Yogi Bhajan Gurmukh:The Light Comes from Within” It’s hard not to love someone who has this printed on her business card: Once it comes to the surface of the water, the lotus flower begins to blossom and turn into a beautiful flower. The lotus flower has become a symbol of awakening to the spiritual reality of life. Like the lotus flower, she has been to the muddy, yucky, dirty bottom of the pond but she has risen to beauty, to life. Gurmukh, like the lotus flower, is continually moving towards the light. She seems ageless, as her beauty truly comes from within and not from external traits like hair, clothes or make-up. Gurmukh Golden Bridge Yoga – 4 November 2014 Gurmukh, Gurushabd Ten years and six months later, on 2 November 2014, at Golden Bridge Yoga in Santa Monica. Hannah and Gurmukh – Outside Rishikesh, India Gurmukh & Gurushabd on her birthday in Amritsar, India March 2006 Four years later, I would begin a photo essay in Jerusalem, Israel inspired by the women in prayer at the Western Wall called Devotion. Here we are outside of Rishikesh, India, where I traveled with her on my first sojourn to India in March, 2006 where I discovered the true meaning of devotion. Here is a photo I made of Gurmukh at the first Golden Bridge Yoga in Los Angeles. She is the co-founder and director of Golden Bridge Yoga, the premiere center for the study and practice of Kundalini Yoga and meditation in Santa Monica, California and also in New York City. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “spiritual force is greater than material force.” Gurmukh is a true Pisces: selfless, spiritual and very focused on her inner journey. The great strength of those born under the sign of Pisces is their compassionate and charitable nature. Gurmukh has helped to teach students all over the world, including myself, that when you’re in doubt, stress and worry, to call on your breath, call on your soul, which is your best friend and inhale “I AM. The more you inhale and exhale “I AM”, the more you understand the transparency of duality.

She understands that the life force, the chi, comes from within. In 2015 she will travel to Kumarakim and Kerala, India as well as Rishikesh, India, California, Puerto Morelos, Mexico, New York, Switzerland, Berlin, Germany, UK, Koln, Moscow, Colorado, NY, Sweden, South Africa, Canada and Massachusetts so she can spread the teachings of Kundalini Yoga. Gurmukh doesn’t have a long list of grievances rather she has friends around the globe and she travels to India at least three times a year. Rather she lives in the present, in the now, not in the past. So many people live in the land of duality: making someone wrong so they can be right. She speaks from the voice of her soul, not the fractured, doubting personality that sabotages the intuitive mind.įrom her daily sadhana, or spiritual practice, she radiates light as she is forgiving and compassionate.

Her life’s teaching, is part of her destiny. Gurmukh is indeed carving her place into the memory of this planet earth and serve this promise. She understands what Yogi Bhajan used to teach us: that we have made deep promises between our soul and our self. Her name also translates to “face the guru” in Punjabi – which represents the practice of following the ways of the Guru instead of following your animal instincts and the basic desires of the mind. Given the spiritual name Gurmukh by Yogi Bhajan, master of Kundalini Yoga, her name means “one who helps thousands of people across the world ocean” and that she is exactly what she has done.

Ong namo guru dev namo yoga journal