September October 2025

Spiritual Link

Volume 21 • Issue 5

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The Silent Smiling One

All this talk.
Everyone is a pundit on every topic under the sun.
Why this need to tell others all we know?

We dust off our little history of the world
stored in the musty library of our mind,
then roll words of wisdom off our tongue
with the swagger of a rug merchant
unfurling his carpets, one by one,
to potential buyers in the bazaar.

And there, off in a quiet corner,
sits the silent smiling one,
awash in a sea of Light and Song
no one else perceives.

With innocent childlike wonder,
he looks around at a cosmos
he knows he can’t comprehend.
The eloquence of his silence says
he only knows … that he knows nothing.
Endless waves of bliss emanate from his being,
blessing all they touch, then ripple out across infinity.

Becoming a Satsangi

Once we have been initiated, whether it is for a few months or many years, we are likely to think of ourselves as a satsangi. We deem being a satsangi an essential part of our identity, influencing how we live our lives. But are we really a satsangi? What does that actually mean? A loose definition of the term is one who follows a spiritual path or a guru, but the real definition is so much more. Maharaj Jagat Singh expanded on this when he told us:

One does not become a Satsangi simply by being initiated. One must mould his life in accordance with the principles of Satsang. Every thought, speech and action must conform to them. Actions speak louder than words. Thoughts are even more potent. A Satsangi’s daily conduct must bear the hallmark of excellence and must reveal that he is the follower of a True Master.
_{The Science of the Soul}

Until we have gone within and become associated with the truth, with God, with the Master within, we are not satsangis, we are still seekers. This may create a bit of an identity crisis for us, but for most of us, it likely rings true. We know the limits of our experience; at best we could be called satsangi wannabes. That is not a bad thing. Masters have told us that even if we spend our whole life seeking, it is not time wasted. Just seeking the truth is a life worth living. Seeking moves us forward, moves us toward something. A seeker attempts to find something that has been lost or has been out of reach. In our case, we seek to find the ultimate truth. We seek to gain true awareness of the Shabd, God’s voice within. We seek God-realization.

The opposite of a seeker is a finder. A finder is someone who comes upon something after searching. Again, the emphasis is on our work. We must seek to find, and if we do this work, the finding is guaranteed. The Master assures us we will find the ultimate something we are looking for, because, in fact, we already have it. All we need to do is turn within to experience and become aware of what is already ours.

Part of seeking is admitting that we are lost and ready to be found. Then we must seek the help of someone who has already found the truth. Masters have found their way home to God, and their job is to now help and guide us on this same journey. The Great Master, Maharaj Sawan Singh, spoke of this need for a master.

The Master takes on this form for man’s guidance – to talk to him, to sympathize with him, to make friends with him, to develop confidence and faith in him, to induce him to seek peace and happiness within himself, to show him the way to it, to teach him by becoming an example, to develop in him godlike attributes, and to pull him up out of his physical form to his astral form.
_{Spiritual Gems}

The master takes on the human form so that we can relate to him. He talks about having the same kind of experiences we’ve had, including childhood, schooling, being married, parenting, going through illness. As he sympathizes and empathizes with our plight of being trapped in this world, we begin to consider him as a friend. As the master-disciple relationship grows, we find ourselves seeking him. We seek to know who he really is, to follow him and to experience his presence and his love.

Yet, because we are limited beings, our mind and body keep us confounded and confused. We need help and we need a true living master to support us as we learn to become disciples. Being guided by a true living master is the greatest gift bestowed upon a disciple. By the Master’s grace, circumstances are created in our life that lead us to him. At the right time in our life, a door opens, and he is there. We are destined both to seek him and to find him. We are marked souls, waiting for the Master to reveal himself. Once lost, we are now found. Our Master initiates us and puts us on the path with the guarantee that we will return home to God.

