Gurmukh

Gurmukh (meaning "to face the Guru" in Punjabi) is the practice of following the "ways of the Guru" instead of following your animal instincts and basic desires of the mind. The opposite of Gurmukh is Manmukh.

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Gurmukh (yoga teacher)

Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa is a teacher of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan and a pioneer in the field of pre-natal yoga. She is the co-founder and director of the Golden Bridge Yoga Center in Los Angeles, and the creator of two books and three DVDs.

Early years

Gurmukh was born Mary May Gibson in a small Illinois town. At age nineteen, she left her home to attend college at San Francisco State University in California. There, she married a Ph.D. student and in 1964, gave birth to an infant with a congenital heart defect. The child, named “Shannon Danuele” died seven months later, but not before his mother had a horrible experience with an unfeeling gynecologist, uninterested birthing team, and controlling doctor who would not release her son to her until he had undergone circumcision against her wishes.

Grief ensued, then an amicable divorce. From living in Haight Ashbury, Mary went to Big Sur, then to Mexico, where she hitchhiked and lived among the tribal peoples. After that, she lived for two years as a hippie on a beach in Maui. Eventually, she was led to a Zen Buddhist zendo where she practiced silent meditation seven hours a day, with no drugs and celibate, for a year.

Gurmukhī alphabet

Gurmukhi (IPA: [ɡʊɾmʊkʰi]) is an alphabetic abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts and was standardised during the 16th century by Guru Angad, the second guru of Sikhism. Although the word Gurmukhī has been commonly translated as "from the Mouth of the Guru," the prevalent view among Punjabi linguists is that as in the early stages the Gurmukhī letters were primarily used by Gurmukhs (literally, those who follow or face the Guru), the script came to be associated with them. The whole of the Guru Granth Sahib is written in this script, and it is the script most commonly used by Sikhs and Hindus for writing the Punjabi language.

Modern Gurmukhi has thirty-eight consonants (vianjan), nine vowel symbols (lāga mātrā), two symbols for nasal sounds (bindī and ṭippī), and one symbol which duplicates the sound of any consonant (addak). In addition, four conjuncts are used: three subjoined forms of the consonants Rara, Haha and Vava, and one half-form of Yayya. Use of the conjunct forms of Vava and Yayya is increasingly scarce in modern contexts.