Guarding Our Personal Treasure

Before initiation into Sant Mat, a seeker had a very memorable dream. She was standing on the steps of a large building with several people. Suddenly, below them a group of rowdy people armed with guns started shooting at them. She turned to a satsangi who was with her and said, “Quick, do your simran.” As this person began to do simran silently, the seeker felt herself being lifted up in the air and held cradled in loving arms. In this cocoon of love she flew through the air, feeling safe and protected. After some time, she was placed on the ground and found herself in an unrecognizable place with the same people who had been on the steps with her. She knew the love she experienced in that dream is what our Satguru offers when he initiates us and allows us to feel that kind of love again and again by following this path.

When she awoke from the dream, the intense feeling of love stayed with her for weeks, until one day she told the story of her dream to a satsangi friend. As she finished relating her dream, she realized that the special feeling of love was no longer there. It had disappeared the moment she spoke of this love, and she can barely remember it. By sharing that experience of love and joy with her friend, she lost it.

The Masters tell us that Sant Mat is an individual relationship between the soul and the Master. No two satsangis will follow the path in the same way, and we cannot learn from each other’s inner experiences. So it is very important to guard our personal treasure, our inner and outer experiences with the Master, and not talk about them to other people.

When satsangis come back from being with the Master, it is natural to want to hear all about him. But so much of what one gets when being around the Master is so personal that it is neither easy nor advisable to share what has been given to us. Even those things which can be expressed are fragile, like a snowflake which is beautiful to look at, but when touched is instantly destroyed. We have to be very careful of our own and others’ memories.

These personal gifts we receive from our Master – a letter he writes in answer to our pain, a teasing response at the microphone, a glance he casts our way, candy blessed by the Master – are all parshad. Let us hold on to these personal treasures and cherish them as a special gift given to us by the Master. In Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III, Maharaj Charan Singh says:

When parshad is given, it is not the candy which is the parshad, it is the Master and the disciple. It is the Master’s intention in giving the parshad that makes it parshad for the disciple. It is for the advantage of the disciple. The advantage is given to the disciple, and the Master’s good wishes are the parshad for the disciple. The candy is just a means.… It is just personal for the person to whom it is given.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}