Q. Can you tell us what is truth?
A. Truth is its truest form is the eternal performance. Spirituality and truth are therefore the essence of the Absolute. When one finds the source of truth, he finds the treasure of all treasures. The teachings of the Masters tell us that inner truth is not designed for outward show but divinely meant to reveal our real self to us and open up to us the glories which God originally placed within us.
The kingdom of God cometh not with observations; the kingdom of God is within you.
A true Master can harmoniously disclose to us a direct path to our true home. On this path we may begin our ascent within as far as we permit ourselves to go. Eventually, according to the nature and degree of our own progress, we may move up to the source of truth. From this prime focus we hear the spiritual Sound and see the perfect Light. This Light and Sound sustain the infinite universe and all the finite worlds.
To extend our capacities for receiving progressively upraising illumination may not always be easy; but the Master is patient in His wisdom, and from out of His vast spirituality His assistance remains for ever at hand until we join Him in Sach Khand, the final ever blissful home of our true spiritual being.
Q. If the disciple is on the way back to the Father and under the guidance of the living Master, why is it so difficult for him to hear the Sound Current?
A. It is the scattered attention of the initiate which does not allow him to hear the holy Sound Current. Besides, the overwhelming attachment to worldly pleasures and sense-gratification stand in the way. The living Master is Love Personified, and as such loving devotion to Him is the factor which makes for better inner contact of the audible life stream. It is rather the tendency of human mind which does not relish being chained and as such it requires some discipline to be observed for having an inner conscious contact of the celestial melody. At the outset it is indeed difficult but by regular practice the soul feels an innate affinity with the Sound Current, when inner bliss is experienced with the Grace of the Master.
Q. Does loss of life fluid in sleep retard progress?
A. It does affect spiritual progress. You should avoid looking into the eyes of the other sex and resort to the Simran of charged names all along your vacant moments or loving remembrance of the Master, or listening to the holy Sound Current if it has become audible. Such a schedule will be helpful for the eradication of carnal desires. Besides, your should take your food much earlier before retiring for sleep, so that it is well digested. Also the hands, feet and face as well as the lower portion of the rectum, should be washed with cold water before going to sleep.
Q. Please tell us something of the help which marriage partners might give one another, when both are initiates, in the matter of helping balance and harmonizing the physical, mental and emotional fields of energy of individuals so as to increase their receptivity towards Shabd. This could be very inspiring for students yet to come as well as for those already begun.
A. Marriage is a sacrament and a companion for life in weal or woe, during this earthly sojourn. It is a rare boon of the Master when both the partners in life happen to be initiates. Both of them should exhibit and inculcate a deep sense of loving cooperation and tolerance for the rights of each other. The physical, mental and emotional fields of activity should be kept under check and control lest these degrade the soul in pursuit of carnal satisfaction.
Q. To fall in sin is manly but to remain therein is devilish.
The vital sex energy should be rationally transmuted and sublimated by exercising self-restraint and chastity. The procreation of children is one of the legitimate functions of married life. The scriptures prescribe this sacred purpose as and when such a necessity arises. The couple having such disciplined lives will be an asset for spiritual progress.
Q. To what extent would intimate knowledge of planetary forces be a help towards attainment on the path of Sant Mat? We note that Master Sawan Singh gave a discourse on ‘The Twelve Seasons of Man’ and wonder if master would care to comment upon this theme in english for us.
A. Right understanding in every sphere of life is helpful if it is utilized for spiritual progress. It is not known wherefrom you have quoted this discourse as having been given by Master Sawan Singh Ji. Please quote reference to the context. He, however, gave a discourse on the twelve months of the year. It may, however, be stated for your information that in the case of those who rise above the starry sky or come under the contact of Masters who go higher than that, the planetary effects do not touch them.
Q. How can we be truthful in thought?
A. Truthfulness in thought means sincerity of purpose in various spheres of non-violence, chastity, truth, humility, etc. Untruthful thoughts would naturally mean the entertaining of opposite ideas which usually haunt the human mind through sense perception. Human eye is usually inclined to look at other’s beauty and wealth with an unchaste attitude, and this should be considered as blemish and shunned.
Q. What part does intellect play on the path?
A. Very little, where the practical side is concerned. But this does not mean that intellect is harmful to spirituality. If an intellectual man comes on this path and really gives himself up to the Master’s will, and does what he is told, then there is no better disciple for the path than he, for there he has an advantage over an ordinary practical man. And that advantage is he will be able to give out the truth to others in many ways in a language made with wellthought out words that will convince the intellectualists more easily than simple words uttered by a mere practical man.
Q. Are the scriptures of any help?
A. Truth is given everywhere in theory in all the religions of the world, but one may get lost in the various interpretations. Sacred scriptures are fine records of the spiritual experiences which the past Masters had on the godward travel. Truly speaking, the right interpretation thereof can be given by a Master who has that experience. We cannot be satisfied by merely reading of such experiences until we have the same experiences within our own self. This experience is given by a competent Master at the time of initiation, and can be developed by devoting time and attention regularly to the spiritual practices with loving devotion in a correct way.
Q. Why have women been regarded and treated throughout as inferior to men and even warned against by some spiritual teachers as the cause of temptation and downfall to men?
