What can other people know of the condition of one’s heart? If the enigma of the mystery of life enters the heart, the person knows no peace until it has been solved.

Sant Kirpal Singh

True Satsang

By Sant Kirpal Singh, from the book "Morning Talks"

1967-12-27, Delhi, Sawan Ashram
Talk available as mp3 at audio.sant-kirpal-singh.org


I was just speaking something about Satsang, or joining the holy congregation of a Saint. It is a school where you are not only taught but are given a demonstration of the God within you. If you want to become educated in a particular subject, you have to go to a school or college where that subject is taught. If you want to learn about your physical body, how it is retarded and how it can be renewed, you have to go to a school where the subject of how to have sound health is taught. If you want to learn engineering, you will have to go to a school where there is some engineer to teach you. So really, this school where you are now sitting is a school where "how to meet God" is taught. Satsang is a school where somebody is sitting who knows God, who sees God and who is competent to give others some demonstration of the God within them, some capital to start with. Such a school only is called Satsang. The word "Satsang" means actually uniting the soul with the all pervading, all existing God. This is possible only when our soul has been analyzed from mind and the outgoing faculties. When we know ourselves, only then are we in a position to know the God who is pervading all, who is controlling all, in whom we live and have our being.

So this school which you are attending is called Satsang. We have joined it in order to have a contact with God. This is only possible when some man is there who sees God and is able to make others see Him. The God-in-man or man-in-God sees God everywhere and in everybody. Those who become receptive to Him also begin to see God in everybody. It is the God-man who can give you a contact, a demonstration of the God within you and everywhere. Your teaching truly starts when you rise above body consciousness. You are then on the way to know your Self and then the Overself, who is controlling you within the body. The whole Universe is under His control. So if you want to know God, you must join some school where there is somebody who knows God, who sees God and who is competent to give you something to start with, some demonstration of the God Power which is already within you. If you go to a cloth seller who sells only silken goods and ask him for an iron bar, will he be able to give you? Of course not. If you go to a school that teaches how to use machinery and you ask them to teach you how to know God, will they be able to give you any demonstration of Him? Not the least. Similarly, when you go to a school to know God, it is only truly a school where you can know Him if somebody is there who has a contact with God and is competent to give you something to start with. When you find such a school, the question arises as to how can you derive the full benefit of attending it? When you go there you should forget everything else. Leave everything behind you, your heart and home, your environments, even your body. When you see the God-in-man sitting there, you should put your whole attention into His eyes, wherein plays the soul of the God in Him. Eyes are the windows of the soul. His soul is saturated with the love of God, shining with the glory of God. If you become receptive to Him, you will learn the ABC of spirituality which is given without spoken words. You will always think of Him and as you think, so you become. One who can do this is called a Gurmukh. He can derive the full benefit of attending the Satsang.

Those who come here are fortunate. They should forget the past, the outward environments and be here only with the God-in-man in front of them. You should become receptive, forgetting your body and all outward things. If your body is sitting here and your mind is roaming about outside to different things, you cannot derive the benefit of attending the Satsang. Again I should like to impress on you that Satsang is a school that can rightly be called a Satsang if somebody is there who has seen God, who knows God and has contact with Him. He is inebriated with the love of God, and love overflows from Him by radiation. If you want to derive the full benefit of attending this school, you will have to forget your environments, those who are sitting around you and even your physical body. You should be attentive to the God-in-man in front of you. In this way, you will learn many things by radiation, through being receptive. Soul speaks to soul without spoken words.

At Satsang, you are given two things together. First the theory is explained by spoken words and you are also given some capital through the eyes. This is radiated to the expectant one who comes to attend the school for the purpose of knowing God. Such schools are rare. There are many schools where people only talk about past histories and theory as given by the Rishis of olden days. They might give you some quotations from past Masters, but that is for the purpose of only understanding. Unless you can have some demonstration to start with, how can you derive full benefit from the theory? A man may give a wonderful talk on the subject of how to run a business successfully. A very wonderful talk he gives. But if the people around him have got no money to start with, what good does the lecture do for them? If you are able to have some capital to start with, only then will the lecture be of some substantial benefit to you. This is a school of spirituality. First the theory is explained by giving references to the Masters who came in the past, who saw God and who made others see God. "The Son knows the Father and others whom the Son reveals". God resides in every heart, He is the Controlling Power who is keeping the soul in the body. References are given about these things to help those attending the Satsang to understand what is what. But that alone won’t do. There must be somebody who is above feelings, emotions and drawing inferences. He sees God and makes others develop an eye to enable them to see God within them. He gives you something to start with. He gives a contact with the ever Unchangeable Permanence, which is God. For that outer rituals are not required. You should come as a man, shorn of all outer formations and badges. Forget everything when you attend and learn at the feet of somebody who knows God and who is competent to give you something to start with. First the theory is to be understood. The Masters who came in the past did see God and they were also competent to give something to start with to those who came to them. Second, you are given a demonstration. So you are fortunate, I would say, in attending a school where something to start with is given, with the grace of God. If you want to derive the full benefit of what you have been given and of attending the Satsang, you will have to become receptive. That will come by keeping the commandments of the God-in-man or the man-in-God.

So you have come here for this purpose. You are fortunate and should make the best use of it. Forget everything of your hearts and homes, the outward environments and while you are here, forget even your body. Become fully receptive by looking into the eyes of the God-in-man. His soul speaks through the eyes to the souls who are receptive. Spirituality cannot be taught but caught, like an infection, through the eyes. You are fortunate in having such a school with the grace of God, but it is for you to make the best use of it by attending it in the way just explained to you. Remain in whatever creed or religion you are, that makes no difference. You are a man first. These badges that you are wearing affect only the outer body. These things make no difference to the spiritual man. You are a man with equal rights given by God and further you are a conscious entity, you are ensouled bodies. Your soul is of the same essence as that of God overhead. You are a drop of the Ocean of all Consciousness. As man you are one. As soul you are one. You are all worshippers of the same God overhead.