Talk given by Sant Kirpal Singh, 17 October, 1972, Sant Bani Ashram, New Hampshire


Kabir says, "I have not seen any man born who is happy." So Masters say why we are not happy? The source of happi­ness is within you, and you have been seeking outside all through life, in eating, drinking, enjoying scenes, music, this and that thing. If you had withdrawn from outside and risen above body conscious­ness, you would have found the Source of Light.

So Masters say that manbody is the highest in all creation. We have to be in this manbody to come in contact with that source of all joy, all happiness, all wisdom, which is within you. Now you see, we are all identified with the body through the outgoing faculties. Our atten­tion is all identified with it so much so that we have forgotten our Selves. They say, "Rise within you, tap inside", and this is one and all.

How long will this body continue? Few days, few years – after all we have to leave the body. So this is the golden opportunity in which we must find out that source of happiness which is within us. That can only be had if we rise above body-consciousness. This is what the Masters come and teach us: first, to rise above body-consciousness, first withdraw your attention from all outside. Then, withdraw your attention from the body below, where does it go? Up, because the seat of the soul is at the back of the eyes. And at the time of death when the soul leaves the body, it withdraws first to the back of the eyes and then transcends. There the Water of Life is flowing, is trickling, you see.

So they address all men alike, "Well, please withdraw your attention from the body below, go up; that's the way back to Light. That's the way back to God." This has been the teaching of all Masters.

This outer life has been given to you for a short time. Make the best use of it.

After all, you have to leave the body; when you have to leave the body, why not leave slowly, now? Leaving the body means, leaving the body as at the time of death. A dying man's outer attention is withdrawn. If any man goes to him, he does not recognize him. Then the soul (the attention) is withdrawn from the body and the body becomes numb, the eyes are upturned, and it goes.

This is what is called Spirituality: "Oh man, learn to leave this body." After all you have to leave this body some day. Sooner or later, may be tomorrow, may be after leaving this room, may be that you go to sleep and never rise again. Sleep is called "the younger sister of death". This is an ordinary thing. And moreover, you see, we are attached either to the body or the outside posses­sions – our family, our contacts, our friendships, our outer enjoyments.

When you repeat a certain thing daily then that becomes a habit, and habit turns into nature – you cannot leave it. So this is something to be done. You will say, "We have come here to enjoy, and this death question comes in every day!" But this is the thing you have to do. If you are ignorant about it, then what will happen? After all, you have to leave! This attachment grows more and more; why? You should go into it. Leave all desires! These are desires which attract you to outside, to possessions and eve­rything. Lord Buddha says, "Be desire-less." The tenth Guru says, "Be desire-less." Desire is the thing which attracts you outside from day to day. You will go down – headlong down. The source of all attachment outside is your desires.

There was one Wali Ram, the prime minister of Akbar the Great. It was the custom that when the king arrived at court, all ministers would stand up and would not move until the king sat down. That day Wali Ram had a coat in which there was a scorpion and the king was coming so he could not move, out of re­spect. It stung him one place, then an­other, then three or four times more. He kept quiet. When the king sat down, he said, "Look here, do you know this scorpion has bitten me so many times and I have not moved, in obedience to the king? If I take it that I am now prime minister, I have been given so much high position, only by obedience to the king here, – if I am obedient to my Lord, what more I can become?" He pulled off his coat, threw it down, and ran away to the wilderness. The king was very fond of him; he sent a minister to bring him back. With all his entreaties, Wali Ram said, "No, I have done that service; now I am taking the service of God." Then the king himself went to him. He told him, "Look, Wali Ram, you are my prime minister, the most wise. I respect you and love you; will you come back?" "No, I have taken another service, a higher service than yours." He said, "Well, I would offer you anything you like." And Wali Ram said, "Any­thing? I would like you to go away from this place." You see?

So what this desire is that binds us to the outer things – we may be prime-minister, may be king, may be anything – man wants to have something, and for that, he has to work like anything – maybe right, or wrong. So Masters say you cannot leave this body and outer things unless you become desireless. Desires we have got of course. Please, leave off desire! Of course, it is these de­sires for outside things that are binding you. If you have a desire to know God, to become His, you will become uncon­cerned.

Do you know what happens? Breath­ing is going on day and night; your days are numbered. Masters say, "Thy breaths are numbered." It must be fin­ished. It goes in, goes out; we are just absorbed in our outer thoughts, we don't care, we are quite ignorant about this. All the time this life is passing away; time and tide wait for no man.

