Self Surrender

GEORGE ARNSBY JONES, Litt.D., Ph.D.

Self-surrender to the mystic adept is but a prelude to the gaining of a greater inheritance, the higher spiritual self; as Dadu Sahib, a sixteenth-century mystic adept of Rajputana, expressed it: “A lover becomes the Beloved – such is the alchemy of love.” And Kabir affirmed, “the world is lost in reading scriptures, yet never comes to knowledge; but one who knows a jot of love, to him all is revealed.”

Sufi mystics have described such self-surrender as fana-fil-sheik (annihilation in the Master), and Christian mystics have stressed the necessity for “Death in Christ”, the merging of the personal self into all-enfolding self of the Master, so that the very thought of a separate self disappears entirely. As St. Paul expressed it:

I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

The Satguru is the true intermediator between the disciple and the Supreme Lord; but he is more than this even, for he is the very incarnation of the Supreme Lord. It was the sense of the immediacy and the living presence of the Satguru that made Kabir cry: “The Master is greater than God !” he was not committing the unpardonable sin of deifying a flesh and blood man, but was stressing a fundamental truth that “devotion to the Master carries one back unto God.” Sehjo Bai, a nineteenth-century woman mystic, affirmed that “God drove me into the wilderness of the world, but the Master has snapped for me the ceaselss chain of transmigration.” This saintly lady was a disciple of Charan Das, a poet-mystic of Rajasthan, who was an adept in spiritual science.

Love alone bridges the great gulf between the finite and the infinite. Reason and logic end within the realm of the mind, but love is the symphony of the soul, and its radiant tones resound throughout all creation. An old Persian poem tells us that, “Learning is only a child of the scriptures; it is Love that is their mother.” Gobind Singh, tenth Guru of the Sikhs, said: “verily, verily I say unto thee, they that have loved have reached the Lord.” “the secret of Gods mysteries is Love” , sang Maulana Rumi; and the Satguru the highest mystic adept, is the incarnation of love itself. He is the living embodiment of all the scriptural teachings on love; he gives his spiritual message and his mystical science as a free gift of love, never seeking anything in return and never living on the charity of others.

Moreover, the true mystic adept rises above the apparent contradictions of the various religions; he dispels all distinction between creed and creed, faith and faith, and demonstrates the basic unity of spiritual experience which is embodied in the external writings of Prophets and mystics. He stresses that the inner essence of all religions is the same, in spite of all the outward distinctions and dogmas that confuse humanity. Guru Nanak affirmed: “Know him to be a perfect Master who unites all in one fold.” The Satguru does not try to convert the aspirant to this or that outer faith, but he endeavors to lead him to the baptism of the spirit within. The true inner life transcends all barriers of creed, caste and race, for it is a gift of love, and love knows no barriers. The Satguru speaks from inner experience of spiritual reality, and so he needs no theoretical disputation to stress the truth of his words. However, he will often use the scriptures of all religions in order to convince his listeners that what he is teaching is the most ancient truth; but he is not subject to intellectual hairsplitting of “scriptural authorities” for he speaks from living experience. “How can we agree”, Kabir asked the learned pandits, “when I speak from inner experience and you only from bookish learning?”

Guru Nanak stated firmly, “I will not take my Master at his word until I see within mine own eyes.” And this is the sure criterion for testing the validity of a mystic adepts statements. If he is a genuine Satguru, he will not promise salvation in some after-life, but will show the way to inner liberation here and now. Jesus exhorted his disciples to “die daily”, to transcend physical consciousness, for one who has not attained liberation in life cannot hope to attain it after death. The Satguru will maintain that spirituality is a science, and that it must be practiced within the laboratory of the human body, for it is while he is incarnated into the human body that the disciple can achieve the primary requisite of one-pointed concentration. The mystic adept has a common message for all mankind, and that message is one of universal love. Jesus has said:

Curse you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven. Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.

The mystic adept says emphatically that no person can prove his love of God unless he knows how to love God , whom he cannot see, if he does not love man, whom he can see? Love is the one universal religion of man, and it is based upon the fundamental truth of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. “One reality shines both in the man of faith and the heretic”, stated Hafiz, the noted Persian mystic-poet, “and all the seeming differences in the various religious orders are in fact vaporous nothings…. It is through sheer prejudice that the Brahmins and the Sheiks (religious leaders of Hinduism and Islam, respectively) have now different drinking bowls, for in a tavern there is only one landlord (the mystic adept) dispensing the same wine (of divine love) from the same flagon to the various tipplers at the table.”

