Question: Master, can we affect others in meditation if we are in a group meditation? For example in sending thoughts of love to each one, will they be affected?

Sant Kirpal Singh: Do you have enough to spare to be distributed to the others? If you have, then it's all right. Otherwise you will become bankrupt; you have no money in your bank or in your hand and you issue checks. If you love God – soul is of the same essence as that of God and He resides in every heart – naturally you will have love for everybody. If you have become very much charged, you need not even direct your attention, as by radiation the others will have it. By exerting you'll feel bankrupt and quit vacant. That is why I always say that I don't advocate healing. The people who are doing healing, exert. They send love, they send good thoughts, healing thoughts. They become bankrupt and exert in that way. They feel depleted, then they have to recoup.

The higher form of healing is always good. Those, who may even think of a Master can be healed. You remember, during Christ's life one lady touched the hem of His garment and was healed? (He felt and said, "Who has touched me?")

If you have money in your bank, well and good. If you have 1000 Dollar and you give checks away for 2000 Dollar, what will happen? It is a good idea to have sympathy. But if you love God – God resides in them – naturally your love will go to them. Or by radiation the others will have it. You may pray to God, "Oh God, help others". That's something else.
With the little money with you or little water in your tank, do you want to distribute it in that way? Do you follow what I am saying? It is a good idea to have good sympathies, loving thoughts, regard for others; that's all right. But don't exert. You may have good thoughts for all.

I told you the other day, in my Master's time, I used to go visiting sick people. Those who were not initiated made a show of those people. "When he comes, the sick will be relieved." It did happen so and people complained to my Master that I am showing miracles. So Master said, "No, he does not show miracles. It is the radiation that people get." Do you follow me? Such-like radiation is all right. To have good thoughts for everybody is a good idea. Pray to God to give peace to all; that's another thing. And moreover, still further. Guru Nanak, who is considered to be Word-made-flesh, prayed, "Peace be unto all the world over under Thy Will, oh God." He did not exert Himself. "Peace be unto all the world under Thy Will, oh God." Once you have become the doer, naturally you'll exert using what you have. "Under Thy Will, oh God" is the best way. So have good wishes for all. We're all brothers and sisters in God. But by radiation that Power helps (without you being the doer) and doesn't make you bankrupt. By exertion naturally you can do good to others. After that you'll feel exhausted.

A higher form of healing is wanted. By radiation let everybody be helped. If you have enough perfume within you, everybody will get it, without your wishing for it. So I'm not against good wishes for all the people over, but don't be the doer, exerting your own shoulders with the little water you have. Pray for them; that's all right.
"Sometimes a healer says when he's exhausted, he gets refilled with new power afterwards."

Only when they feel bankrupt. First they feel wanting, then they refill, not before. And if they do not refill, then? The Masters used to heal by radiation always. Those who thought of Him were healed. That's the safer way.

Once someone wrote to me from France, "I hear you are not in good health. I will heal you from here." I told him, "You cannot do it." And I explained why: "A weaker man will be affected by you, not a stronger man." You cannot influence one who is stronger than you. You follow me? How can you affect the man who is stronger than you? You may influence the weaker. You may heal others who are weaker in will than you. So I wrote to him that he would not be able to do it. He tried with all his powers but could do nothing. You can say, "Oh Master, oh God, help!" - That's another thing.

It once happened in my life that some people – I need not mention who –  engaged certain people, giving them all the money they wanted to sit at midnight in the outer open places to do harm to me  (through their thoughts). It can be done; but their efforts did not affect me.

Once I was travelling on a train, and a man came up who was reading others' thoughts. He read one, two, three, four. I was also sitting in that compartment on the train. He told me to keep something in my mind and he would read it. "You cannot do it", I told him. (This was long, long before I met my Master.) But he insisted and others also insisted that I keep something in my mind so that he could read it. "All right", I agreed, "Do it." He tried, but could not. He said, "I failed today."

