SPIRITUALITY

 

It was in the evening of year 1967, when I heard an impressive voice, while passing through Urdu Bazar, explaining the word “ SPIRITUALITY”. I stood there for some time and listened the whole talk. Each word of this unknown Sant affected me so much that I had desire to meet him, not only to meet but to know “what is He?”

 

I went to see him in Ashram, he told me about Ruhani Satsang Society whose aim is to open our inner vision and show us the light of God, and to tell the world about the Science of Spirit, the knowledge of which can be realized in three stages: 1. Purification. 2. Knowledge of self. 3. Knowledge of God.

 

After a long discussion when I returned he gave me some of his books and offered his car for my way back to home and came to say good-bye up to the car. I was very much impressed by this Holy personality.

 

His Holiness Sant Kirpal Singh Ji is disciple of Baba Sawan Singh Ji Maharaj, whose teachings are known throughout the world. I will deem it a great privilege if I became his disciple and spread his spiritual teachings far and wide.

 

In the end I wish him the happiest birthday and offer myself as a present on this spiritual day

 

My birth in satguru’s Home came in 1917. I used to pray: O God, If you could manifest yourself directly to devotees like Prahlad and Dhruva in the past why not grant me that experience? And by the grace of God I saw the Radiant From of the Master, Huzur Maharaj, in 1917. I thought that He was Guru Nanak. That Form used to guide me in the inner planes. I am a great lover of rivers and this craze took me to Beas. When I detrained at Beas Station and asked the way to the river, the Station Master, Bua Das, said, ‘have you come to see the Saint ?’  ‘is there any saint here?’ I asked. ‘Yes he said, ‘he lives by the river bank.’ I thought I shall have both my desires fulfilled: seeing the river and a meeting with the Saint. That was in 1924.

 

When I reached the Dera, Huzur Maharaj was taking his meals. I waited outside. The moment he came out I looked at him wide-eyed with wonder. It was the same Form that had guided me in the inner planes for seven years. And I asked, ‘Master ; why this delay?’ ‘This was the opportune moment from our meeting,’ he said.

 

As I was saying, Huzur told me then that I was to carry on the work after him. I was really faced with a tough problem, for it is very difficult to live after the Master. When I was writing ‘Gurumat Siddhant’ there was mention of a disciple in the context of separation from the Satguru. The disciple, hearing the news of the demise of his Guru, went to his grave, lay down on it and his soul left the body. The name of Amir khusro was also mentioned. His Master, Hazrat Nizamuddin had left strict in junctions that Khusro was not to be allowed to come near his grave for if Khusro came there  it would split open. The name of Guru Angad was also mentioned in the same context. Hazur Maharaj, to whom I took all my writings for approval, heard the whole chapter once, twice, three times and I pondered over it and prayed that I may not have to bear such separation.

 

We should have a birth that we may not have to be born again. Gurbani says, ‘those who die while living, they are accepted in His Court.’ Christ says the same thing: ‘Except ye be born anew ye cannot enter the kingdom of God.’ Whereupon Necodemus said, ‘Lord, how can we re-enter the womb of the mother and be reborn’? and Jesus said to him: ‘Necodemus you are a learned man and people hold you in high regard. Don’ tyou know that flesh is born of flesh and spirit of spirit’? to be born in the Home of Satguru means to rise above body-consciousness and to awaken in a new world into the Beyond. As Jesus says: ‘The Kingdom of heaven cannot be had by observation. It is within you.’ One has to tap inside to find it. It is a sea of life and one has to pluge headlong into it. By the grace of a competent Master one can rise above body-consciousness in a trice, otherwise there is an endless gyration of incarnations. It is indeed difficult to rise above body-consciousness. The Yogis spent hundreds of years to do it. With a little attention or life-impulse a competent Master can give first-hand expericnce of rising above bocy-consciousness to any number of aspirants at a time.

