May / June 2020

Science of the Soul Research Centre

 contents
4 Self-Reflection
7 The Sound Current
10 A Higher Perspective
13 The Inseparable Companion
16 The Light of His Face Is Shining Upon You
19 Homeward Bound
20 Know Thyself
23 Commitment
26 Masters Work Hard and So Must We
28 Stillness
30 Coming to Terms with Ourselves
33 Simply Put
35 Being Carefree
38 Investment Research
40 Who We Really Are

43 Book Review

Spiritual Link
Science of the Soul Research Centre
Guru Ravi Dass Marg, Pusa Road, New Delhi-110005, India
Copyright © 2020 Science of the Soul Research Centre ®

Articles and poems that appear without sources have been written by the
contributors to this magazine.

VOLUME 16 • ISSUE 3 • M AY / JUNE 2020

May / June 2020 3

Self-Reflection
Sometimes following the undertaking our Master has set for us seems
impossible. We can become disheartened and overwhelmed, particularly if
we expect visible results from our meditation. These times are opportuni-
ties to redirect our emotions into self-reflection, rather than blame others.
By channelling this energy toward self-reflection, we can gain valuable
insights that can help us hold on to hope and courage and strengthen our
efforts on our spiritual path.
In a letter to one disciple who had an emotional reaction to her feelings
of lack of progress, Maharaj Charan Singh says in Quest for Light:
Please remember that this emotional outburst will not help you in any
way. Meditation has never been an easy thing for anyone before reaching a
state of perfect concentration. How can we rise to spiritual heights within,
just for the asking? It is something we have to earn.
He says we have to earn perfect concentration, and we do that through
our sincere effort. Later in the answer, he adds, “Instead of blaming the
path or the Master, see within yourself where the weakness lies.” He urges
us to look honestly at the way we have been following the path – not to
not beat ourselves up for our shortcomings but to look gently at our lives
and identify where we might do better.
Then Hazur lists six questions for us to ask ourselves:

1. Have you given regular time to meditation every day?

The Masters emphasize the importance of this daily discipline of
meditation. Meditation is the answer that they give us to almost
every question. At initiation, we promise to devote at least ten
percent of our time to meditation every single day. Masters assure
us that if we do our part, they will do the rest. Even a few hours
each day of turning to him on the inside adds up to a lot. Then we
can look him in the eye and know that at least we have tried. But if
we have not been doing our part, if we have not been keeping the
promise we made to him, can we expect results?

4 Spiritual Link
 2. Have you been able to keep the attention at the eye centre all the time
during meditation?
That should be an easy question to answer. Mostly, we know when
our attention slips down and either our mind runs wild or we fall
asleep. If we are sitting because we want to out of love for our Master,
not just because it is a duty, we will keep trying to focus.

3. Have you vacated the body of all consciousness and brought it to the
eye centre?
If we have, we will probably have seen the light and heard the sound
and maybe even met the Shabd form of the Master. Coming to the
eye centre is the result of a high degree of continuous focus.
In Spiritual Gems, Maharaj Sawan Singh says, “It may be said
safely that if any earnest student should hold his attention fully
upon the given centre for three hours, without wavering, he must go
inside.” Three hours of continuous focus is all it takes!

4. Have you tried to live the Sant Mat way of life, detaching yourself
gradually from the world and attaching your thoughts to the Lord
within?
Masters know that we cannot do this all at once, so they recommend
a slow and steady approach. One disciple asks Hazur, in The Master
Answers, “Supposing I work only six hours a day and spend all the
other time in meditation or trying to?” Hazur replies:
I personally feel, if we are regular and punctual in our meditation
and we are living in Sant Mat and for Sant Mat, that two hours and
thirty minutes or three hours daily are sufficient for meditation.
He says that two and one-half hours are enough if we are living in
Sant Mat and for Sant Mat. In other words, we need to live the Sant
Mat way of life 24/7 and always keep our spiritual goal in mind.

5. Have you kept the names with you most of the time?
Doing simran during the day is a great help in living the Sant Mat
way of life. If we are doing simran, we are not thinking about

May / June 2020 5

 the world. We are entirely in the present; we are remembering the
Master. In Quest for Light, Hazur advises:
Try to perfect the simran to such an extent that the holy names
remain with you all the time, even when you are not conscious of
them. This repetition should become as much a part of your life as
breathing. When the simran is perfected, light will appear, and the
sound will become clear.
If we do simran all day long in addition to during meditation, it
will become automatic and will run ceaselessly in the background.
If we perfect our simran in this way, we may be able to make contact
with the light and sound within. If we allow our attention to roam
worldwide, then meditation will be more difficult.

6. In other words, have you followed the instructions given to you at the
time of initiation?
Every question that Hazur has asked in this letter has been about
the instructions given when our Master initiated us. And they all
concern perfecting our meditation practice. Are we doing what we
promised to do? Hazur then adds: “If we have not done our part, we
cannot complain about the shortcomings of Sant Mat.”
Hazur is not asking these questions to chastise us. He is just saying
that if we are not following these instructions, we cannot expect to
reach the eye centre and travel within to our true home. We need to
do the work that we promised to do. It is very straight forward.
Hazur ends with:
Please remember that all are struggling souls on the path. We
all have to strive and do our best and then leave the rest to him.
There is no need to feel so disheartened. This is a path of hope and
courage. Live within the will of the Lord; do your duty every day
and leave the rest to him. He is always with you.

That says it all.

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The Sound Current
The Sound Current, the Shabd, Nam, the Logos is the flow of energy that
comes from God into the creation. We are told it is that same current
of energy that will take us back to God. Do any of us know what this
mysterious divine force is? Maharaj Sawan Singh, in Philosophy of the
Masters, Vol. IV, attempts the nearly impossible – to give us some sense of
what the Shabd is, and what it does. He writes:
The Shabd, Sound Current, Word, or Holy Spirit is not a subject matter
for speech or writing. In order to make it understood, we can only say this
much, namely that it is the quintessence of the Lord and that it sustains
millions of universes and regions. It is the soul-current of consciousness. It
is the celestial melody. It is the life-current which originates from the Lord
and pervades everything. The Lord creates and sustains the entire universe
through this current of power.… Shabd is a string which connects everyone
and everything with the Lord.

While there are many names for this Sound Current – Shabd, Word,
Tao – mystics in all spiritual traditions seem to agree that God is not a
thing or an object. God is a current, a force, a power of love, light, and
truth that moves in and around what we can see and experience.
When we think of currents, what might come to mind are tides, oceans,
and rivers in the physical universe. Sometimes the image of water conveys
the power of currents. Riptides along the beach can carry an unaware
swimmer out to sea unless he or she knows how to swim with the flow of
that current. There are also currents in the air. Hawks reach unbelievable
heights by riding the thermal currents that rise vertically from the earth.
One can try to measure electrical currents or electromagnetic currents. By
looking at this material world, we may be able to grasp that essential forces
move in, around, and through us.
Great Master uses the example of currents in this world to describe the
Shabd. He says in Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. IV:
This sound or melody pervades all. It is even inside stones and wood,
as these are made up of atoms and motion is inherent in them.

May / June 2020 7

 Because of this motion, everything constantly undergoes change.…
This world changes every hour, every minute, and every second.
Whether we know it or not, a stone continues to change. There is
motion in it. Sound is a necessary corollary of motion and, therefore, a
stone is not free from the sound.… Sound is the essence of all.

How do we ride that Sound Current home to our true country where
we will find this divine melody? Masters come into this world to teach us
how to ride that current back home to the Lord. Whatever the mysterious
pull of the Shabd is, most of us are at least a little conscious of the pull
of the Master. To meet a saint, a Shabd Master, is to encounter the living
water that bestows eternal life. The saints come to us to tell us how to
merge into the Shabd. The Great Master says in Philosophy of the Masters,
Vol. IV, “The waves of the ocean of Shabd are surging in each one of us.
Those who drink of its waters are no longer troubled by thirst or hunger
and gain eternal life.”
Thus, we are urged to listen. We are asked to meditate. We are encour-
aged to focus our attention at the eye centre. We have to go where the
current is flowing to ride it home. We will not experience the Shabd while
we are on our cell phones or watching a captivating TV series nor in
the many outer distractions competing for our attention. We must turn
inward to reach the eye centre. At least we must try – even though we
discover that our attention keeps going out.
How do we get past the barriers of the mind and the resistance of the
ego? Who is it that gets to ride this current and be carried back on the
ocean of love? Great Master answers this very powerfully and directly in
various parts of Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. IV:
The beneficent Master makes us hear the Shabd, which stills the
wanderlust of the mind.… The Shabd is a boon from the Master. The
Master makes it dwell in our hearts. It is impossible for anyone else to
manifest it.… The Master points to this indescribable and formless Shabd
and makes the disciple turn inward. With his power, he then connects the
disciple with Shabd.

