Meet Tej Kaur Khalsa of Tej TV in West Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tej Kaur Khalsa.

Tej, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Like many teenagers in the early 1970’s, I began ‘seeking.’ I was living in a very wealthy home and school environment, and yet I kept feeling there was more to life than what was seen as the “American Dream.” Things just seemed empty and flat.

I began to read everything I could on spiritual paths, I went to many different gatherings, chanting circles – they were pleasant and yet nothing touched my soul. The day I entered the Kundalini Yoga ashram in W. Los Angeles, everything miraculously blossomed. A lightning bolt hit me.

In college, I had signed up for a psychology experiment. A man was getting his PhD and called his experiment “Yoga as a Form of Therapy”. I was one of the ‘subjects’. He gave everyone the standardized personality inventory test. Then half the group took a 3-month Kundalini Yoga course – we met every Wednesday night from 6-10pm. The other half did not take the yoga course. At the end of the three months, everyone re-took the personality inventory test, and he compared the results. My growth was off the charts. I went from being very fearful and down-trodden to someone who could stand up for herself and follow her determined mission. To me, that was a great success. So I decided this path was worth diving more deeply into to see what other gem-quality transformations might occur.

From that day onward, many soul-opening miracles have occurred to me and through me. My understanding of ‘me’ as I was trained to see myself has slowly eroded away, as an expanded version of me has come out of hiding. My daughter had a children’s book called “The Big Me and the Little Me.” I felt I left the little me behind as I’ve progressed – and it keeps growing as long as I keep shaving off the past through my practice and daily meditation.

Yet, the spiritual path demands one-pointed stamina. Many tests are presented before you. Hang onto the soul’s experience. Just keep your eye on the lessons being presented and figure out what you’re being taught. Don’t get lost in the sea of emotions and tests.

My initial test was: I used to view all the people on the spiritual path alongside me with great awe. I put a lot of people on pedestals, and when they fell (as many humans do), I’d get very disappointed thinking, “This spiritual stuff doesn’t work.” Yet, we are all human. And it’s the Teachings I strive to hang on to as my guide – not the imperfection of a human’s ego.

I see the dharma as a flow, high and beautiful, like a flowing river. At some point, people jump into it and get a chance to clean their karma in the flow. Then some will jump back out into life to experience and learn in a different way, through different venues.

I like this story: Once a king went to study in an ashram. He looked around and went back to his palace. There he ordered food, horses, clothes and shoes to be brought to the ashram. He was so excited to bring these ‘gifts’ before the teacher. Upon arrival, he was escorted before the Master and said, “Look what I’ve brought for everyone!” The teacher was so angry and said, “Don’t you think I can’t provide these things for the students?” And he began a mantra that manifested diamonds and wealth and food and riches. He said to the king, “See? I keep everyone ‘hungry’ so they don’t fall into the trap of being too comfortable. I keep them this way on purpose, so they can keep reaching. They have to learn without all the comforts, otherwise they’ll go soft.” So we all have various experiences as tests thrown at us. And once the lessons are discovered in the ‘story’ — these challenges can provide a clearer and more comforting center within.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I decided to become a Kundalini Yoga Teacher in 1974. I formed a lunchtime Yoga Club at college that met five days a week in the student union and I began to get nearly 100 people in the classes.

One day we were in deep meditation, very subtle and quiet when the door flew open and a man stood in the doorway, yelling, “You all are all going to hell because you don’t believe in Jesus.’ I tried to calm him down and yet he kept screaming. I was so traumatized, I quit teaching for many years. I didn’t know at that young age just how to handle someone’s extreme anger, exerted in such a public way.

Years went by and I finally began teaching again. I started to observe how students will often come to study, and as the path has many stages, they’ll sometimes leave with a large ego that brings betrayal and extreme disdain. I’ve seen it many times. The teacher will work with someone and build them up, only to have them turn on the teacher. It also happens in therapy where a patient will display ‘transference’ and ‘see’ the therapist with the inner emotional revolt they have from their subconscious,

This process was pretty sad to me, so I called a wise person on the phone to ask him about this syndrome. He said, “Tej, it’s like you’re building an oasis in the desert. People come into the oasis, take refuge, and become rejuvenated. Then they sometimes choose to go back out into the desert. You don’t stop your job just because they leave. You just keep building the oasis.” Then he yelled into the phone, “So, Be the Water, Pour the Water. Be the Water, Pour the Water!” And next he said, “I gotta go.” Click and the phone went dead. End of conversation.

So now I try and just keep going. Doing my mission. People do what they do. I try to keep focused and do what I do – My Mission.

It’s like the story of the scorpion and the saint. A saint sat by the side of the river and saw a scorpion drowning. He reached his finger into the water to save it, only to get stung. He shook his hand and the scorpion flew back into the water, only to start to drown again. So the saint again reached in to save the scorpion, only to get stung again. A devotee watched this scene and said to the saint, “Why do you keep saving him when you know he’s only going to sting you, over and over again?” And the saint replied, “It’s what I do. I save him. He does what he does. He stings. It’s our internal natures. So how could I stop being who I am?”

Please tell us about Tej TV.
Kundalini Yoga is a very powerful science. It’s like opening the atomic energy within a person. That’s why it has to be approached with reverence and precision… It’s been life-saving for me and countless others. That’s why I am very dedicated to teaching Kundalini Yoga in the pure and authentic way it was given to us.

About two years ago, I went to a numerologist for a reading. He said to me, “You are going to build Tej TV.” I didn’t have a vision of that yet, so I tucked it into my computer banks and thanked him.

As the pandemic closed down any indoor and live yoga class venues, I was immediately inspired to teach online. And from there, I hired two beautiful artistic people to build a website called “TejTV.yoga” and from there we’ve begun the process of spreading the gems within the Sacred Teachings of Kundalini Yoga and Meditation across the planet.

Because I am an archivist for these Teachings, it’s part of my mission to keep presenting new material and to prepare others for the Aquarian Age energy that’s starting to descend on the planet. We’ve been told that crystals are activated when the consciousness on the earth starts to change. Like in the 60’s, crystals became activated. And now is another time of awakening. And we are part of that awakening, with our own internal crystals.

I hold classes every single day of the week, so anyone who is feeling the need to heal, grow, or center, can have access. I am proud of our website, and we continue to bring new ideas, new teachings and new angles of interest to an ever-growing network called “Tej TV.” We are working to present the teachings anywhere from yoga to meditation to yogic tips – all to meet the needs of the times. Please Join Us.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I can’t say I’d do anything differently. Everything is a flow to teach us and mature us, so we can stand strong and move forward with courage and more importantly — Victory!

A woman recently wrote to me in an email, “I constantly strive to remember that life happens FOR me, and not TO me.”

I feel everything that’s happened to me has been a Divine set up by the Universe for me to evolve and grow.

Often challenged. Yet, presented with opportunities so I can keep growing and going.

I am grateful.

Contact Info:

• Website: TejTV.yoga
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram:@tej.tv @tejkaur.khalsa, @9treasuresyoga
• Facebook: Tej TV – https://www.facebook.com/Tej-TV-111031050595340
  Nine Treasures Yoga – https://www.facebook.com/ninetreasuresyoga,
  Tej Kaur Khalsa – Tej Kaur Khalsa

Image Credit:
Jennifer Whitney, Rich Royal, Kiley Miltsch

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