 

All Master say, ‘Learn to die while living so that you may have everlasting life.’ The holy Quran says, ‘Die thou before death.’ the Sufis and Saints—Dadu and Kabir—say the same thing. Satguru. Plutarch says: ‘those who have been intiated into the mysteries of the Beyond, their soul has the same experience of leaving the body as it has at the time of death.’

 

Our attention—which is the outward expressio of soul in the body—is identified with the body, so much so that it has forgotten itself. Guru Teg Bahadur, the ninth Guru says that just as flowers painted on a wall cannot leave the wall, likewise, our is so identified with the body that it cannot analyse itself. The Master liberate us from the chains of outer attachment and take us above the body-consciousness and we wake up in new world. This is just a beginning. There are many stages after that. Macrocosm is in the microcosm. It is long journey to the ultimate goal. Where the world’s philosophies end there the religion starts—it starts when you rise above body-consciousness.

 

We can discuss it but ‘unless the sense-faculties are controlled and mind and intellect stilled, we cannot analyse ourself.’ Guru Amar Das says in this context that the competent Master gives you a practical first-hand experience of death while living but what that experience is cannot be described in words. It has to be experienced. And what happens? Guru Amar Das says, ‘Satguru teaches us to invert our outgoing faculties—from outside to inside.’ That is why the Path of the Master has been described as ‘Ulta Marg’ or inverted Path. The man-body too has been described as an inverted tree with roots above and branches below.

 

The end of knowledge is fellow-feeling, franternity—a feeling of kinship that we are all brother and sisters in God. With the strengthening of this feeling comes civility and culture. Such a man can adjust himself to all sorts of circumstances. He is fearless and unworried. And last of all comes humility which is an adornment of Saints. The way to God is first humility, second humility, and third, again humility. Water always flows downwards, it cannot stay at a high level where there is a slope. The little understanding I got by sitting at the feet of my Master, Huzur Baba Sawan Singh Ji Maharaj, that is being given out to you. His authority and His will prevails. Currency is controlled by the Government and not by cashiers, who come and go. Thousands have been, are being, are being benefited by His grace. It is His dispensation—he is the sender, He the giver. People are having practical first-hand experience both in the East and the West and seeing the Reality with their own eyes, are fully convinced. There is no conviction without seeing. Says Gurbani, ‘Unless I see with my own eyes I will not fully believe even the Guru’s words.’ The realization that we are not the body but the light that animates it, comes only by seeing. And for that we have to withdran our attention (soul-current) from all outside and concertrate within, at the still-point, back of the eyes, from where the whole machinery of the body is controlled (in other words to die while living), Only then we begin to know Him. A partical demonstration of this can be had at the feet of a competent Master.

 

As I said before, fellow-feeling is most essential. Without it knowledge has no meaning. A Giani (one who knows reality) will see Him in all, from his own level. There different level of knowledge, some have studied upto primary standard some up to middle or high school and some others have a college degree. People come to me and say things from there own level. I tell each one of them :’You are right from your Own level’. What else can one say? The world never appreciated the great light-givers. They were percecuted and tortured. Guru Nanak was not allowed to enter the town of Qasur in the Punjab. Some were nailed to the Cross, others burnt alive. who were the persecutors ? Those whose inner vision was not opened; who did see the Reality within. those who saw the Reality within, their word can be taken as true. They said: Body is the temple of God. Says Gurubani : ‘By the grace of the Master you will see that body is the Temple of God.’ And again: ‘the whole world that ye see around thee is the image of God, and I actually see it as such.’ This is the statement of who realized god and saw Him in all.

 

The digest of the understanding that I got through a comparative study of scriptures and by sitting at the feet of the Masters is that we are all one. Man –body is golden opportunity that we have got, to know God. First, we have to know our self, then only we can know him. Knowing one self is not at the level of feelings, emotions or drawing inferences from a study of books. This are all subject to error. Seeing is above all. And seeing is believing. The Master come to awaken us from the slumber of declusion. They come to make people see who do not see. They open our inner Eye and make us see the Reality within. they affirm that one can see God in this life. Tulsi Sahib says:

               

                Behind the eye is the Still-Point, the til

                And in the til is the whole secret.