8 Spiritual Link
 He gives us a glimpse of how to reach the Shabd when he tells us: “The
unending music is wonderful. It cannot be obtained by our own mental
processes or activities. It can only be had as a result of the grace of the
Master. It is the supreme gift of a perfect Master.”
So, we arrive at the inevitable paradox of all spiritual practice – effort
and grace. For us, the key is simran, and we have to work long and hard
in meditation to move the attention to the eye centre where the pull of
the Sound Current begins. At the very same time, we are reminded that
only the grace of the Master can allow us to hear the Shabd. Human effort
alone cannot take us home. It is his gift.
The supreme Lord [took] great pity on us in our extreme distress and
misfortune. Seeing the soul, his beloved child, in such a sad plight, that
Ocean of Mercy and Compassion surged in swelling tides and, assuming
the human form, came to the world to save us.
Maharaj Jagat Singh, The Science of the Soul

As initiates, we hope that we will be carried back to our original home

in Sach Khand on the currents of the Master’s mercy and love. When we
encounter the winds of karma, and the tides that seem to be moving us
far away from the eye centre, our job is to keep rowing and keep doing
our meditation. We must keep moving in the direction where he has told
us to go – toward the Shabd – where our deep thirst and great hunger will
be satisfied.

May / June 2020 9

A Higher Perspective
Life for many of us is like looking through a peephole or a tunnel. Our
vision and our perspective are limited. While living our individual and
separate lives, we become caught up in our own stories, and so we believe
that our life experience in this time and place is everything.
From a higher perspective, our life – our physical experience of the
body and senses, which means everything to us and which we hold onto
so tightly – is a small piece in a puzzle. If we look at the earth from an
airplane or even a tall building, we find a different perspective than when
we are on the ground. And from outer space, we can imagine the earth,
looking like a tiny ball of life, slowly turning to the tune of the universe.
In the physical body, we mostly operate from our mind and
senses and act according to thoughts and feelings. Influenced by
family, culture, and the rhythm of our times, we live our days mostly
unconsciously, swimming with the flow of those around us. Is it possible
to change our perspective and find equanimity through all the ups and
downs of life? Could it all be a question of how we choose to look at
ourselves and the world?
In Concepts and Illusions, the author says:
How often have we watched the clouds lazily pass over us in the sky
– each individual draws his own conclusion about its shape, and even
while we are visualizing the shape, it continuously changes. The shapes
the clouds form are illusions and eventually evaporate into nothingness.
Our lives and relationships, wealth and poverty, happiness and sadness
are the same – merely illusions. As we watch them, they slowly evaporate
into nothingness.

The Masters and saints give us the perspective of a spiritual life. They
maintain that life in this physical world itself is only an illusion, a dream
in which we find ourselves. They tell us that we cannot find permanent
happiness through external objects. In the Bhagavad Gita we read:
Pleasures from external objects
Are wombs of suffering.

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 They have their beginnings and their ends;
No wise man seeks joy among them.
Quoted in Living Meditation

When we experience the transient and fickle nature of the world, we

search for the safety of permanence and unchanging truth. The Masters
offer us an opportunity to experience reality from a higher perspective.
They don’t ask us to accept their words blindly; but instead, they give us
a method of discovery that leads us to the understanding of how things
really are. By following the practical steps taught by the Masters, we
experience truth for ourselves and overcome our deep-rooted illusions.
A disciple feels immensely grateful to the Master for revealing the path of
meditation. Guru Angad Dev says:
If a hundred moons were to rise,
and a thousand suns appeared –
even with such light,
there would still be pitch darkness
without the Guru.
Quoted in Concepts and Illusions

Through initiation, the Master teaches us how to realize God within

ourselves. He shows us how to go within through the practice of
meditation and to gain an awareness of who we really are. Then we learn
that we are not a drop in the ocean, but an entire ocean in a drop, to
paraphrase an expression sometimes attributed to Rumi.
The Master sees our potential to evolve, and through the very act of
initiation, he invites us to find a new perspective. In Living Meditation, the
author says:
Meditation helps us reach a state where we can detach ourselves from
our emotions and obsessions. Through Shabd meditation, we actually
experience that we are not these ever-changing identities that we assume
through our feelings and neuroses, but that we are fundamentally pure
and constant.

Living in this world, yet not of it, the Master is ever in touch and
present with the Shabd or primal essence of God. His words and actions

May / June 2020 11

are continually steeped in the love of the Lord. While we absorb ourselves
mindlessly with the ways of the world, the Master keeps his gaze and
attention constantly towards the truth and light of the Shabd, and he urges
us to do the same.
The Masters and Saints have the highest perspective. They have risen
above the limitations of this world and are full of the greatest love. In their
presence, we get a glimpse of a higher reality that shines through them,
although they are in a human body like ours. They invite us to share in
this higher perspective and to eliminate the distance between us and the
Lord within us. Sultan Bahu says:
Love flourishes in that heart
in which glows the Name of God.
The love of God is like the fragrance of musk –
even a thousand wrappings cannot hold it in;
or like the sun, which cannot be hid behind one’s fingers,
or like a river that cannot be stopped in its course.
My Friend is in me, in my Friend am I;
there is no distance left between us.
Our perspective makes all the difference. During this life, we have a
rare privilege, a unique opportunity to free ourselves from our false and
limited perspectives based on thinking that the external world is the only
reality. When we devote ourselves to meditation, we begin to develop a
higher perspective, and we start to get a taste of the permanent love that
is the essence of our being. That higher perspective changes our experi-
ence of life in every way. Eventually, as our meditation brings us to the
awareness of the love of God that glows within us, we realize that “there is
no distance left between us.”

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The Inseparable Companion
You alone exist! I do not, O Beloved!
You alone exist I do not!…
If I speak, You speak with me;
if I am silent, You are in my mind.

If I sleep, You sleep with me;

if I walk, You are along my path.
O Bullah, the Spouse has come to my house.
My life is a sacrifice unto him.
Bulleh Shah

In this poem, Bulleh Shah is describing the state where he sees his master
all around him. His master is deep within him, and he is with his master
in all his activities as well as sleeping, walking, and in silence. In short, he
is saying there is no separation between the master and him.
In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I, Maharaj Charan Singh says, “The
concept that we have of ourselves should be the same as our concept of
the Lord.” But it is not, because mind creates the illusion of separateness.
He says our distance from the Lord is just an illusion created by our mind.
He is there at the very core of our being. The core of our being, our soul, is
identical to the Lord’s.
So, if the Master is with us always, then – like Bulleh Shah – we can also
experience him the whole day. When Bulleh Shah asked his master, Inayat
Shah, how to realize God, his master told him, “Be uprooted from here
[outside the eye centre] and planted there [within].” In other words, he
advised Bulleh to value the inner life more than the outer life by giving the
interior more importance than the external.
What is the inner life? It is the life or the journey that starts at the eye
centre and takes us back to our spiritual home. The inner life is considered
to be our real life; the time spent nourishing it will be with us even beyond
the death of our physical body.
The outer life is our worldly life, which is fleeting and limited to our
physical body. The inner life is living with the Divine. No matter how much
we attach ourselves to the world by trying to accomplish our many goals,

May / June 2020 13

it still has no reality. The outer world will continue along its merry path
well after we have departed.
Saints assure us that the inner life is beautiful beyond words – far
beyond anything we may experience in the outer life. The inner life makes
us complete as it results in our union with the Lord. The outer life can
never make us whole; in fact, our engagement with it keeps us away from
the Divine.
In The Awakening of the Human Spirit, Hazrat Inayat Khan, often
credited with introducing Sufism to the West, describes a few prerequisites
for attaining the inner life:
The first condition is that one should value the inner life more than
anything else in the world, more than wealth, power, position, rank, or
anything else. It does not mean that in the world, he should not pursue
the things he needs; it means he should value most something that is
worthwhile. Second, if one really values the inner life, he should give ‘his
precious time’ to it.

Like Hazrat Inayat Khan, all true Masters encourage us to value the
inner life. The Master resides just beyond the eye centre in his Radiant
Form. So at the time of initiation, we are told to focus at the third eye and
repeat the Holy Names imparted to us. With this repetition, the inner gate
will gradually open, and we will begin to finally see the Radiant Form of
our Master and begin our journey to oneness with him.
So while we are living the outer life, we should ardently work on our
meditation to pierce the veil that exists between our two lives, so that our
soul can travel between the inner and the outer life at will. In this way, we
prepare for our physical death, when we will leave the outer life forever
and return to our source in the Lord. This preparation is essential.
In an Aesop fable about ants and a grasshopper, the industrious ants
work all year long to provide food for their colony in the winter. The
grasshopper does nothing to prepare and has to beg for food from the
ants when winter comes. We cannot be like the grasshopper and wait until
the last moment to repent for our wasted life. Instead, we should make
a dedicated effort to release ourselves from our outer attachments and
become acquainted with the inner path. We should build our relationship

14 Spiritual Link
with God and live in his consciousness so that at the end of our lives,
we will be ready to go home. To achieve this, we have to take action by
spending the precious time we have in practising our vows, especially our
daily meditation.
But valuing and talking about inner life doesn’t help – only action
helps. What is that action? Follow the instructions of the Master: repeat
the names, focus the attention at the eye centre, listen to the Shabd, and
make a consistent attempt to be with the Master. Action is essential, as
the inner gate opens only when the attention is focused entirely by our
diligent practice of meditation. When we consistently and continuously
apply the pressure of focused simran at the third eye, God will open the
door for us. If we do our part, he will certainly do his.

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The Light of His Face Is Shining
Upon You
God is love, and love is God. The essence of God’s love is within all human
beings. Masters are sent to wake us up to the call of love so we can return
to the Father, merge into love, become love forever. Such divine love is the
creative force and power of the universe and sustains all creation.
It is called by many names, Shabd, Nam, Word, Logos, the audible life
stream, the music of the spheres. When we are initiated by a Master
into the science of the soul or Surat Shabd Yoga, this inner sound is the
beginning of the soul’s return to God. Rumi tells us it is our time to bask
in the Lord’s light.
O heart,
Make your wish –
The gifts are ready
The King is waiting with open arms.
The Light of His face is shining upon you.
Quoted in Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved

“The King is waiting with open arms. The Light of His face is shining
upon you.” Yet, where are we? Where is our attention? The Master is so
near, but are we open and receptive to his grace and gift of love? Whether
we know it or not, the Master is at the very centre of our being – he is our
very being. His Shabd form permeates every pore of our very essence, our
soul, from the moment we are initiated.
Through meditation, his grace slowly awakens us to his constant
presence; we experience his divine love, which creates the longing and
thirst to be in his presence and meet him within. Only in meditation can
our connection to the Lord be realized. The saints emphatically tell us
that meditation is a relationship of love between the disciple and the inner
Shabd Master.
The only command is to meditate. There is no other shortcut to
developing our love for the Master and attaining union with him. It is
meditation before all else that leads us into divine love. Thus, the Masters

16 Spiritual Link
tell us meditation must be our objective and priority in life – otherwise, we
remain asleep. As Rumi says, “The gifts are ready.”
It’s time to do our part, play our role, do our meditation practice, with
love, diligence, perseverance, and effort. Ultimately, we will fly on the
wings of love and grace, but we still must take action. This path is one
of action. The Masters come to rouse us from our deep slumber and cut
our bonds to the illusions of this world. In Discourses on Sant Mat, Vol. I,
Maharaj Sawan Singh says:
The saints and Masters cry aloud from the housetop and reveal the way to
the tenth gate that leads inwards but it [the soul] pays no heed and like the
worm in the filth ever remains confined to the nine gates that continually
take it outwards. It is time that we put an end to this reckless wandering!

Only the Satguru, who has initiated us and abides within us in his
Radiant Form, can break our chains to the mind, the senses, and the
world. Through meditation, we awaken to the reality of the Master within
us. Until then, we are dissipating our spiritual resources and energy in the
world. Now is the time to put an end to this reckless wandering.
We must meditate. Only that prepares us to have a silent, listening,
waiting, receptive heart. We must open ourselves and consciously be in
his presence. The Master waits for every disciple to merge in him and
be carried on the current of Shabd to our true home, Sach Khand. The
mission of the saints is to take us back to the Father.
The Lord has given us this human birth so that we can merge in him.
We need to give him our time and attention. That is how we activate our
relationship with him. We need to be open, attentive, and receptive. Then
we realize that Master’s grace is showering upon us all the time. All effort
we put forth in meditation builds and strengthens our relationship of love
with the Master.
The Masters tell us the most important factor in spirituality is bireh or
longing. A yearning, longing heart kindles that fire of love for the Lord.
This longing comes to us through the Master. It is a gift that nurtures our
receptivity during our meditation. He always encourages us to be sincere,
attentive, and present with him in the darkness, saying the Holy Names.

May / June 2020 17

This love and devotion for the Master can’t be calculated or willed. It is
our effort to invoke his grace, so we try and fail and try again. There is no
doubt that someday the door will open because they tell us it will open!
Open our hearts, be attentive, be receptive. The Master wants our
attention. We have an opportunity, right now, to be with him. We burden
ourselves with our life, our worries; we allow the mind to be negative,
to desire indiscriminately. We allow ourselves to be carried away by the
madness of this world. With his grace and our effort, we can be with him
inside in the twinkling of an eye. We can go within in this very lifetime.
We need to be ready for the pull of his grace at any moment.
The Masters tell us that God and the Master are as close as our thoughts
allow him to be. The opportunity for remembrance and simran of the
Beloved is here in every moment if we seize the opportunity now. So, let’s
ask ourselves, what constitutes the core, the centerpiece of our lives? Are
we engaged in our spiritual work – are we developing love for our Master
to such a degree that our time spent with him in meditation gives us
our most happiness? What more can we do to receive the gifts from our
Master, absorb them – become filled with them – and then return this love
back to him?
Love is emanating from our beloved Master every second! Our wish is
to be with him; to love him; to meet him within; to open our heart to him.
As Great Master says in Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. II, “True love is
only for the sake of love itself. The only wish of a true lover is to be united
with the Beloved. Love is awakened when the currents of love, which
emanate from the Beloved, enter into our hearts.”
The message is clear: wake up and come to the Master on the inside,
where he waits for us with open arms. Now is the time!

18 Spiritual Link
Homeward Bound
It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in
heart want to.… There have been times I think we do not desire heaven; but
more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have
ever desired anything else.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

***
You have come all the way from your eternal home,
so why delay now?
Accomplish quickly the task for which you are here,
O Lord – please do not procrastinate.…
Enshrine the pearl of your Name in my heart
so that I may fulfil the purpose of my life.
Soami Ji Maharaj, Sar Bachan Poetry

***
Where is one whose sorrow
is not from separation from You
or whose joy is not from being close to You?…
All Your qualities are hidden in every soul.
Not one vein can open or close
without Your command.
Rumi, Jalal al-Din Rumi: Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi

***
The perfect mystic is not an ecstatic devotee lost in contemplation of
Oneness, nor a saintly recluse shunning all commerce with mankind.
The true saint goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps
with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in
social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment.
Abu Saīd b. Abī al-Khayr (d. 1049 CE)1

May / June 2020 19

Know Thyself
Maharaj Charan Singh often quoted the ancient Greek saying, “Know
thyself.” Other saints have also told us about the importance of knowing
who we really are. Baba Ji reminds us, paraphrasing Teilhard de Chardin
that we are spiritual beings having a human experience rather than
human beings seeking a spiritual experience. That statement has profound
significance in terms of how we think about ourselves, and one another,
and what we consider to be our goals in life and our spiritual practice.
What does it mean to be a spiritual being? According to Sant Mat, the
aim of our devotional practice is the attainment of two successive levels
of consciousness: first is self-realization, then God-realization. Hazur says
about these in Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I:
Self-realization is essential before God-realization. What is self-
realization? Going beyond the realm of mind and maya; trying to bring
the mind to the eye-centre and to its own destination, so the soul can get
release from the clutches of mind. Separating the soul from the mind – that
is self-realization, that is knowing ourselves.

He continues to explain why it’s so important to separate the soul from

the mind.
Soul has forgotten its home, … and its identity, after taking the association
of the mind. Mind, too, doesn’t know itself. It has become a slave of the
senses. So we have to withdraw our mind from the senses by attaching
it to the Shabd and Nam within. And then, with the help of Shabd
and Nam, mind becomes pure and comes back to its own source. Then
soul automatically gets release from the clutches of the mind. That is
self-realization.

At this level, the mind calculates who we are but has no idea of the
grandeur of the soul, our real self. Jesus said, “Is it not written in your law?
Have I not told you? Ye are gods!” Referring to Psalms 82:6, he states, “I
have said, ye are Gods. Sons of the Most High. All of you.” These are the
same teachings that have been repeated by the mystics throughout time.

20 Spiritual Link
 Experiencing our true selves is the direction our meditation points
us to, but this is only possible under the guidance of a living Master. The
Masters, on a mission of mercy, appear in this world to bring us the truth.
Still, we carry on with our ego selves as if that is who we are.
Mind and maya are the powers that have created this illusory self, and
the soul is helpless to overcome its enslavement to this grand falsehood.
Great Master says in Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. III:
Man considers himself to be limited and feeble, and it is indeed true that
one becomes what he thinks himself to be. But the soul is a particle of the
Lord, and the Lord is infinite. If the particle thinks of the infinite for some
time, it finds itself to be infinite.

Great Master advises us to dwell on the infinite. Through our medita-

tion, we can begin to become aware that we are part of him. God and the
soul are both comprised of Shabd. So the illusion that we are separate
from God acts as a prison in which we limit ourselves to a finite perspec-
tive. When we think of worldly concerns day and night, we take them
to be real and define ourselves by them. Thus, we are imprisoned by our
thinking and trapped in the prison of our limited self. We are so caught
up in all of the illusory preoccupations which pertain only to our outward
needs, desires, survival, pleasures, security, ambitions, daydreams, and
fantasies, that we neglect our real work. Hazur says in Light on Sant Mat,
“We are too much engrossed with our little struggles, desires, and disap-
pointments to think of the grand purpose of our coming here.” We have
been given the human form, a rare and special gift. It is in this human
form alone that we can find our true self, realize the Creator, and merge
back into the source, free from death and rebirth. Merging back into the
source is our grand purpose.
The mystic Chokha Mela, in Many Voices, One Song, writes:
The Divine has no form, no name.
Within everyone, he is bound to no one.
The inner eye – there my eyes have seen him,
shining from the beginning to the end of time.

May / June 2020 21

 I am dazzled – the universe is filled
with him from beginning to end.
God has appeared within me, says Chokha,
now all my doubts have dissolved.
We can see our true selves only in the human form and with our
third eye. The great secret that it holds is that when we realize our self as
the soul, then we are able realize God. We merge the drop of our spirit
with the vast spiritual ocean of love and bliss that is the Holy Father and
Supreme Lord. We then know who we truly are – one with God.

22 Spiritual Link
Commitment
In the Seekers’ Guide on the RSSB website (www.rssb.org), we read:
At the time of Initiation, the seeker is asked to take four vows, promising to
abide by them for life. The first three vows must be adhered to for a certain
period of time before applying for Initiation.
The four vows are:
1. To adhere to a lacto-vegetarian diet.
2. To abstain from alcohol, tobacco products, habit-forming and mind-
altering drugs.
3. To lead a pure moral life while performing one’s duties in the world.
4. To practise meditation with sincerity and dedication for two and a half
hours daily, as taught at the time of Initiation.
What exactly does it mean to vow to do something? Is it the same as to
promise? Yes. When we vow to do something, we have given our word, we
are making a firm commitment to do it. There is an old saying, “My word
is my honour.” I will not break this promise; you can believe me because I
am giving you my word, my vow, as an honourable, trustworthy person.
Doesn’t the Master give his “word” to us – in the same sense – when he
promises that if we do our best to reach him at the eye centre in our daily
meditation practice, he will take us home to God to be with God forever?
The Master gives us his word (with a small “w”) in the form of a
promise, a vow, a commitment that he will take us home with him. And,
he gives us the means to make that journey by giving us his Word (with a
capital “W”) by connecting us – our souls – to the Shabd, the Word, that
inner creative power that is Sound and Light and that created and sustains
all that we see and all that we do not see.
Maharaj Sawan Singh, in Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. V, explains
something about this Word, this Shabd:
The Shabd or divine music is the perfect Master. The Shabd is
indistinguishable from the Supreme Lord. It is a conscious current of that
great power which created the universe and which fully pervades it. All the
universe emanated from this Shabd.

May / June 2020 23

 The Shabd is the true form of the Master. The physical form of the
Master is the physical emanation of that power; he gives us the teachings;
he encourages us on the path; he initiates us. But it is his inner Shabd form
that connects our souls to his Word, his Nam. The Master promises us the
liberation of our soul. He gives us his Word. And in turn, we promise to
meditate. We give him our word.
Our word is our bond, our promise, our commitment. By signing the
“Application for Initiation” form, we are entering into the most important
“contract” of our lives. The Seekers’ Guide explains:
These four vows, taken at the time of Initiation, are the most serious
commitments you will ever make. They are an internal commitment and
not a verbal or outward promise.

So this commitment is much more than saying aloud, “Yes, I will follow
the four vows.” Commitment involves dedicating ourselves to the Master
and the path, wholeheartedly, single-mindedly, and with enthusiasm,
diligence, resolve, persistence, tenacity, and drive.
When we commit to the Master and the path, we are all in and we don’t
give up ever – no matter what. We march on with resilience and persever-
ance through our karmas, never forgetting for a second why we are here
and what our goal is. We keep on going, doing our simran and bhajan
every day, every day, every day.
Until one day, we don’t.
What happens if, after Initiation, we don’t honour our commitment,
we don’t keep our word; we break our vows? In the context of a worldly
contract, there are tangible and often painful consequences if we break our
word: we lose money, a job, our home; we may even be sued. Not so with
the Master’s contract: if we break our internal contract with him, we waste
the opportunity to liberate our souls from bondage to eternal freedom.
We lose the opportunity to return to our source. Instead, we may be
reborn again into another life – another set of karmas, ups and downs,
pains and sorrows. A life that could be more of what we have right now, or
perhaps even worse. There are no guarantees that our next life will be better.
Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh in Divine Light points out:

24 Spiritual Link
 The one thing not attainable in any other form of life is God-realization.
This privilege and capacity has been given exclusively to the human
species. If once we let this opportunity slip by, there is no knowing when
again we shall get it or whether we shall get it at all.
The Masters tell us that not everyone is given this opportunity; not
everyone is meant to find this path in this lifetime. It is extremely good
karma that the Master has found us and offered this deal to us. He says,
don’t let this opportunity pass you by; for what are you waiting?
Maharaj Charan Singh says:
If you want to live out the brief span of your life in this body in peace and
happiness, if you want to return to the Lord, there is only one way: engage
in the practice of the Word. Apart from meditation on the Word, there is
no other method or technique.
Spiritual Discourses, Vol. II

The Master is saying: Engage in the practice of the Word; do your

meditation. This meditation will enable us to be happy now in this very
lifetime and to free our soul so that it can fly home with the Master.
Maharaj Charan Singh explains in Light on Sant Mat:
We only have to do our duty and may thoroughly rest assured that the
Master will do his duty; that is, he will take us at the proper time. All that
is necessary is that we turn our back to the world and face the Master. He
is always there to receive and welcome us with open arms.

Master says to leave the world behind, meaning, try to detach your
focus from the world. It will never give permanent happiness. Turn your
back on the world and follow me, practise the Word, do your meditation,
and be happy, not just now but forever.
The Seekers’ Guide clearly states:
You are strongly advised to search your heart sincerely before applying
for Initiation to make sure that you thoroughly understand these
commitments, and that you are willing and able to live up to them.

May / June 2020 25

Masters Work Hard and So Must We
When we look at the lives of the spiritual Masters, one fact that stands
out: they work tirelessly to carry out their mission. The dedication of the
Masters can be seen in their relentless schedules – working from early in
the morning until late at night and frequently travelling, sometimes for
months at a time. Masters travel far and wide to share their teachings with
seekers and satsangis. Maharaj Sawan Singh explains the purpose of the
Masters’ frequent travels in With the Three Masters, Vol. II:
Whenever Hazur goes somewhere, he has three aims in mind: to tell the
people about Nam and the teachings of Sant Mat, to increase love amongst
satsangis and initiate seekers, and to make sure that in his absence they
get together for satsang once in a while so that their bhakti remains intact
and new seekers get a chance to learn about Sant Mat.

Masters are fully dedicated to their mission, but they also have a
human body and physical limitations. While undertaking their spiritual
seva, Masters are also subject to the human condition and karma. They
too are subject to fatigue and illness. Yet they continue to carry out their
seva in spite of physical limitations. When we consider the dedication
the Master shows toward his disciples, it may also be important for
us to appreciate how hard he works on the physical plane. Knowing
this, perhaps we will be more motivated to participate in a reciprocal
relationship and do the work he has asked us to do. This is a matter that
is difficult to fully comprehend because on one level the Masters are
above suffering. In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I, a questioner asks, “Then
why should a Master suffer from any disease, or be unwell, physically?”
Hazur answers:
We feel that they are suffering physically, from a health point of view.
Actually, they are above the cycle of karmas and can clear any karma.…
So we may think they are suffering. Really, the soul is not at all bothered
with what the body is going through.

Yet, on the physical level, the body definitely has limitations. In the
diary, With the Three Masters, Vol. II, we are given a glimpse of the

26 Spiritual Link
demands on the Great Master and the effect of those demands on his
health. In entries dated August and September 1945, the author writes:
During the night, at about 3am, Hazur developed a stomach problem and
could not sleep. He spent the whole night sitting up.… Hazur may have
become ill because of stress. On the 23rd, he travelled from Kalu ki Bar all
the way to Amritsar. On the way, people insisted that he give satsang.…
The second satsang was a long one and Hazur became too tired even to
sleep. In the morning, one of his wisdom teeth started to hurt. We advised
him to have the tooth extracted, but in the evening he preferred to go to
satsang instead and spent the night in pain.… This kind of hard work is
responsible for his poor health.

The Master takes his seva seriously and works resolutely and tirelessly
for our benefit. He travels all over the world, gives satsang, patiently
answers questions, gives interviews, oversees the management of the Dera
and the satsang centres across the world, and much, much more.
Master’s hard work is for one purpose – to bring us the teachings and
to inspire us to experience the teachings in our own lives through our
meditation. Masters show us how to live a spiritual life while in this limited,
temporary body that is subject to fatigue, disease, decay and death. And
with that understanding we can similarly dedicate ourselves, with our
utmost effort, to our most important work – to sit for two and one-half
hours a day in meditation and to live a Sant Mat way of life. That is the only
“work” he asks of us. That work is our duty as human beings. By devoting
ourselves to that work, we discover the purpose of our human life.
In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I, Hazur says:
Don’t worry about the suffering of the Master. Let him play his own role.
We have to play our own role. When a tree doesn’t yield any fruit, is the
gardener happy? Doesn’t he suffer so that the tree can yield fruit? He feeds
it all sorts of nutrients, he waters it and does all sorts of things with that
tree. He wants the tree to yield fruit because he has planted it. He has
aligned himself with the tree.

Master has “aligned himself ” with us. Let’s do our work with love and
determination, inspired by the tireless dedication of our Master.

May / June 2020 27

Stillness
The sixteenth-century Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal wrote, “All men’s
miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” This
observation still holds true today, perhaps even more so in this hectic
21st-century environment. Masters and saints encourage us to sit alone
quietly and contemplate.
Why do we find it difficult to sit quietly alone in the corner of our
house for our daily silent prayer, our meditation? When we sit for medita-
tion, many of us are faced with endless chatter in our minds, rather than
the experience of stillness. The mind distracts us, and the senses pull
us toward outer, materialistic attachments with the result that we grow
increasingly unaware of our true nature of calm and peace.
Saints come to awaken us. They ask us to consider the purpose of our
lives. When we listen to their teachings, we begin to stop the continual
chatter of the mind long enough to ask: what do we want out of our lives,
and what are we going to do about it? In answering these questions, we
first need to determine whether we are looking towards the creation or to
our Creator to achieve our goals. Each one of us has to search deep within
ourselves to understand what we value most. Saints guide us to look
inward and to become aware of our true selves.
Mystics explain that the source of creation is within each one of us.
They tell us that the divine Shabd is present in every pore of our bodies
and every part of creation. That spiritual treasure is within each one of us
in equal measure. So, what is missing? The consistent application of the
meditation technique, which the Master has bestowed on us at the time of
initiation. Through initiation, the Master has given us a new direction, and
we have to follow it to change our life.
Meditation will raise our consciousness. Over time, through self-sur-
render and devotion to Nam, we grow spiritually, without which we can
neither know the Creator nor comprehend his qualities. We must commit
to the daily practice of meditation to raise our consciousness, even when
the meditation is a struggle. When we do this, our higher, finer qualities
emerge, and we eventually rise above the chattering mind and the outer
influences of the world. Meditation changes our focus, shapes our beliefs

28 Spiritual Link
and our thoughts, and ultimately transforms us. The saint Eknath said in
Many Voices, One Song, “The mind has one great gift: if it takes hold of
spirituality, salvation becomes its slave.” The saints show us the way to still
our minds and break away from old habits and deep attachments. From
their own inner experience, they have realized the Divine. They give us the
same technique to reach our spiritual home and fulfil our destiny. They
have given us the compass; they point our direction inward. Saints have
given us the encouragement to put in the effort to do our daily meditation,
and most importantly, they create a love for the Lord within us. Ultimately
it’s that love that becomes our focus, eliminates attachments, and stills our
mind. That love transforms us and is the greatest reward. Hazur says in
Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II:
You are meditating because you are in love with him, you want to become
one with him. A lover never loves because he wants the wages of his love. If
a lover wants the wages of his love, he is not a good lover at all.

With the help of our spiritual teacher and our meditation, we develop
true love, and in that love, we enjoy the inner stillness in which we
eventually experience what the saints mean when they quote Psalm 46:10
from the Bible, “Be still and know that I am God.”

May / June 2020 29

Coming to Terms with Ourselves
Saints want us to be kind to others and ourselves, to accept our very messy
humanity while we struggle to be good and to become one with God.
Coming to terms with ourselves, being at peace with ourselves means
accepting ourselves but wanting to improve. Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh
tells us in Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III, “Your attitude towards yourself
should always be loving.… Our thoughts should be very loving and
helpful to ourselves.”
Life isn’t perfect, and neither are we. It’s easy for us to get tangled up in
our ideals and our concepts – of how we think life should be and how we
think we should be as disciples. We need to have a practical approach to
life, and we do this by coming to terms with life as it is, and with ourselves
as we are.
The Masters impress upon us that this is a very high path to follow. The
saints lay before us the goal of self-realization and God-realization, under
the guidance of a living teacher who has achieved these same goals: to
realize that we are of the same essence as God. We do this by cleansing the
karmas we have been collecting for lifetimes and shedding our ego so that
we can merge with God and return to our spiritual home.
Loving and caring for the soul means bringing it back to the Father by
way of meditation. This ultimately is how we can be at peace with ourselves
and truly love the Creator. Hazur continues, “Only with the help of medita-
tion will we be able to build peace within ourselves.” But in the meantime,
Masters do not judge our failures and shortcomings. Hazur tells us:
There’s nothing to fear … because he never sits in judgment. He doesn’t
judge anybody. What is there to judge? He knows us. We are all struggling
souls, full of weaknesses.… We are all imperfect. That is why we are here.
Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III