The satguru or mystic adept, is the living embodiment of the spiritual essence behind all religions. it was because of this truth that Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru of the Sikhs, collected the sayings of various mystic adepts from Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism and other faiths, without concerning himself about their religious background, caste, or life vocation. In Guru Arjan’s compilation, which became the Granth Sahib, the sacred scriptures of the Sikhs, can be found the spiritual saying of Kabir, a weaver by worldly profession; Nam Dev, a calico printer; Ravi Das, a cobbler; Farid, a Muslim Saint, and others of humble birth, who were yet all princes of spirituality. Such Master-souls come into the world, free of the pomp and circumstance of outer religions, with the specific mission of dispensing the spiritual nectar of the Supreme Lord to those who will listen to them and who will follow their teachings. Such mystic adepts, whenever and wherever they appear on the stage of life, impart to erring humanity lessons in humanitarianism and godliness, and imbue their disciple with an abiding love for God and man and most importantly, put them on the inner high road that leads to the Supreme God. while such spiritual mentors have respect for all outer religious observances, and will themselves adopt the external traditions of the social religions of their physical environment, they are yet true free-thinkers, and they endeavor to free men from the tightly sealed and narrow limitations of crystallized religious beliefs, so that they may bask in the pristine sunshine of the spiritual realms and know the true kingdom of God.

No individual can safely traverse the inner path without the aid of an unerring guide; whether he goes under the Sufi nomenclature of Murshid-I-kamal (perfect Master) or whether he is known as a Sant Satguru or Rahbar-I-Haq (Guide to the Realm of Truth), the true mystic adept will be one who is supremely versed in both theory and practice of the surat Shabd yoga, the science of spirituality. Such an illumined soul veritably leads the wandering human spirit from the darkness of materiality to the effulgent light of the highest spiritual realms. In the company of such a mystic adept the aspirant transcends body consciousness and rises into cosmic consciousness, and then upward into super-consciousness, which final state lies far Beyond the limits of the grand cosmic dissolution, and is indeed truly eternal and limitless. Farid, the Muslim Saint, cried out, “O Farid, start on a worldwide quest for some Master-soul. Carry on a ceaseless search, high or low, right or left, anywhere and everywhere; for once you have found that Man of Grace, you to shall have Grace.”

The Satguru is thus the living embodiment of the three attributes of Godhead; life, light and love. He is completely imbued with the highest spiritual, and he is the fountainhead of Godhood and love. The holy scriptures can tell the aspirant a certain amount about spirituality for these writings constitute a storehouse of the recorded inner experiences of ancient sages and seers; but such writings cannot possibly give the aspirant a living experience of spirituality, for this can only be caught like an uplifting infection form the love-filled eyes of one who is himself imbued with spirituality. As a lighted candle can ignite the wicks of many unlighted candles, so the mystic adept can transmit the spiritual life impulse to the aspiring soul. As Guru is in touch with the God within, O Nanak! All others are really dead.”

Shamas Tabrez, the great Persian Saint and the spiritual mentor of Maulana Rumi, stated that, “By the side of this grass blade of the human body there flows an endless stream of life. Hidden in the heart of this atom is the light of a hundred suns.” But, as this great mystic adept informed Rumi and his other disciples, it is not given to man to realize these inner verities without the aid of some Master-soul, a true mystic teacher who can show them “the way, the Truth and the Life.” But such mystic adepts constantly warn against putting one’s faith into the claims of any spiritual teacher unless that teacher has given one living proof of his competency. “Until I see the Truth with my own eyes” affirmed : “when I saw the Truth with my own eyes, then in truth I put faith in Master's words.”

The spoken words of the Satguru cannot be separated form the Satguru, for it is from the abundance of his heart that the Satguru speaks; as he is embedded in the eternal Word, so are his words the expression of the living Shabd within him. The illusion and delusions of worldly things have no affect on him. He is Beyond the power of kal, the Lord of time, for he has liberated himself form the bondage of time, space and causation. He has gained life everlasting, and I the infinite compassion of his heart he descends voluntarily into the prison house of the three worlds in order to save aspiring souls form thralldom to the endlessly-turning wheel of Birth and Death. He is truly blessed, who has come to the lotus feet of a true Satguru, for he has attained the sum mum bonum of life itself.

Aurora Circling

If we could only see
The universe inside ourselves 
With half the elements of accuracy
We bend toward outer space –
Perhaps we could begin with clouds 
That bloom like corollas of the sun
In the third eye where the sky opens – 
Those winged petals of cold fire
Spreading wide and wider – 
Look through look Beyond 
Look, look

                                     Trucy Leddy

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