So the stronger man can affect others, the weaker man cannot. On the weaker you can have some effect. All the same, this is no spirituality. These supernatural powers came up by concentration, but if you are engaged in them, your higher power is stopped. That is not spirituality. Spirituality involves no spiritism, no spiritualism, no hypnotism, and no mesmerism. It is purely a matter of self-analysis, rising above body-consciousness, to know oneself and to know God.

On the way many powers will come up, but to engage in them is a heinous crime. You'll retard your progress. Moreover, the karmic law is very inexorable. You will have to suffer for it some day. People do every sort of thing. There was one man in London who could call the spirits, and then they would talk. Five pounds was the cost of the admission ticket. Someone said, "All right, let us go and see. We'll pay." We went. All lights were turned off. It was about nine or ten at night. It was pitch dark. He wanted to exert, but nothing could be done. First he sighed, then again he sighed and after about half an hour or so, nothing happened. Ultimately he said, "Well, the atmosphere is not good, so I'm sorry, this cannot be done now." He did not charge us a fee. It (talking with spirits) can happen, surely. What was the trick? Now I will tell you. He could speak, very like a child, himself. So he used to speak himself, and people considered it to be a spirit. I have found that there is black marketing outside, but there is more black marketing in religious circles. They act and pose.

A magician came to a morning meditation sitting in Chicago during my first world-tour. He was a first class magician from Europe, especially invited to America with the purpose to make me fail. He said, "You are going to give me a sitting, am I permitted to sit?" "Yes, come on." I gave a sitting. He was sitting at the side, exerting all his work against me. Nothing happened, but he in return fell down, headlong down, unconscious. They had to revive him in my arms, put him into bed and solace him. "Well, never mind, you will be all right. Don't worry." Reaction was there.

When a wave comes and hits a stone wall, the wave will recede. If there is sand there, then that wave will permeate. So as a reaction, he fell down unconscious. He was a follower of the other party, especially engaged for that purpose. I treated him, giving him medicine, so that he would be all right. Then he said to the whole gathering over there, "I have seen for the first time the love of Christ. What I was being told was all wrong." He passed away. His wife sends me letters even now.

The spiritual people don't want all of these things. What is the joy of reading your minds, reading this and that thing and influencing others? What is there – some contact with the lower grovelling souls who have left the body, little contact with the higher soul. This is only one side of the show. If you engage your attention thus, your further progress is retarded. So I have encountered all these things in India and outside of India. Nothing happened. My Master was with me, of course. That Power – Godpower – is with me. That is His Grace; if He leaves me, I am nothing. I don't do anything. That is the safest way.

It once happened that a homeopathic physician came to India with his wife. He was initiated by our Master (Baba Sawan Singh). People tried to influence his wife to become initiated, but she would not agree. She was a follower of a Guru from Europe. He requested me kindly to do something so that his wife might also be initiated. My Master told me to take leave for four or five days and just give time to attend to her. I asked her husband to be present when I spoke to her. The very first question she asked me was, "What brought you here to the Master?" So I explained to her for about ten minutes why I had come. "Oh, that is exactly what I want." She then asked, "Why is it that your Master does not appeal to me?" This was a very direct question. "My previous Guru used to influence me and I was affected by him", she continued. I told her to look at me for two or three minutes and then I asked if she could say other than what I wanted her to say. "No", she said. "That is why – your Guru has influenced you. You could not say anything other than what he wanted you to say. My Master does not influence anybody. He leaves it to your good will, free will and pleasure to find what is what." She did not know English; she was French speaking. "All right, if you don't follow the talk given by my Master, just simply look at Him, sweetly, attentively, nothing more. And then let me know what you find." She sat in on the talk and in the evening I asked her, "Well, how did you find my Master?" "Oh, He was very attractive, very beautiful." By radiation these things are effected not by directing your will. I told her that was why my Master did not influence her. He leaves everybody to his own free will and pleasure. If I hypnotize you people then you'll go and you will feel bankrupt. You may have something for a few minutes, but then you would be bankrupt. Then? So that is why I say there is black market outside, but there's more black market within.¹

