Where there is ego, there is no amigo.
So we are talking about happiness. What is the principle of happiness? We started 3HO—Healthy, Happy, Holy. Right? Healthy you are, one way or the other. As long as you are not in the graveyard pit, you are okay. Holy you are. Anybody who has nine holes and controls what comes in and goes out is holy. But happy? What is the definition of being happy?
That existence which does not have discipline cannot deliver. That deliverance is the measurement of personal happiness, and that needs discipline in every facet of life. Within your discipline, whether you serve or you de-serve, within your discipline, you live or you don’t live, within your discipline, you eat or you don’t eat, within your discipline, you are the discipline. If you are master of that discipline, which is you, you are all God. There is no other.
Aad pooran mudh pooran ant pooran parmesureh
-Guru Arjan, Siri Guru Granth Sahib, page 705
“The Transcendent Lord pervades in the beginning, pervades in the middle, and will pervade in the end.”
In the beginning you are you, in the middle you are you, in the end you are God. There’s nothing else. If you can’t close your eyes, you can’t open your eyes, that’s the end of the eyes. There’s nothing to it. Nothing was, nothing is, nothing shall be.
For thousands of years, the Piscean Age has lied to us to make us find God, while they knew that we are gods. Now we cannot take even two days to remember we are gods.
Longitude and latitude are given to everybody. Altitude and attitude are given by Kundalini Yoga. When the spiral rises to penetrate through all the chakras, the man knows he’s Brahm. That’s why they say Kundalini Yoga is dangerous. It’s dangerous because it takes away from the man the ability to be exploited by another man. And for some, life without exploitation has no juice.
I tell you today and I’ll tell you tomorrow and I’ll tell you every day: You have only one friend—you and your discipline which will give you all that you need. The rest are all promises. After studying every scripture of every religion and what I went through, I have found that there are three words: sadhana, aradhana, and prabhupati. Sadhana means discipline, aradhana means perfecting the discipline, and prabhupati means you will become the Lord Master of God Itself. Now, should I bring you any other news?
©The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan
Yogi Bhajan Quotes on the 3HO Way of Life
Keep up is the only word, which for twenty-five years I have gone around, this is the hub, this is the nucleus. Keep up, keep up somehow and keep up when you cannot keep up. Because God wants to be kept so the environments and arrangement shall be made, the distance to the destiny shall be covered, either by yourself or by the hand of God, the choice is yours. If your ego cannot show you the path, that’s your problem but once you zero your ego, the Id, the divine in you, will carry you through. That’s how, folks, this whole thing started.
1/4/94
3HO means only one discipline: live for each other. Live socially and purify yourself. That’s what it is to be healthy, happy and holy.
11/29/78
My basic idea is very simple: don’t let anybody down, don’t let yourself down, and don’t participate directly or indirectly in any let-down.
1/5/94
Today anywhere you go, you will find that this is a living legacy which is not only for now, not only for the next one hundred years, but for the coming two thousand years of the Age of Aquarius.
1/5/94
This small little thing which was started to give people a way of life with love and dedication shall prevail in the coming change of the Age. All the energy which poured in to build this foundation, to me is a wonderful experience. With that wonder, we shall continue.
1/5/94
The greatest mantra of the time is “Keep up.” Keep up, you will be kept up, the rest is a hodgepodge of life.
3/27/79
On the 5th of January when I gave a lecture, they asked me, ‘What have you brought for us?’ I said, ‘I gave you a Healthy, Happy, Holy way of life.’ I have not come here to collect students; I will create teachers, and teachers so created in this 3HO, shall teach the world a way of life with style. That’s what we have said, that’s what we are doing, that’s what we are.
1/5/93
3HO deals in divine healing, in mental direction, in self efficiency and in applied consciousness.
5/13/80
“Keep up” is not a small mantra. If you ever want to know who you are and ever want to experience what you are and where you are, keep up whatever it is. The world shall bow to you.
3/27/79
The whole Universe will come to you when you’ll become one with anybody or everybody, anywhere or anytime.
6/25/87
The purpose of all our efforts is simply to extend your awareness in your consciousness so you can have this foundation in experience and a base in positive habits. Then you can smoothly plan your life to any extent you like. You can radiate creativity and Infinity in all aspects of your life. That is the practical result of yoga. It is the capacity and right to live a healthy, happy, and holy life. That is why we called our yoga family 3HO.
The Aquarian Teacher Training Manual, p. 20
3HO is a race of people who believe in truth, in guidance, in God and to experience God.
5/13/80
If you have nine holes, you are holy. If you let everything come in right, and let everything go out right, at the right time, and the right place, in the right direction, and if the governing principles are compassion, kindness, and love, you are okay.
5/6/85
We all have one thing common—we all have different minds, we all have different bodies, but we have one soul—we’re a part of one soul. If we can see the soul in each other and relate to it, find it, understand it, respect it, then that oneness will be forever.
6/25/87
The era of the separatism has to go. It cannot divide man on this Earth anymore. We are leading ourselves to the oneness of man, and we will prove that the grace and the consciousness which prevails through us is nothing but the oneness of the Self.
8/26/72
3HO belongs to hardworking honest people who want to do a job in their own life to experience who they are. 3HO is a family of people who believe in being healthy, happy and holy.
5/13/80
The only thing you will know when you are compassionate and as vast as the ocean, is that everybody else is like a little boat on it. Everybody is a part of you. If you do not understand that everybody ls a part of you then you do not understand who you are.
Success and the Spirit, p. 31
My way and your way we already know, so we do not need to learn that. Each one of you knows my way and your way. All we have to learn is ‘our’ way.
Aquarian Times Nov/Dec 2009
The main responsibility of 3HO is that we will keep our strength clean, our commitment graceful and we’ll keep on doing what we are doing. We have a romance with God; we are very romantic with Earth; we are very romantic with nature. We are very unusual people who absolutely want to live our life happily. And happiness cannot come without honesty.
5/13/80
We are a family. We have one common thing in this 3HO family: we live for each other.
11/29/78
What does 3HO give you? Sensitivity to identity. 3HO is a technology which establishes you in the state of sensitivity so that you can know the identity.
10/9/78
You are holy. You have nine holes and this (points to the top of head) is the Tenth Gate or tenth hole. If you watch what comes in and out of them; if you can control in that way, you are great.
7/2796
© The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan
Kriyas and Meditations to be Healthy Happy and Holy
The Healthy, Happy, Holy Breath Meditation
Originally taught on July 5, 1975, by Yogi Bhajan
Remember to tune in with the Adi Mantra (“Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo”) before all Kundalini Yoga practice, and end with the “Long Time Sun Shine” song.
The Healthy, Happy, Holy Breath Meditation uses the power of the breath to enhance the depth of the effects of the mantra Healthy am I, Happy am I, Holy am I. It also enhances the ability to carry out your intentions.
When practiced correctly, the breath will slow to two and a half breaths per minute. This shift from the normal 12-15 breaths per minute is significant. According to Yogi Bhajan, once the breath rate is slower than four breaths per minute, the central brain starts functioning more intensely. The pineal and pituitary glands shift their relationship to each other.
In this state, the effects of outer and inner sound are greater. The mantra will become more penetrating. A larger portion of yourself will be able to synchronize and carry out your intentions.
When you are teaching this meditation, it is best to guide the student by saying the mantra out loud as they hold the breath. The extra guidance will help the students to focus on the mantra and relax.
© The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan