Harbhajan Singh Yogi - Gender Relations

Gender Relations

Singh, the son of a graceful mother, was deeply shocked and offended by the exploitation of women in America. In 1971, he taught a gathering of his female students that they were the "Grace of God." Thus began the Grace of God Movement for the Women of America. Strip clubs in San Francisco were briefly picketed, but Singh's real emphasis was on re-educating America's largest exploited class.

In the summer of 1975 Singh held an eight week camp in New Mexico where he taught the psychology of a successful woman. Successive camps included subjects such as martial arts, rappelling, fire arms training and healing arts to build the character and confidence of the women in training, which is why the camps were designated "Khalsa Women Training Camps."

Although Singh did teach a few weekend courses for men, his emphasis was on women because he recognized in them the foundation of any society, and he wanted to fundamentally end the disempowerment of Western women and the destruction of families. In his words: "God lives in a cozy home." The Albuquerque Journal(NM), 12/3/2010 reported Akal Security (a 3HO organization), Española-based Akal Security will pay $1.62 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of 26 female security guards who claimed they were discriminated against because they got pregnant, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Wednesday.

While encouraging his female students to practice natural childbirth and to breast-feed, practices which were not widely adhered to in the early 1970s, Singh also revived the ancient Indian custom of celebrating the arrival of the new soul at the one hundred twentieth day of pregnancy. This laid emphasis on the dignity and divinity of motherhood. By adhering to this historic custom, Singh also encouraged his women students in family planning. (In Catholic tradition, which is very significant to this issue in the West, the belief that pregnancy actually begins at the quickening, around the fourth month, was adhered to up to the time of Pius IX.) They should only to embark on motherhood if they were fully prepared to accept the responsibilities – and if they were not, then to terminate a pregnancy before the second trimester was far preferable (and certainly not a sin) to bringing a soul into ungraceful circumstances.

Singh also encouraged mothers to swaddle their infants and families to sleep all together, another traditional practice, although he afterwards stated that he lost nearly a third of his students over this one teaching.

As far as homosexuality was concerned, Singh at first was shocked by the phenomenon. Through the 1970s and early 1980s, Singh taught that the condition could be cured through intensive yoga and self-analysis. By the late 1980s, however, Singh had resigned himself to the conclusion that "sometimes God goofs" and puts men into women's bodies and vice versa.