So it is necessary to understand the higher values of life and (through that) develop (enough) power of distinction, to be able to draw the attention towards those things, that are helpful and useful on the path with the ultimate goal of self- and God-realization. We should develop receptivity for God and not for certain psychic powers, which are not of higher kind and in no way useful for attaining higher consciousness until one merges with the Infinite.²

Man must have a sincere and ceaseless yearning for the end of all ends, the goal of all goals, not content with a mere mastery of his physical and mental powers.³  The Master sets before us the goal, which is to attain complete oneness with the Lord – the One Being. We can reunite with the Source from which we once emanated, and regain our permanent abode in the Home of our Father, where joy and peace reign supreme beyond the reach of annihilation and ignorance, beyond all miseries of the troubled ocean of life.

The Kingdom of God is within us. We have to recognize the Inner Man (the spirit or soul) as the image of God, the physical body as the temple of God, in which the  Lord makes His appearance. In these living temples we have to attune our souls with God and live in closer communion with Him. Guru Nanak tells us, "Thou hast got a human birth and this is thy chances to contact God. But alas, thou art engaged in fruitless and bewildering things of life! The night (of earthly life) is nearing its end."⁴

The disciple or seeker of God should take heed, not to take certain supernatural powers, which can come up through different Yoga practices or concentration exercises, as help or even as aim on the way of self-analysis and God-realization. Even if one can attain supernatural or superhuman powers, which can come up through different Yoga practices or concentration exercises, one should never think that they are helpful or even the final aim of the way of self-realization and God-realization. Even if one can attain supernatural powers in practising certain Yoga practices and one starts to practise with these secret forces and gets deep into them, one will forget the real aim. All this will not bring us the favour of God, without which everything else is useless. So these forces become hindrances on the way to self- and God-realization. That is why one should know about their existence, their mode of action and the risks they bring.⁵

We have to learn to distinguish spirituality from spiritism and spiritualism, as spirituality is quite different from both of them. Spiritism inculcates a belief in the existence of disembodied spirits apart from matter, which are believed by those who believe in spiritism to haunt either the nether regions as ghosts or evil spirits, or even as angels or good spirits in the lower astral regions. At times, they even become interested in the individual human affairs, and for the fulfilment of long cherished but unfulfilled desire, try to seek gratification by all sort of tricks, and those who dabble in the Black Art claim and profess to exercise power over them through magical incantations. But none of the Master's disciples need bother about them, as no evil influence can come near one who is in communion with the holy Word.

Spiritualism goes one step further than spiritism. It is a belief in the survival of the human personality after physical death and the possibility of communication between the living and the dead. The advocates of spiritualism very often hold seances for getting into communication with so-called spirits. Their modus operandi is by mediumship, for they work through some sort of medium, maybe a planchette for planchette writing, a table for table rapping, or even a human being who is rendered unconscious so that the spirit called may make use of his body and communicate through it. This relationship generally works between just the physical or earth plane and the lowest sub-astral planes known as magnetic fields. The results that follow from such communications are very limited in scope, mostly unreliable and extremely harmful to the medium, who suffers a terrible loss at times by deprivation of his intelligence. The Masters of spirituality, therefore, strongly condemn the practice of spiritualism. Their contact and intercourse with the spiritual regions right to the mansion of the Lord (Sach Khand) are direct and they come and go at their sweet will and pleasure, without any let or hindrance and independent of the subjective process of mediumship. While their approach is quite normal, natural, direct, and constructive, the spiritualist on the other hand works subjectively, indirectly, and mediately through a process which is fraught with dangers and risks both to himself and to the medium. Spiritualism, apart from the knowledge of survival of spirits after death, adds little to our experience and offers nothing of substance in the way of spirituality.