A. Women are regarded as inferior to men, being the weaker sex, and they are prone to temptation and, at times, are more likely to fall prey to the environments than men. The spiritual teachers who banned spiritual development of the fair sex might have attributed it to their aforesaid weakness. Both the sexes are equally a cause of temptation and the Masters do not blame either in particular.
Q. Does intellect play any part in self and God-realization?
A. Yes, intellect plays an important part in understanding the theory of the problem of self-realization. Once the theory is grasped, there is not much left for the intellect to do. Thereafter remains the practice, with heart and soul, to achieve the goal by a process of self-analysis for the science of the self is essentially practical.
Q. Can we penetrate into the beyond by intellect?
A. No. Intellect is just one of the faculties of mind, to wit, reasoning. The intellect is earth-bound and so is reasoning based on intellect. How can the less the greater comprehend or finite reason reach infinity? For what would fathom God were more than He.
The scriptures tell us in no ambiguous terms that one cannot experience the self unless the senses are subdued, the mind is disciplined and the intellect is transcended.
Q. What is intuition?
A. Intuition means immediate cognition without the aid of intellect and reasoning. Such feelings, very often arise all of a sudden, in moments of quietness. There is nothing supramental in it.
Q. What is the difference between inner experience and intuition?
A. The inner experience of the soul as is granted by the living Master at the time of initiation is direct conscious contact with holy Naam – the Divine Sound Current and Light as coming from the right side. Intuition, on the other hand, is just a comprehension without resort to reasoning or analysis.
Q. Can we be ever sure of God-realization intellectually?
A. No. God-realization is not a subject of intellect. It is a question of actual experience, beyond the pole of knowledge. All our talk of God is but inferential and at the most a matter of feelings and emotions all of which are subject to error. But seeing the inscape (with the inner eye opened) is believing, and admits of no uncertainty and scepticism.
Q. Can the living Master open the inner eye of the disciple on initiation?
A. Yes, the living Master can and does so, or how else can the disciple have an inner experience on his own? But this He does only to the extent He considers best for the neophyte. It is for the recipient to perceive and say that he has received something, and to bear testimony on what is within.
Q. Can an ascended Master help His initiates who are still on the physical plane?
A. Yes, a competent Master is a Master to His initiates for all time, and does not rest till He takes the souls to the highest pinnacle of blissful glory in Sach Khand. He is not a physical being only but Word personified, and on the higher planes acts as a Gurudev and Satguru, which terms would become meaningless if His activities were to be confined to the physical plane. If it were so, how could He take charge of the souls of the initiates on death after His passing away? A Master in essence never dies for the initiates. It is His troth to take them up to the true home of His Father, and inwardly His Light and Sound forms are permanently implanted though He may have left the earth plane.
Q. Kindly explain about the visualization of Master’s form during Simran.
A. There is hardly any need to imagine or visualize the Master’s form while engaged in Simran. Any such attempt is likely to scatter the attention. Then there is another danger in doing so. What form you conjure up, will be a make-belief, a projection of your mind and not the reality. When one is initiated the Master resides in the initiate for all time. What is already inside will automatically come in to view when you get in there fully and completely, though it may take quite some time to adjust yourself to the new surroundings, unknown before. God manifests of Himself more fully in some human form in which He is working without any visualization.
Q. Alcohol is not allowed to the initiates. Does it apply to such cases where it has to be administered under medical advice for the restoration of health?
A. A certain percentage is generally there in most of the medicinal preparations for their maintenance and there is no bar to the use of such medicines. All homeopathic medicines are prepared in alcohol. In both cases they have no intoxication effect. But to take alcohol as such for the so-called reasons of health, even when prescribed by medical men as medicine, is prohibited, for every action has a reaction, and no amount of alcohol can prolong life even by a jot or tittle when the sands of time are running out. Do you think, that alcohol can stop the process, and if not, why prolong the agony by administering deleterious substances?
Q. Kindly define nirvana relative to Buddha’s teachings.
A. Nirvana is not nihilism as is commonly believed. It is a state of being much superior to that of physical existence. It is exactly opposite to what we know of the physical life, which Buddha, the enlightened one, characterized as a life of sorrow and misery – the first of the four noble truths that dawned on him, and he according to his lights found in eightfold path of righteousness, to transform the course of life into a totally different pattern. One can well recognize what it could be – not a state of nothingness, but one of efflorescence into light.
Q. Does Lord Buddha practise or prescribe the same path of the Masters as is being revived by Sant Mat?
A. The Masters generally divide their disciples into two categories,
(1) the ordinary disciples or novices who are yet in the making stage and require a lot of discipline; and to them are given disciplinary sadhans or practices, and
(2) disciples with some grounding as a result of disciplines practised in the past – may be in the previous births. They constitute the inner corps of their following. They are the chosen ones, or the elect, fit for a higher part of the Masters’ teachings. It was to the disciples of this calibre that Buddha gave the practice of Light and Sound principle as taught by the Masters. To this chosen class belonged Boddhisatvas, Mahasatvas and Arhats like Mahakashyapa, Sariputra, Sammantbhadra, Metaluniputra, Mandgalyayana, Akshobya, Vejuria, Maitraya, Avolokiteshvra, Ananda and the like, all of whom attained ‘Diamond Samadhi’ of transcendental consciousness by concentrating upon transcendental hearing, listening to the ‘Sound of Intrinsic Dharma’ resembling the roar of a lion etc.
Please refer to the book Naam or Word for more details.