After all, it is something like a pitcher full of water; drop by drop it is oozing out. Then what will happen? One day the pitcher will be all vacant; all the wa­ter will be out. Similarly, these numbers of breaths, or drops of water you might say, they are dropping out, one by one. We think we are getting old; truly speak­ing, we are growing young. A man who is to live fifty years, if he has passed ten years, he has forty years left. When twenty years have passed, he has only thirty years left; are you growing older or younger? It is going down! So first of all, man should have some aim in life. That's the main thing – what is your aim? In the manbody the highest aim for a man is to know God. And the time is getting shorter. All of you who are sit­ting here, I think you are twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years old. If fifty years have passed away, you have got only a short time left to yourself. Have you achieved your purpose?

And that purpose is knowing God on­ly. Acting and posing won't do. You are deceiving your own Self and deceiving the God within you. Have you reached God? Have you seen God? Are you true to Him? If so, that's good. If not – we should hurry up. In the short time that remains, we should put in more time, so as to be ready before we leave the body. We have to leave the body, when the time is finished. So when the number of breaths is over – then?

These are very common things, simple things; no exaggeration; hard facts. You are the best judge of yourself: are you true to your own Self? Are you honest? Have you come in contact with God? These contacts have been given to you as a favour, I tell you – grace of God. We have not earned them. Something has been given; grow further, then it will be better.

Do you know the parable that Christ gave? A rich man came and gave to one man five talents, another man two ta­lents, a third man one talent. After some time he came up and asked the man who had been given five talents what he had done with them: he had made ten. That's all right. The one to whom he had given two, had made four. But the man who had been given one, he said, "Oh, I have kept it very safe." So, what did he do? He took away the one talent that he had. You follow me, what I say? Set a-side all your intellect, you see: these are hard facts, what is coming before us. This is a heart-to-heart talk. Don't you see that way, what I am pressing before you? Every day, every hour, every mi­nute, every second is bringing you closer to the end. Our time has been frittered away and we have not achieved the ob­ject. The result will be, we will be bound to the outside and we will come back. And the cause of binding is only your desires. Desires bring us back. Worldly desires will bring you back (into the world); and the desire for God will take you to Him. Whatever your ruling pas­sion is at the end of your life, you will be driven there; that's the law.

I am not giving you any bombastic talk, only simple words; what I have come to know. And I think it appeals to everyone. I am not saying anything which is not understandable. Don't you think like that? Then what have we done? We deceive our Selves, that's the pity. Why does God not approach us? Because we deceive Him.

Two seekers after Truth went to a Saint. He simply tested them to see which was the fittest one of the two: he gave them each a pigeon and told them to "kill it where nobody sees you." So one was very active, very clever. He went around the side of a wall and killed it and came back in a few minutes. The other man, poor fellow, went from morn till night and could not find any place where nobody was seeing him. He came back in the evening: "Master, there was no place where I could kill the pi­geon." "Why?" "Well, first the pigeon saw me; then I was seeing." He was fit.

These are simple things; the only thing required is to live up to them, that's all. If you have a M.A. or a Ph.D., or if you are a king or an emperor, no value; you will have to leave the body and you will have to go where you are attached. Masters do come from time to time to take you out of the body first. The first lesson, the ABC: the more you are at­tached outside, you cannot go up. The diary is meant only for that purpose. Do you see now? How you develop, how much time you put in, and – where you are attached – leave them one by one. We pass the time in ignorance. All the time God is calling you from within. The Sound Principle, the Music of the Spheres is coming within you from above. All Masters say so. Tulsi Sahib says, "Sound is coming from the hea­vens, calling me back." Shamas Tabrez says, "Out of this temple of the body I am hearing a Sound calling me, 'Come up.' Bell is ringing wildly, 'Come back, my children, come back.'" You see? And we do not listen. This is how Ma­sters see, and this is within you. Light is given to show you which way to go, and Sound directs you where to go. These are the two ways back to God, is it not?

So Masters always say, what is all this about, why did it happen? Because out of desire. We are oblivious of our own Self, too, we have forgotten ourselves. This forgetfulness starts from where? From this manbody. We are having the manbody, we are identified with the bo­dy; this is due to that. When we are working from the level of the body and the body is changing and the world is changing, we are under a grand delu­sion. And desires keep us always given up to the outer world. When you leave the body, then? Where are the desires of the outer world? Desire for God is better than the desires for the world.

These are very simple lessons given by the Masters, very simple. Even a child can understand, what to speak of the learned people. But learned people usually forget all these things in intellec­tual wrestling. That is why Masters have great love for you. Who? Not the Master; the God in Him – because you are His children. He sends men now and then to bring you back home.

So for that, what do we have to? The point is, who can help you in that? Some Master – call him by any name you like, who is competent, who rises above body-consciousness at his own will and pleasure whenever He likes and traverses into the Beyond. He appears to be work­ing in the world, but He is unattached. His boat is in the water, but the water is not in the boat. What does he do? He al­ways says, "Look here, God is calling you back, He is within you, you are re­ceiving that thing but you are ignorant, you are attached outside. You are going under a delusion and never cared for it."