The above remarks apply equally hypnosis and mesmerism, in both of which a person with a stronger willpower tries to influence those with weaker stamina by means of passes of hand or gestures coupled with a riveted attention on the subject. Spirituality, on the contrary, is the science of the soul, and consequently, it deals with all aspects of the soul, where it resides in the human body, its relationship with the body and with the mind, how it seemingly acts and reacts through and on the senses, its real nature, and how it can be separated from all its finessing adjuncts. It describes the spiritual journey with its wealth of spiritual planes and sub-planes, the spiritual powers and possibilities and their intrinsic worth. Spirituality discloses what the holy Word is and how to commune with it, tells us that the ultimate goal is self-realization and God-realization, or the union of the soul with the Oversoul, and teaches how it can be achieved by means of Surat Shabd Yoga or the Path of the Sound Current.⁶

There are many subsidiary attainments which one gets by the simple process of self-control and concentration, e.g.:
–    To understand the language of birds and beasts;
–    to know one's previous births and have foreknowledge of death;
–    to read the innermost thoughts of others;
–    to know the secret and subtle things from afar, like the planets and the stars;
–    to foretell future events;
–    to transport oneself to any place in the world;
–    to heal by touch;
–    to gain bodily perfection in form, complexion, strength and fortitude, steadiness and physical charm etc.

It is necessary here to give a word of caution regarding ‘riddhis' and ‘siddhis', or the supernatural powers that one, very often comes to acquire in the practice of yoga sadhana or yogic discipline. They are to be scrupulously avoided, as they are positive obstacles in the way of  true spiritual progress and the attainment of self-realization and God-realization, which are the aim and end of the yoga system.⁷

Most of the students devote themselves wholly and solely to the strict observance of ‘yamas' and ‘niyamas' only, and as such hardly make any headway on the Path of yoga proper, which aims at self-realization and God-realization. Those who do go ahead a little, do not get further than yogic postures (asanas, mudras, and bandhas,) and are preoccupied with body building processes and muscular development, making them the sole aim of all their endeavours. They confine themselves to the physical culture aspect of yoga, so as to defy disease, senility and an early death. All of these are but means to the higher purpose of yoga and should only be practised as such. The goal of yoga is self-realization by a regular process of self-analysis and withdrawal, so as to enable one to rise above body-consciousness into higher cosmic and super-cosmic consciousness.

True yoga is a natural process with no artifice in it. It should be readily intelligible and easy to practise. But for lack of proper teachers, well-versed in the theory and practice of yoga, it has become a burdensome thing and an intricate affair, too difficult to understand and still more difficult to practise. The result is that aspirants begin to mistake this or that branch of yoga as the ultimate, and fritter away their energy in its pursuit, content merely with the acquisition of physical or magical powers,⁸ which are often employed for winning public applause and wealth. It is not for nothing that the common man associates this yoga with men who walk on burning char-coals, swallow glass-pieces or metal blades, eat snake heads and rodents, hold back running cars, or allow themselves to be run over even by trucks or elephants. Huston Smith, in ‘The Religions of Man', has put the matter roundly: "Incredible things can be done with the body if this is what interests you and you are willing to give your life to it. But these things have little to do with enlightenment. In fact, they grow out of desire to show off, their mastery makes for pride and so is inimical to spiritual progress."⁹

Who bestows upon spirituality – which is a timeless and inner science with its own unchanging laws and varying modes of operation, with knowledge which is not static, but has developed as men have moved from lower to higher forms of yoga – he will realize that mergence with the Supreme Lord is no mere daydream or hypothetical postulate of a monastic school of philosophy, but a living possibility whose realization is the true end of human existence and whose attainment, given the right guidance, the right method and the right effort, lies within the reach of all, irrespective of age, sex, race or creed.¹⁰

¹    from "Light of Kirpal" by Sant Kirpal Singh, p. 298–301
²    free rendering of a saying of Sant Kirpal Singh
³    from "The Crown of Life" by Sant Kirpal Singh. p. 18
⁴    from "Jap Ji" by Sant Kirpal Singh, p. 108–109
⁵    free rendering of a saying of Sant Kirpal Singh
⁶    from "The Crown of Life" by Sant Kirpal Singh, p. 233–235
⁷    from "The Crown of Life" by Sant Kirpal Singh, p. 60
⁸    from "The Crown of Life" by Sant Kirpal Singh, p. 61
⁹    from "The Crown of Life" by Sant Kirpal Singh, p. 96–97
¹⁰  from "The Crown of Life” by Sant Kirpal Singh, p.18