Yours Affectionately

Overcoming and giving up outward tendencies, stilling the mind and dying while alive is not easy. The inner gate opens only when the outer gates are closed. There is no other way to get in. People wish to continue to run out through the outer gates and also wish to get into the inner. This is impossible. Two things cannot happen at the same time. One is to be given up to achieve the other. Strictly speaking, there is no wish to go in. If you probe or even scratch the surface, you will find that they are saturated with the grossness of the world, that their minds are as attached to the objects as a painted picture is attached to the wall or the canvas on which it is painted. If you ask the picture to detach itself from the wall, it cannot do so. It is a part of the wall. The worldly man is no better.

People take to bhajan as a curiosity. The day they come for initiation you may credit them with some sincerity. There is some desire to escape from this place of misery and sorrow. It is this stuff on which the saints have to work. Bhajan for the sake of bhajan is cultivated by few. Slowly and slowly the little ripples of awakening die out and disappear in the vast waves of karmic activity.

Yet saints are not disappointed. They know the helplessness of man and also know the efficacy of Nam. Nam is all-powerful. As one spark of fire burns away a forest of wood, so Nam burns away the karmic outgrowth. A bird may escape from the swoop of an eagle, but the mind dare not stir when Nam manifests itself. Saints are the custodians of Nam. Their method is sure and certain. They see that by and by the disciple is paying the karmic debt. By age he is slowly turning his face away from the temptations as he is getting feeble. Misery and sorrow of the world narrow down his mind, and death brings him concentrated to the portal of the third eye, where the Master takes charge of him, for the soul is his, and he had accepted him when he initiated him.

Progress in Sant Mat is not slow when compared with other systems. In other systems people complete their incomplete courses in a series of lives, living under strenuous circumstances. In Sant Mat, while staying at home, living with kith and kin, not facing the hardships of jungle life, observing no restrictions of caste, creed, ritual or ceremony – young, grown-up and old, man or woman, go up never to return. Bit by bit we are marching in the right direction. Step by step we are nearing our goal.

My home is within you and I am also within you. The outward homes are of clay and are perishable. The real permanent home is within. I wish you could come up and see me there.
_{Maharaj Sawan Singh, The Dawn of Light}

You are renowned as the thief of hearts,
  the glory of your friendship knows no parallel.
I am in love with this mystery of You –
  You remain veiled,
  yet your Light shines through all the creation.
_{Sarmad, Martyr to Love Divine}