Experience

The Masters tell us that Sant Mat is a path of experience. And this experience - even the experience of the Beloved - begins right here and now, wherever we are on the journey home. We may not see the face of our Master within or hear the music of the spheres, we may not see the rose, but we begin to experience the fragrance of the rose, and that fragrance - that presence - alters our days.

When asked what he most remembered about his Master, Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh replied that he was always remembering his Master, Maharaj Sawan Singh.

Here and there in our daily lives he makes his love and presence known - as a Persian poet once said, “a fragment of ecstasy, a flash of grace from the other world.” Hazur constantly told us that our meditation is nothing but to make us receptive to his love. This feeble little effort of meditation, of simran, somehow makes us receptive to him. So we begin to experience his presence, his guidance and affection.

And we begin to experience ourselves differently. What we used to do with pride, we may hesitate to do. What we still cannot control, we keep resolving to change; and we beg for his help to do so. At times we notice that we express the tiniest bit more patience, forgiveness, and compassion toward others as well as ourselves. We find that we can laugh, here and there, at our own insanity, rather than fully identify ourselves with this very ‘serious’ script called life. Or we might pause for a moment to ask: Does this move me toward my destination, or is this a definite detour? And sometimes we actually avoid some of these meanderings off the royal highway. Hallelujah! No victory is too small. But who effects this transformation? Only the Friend.

So it begins to dawn on us: it is all the little mercies, all his little mercies of cleaning us up for the meeting with the King. Gratitude begins to grow for the Master, for our gift of Nam, for our raggedy little steps on the long and winding road home. It is all his doing. It is all his game. We discover that he gives whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and however he wants. What a relief to begin to let go of our plans, our machinations and manoeuvres to win the prize. The prize whispers within us. We simply have to walk in that direction to discover more and more of the shining symphony.

These are all experiences of the Master. And then it deepens, this experience of our relationship with him. We begin to experience the pull to meditate and the pleasure of solitude. And we know this is from him. It cannot be a result of our flimsy little efforts.

Then we begin to experience the longing - the longing for him, the longing to experience that one true relationship, that one love that never dies.

This is all experience, right here as we walk through the world. This is no small thing because these experiences are all signs of our growing relationship with the One. We have often heard Baba Ji say that this is not a path of sound and light - it is a path of love. Right here and now, if we turn to him with simran and meditation, we can experience the beginnings of it all.