We are asked simply to do our best, despite our shortcomings and

failings. Recognizing our helplessness is the key to coming to terms with
ourselves. We want to be good, we try to be good, and we fail over and over
again. Eventually, we have to acknowledge that we didn’t come into this
world with a clean slate. Our karmas have determined the circumstances of

30 Spiritual Link
our lives – family background, challenges, strengths, weaknesses, personal-
ity, intellect. We may have a sweet and kind disposition, and then maybe
we have to learn how to assert ourselves, or we may have a depressed and
defensive disposition, and we may need to learn how to be more positive
and how to trust other people and trust the Master. We’re different from
one another, with different strengths and weaknesses, and we are also
alike – struggling souls wanting to reunite with our source. We all have our
individual karmic journey and relationship with the Master.
We will get what the Lord wants to give us. When it is time for us to go
back to him, he will pull us. However, we have to put in our absolute best
effort to overcome our weaknesses. But sometimes our efforts seem to fail.
Being so imperfect helps us to realize how dependent we are on the Lord’s
grace. We become humbled. Isn’t that what Sant Mat is all about? To lose
our ego, to realize that we are nothing, and he is everything? We have no
choice but to lean on the Father – the Master, the Shabd – when we realize
how small we are and how powerful he is.
The Master does not ask us to be perfect. He asks us to keep trying, to
do our bhajan and simran and pick ourselves up after we fall and begin
again. The Masters impress on us that the Lord is with us and loves us,
regardless of our behaviour, how bad we think we are or how dark we may
feel. Hazur wrote to one disciple, “We should never lose heart when we
have pitfalls or when we have fallen or think that we are being driven from
the path. He never leaves us.”
The Master has initiated us. He wants us to go back to the Father more
than we do. Coming to terms with our imperfections is a way for us to
keep moving forward. The Masters tell us we need to go with the flow, to
accept what he gives. Then we can relax and do what will help us most –
our meditation. If we hate ourselves, we’ll never be able to love the Master
or anyone genuinely. We won’t be able to meditate, to transform ourselves.
When we practice kindness toward ourselves, we learn how to be kind
to others. We unlock a softness in ourselves so that we can become more
receptive to the Master’s love and grace.
Coming to terms with ourselves, practicing kindness toward ourselves,
relaxing with our brokenness, paradoxically makes us stronger, more able
to withstand the storms of life. As Ernest Hemingway wrote in his novel

May / June 2020 31

A Farewell to Arms, “The world breaks everybody, and afterward many
are strong at the broken places.” We must face life with all its ups and
downs. Strengthening ourselves through adversity helps build our faith
and deepens our longing for the real love that is within. Hazur tells us in
Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III:
Trust your own self, not anybody else. You must develop your
consciousness to that level where you are facing yourself, where you can
stand in any situation, stand on the path, and nobody can shake you.
You must develop and build that trust within yourself. We have a karmic
relationship with people, and we can’t trust anyone. Everybody is selfish,
everybody has their own way of dealing with us, and there is always a
string behind us. So we should know what we want, where we stand and
how to be. We must build that confidence within ourselves and develop
that confidence by meditation. We must build faith in ourselves.

This is a very powerful statement about how to be in the world, how to

approach life, and how to approach ourselves. At first, it might seem harsh.
Don’t trust anyone; everyone is selfish; relationships are need-based. It
sometimes takes us a lifetime to realize this and to accept it. Once we
accept this fact of life – that all relationships are karmic, need-based, and
impermanent – we’re free. We no longer tie our happiness to what other
people can give us or do for us. The people in our lives come and go, and
we learn to accept that. No one belongs to us, and we don’t belong to
anyone. Then only can we build that confidence, strength, and faith in
ourselves through meditation – it’s the only way.
All we have to do is try. We need not be perfect disciples. We simply
need to follow the tenets of the path and direct our efforts inward. We
need to let go and lean inside. The saints tell us not to have expectations
in our meditation. We should just experience the darkness and silence, or
whatever we’re experiencing, and then let go.
We will be truly awake when we still our minds, raise our conscious-
ness, and contact the Shabd within. That will happen when he wills it.
In the meantime, we can just relax and enjoy our weird, unfathomable,
ordinary lives. Because we’re almost home.

32 Spiritual Link
Simply Put
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.
The expression “out of the mouths of babes” certainly rings true with this
simple nursery rhyme of unknown origin. Who knew that this well-loved
song many of us happily sang over and over in our childhood contained a
“divine” message for living our lives?
We have been told we need to be as simple as a child. We need to trust,
be enthusiastic, wake up every day expecting the best, and doing our best.
If we take this song, line by line we will see Master’s teachings in an
uncomplicated way.
Row, row, row – Meditate, meditate, meditate. Just like rowing a boat,
meditation is the hard, constant work necessary to reach our goal. It can
be tiring but will make us stronger and with each stroke, or round of
simran – repetition of the five holy names – we are proceeding closer to
our destination, which is the eye centre. When we can, we need to put all
our effort into this meditation practice. If we stop this rowing or repeti-
tion, we cannot move forward. Of course, rowing in calm waters is a lot
less strenuous than when the water is wavy or choppy. Our meditation will
help to still our mind or calm the water, so to speak.
Your boat – Our life is unique. There is no one else like us because we
all carry our own individual karmic load. Only our meditation and a true
Master can help rid us of this burden and free us from this body and the
cycle of birth and death so we may travel home to the Lord.
Gently down the stream – Go with the flow. No amount of planning
or maneuvering will change our destiny one bit. Our karma has to be gone
through. It is our attitude we can change by being positive and upbeat no
matter what happens.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily – As Hazur lovingly advises us in
Die to Live, “Live a simple, happy and relaxed life.”
Life is but a dream – As we have been told, we are spiritual beings
going through a human experience. Baba Jaimal Singh reminds us

May / June 2020 33

of this in Spiritual Letters by saying, “Always keep in mind that the
world is unreal.”
Sometimes we get a day when getting up to meditate seems especially
hard because we feel too tired or are too wound up from the ups and
downs of life. Maybe remembering this happy little song at those times
will help us to overcome the mind’s excuses for not meditating.
When a newly published Sant Mat book becomes available we can’t
wait to read it. Are we expecting something new or different from what
we have already read? Hazur has said that whether we read a whole book,
one page or just one word, the message is still the same. Every mystic’s
teaching is the same and will never be different, just as this little song has
no need to be altered or added to. The truth is the truth, and sometimes
the less said the better.
We are no longer children, but we can greatly benefit from being
childlike in how we proceed on this path. We should do what our Master
advises, knowing he loves us and wants nothing but the best for us. By
doing our meditation we can be happy everyday, knowing we are rowing
to shore where our true home is and where we will ever be God’s children.
As always, we can take comfort in Hazur’s words in Spiritual Discourses,
Vol. I, “The devotee is the Lord’s child.”

34 Spiritual Link
Being Carefree
Master watches over us like a loving parent caring for and protecting
his child. Maharaj Charan Singh compares this to the mother, who
continually keeps an eye on her baby while she goes about her business.
As long as the baby is content and playing with toys, she lets the child
play; but when the baby tires of the toys and notices his mother’s
absence, he begins to cry. Then the mother goes to the child, picks him
up, and comforts him. The child only thinks about his mother when he
grows tired of the toys, but the mother is always watching the child even
though the child is unaware of the mother’s presence. She cannot be
indifferent to him.
We have an even stronger connection with the Lord. The Lord is never
unmindful of us for even a second. We are never alone. When we sense
Master’s loving presence, we know that we are safe and secure and that
he is watching, guiding, and protecting us at every step. When we realize
that the Lord is watching over us like the mother and her baby, then our
behaviour changes. We begin to behave so that he will like what he sees,
and we will win his favour.
Yet, there are times when we forget that the Master is watching over
us, and cares and worries take control of our mind. Stressful situations
arise, and we can easily forget him. The Master encourages us to remain
positive and to refrain from fear even in stressful situations. Perhaps we
first experienced this feeling of separation when we left our true home
and identified ourselves as separate beings in the creation.
Fear is very different from love. In love, we feel unity with the Lord;
in fear, we act as if we are separate from him. Love is the only reality.
Saints assure us that love is our inherent nature. It is a spark of God that
is placed within us when he created us. The remedy for fear is love.
Dr. Gerald Jampolsky writes in Love is Letting Go of Fear:
“To give is to receive” this is the law of Love. Under this law, when we give
our Love away to others we gain, and whatever we give we simultaneously
receive. The law of Love is based on abundance; we are completely filled
with Love all the time, and our supply is always full and running over.