The Master constantly urges and encourages us to do our spiritual practice. He doesn’t want us to take his word for it, he wants us to experience the truth for ourselves. He wants us to have true and lasting happiness, which can only be found within. As Maharaj Charan Singh explains in Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I, “It is always with the grace of the Father that a disciple is drawn to the master, and the master initiates him, and he works his way back to the Lord.”

That is our spiritual task now: to work our way back to the Lord. This is not a free ride. Sant Mat is a path of action requiring discipline and obedience. Living a spiritual life is essential preparation for the lifelong journey of meditation. This means changing the direction of our attention from outward toward the world to inward toward God. We are taught a meditation practice consisting of simran, or the repetition of five names that are empowered by our Master’s grace, and bhajan, which is listening for the sound of God – the Shabd – at the eye centre. Simran gives us spiritual strength by concentrating our attention at the eye centre as we attempt to experience truth. That truth is the Shabd, God’s divine melody that vibrates throughout the universe.

The Shabd is the soundtrack for our journey home. Although it is always playing in the background, we fail to hear it. We are too distracted by the noise of the world, and even worse, the noise of our own mental chatter. Our only hope for tuning in to this beautiful sound is concentration on our spiritual practice.

We do simran to calm and focus the mind, then we listen for even the faintest sound that will help us find the way home to God. The saints tell us the sound is always with us. But we have become so accustomed to hearing the gross outer sounds that we do not recognize this sweet subtle sound that is all around us and within us. If we practice stillness and listen, we will in time hear it, and it will pull us home.

We have a choice. We can either take up this journey to become a true disciple, or we can continue to be tied down to the world by the mind. As satsangis, we are given the opportunity to become disciples of truth rather than victims of our mind’s delusions. Longing is an important part of our journey; it fuels our efforts while the desire to be a satsangi and to know the truth propels us forward.

Notably, the Master is not the least bit concerned about our shortcomings. What we may view as our failures, the Master sees as effort. Masters see us for who we truly are, a spiritual being having a human experience, trying to become a true disciple. As Great Master wrote in Spiritual Gems, “Saints look at the devotee’s soul, and not at his mind or body, and that is the reason why saints are never disappointed.” The Master simply wants us to put in the effort and keep trying.

While this is a slow process and may seem impossible, the Master encourages each and every disciple during all stages of this journey. He has the faith and the patience to see us through our journey home. Through meditation, and with patience and perseverance, we slowly begin to tame the mind and smooth out the deep grooves caused by lifetimes of worldly habits, thus changing the direction of our attention. The Master’s light radiates from within us, and all it takes to experience that light is our love and labour. We don’t often think of love and labour together, but when someone does something truly selfless, we often say, “That was a real labour of love.”

Great Master used to say there were two paths: the path of surrender and the path of meditation. He said that meditation was the easier of these two paths. Since meditation leads to surrender, we must take the steep, steady road of meditation. Though it is difficult, we can enjoy this gift of meditation by just relaxing and letting go. In time, our effort will bear the fruit of surrender. The saints implore us to just continue, to always do our best, doing a little more until we can completely surrender. Once we surrender, he will give us the treasure he has been holding for us.

Then we will experience the true love of God within. Our work is to seek him, to follow him, to do our best, to simply love him and be his devoted disciple. The Master has promised that we will go within. Once we experience that inner love, we will have truly become a satsangi.

Life’s Divine Unity

As seekers on a spiritual path, we are accustomed to using our minds to understand our lives in this world. At our level, the mind is designed to classify, categorize, evaluate, analyze, and build explanations. In fact, we teach these very thinking skills to our children in school. While these skills are helpful, even necessary for navigating our education and careers, they generally get in the way when we apply them to spiritual matters.

We tend to classify our life on the spiritual path as being either “on” the path or “off” the path, and to see ourselves as either a “good” satsangi or a “bad” satsangi, and either at the eye centre or in the world. Many of us evaluate ourselves as a good satsangi if we go to satsang, do whatever seva we are asked to do, meditate every day for two and a half hours, and read as many of the Sant Mat books as we can. We might even give ourselves extra credit for listening to shabads in our spare time. We categorize ourselves as a bad satsangi if we don’t go to satsang, do seva, or meditate for the full time every day. We are also in the habit of categorizing people according to whether they are initiated or not initiated – “seekers” vs. initiates.