So once you have come across a Master like that, God has sent him for that very purpose – because you are children of God, so He has love for you. He takes pity on us and looks after our welfare; once we have come to the feet of the Master, he has to look after us. What does he do? He winds up all pre­vious actions, he winds up – the word "winding up" I am using – winds up to pay off all debts and takes you back home – if simply we keep his com­mandments; that's the point.

Generally we don't keep his com­mandments, we simply modify some­thing which is to our own interests or purposes. We deceive our own Self, we deceive the God in us, the Master in us. So always I submit, "Be true to your own Selves." You deceive the God in you and your own Self. After all you have to leave these outer things, all at­tachments, all enjoyments, all posses­sions. If you now begin to leave off slowly – how? When you are given a contact with the Naam Power within you, by coming in contact with that and living up to the commandments of the Master, slowly these things will leave you. After all, here we have got no rest; outer things have no bliss, no joy in them. Only when our attention is ab­sorbed in the outer things, then we feel joy for as long as it remains absorbed. When that is taken away, or we are with­drawn from that, we feel unhappy. If we want permanent peace, joy, then we should come in contact with that Power which is unchanging, which is eternal. God never dies. Outer things leave you. Masters come to give you a contact with the God-into-Expression Power. So this is what He says, "Slowly leave off."

What does diary mean? Whatever points of attachments may be due to, in any way leave them off one by one, weed out, and put in time to your medi­tation. Meditation means withdrawing our attention from all outside and coming in contact with that Power which is within you.

So Masters say that in this life you will have permanent peace, permanent joy; you will enjoy forever, never be unhap­py. Then request you people, for your good, to come in contact with that God-into-Expression Power which is all joy, all happiness, all wisdom, all eternal; then you will have the same in your life. All your miseries are removed, all your outside troubles or disappointments will end. Masters only want to give you per­manent peace and joy; they want nothing more. Remain where you are; you have got some labels on your bodies, that makes no difference. What­ever religion, whatever Master we fol­low, wants this to be done. We simply try to go by the rules and regulations fixed up by us but we should not lose the spirit of them.

So this meditation, you will find how much of a necessity it is! How much of a necessity is the diary! This applies to one and all, including myself and everybody. The law does not spare anybody; igno­rance of the law is no excuse. If you say you don't know! No, you have to go! Every moment is passing away; they won't care for you. Time and tide wait for no man.

Just consider calmly. This is a time afforded to you by God to come to your own Self and see what is happening with you. In the towns you have never dreamt of these things, is it not? This short time while you are here – it is worth more than emeralds and gold and rubies. For­get all your environments so long as you are here and see to the things in their right perspective, what they are, what you are doing. Are you going headlong down into the world to come again and again? Or are you trying to go back? You will get help.

Masters do come to help you. They give you on the very first day a demon­stration – how to rise above body con­sciousness – and they also take care of all your deeds – karmas of the past – they wind them up. It is a very onerous duty, you see. Soul is bewildered to think of that duty.

So it is a great blessing to come to the feet of the Master. Who gives it? God. To whom? Those who are yearning for Him. The more hungry is man, the quicker he gets. So it is the desire for God which will bring you closer to God. If you take one step, He will take one hundred steps to receive you. And if you have desire for the world – diametrical­ly opposite – you will go down, that's all.

Mind that, so long as we do not lecture to our own self, no outer lecture will help us. These things you do know, I am not telling you anything new. You see, these are the hard facts. Unless you lec­ture to your own self ... you have heard this talk now. Now, further you have to see to your own self, what you are doing. You have to understand. Nobody can help you unless you help yourself. So consider calmly what I have placed before you. If the ruling passion for God will remain, all others will subside, and you are sure to go back to God direct af­ter leaving the body, and now you will be with Him. God says in the Koran, "Those who remember me, I remember them." What I have submitted to you, take it home, to your heart, consider over it calmly. Nobody can help you un­less you help yourself. You become the lecturer to your own self. And the result will be you will have peace, joy, perma­nent.

These are heart-to-heart talks, you see, heart to heart – not lecturing – and no new things. These are hard facts; we have simply been absorbed in other ways, you see. We have looked to the world so fondly, and not to your own Self. Unless we look to our own Self, how can we know what is our fate? How we are going? We are always looking to others outside: "How do the people think of me?" – that is also looking outside.

So from this moment onward, have the sweet remembrance of God; don't forget. Have it for three days – two days. Ramakrishna says, "If a man has sweet remembrance of God continuous­ly for three days, he will see God." That will become the ruling passion, "Continuously for three days", he said, conti­nuously.

I don't think you want to leave now. So have the sweet remembrance of God; that's all right.