May / June 2020 35

 When we give our Love unconditionally to others with no expectations of
return, the Love within us extends, expands, and joins. So by giving our
Love away, we increase the Love within us, and everyone gains.
Master’s love flowing through us detaches us from all the shadows
of life – all that we fear or find hard or difficult to bear – and makes
us carefree. Spiritual love is our means of rising above the false, dense
nature of maya. In this love, we find abundance. Rather than feeling that
something is lacking, we realize our unity with the Lord within us.
On the spiritual path, we demonstrate and grow our love by doing our
meditation. Meditation is essential for us to learn to let go and become
carefree. We don’t know what’s best, but he does. As we evolve spiritually,
we learn to trust him. When we faithfully do our spiritual work – our
meditation – we realize that Master is the one in charge, and he will get
things done according to what is best for our spiritual development. We
must devote our time to meditation and learn to let go of the world and
its problems. Hazur states in Legacy of Love, “If you give your problem to
the Master, then there’s no problem. We give it to him to solve it – but we
remain obsessed with the problem. That is not giving it to the Master.”
Over time, we learn to trust in the Divine and to give up our obses-
sions, worries, and cares. When we truly give our problems to him,
surrender ourselves to him, then our problems become his, not ours, and
no matter how dire the situation, we can be at peace with whatever results
occur. In life we neglect many things – why not forget to worry? Instead
of worrying, we can do simran and remember Master with love and faith.
This attitude, born of spiritual awareness, will make us carefree and bring
peace. The Master knows what we need. We can leave the results to him
and focus on doing our best with faith and trust.
Paltu explains so beautifully in his poem “The Watchman,” how
disciples become carefree when we develop the awareness that the Lord is
always watching over us.
Paltu sleeps carefree –
the Lord himself is his watchman.…
Stretched full length, he sleeps relaxed;
at his sight, his enemies flee.

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 When the Lord himself stands guard,
who can harm a hair on Paltu’s head?
Unconcerned am I– what is mine is his;
it’s for him now to take care of me.
I have no further worries;
all my cares are now on his shoulders.
Not for a moment does he forget me –
he is in touch with me at all times.
One who has passed on his burden to the Lord
and cares not what others think,
Sleeps, O Paltu, carefree,
for the Lord himself is his watchman.
How fortunate are to have a true Master to watch over, teach,
and guide us every step of the way. By following his instructions, we
become carefree.

May / June 2020 37

Investment Research
Let’s do some investment research. When a soul comes into this world,
an account has already been opened in its name with the Bank of Karma.
This investment account is referred to as a Karmic Account. Saving there
is not a good deal.
The terms of our investment are:
• 0% interest on all transactions in the account – we will get back only
what we put in.
• Overdraft instantly available, get money now – pay later.
• No age limit, no references required, and no credit check – after all,
we’ve been banking here since the beginning of creation.
• There is one statement per lifetime – issued at death, paid in full.
• The bank’s motto: “The only return we guarantee will be yours.”
We need to open a much different type of account if we want to achieve
truly remarkable investment results. Obtaining such an account is very
difficult because we cannot find it or choose it ourselves – it chooses us!
As with all accounts, this one has certain conditions that we must fulfil. To
open this account and achieve the desired investment results, we need to
find an expert financier and follow his advice, including to:
1. Eat a lacto-vegetarian diet.
2. Abstain from tobacco and all intoxicants, including alcohol and
recreational drugs.
3. Live a clean, moral life, supporting oneself by honest means.
4. Meditate for at least two and one-half hours daily. Because this is a
long-term (lifelong) high-interest account, it requires that we make
regular payments of time and attention every day for the rest of
our life.
If we commit to these basic principles, the expert financier promises
the following:
• He will transfer our existing account with the Bank of Karma to the
new account so that all settlements, whether debits or credits, are
paid in full within the shortest possible time.

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 • He will enrol us in the greatest of investment programmes ever
devised: simran, dhyan, and bhajan.
• Whatever we invest, he will multiply from his inexhaustible wealth.
It is at the benefactor’s discretion how he manages the account. He will
decide how much of our wealth will be available to us in our lifetime – if at
all. However, he guarantees on our behalf to keep it safe for us at the time
of death.
How do we invest in this account? By following the Masters’ teachings
and integrating them into our very being and, most importantly, by
focusing our attention within and attaching it to the Audible Life Stream,
the Shabd or Nam. This is a direct connection the Lord has kept within
every one of us. It has always been within us since time immemorial,
and yet we are ignorant of it. To help attach us to it, the Master tells us in
which direction to point our lives and how to set our spiritual compass.
He encourages us to look at the priorities we have in life and asks that we
consider whether our actions reflect those lofty goals.
By following the Master’s advice, we achieve investment returns that are
literally out of this world.

May / June 2020 39

Who We Really Are
We live in a realm of duality characterized by polar opposites. As a
result, we all experience ups and downs in our lives according to our
karmas. Happiness and sorrow, health and disease, wealth and poverty,
are just a few of the ways these karmas manifest. We also experience
duality within ourselves: generosity and selfishness, love and hate,
tolerance and anger. As a result, we are continually struggling against
the light and dark aspects of our personality. Generally, we feel proud
of our positive qualities, but the negative ones are often hidden away
in secrecy. We all have secrets; some of the good ones we’ve delighted
in sharing with a trusted friend or loved one, and others we may have
kept to ourselves out of shame and the fear of being judged. For those
of us raised in a religious tradition that offered a sacramental confession
(for example, Catholicism), we were given a safe haven to share those
personal secrets that brought us shame. In so doing, we obtained
absolution and were relieved of our guilt, at least temporarily.
Research seems to indicate a high correlation between keeping our
shameful past to ourselves and substance abuse, depression, and violent
behaviour. But, as one expert put it in a TED talk, “If you put shame in a
Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and
judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse
it with empathy, it can’t survive.”
The empathy that we need to recover from the toxic shame of our past
can only come from someone who can see our true essence and who does
not judge us for the actions we have performed in going through our
karmas. Such a one is the Master.
When we first come to the path, many of us are in such a state of
disrepair that even while following the vows and attending to our
meditation, we can feel as if we are struggling aimlessly and alone, trying
to make sense of a creation that – from our limited perspective – often
makes no sense at all. This confusion is mostly the result of not knowing
our real selves. However, little by little, the Master reveals to us that we
are not our weaknesses or our shame. We are, in reality, souls – pure
drops from the ocean of the Divine, sparks of the Creator himself.

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It is our meditation that will restore to us the awareness of who we truly
are. These flawed minds, bodies, and personalities are simply coverings
that hide our Divine essence. As we continue to practice our meditation,
we will gradually be able to let go of all we are not and discover who we
actually are. Being blessed with a human birth allows us to find out who
we really are.
In from self to Shabd, we read about how we are stuck in identification
with our personality. The author states:
While the true Master is identified with Shabd, the disciple is identified
with his body and personality, and therein lies the only difference between
the spiritual Master and the disciple.

The author continues:

Like most of us, the disciple is aware only of duality. We view ourselves
in the context of our relationships, the company we keep, the roles we
perform, the skills or possessions we have, our social status, gender, and
so forth. These are just some of the ingredients that we have assembled to
make up the identity of our human experience.… The identity we perceive
as our ‘real self ’ is the ultimate illusion we have to transcend in order to
make conscious contact with the melody of Shabd.

We make progress toward transcending that illusion every time we sit

in meditation or repeat our simran throughout the day. Little by little, the
Master chips away at our illusory sense of who we are and prepares us to
become conscious of all that we truly are.
In Living Meditation, the author explains:
We don’t lose the sense of who we are by merging with the ocean of
consciousness. On the contrary, we become who we really are, which
is pure consciousness, perfect happiness, limitless love. What is this
personality that we are so afraid to lose? What sense does it make that
we remain satisfied with this dark world, separated from our true essence
when our possibilities are infinite? Let us become the ocean. Let us make
the effort to avoid being bottled up again. Let us strive to merge back into
Shabd. That is who we really are.