Similarly, we tend to categorize sevadars as high-level – important or close to the Master – or low-level, those whose seva we judge to be not as significant. And we define seva as something that is connected to satsang or the Dera or has “something to do with Sant Mat.”

However, the Master does not view us through these lenses. He hasn’t come into this world to judge us, shame us, or divide us. He does not define us as good or bad, a committed or uncommitted meditator, or as a high sevadar, low sevadar or not a sevadar. On the spiritual path, this way of thinking and these categories are limiting and therefore not helpful. The Master sees us as spiritual beings in human bodies who are struggling souls in this world. His message is one of love and grace.

Saint Paltu wrote:

Soft and tender are the saints,
no one else in the world is like them.
There is no one else like them;
they are kind and merciful to all….
They are as tender as flowers;
not even in a dream do they see others’ faults.
_{Saint Paltu: His Life and Teachings}

It is true that there is no one in the world like the Master. Although there may be times when the Master needs to be strict with us or appears to be stern, his purpose is always to take care of us, to encourage us, and to show us the way back to our divine home. He is not looking at our faults; he is looking at our potential. The saints are kind to everyone; they are merciful, tender, and gracious.

Maharaj Sawan Singh (Great Master) tells us in Spiritual Gems: “He is always with us – within us – watches as a mother watches her child. So long as we are on this side of the focus, we do not see him working. But he is doing his duty.”

When we view our spiritual seeking through limiting categories, we are not able to perceive the tenderness with which the Master watches over us. We can’t see him working because our minds are too busy with our lists of categories. Even our use of terms like seva, sevadar, and satsang can become limiting. If we are helping someone without thought of reward, we are doing seva and we are a sevadar. If we are discussing spiritual ideas or connecting to the divine aspect of life, we are engaging in satsang.

The Book of Corinthians in the New Testament of the Bible gives us a boundless definition of love:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

The Master does not keep a record of our missteps. He does not classify us. He perseveres with us, trusts us, and hopes that we will turn toward our true home. He is patient and full of kindness. He does not fail in his mission to help us through our struggles. As Great Master wrote in Spiritual Gems:

I am well aware that you have struggles. You have some things within yourself to overcome and some things outside yourself which must be surmounted. But you can do it. If you have full confidence in the inner Master, he will always help you. And often when you find the difficulties greatest and the hour darkest, the light will appear and you will see that you are free. Let nothing discourage you.

For many years, the Masters have talked about the need for us to widen our parameters. When we do that and start letting go of our many categories and classifications, our minds begin to settle down and gently turn within. As we begin to get a taste of love, we start to appreciate the Master’s grace, beauty and tenderness. We gradually grow more grateful for everything the Creator has given us, and we begin to see the divine unity in all of life.

As the Lord Wants It

You seem to be greatly upset by the political happenings in your country. I might tell you that this world has never been a paradise to live in nor will it ever be so. We look on the happenings in this world with our limited vision and therefore find much so-called injustice. In reality, everyone is undergoing his karma – receiving reward or punishment for his own actions in past lives or even in this one. The Creator never rewards or punishes one without a cause. “As you sow, so shall you reap” is the unalterable law of this universe, and no one can change it. In the face of this law, who is to blame?

Moreover, when has the world been a happy place to live in? Read the history of the world of the past and you will find that this killing and slaughter has been the rule. Even in so-called peaceful times, how much suffering we find in this world in the form of mental and physical ills, cruelty, murder and other crimes. It is for these very reasons that the saints tell us to leave this “ocean of dread” forever and to get out of this cycle of births and deaths. They not only give us the key to return to our true home of eternal bliss, but also help and guide us on the way back to this blissful abode from which we need never return to this world.