                One has only to penetrate the veil of darkness

                And see the Reality beyond.

 

Shams Tabrez says in the same contest :’One should see God with his own eyes and hear His Word with his own ears.’ And how can one see the Reality within? Moinuddin Chishti says: ‘if you wish to seethe Reality go to an competent master.’ The formations are all right. They are the different schools for turning out perfect men. And what is the qualification of man ? who has knowledge-realised knowledge. The first step to that is fellow-feeling. And secondly,a capability for adjustment. He should be able to adjust himself to all sorts of circumstances and be able to get along with everybody. For that one has to have culture, the hall-mark of which is toleration and love, even for ones enemies. When Mansur was led away to be executed some people who had stood by him, asked him to pray for them. and he prayed to God and said, ‘God bless you.’ He also prayed for those who hadgot him arrested and condemned to death. Christ also prayed : ‘O Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ So dear brothers you are all graced with the man-body, which is golden opportunity. This is the first step towards realization of God. God is-there is no doubt about it. If you sit at the feet of a competent Master you will get the awakening and that would change your angle of vision. Reading of scriptures and biographies of the Master kindles in one an interest and longing for Spirituality. When we read that such and such person realized God we naturally ask, canwe also see Him? Wesing the songs composed by Masters who realized God, with great enthusiasm as if there experience was our own experience and we were the same. Where is the use? If a thin person wears the clothes of fat person, will it suit him? The sayings of the Masters are milestones for our guidance, telling us how to progressed, step by step, to reach the ultimate goal. You can compare and see were you stand. You say, ‘happy birthday to you’. I say to you , ‘happy birthday to you’. You are getting the thing (first hand experience of Reality) by the grace of Hazur Maharaj. It is his words that are bearing fruit. Pray from the depth of Heart. A prayer that comes from the heart is accepted and answered. I think it would be better if Yogi Bhajan were to sum up in a few words in English the digest of what I have said.

 

Yogi Bhajan spoke a few words, sharing with others what he had received. His words gave an indication of his receptivity to the radiation, that makes every word come alive with new meaning, beyond communication and expression through words, which can only be caught through heightened consciousness, which was a gift from the living Master. He said:

 

“It will be my privilege to translate within the scope and orbit in which I can help. The first fellow feeling of being is living in the fellow feeling of universal love, and that Universal love is the manliness within ones own self.” When Sant Ji says, “I have gone and I have talked to all over and you have heard me saying

one thing over again and again—that are one in the oneness of God,” and when you get to the man of God Consciousness, it comes to you as feeling and then there is no need for diversion from the Higher Consciousness or the applied Consciousness of the mind. It is a privilege of every fellow being.

 

And he said, “I am the humblest of the humble because it is the grace, it is the grace of the great One Who has chosen me for the job.” It is the privilege that so many people have loved him—so many people have come early in the morning to be with him. But still his oneness with god has not separated him even at this moment. This was the experience which we went through and we saw it. It might be for you a unique experience, he said, ‘when you walk on the Path of Righteousness ; you may have to go on the cross, you may have to be skinned alive, you may have to be boiled or fried on the hot plate just to test your faith, your integrity, your divinity, and your love of the Universal consciousness, but at that time you develop an attitude to bless those who have done what ever they have done to you. When the forgiveness and the greatness of you prevails beyond scope of boundaries and oneness  of god shines through you, that is when man has achieved the love of God within himself.’ Thank you.”

 

Streaks of light from the morning sun had filtered in from the opening in the canopy breaking the spell of the Brahm Mahoorat. It was morning now with all the bustle and the noise of the work-a-day world when the session ended for a brief interval for breakfast.