May / June 2020 41

 To reach and merge back into the Shabd through following the Master’s
instructions is our primary responsibility in this life. All else is secondary.
If we can appreciate this fact, we will place our meditation practice first
and foremost in our lives with full faith that the Master will take care
of all the rest. When we harbor secrets or regrets of the past or worry
about what the future holds in store for us, we squander the attention
that should, instead, be focused on our simran. It is the simran that will
ultimately put us in touch with the Shabd, and the Shabd is the only power
that will allow us to rise above the distractions stemming from thinking
about the past or the future.
In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III, Maharaj Charan Singh advises:
We’ll be able to get rid of our worries with a practical approach. So attend
to meditation. When your mind is attached to the Shabd and Nam
within, then you don’t think about the past or worry about the future.
It is all the mind, whether it is coming down to the senses and worrying
about worldly problems or attached to the Shabd and going up. So when
you positively put your mind in touch with the light and sound within,
automatically you cease worrying. You get that bliss and peace and
happiness within yourself.
And you are training yourself. Meditation trains you to accept what
is in your destiny, if not cheerfully, then at least with a smile. That is the
purpose of meditation. Unnecessarily brooding over the past and worrying
about the future is not going to solve any problem at all. So we must live
in the present.… We should plan for a day and then live it thoroughly and
happily, and attend to our meditation. That is the only way one can get
out of these worldly worries and worldly problems.

Ultimately, we will be freed from all the illusions that have broken our
hearts and discover the greatest secret of all – that we are, and always have
been, under the unfailing guidance and protection of a true living Master
and that he will see us back to our eternal home.

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BOOK REVIEW
When Things Fall Apart:
Heart Advice for Difficult Times
By Pema Chodron
Publisher: Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN: 1-57062-344-9

Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, applies the classic teachings of

Buddhism in straightforward language that can be easily understood and
practically applied in a contemporary context. When Things Fall Apart is a
compilation of talks that Chodron gave from 1987–1994 on the concept of
maitri or loving-kindness toward oneself. By developing maitri, she says,
we can awaken a “fearlessly compassionate attitude toward our own pain
and the pain of others.”
In many of these talks Chodron encourages us to step into the
unknown and relax in what she calls the “groundlessness” of our situation.
She describes groundlessness as a point in our lives when, whether we want
to or not, we let go of our beliefs, opinions, and concepts – when everything
that we have held onto falls apart. “When things fall apart and we’re on
the verge of we know not what, the test for each of us is to stay on that
brink and not concretize.” By this she means not latching onto another set
of concepts and beliefs when we experience uncertainty, but courageously
staying with the experience of not knowing. She quotes her own spiritual
teacher as saying: “Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news”
because of the opportunity it provides for growth.
The basic human struggle that the book addresses is what we do when
we are “nailed by life.” She says that we continually find ourselves coming
to a point in life in which we feel pressured and want to escape from our
circumstances. She calls this being “squeezed.” She describes some of the
ways we try to escape: seeking pleasure, blaming others, holding tightly
to our opinions and self-concept, closing ourselves off, and even trying
to make meditation an escape from reality. Chodron quotes her first
meditation instructor as saying, “Please don’t go away from here thinking
that meditation is a vacation from irritation.”

May / June 2020 43

 Chodron explains that this place of being “squeezed” is where we
experience the most growth if we don’t run away from it. If we stay with
it, we will have to let go of rigid concepts and beliefs, and “all our usual
schemes fall apart.” This is when the edges of our personalities soften, we
become more tender and open, and we can in turn feel more compassion
for others who have the same human experience. “This place of the squeeze
is the very point in our meditation where we can really learn something.”
She says that this is where we “begin to learn the meaning behind the
concepts and the words.”
We continually find ourselves in that squeeze.… We liked meditation and
the teachings when we felt inspired and in touch with ourselves and on
the right path. But what about when it begins to feel like a burden, like
we made the wrong choice and it’s not living up to our expectations at all?

A sense of “squeeze” may come from false expectations we hold

– whether about our practice, fellow seekers, or the path we follow –
expectations that leave us unsatisfied and frustrated. Chodron encourages
us to stay with these difficult experiences because they can be a place of
deep learning.
So how do we relate to that squeeze? Somehow, someone finally needs to
encourage us to be inquisitive about this unknown territory and about
the unanswerable question of what’s going to happen next.… In that
awkward, ambiguous moment is our own wisdom mind. Right there in
the uncertainty of everyday chaos is our own wisdom mind.

Central to Chodron’s teachings is the counterintuitive tonglen

meditation practice in which the practitioner breathes in the emotions and
thoughts associated with a painful experience visualizing it as hot, dark
and heavy, and breathes out a feeling of cool, bright light. This correlates
with a short saying quoted often in the book, “Use what seems like poison
as medicine,” which means to use one’s own personal suffering as a path
toward compassion for others. Chodron explains that, by taking in the pain
and sending out spaciousness and relief, the practice of tonglen challenges
our habitual reactions. By overcoming the fear of suffering, the tightness

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in the heart dissolves, it becomes softened and purified, and one can then
become more open and compassionate.
People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how we
usually hold ourselves together.… The practice dissolves the walls we’ve
built around our hearts. It dissolves the layers of self-protection we’ve
tried so hard to create. In Buddhist language, one would say that it
dissolves the fixation and clinging of the ego. Tonglen reverses the usual
logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure. In the process we become
liberated from very ancient patterns of selfishness.

The other meditation practice described in the book is the Shamatha-

Vipashyana instruction. Shamatha is a stilled and stabilized state of mind,
or “calm abiding,” and Vipashyana is a discerning and perceptive state of
mind or “insight.” Chodron conveys the basic instruction on how one
develops these qualities in formal meditation: “When we sit down to
meditate, whatever arises in our minds we look at directly, call it ‘thinking,’
and go back to the simplicity and immediacy of the breath.… Whatever
arises, we can look at with a non-judgmental attitude.” She says that this
meditation practice is a way to stop fighting with ourselves, and to stop
struggling with our circumstances, emotions, and moods. She goes on to
explain, “Whatever or whoever arises, train again and again in looking at it
and seeing it for what it is without calling it names, without hurling rocks,
without averting your eyes.” She says that when difficult thoughts arise, they
should not be rejected but simply acknowledged as “thinking” and let go.
Chodron recommends doing meditation daily. Among its other
advantages, daily meditation “sows the seeds that enable us to be more
awake in the midst of everyday chaos.” We learn to refrain from acting on
the impulses of the “small mind” so that we don’t build up reactiveness to
life’s challenges. We can “pause for a moment, … not just impulsively do the
same thing again and again. It’s a transformative experience to simply pause
instead of immediately filling up the space.”
In meditation this pause appears as a space or a silent gap in the noisy
chattering of the mind.

May / June 2020 45

 In Nepal the dogs bark all night long. Every twenty minutes or so, they all
stop at once, and there is an experience of immense relief and stillness.
Then they all start barking again. The small mind can feel just like that.
When we first start meditating, it’s as if the dogs never stop barking at
all. After a while, there are those gaps. Discursive thoughts are rather
like wild dogs that need taming. Rather than beating them or throwing
stones, we tame them with compassion. Over and over we regard them
with the precision and kindness that allow them to gradually calm down.
Sometimes it feels like there’s much more space, with just a few yips and
yaps here and there.

Throughout the book, Pema Chodron continually returns to the

importance of meditation, which eventually leads one to the discovery of
bodhichitta or “noble and awakened heart.”
Meditation is a totally nonviolent, nonaggressive occupation. Not filling
the space, allowing for the possibility of connecting with unconditional
openness – this provides the basis for real change.… When we cling to
thoughts and memories, we are clinging to what cannot be grasped.
When we touch these phantoms and let them go, we may discover a
space, a break in the chatter, a glimpse of open sky. This is our birthright
– the wisdom with which we were born, the vast unfolding display of
primordial richness, primordial openness, primordial wisdom itself.

Book reviews express the opinions of the reviewers and not of the publisher.

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