Sat Nam Rasayan®

Guru Dev Singh

A pair of twinkling eyes above a graying beard and below a neatly tied white turban, Guru Dev Singh’s radiant light only serves to highlight the intensity of his gaze. He has a unique talent for peering deep into the ailments, complexities and energetic manifestations of the person sitting in front of him. And sit they do – in droves.

Guru Dev Singh is a Mexican native who now calls Rome, Italy, his home. Even though it is his home in name, sent there by Yogi Bhajan decades ago, he is a wandering healer, much in demand to share the practice throughout the world. He makes frequent forays throughout Europe and maintains a well-established long-term practice in Los Angeles teaching Kundalini Yoga, providing meditation
instruction, and passing on the healing art and science of Sat Nam Rasayan®. This was a technique he was charged to practice and teach with direct transmission from Yogi Bhajan. Guru Dev Singh is now considered the only global master of this healing practice; he is loved for his generous spirit and presence as well as his ability to share the practice. Yogi Bhajan transmitted Sat Nam Rasayan® to Guru Dev Singh, and then told him to teach it in a linear form so that others could learn it so that, as Yogi Bhajan told Guru Dev Singh, “you and I aren’t the only two people on the planet who know it.”

Sat Nam Rasayan® has its healing origins, as Guru Dev says, in a state of silence. It is from this silence that clarity of perception originates. Practitioners cultivate a state of silence so deep that they can recognize when someone is suffering, have compassion for that suffering and understand its origin.

While it may seem as though Guru Dev has a special advantage in the healing arts, coming from a family of indigenous Mexican healers with a background studying the traditional methodologies, he continually emphasizes the power of practice. This power, this practice, was something that Yogi Bhajan himself embodied, and something noted by Guru Dev when he met the master in the 1960s, a meeting that shifted the course of his life from shamanism into Kundalini Yoga. Although this shift does not mean that Guru Dev has left behind all of shamanic practice, and the influence of this generational transmission is evident in his own deep silence, transmission and perception.

Sat Nam Rasayan® has its healing origins, as Guru Dev says, in a state of silence. It is from this silence that clarity of perception originates. Practitioners cultivate a state of silence so deep that they can recognize when someone is suffering, have compassion for that suffering and understand its origin. Information and clues manifests as a sensation of resistance, and Guru Dev says that by allowing the resistance to come, information about a person’s suffering and how to alleviate the suffering is revealed. While Sat Nam Rasayan® may seem esoteric; the ability for both the practitioner and the recipient to engage comes from the deep practice and self-inquiry. Guru Dev says that teaching this art is his main work. With students as well as with the people he sees in an upstairs room of Objets d’Art & Spirit on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, he encourages the maintenance of a consistent personal practice. Through consistent practice, self-awareness and compassion, we can recognize how God is manifest in each of us. Through this meditative state, he says, through the practice of Yoga, we can lessen the intensity of our reactions to the world around us. This helps to continue the compassionate healing impact of Sat Nam Rasayan®.

Sitting in front of him, across from the requisite sheepskins piled up for meditation, for people to lay or sit on during healing sessions, he would occasionally interrupt our interview with a directive, his lilting voice speaking fluent English with a poetic and lyrical accent. He displayed the Sat Nam Rasayan® technique, not out of any desire to show off, but from a centered state of deep compassion. “Your right lung isn’t working properly.” I hadn’t said a word about my difficulty breathing, or a painful recent episode which was later assessed to be a collapsed lung.

Guru Dev Singh often leaves people with a meditation practice, to continue the process of healing begun in the state of contemplation. Forty days, I’ve heard, is an oft-recommended length of practice, one that Yogi Bhajan himself often instructed as it takes time to change or break a habit. For my sadhana, my ongoing practice of a specific kriya and meditation technique to continue after I left the room, he looked me deep in the eyes and commanded with authority combined with a humorous kindness and an easy laugh. “Ninety days.” (Which is the length of time to confirm a new habit.)

My practice? My continuation of Sat Nam Rasayan®? It’s still in progress. As I sit down to meditate, I can see Guru Dev’s twinkling eyes and hear his ready laughter. After all, it is with self-awareness, consistency, compassion and the gentle guidance of a master’s suggestions, that we discover and experience healing.