Everything is happening as the Lord wants it to happen. Not a leaf can stir without his command. No man can change the course of nature. How then can a few men, howsoever good-intentioned they may be, stem the tide of a torrent which flows in all its fury? It is best to leave these things as they are and let them take their natural course. Saints never interfere in worldly conditions, which are all going on according to the plan of the Creator. They tell us to rise above all this and eventually escape from this world of fury through meditation, while living a normal life and performing all our worldly duties.

Continue with your meditation with love and devotion and do not attach your mind to the happenings in the world by dwelling on them. It would serve no useful purpose and would only retard your spiritual progress if you permitted yourself to get involved, no matter how good your intentions may be.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Quest for Light}

Seva – The Playground of Transformation

Many years ago, the Master was coming for an impromptu visit. Filled with joyful anticipation, a few of us were silently doing our assigned seva of setting up chairs in a half-built structure at our new Science of the Soul Study Center. Oh, what a blessed day it was.

Suddenly, a man came striding up the middle aisle, shouting in an imperious tone, instantly annihilating the peaceful atmosphere. “Get out of here! Get out! Get out of this building immediately and don’t come back, or you’ll be thrown off the property!”

The sevadar violently flung out his arms as he walked, as if to physically shove us all out of what now appeared to be his building.

Several events took place in the aftermath of that horrible moment. A seeker who had been helping us quickly left the property, perhaps never to return. A new initiate burst into tears and wept for hours. And I, in my great wisdom of thirty years on the path, began to question the Master’s judgment…

Why, I asked him over and over in my mind, do you place such hard people in high places? You have so many gentle, loving professionals in your sangat; why not place them in these seva positions, so that their peaceful presence can pervade these properties, blessing all who enter? Would it not be better to bring in these bright spirits, who radiate happiness and create a sunny atmosphere wherever they go?

And why, I ranted on in my mind, do these properties, which should be centres of love, light, and selfless service, instead seem to be plagued with a deadly case of the “P’s” – pride of position, possessiveness, and games of politics and power? But then, does a saint ever do anything without a divine purpose?

In the children’s book The Little Soul and the Sun, a soul who lives with God tells him that he wants to experience himself as forgiveness. God tells the soul that he will have to leave God’s realm of light and go down to a land of shadows to have this experience. Out of love for the soul, another soul offers to make a great sacrifice to come down with him and do something unkind to the soul, so that it will have an opportunity to know itself as forgiveness. The sacrificing soul asked only that in that hour of darkness, the soul remembers that the act was done out of love. The soul gratefully promises to remember, and off they went on their adventure of forgiveness, and that was the end of the story.

Thus begins our story of seva…

The Master offers us the opportunity to do seva, which we can think of as a playground of transformation. And so, we set about working together to raise a building, weed a garden, publish a book – or so it seems. But if we had the eyes to see through the fabric of maya, we would see the divine wisdom and workings of a living mystic, and the transformation taking place within every one of his sevadars. Working together doing seva is a powerful way for us to grow spiritually, to grow humility as we gradually realize that the Shabd Master is the Doer, the director who has assigned all of us different parts to play. He is doing his seva through us.

Someone once said that seva often has a bumblebee in it. We go into seva seeking sweetness and sunlight, flowers and fragrance, but sometimes end up running for our lives with a sting on the end of our noses.

Yes, we all prefer to associate with those gentle, smiling souls who lovingly stroke the fur on the heads of our false selves. But the harsh words and unkind actions of difficult people in positions of authority can force the transformation of many people so quickly. Those troublesome sevadars help us realize that, to handle the situation successfully, we will need to call up far more love and humility within ourselves than we currently have.

If we have the courage to persist in our seva and not run away, we could grow the capacity of our love. We develop more acceptance, patience, and understanding. We learn to stop instinctively reacting from our ego and begin to respond more thoughtfully, from the quiet power of our soul. We begin to realize that there is no circumstance that enough love cannot conquer.

