Know Reality

Humanity, for aeons, has attempted to understand and describe the nature of reality. To some extent, no single perspective is sufficient, for our reasoning and intellect are limited when trying to discover whether or not a higher reality exists. While reasoning and intellect are useful for making sense of this physical world, saints and mystics encourage us to seek a higher reality beyond this physical realm – something which cannot be attained by the intellect.

And what is that something? Some call it God, some call it Truth, some call it Reality. Those who have experienced it say that it can be experienced only through direct perception by the soul. Maharaj Charan Singh was asked if he could give us a concept or description of the Lord and he replied:

You see, he is a power. Give him any name. We cannot even say he is a power. We cannot say he is a person. It is difficult to describe him. I think it is for us to know him rather than to describe him. We all try to think with our own limited intellect what he would be like. What are we? Have we ever thought about ourselves? This body, of course, is comprised of the five elements, but there is something in the body which keeps it going, and that is the soul.… When the soul leaves the body, all these five elements decompose or merge back into their own origin.… What is the concept of the soul? We have seen many people dying. Have we ever seen anything going out of a body at the time of death? We have no concept of the soul, and that means we have no concept of ourselves. Then how can we have a concept of the Lord?

The concept that we have of ourselves should be the same as our concept of the Lord.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

This concept is a great leap – from identifying with our mind and body to identifying with our soul. Hazur explains that we could say that the Lord is a power, but even that description is inadequate. How can we see power? We might see the effects of power, but we don’t see power itself – to us, it’s only a concept. Hazur says we need to experience power to know power. Similarly, we need to experience our soul to know our soul and know the Lord. Hazur continues:

It cannot be explained logically that he is one. He exists. He is in every one of us and we are part and parcel of him. We have come from him and we are trying hard to go up and merge back into him. This is the natural inclination of our soul towards God. He has put that natural inclination within everyone. And that natural inclination is compelling us, working within us towards him. Without it, we would never even think about the Lord. He himself implants in us his devotion or his yearning or his longing for himself.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

So that longing or yearning to go back to and know the One, the Father, the Lord, is naturally within us, and if we experience that yearning, it is grace. However happy or distraught this yearning may make us, we are very fortunate to experience it, because we are experiencing an aspect of the soul.

How did it all begin? Hazur explains:

First, there was only the Lord, who is without beginning and without end. He has projected himself everywhere. There was nothing besides him. He was the only one. All that we see is just his own projection. Everything is projected from him. If we admit that there was something besides him, then the Lord is not one. He is the only one – he always was, is and will be. He is everywhere, and everything is his own projection.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

That is a bit mind-boggling. We can’t visualize this projection. We can’t comprehend it. But the Lord’s projection emanates from the power that is Shabd – also known as the Holy Spirit, the Word, the Tao. Different cultures have different names for the same Reality. On the physical plane, this power, this projection comprises all that is, and it is most active in living beings. It gives us life. It is our soul, which animates the physical body. That soul is a part of the Lord, as is everything else because it is the Lord’s projection. But the soul does not decay, while the physical creation does; the soul is reborn in another body unless it returns to the Lord, the source of Reality. Without the power of that Reality – the Shabd – the creation itself would no longer exist. Hazur explains:

There is something that holds the whole universe together. When the Lord withdraws that power from the universe, this whole universe will dissolve … and there will be nothing but the Lord. So there is something to hold this whole universe together.… We call it Shabd or Nam.… The Lord has created this universe with that Word, as you have read in the Bible.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

But where does that leave us? We’re stuck in the middle of this projection somehow, somewhere. What if we feel that pull, that longing for something higher and better than what we experience here in this universe? The obstacle in pursuing this inner pull is that our mind has captured our soul. Hazur says:

Soul, in essence, is the same as Nam or the Lord. But in association with the mind it becomes extremely dirty, it gathers heavy coats of rust; it loses memory of its immanence; it begins to feel that it has no separate existence, that it is a part of the body and the mind.… When it is once again united with Nam, however, it comes into its own; it awakens from deep slumber; it recognizes its exalted origin; it realizes that it is different from the body and the mind. It then dawns on the soul that these two, the body and the mind, are mere accretions, mere garments, mere coverings to hide its purity, to mask its transparency, to provide vehicles for its functioning in the world. The uncovering of the soul is the discovering of God. So long as the soul is attached to the body, it can never escape from its captive condition.
_{Spiritual Discourse, Vol. I}

Masters are sent to find those who are yearning for the Lord and willing to take the steps necessary to make the journey back to the Lord. We need to rise internally above this body and mind to higher levels of consciousness. And for this, we need a guide or teacher. Guides and Masters of the highest spiritual attainment teach and practise the Shabd, Nam, Sound Current, or Word of the Bible. Shabd is the core of the meditation they teach, and the central theme of their discourses.

So finding a guide, a true Master, is essential for finding God. If we stick to our own devices, we would never move beyond the mind and ego. We would be fooling ourselves. A Master is necessary to navigate the inner path, which can be more challenging to travel than the physical world..

The Masters see the entire play – backward and forward. They know it is just a play. They know that all we see is illusory. It has no real substance – because it is continually changing from one image to another, from one illusion to another. They know what is real. They have experienced it. Sent by the Lord, their mandate is to take us home. We have only to put into practice what they guide us to do.

The soul, this particle of Shabd, wants nothing more than to return to its source in the Lord. Let us work to control our mind and do our meditation so that the soul may achieve its goal. For then, when the soul returns to its goal, there will be no question of kindness and love, self-discipline, contentment, acceptance, and submission because there will be no ‘us’ anymore. We will know Reality and we will be one with it.