Maharaj Charan Singh wrote in Quest for Light: “Nobody ever does us any good or bad thing, nor can any person offer us insult or bestow honour on us. The Master moves the strings from inside and makes people behave towards us according to our karmas.”

Sri Swami Satchidananda said:

Nobody can cause us difficulty without God’s will. These people are simply acting as instruments of God. He uses them to give us some experience. It is all for our education and for our benefit. If we think that way, we won’t project a negative vibration toward the people we feel are causing us difficulty. Instead, if you treat that person as an instrument of God, feeling God is doing something to me through that person but that person is beautiful, then there is no negative feeling, no negative person. Then it is easy to love.
_{Guided Relaxation and Affirmations for Inner Peace}

Perhaps an angel is hiding behind the mask of our tormentor, a shining soul who agreed to put on a dark cloak and play the part of a villain as a divine favour to us. Perhaps the people we react to so intensely have been chosen by the Master to play an important part in the drama of our destiny. They may be the ones to help us see the darkness still hidden within ourselves so we can become free of it. Could they be the thorn in our side that helps the Master bleed away, drop by drop, all that is not God in us?

Maharaj Charan Singh explains to us in Spiritual Discourses, Vol. I:

If you can take what comes to you through Him, then whatever it is, it becomes divine itself; shame becomes honor, bitterness becomes sweet, and gross darkness clear light. Everything takes its flavor from God and turns divine, everything that happens reveals God. When a man’s mind works that way, things all have this one taste, and therefore God is the same to this man, alike in life’s bitterest moments and its sweetest pleasures.

Let us thank the Master for sending us those who appear to speak and act harshly, to help us wash away the last dark stains of our karmas. In truth, they are not tormentors but divine messengers delivering an invitation from the Beloved to become true sevadars. What is a true sevadar? A clear channel through which the Shabd Master’s mercy and love flow in a ceaseless stream of selfless service.

A Fallen Beggar in Tatters

I have taken refuge in Your glorious court,
a fallen beggar in tatters.
You are all glory and grace,
I am all ignorance and resentment.
Confused and bewitched I am
fed up with myself.
With vows made and vows broken I have come.
Trusting Your Love and my wretchedness,
I have come.
O’ Knower of My Sins Made, and yet to be made,
forsake me not.
I am nothing, you are the All.
I am at the end of my rope
grant me the trust to let myself fall.
_{Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir}

The Gift Is Being Human

A human birth gives us a chance to seek and know God. This search for meaning, for beauty, for God, has consumed us from the beginning of time. Through every age we have quenched our thirst with religion, stories of gods and goddesses, and myths and legends. Fascinated by the divine, we turn our gaze to the heavens and, realizing how fallible we are, instinctively turn to God.

Saints tell us the God we are seeking is within the body in which we live, breathe, and love. They tell us that this human life is invaluable because through it we can find liberation. Maharaj Charan Singh says in Light on Sant Mat:

The human body is bestowed on us, as the highest gift and blessing, after passing through chaurasi – the eighty-four lakh forms of life. We get it by God’s grace, and He bestows this favor so that we may have the opportunity to practice bhakti and thus put an end to all our sufferings by realizing God and achieving salvation. Human life is the only exit from this prison.

However, we behave as if we don’t know what we have. We hold a priceless jewel in our hand yet squander our days toiling for the illusions of the world.

The American poet Mary Oliver asks a key question in her poem “The Summer Day”:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

How will we use the gift of our human body during this one wild, precious life? This is worth pondering as we lose ourselves in the banality of everyday life. Mystics tell us that after being born in countless lives in every form, it is only with the privilege of coming back as a human that we are afforded the opportunity to fulfill our purpose. With our human birth we can retrace the steps to our origin, where the soul longs to return.

The Persian poet Hafiz, in his poem “A Cushion for Your Head,” expresses great empathy for our plight, offering us comfort during what he says is the hardest work in the world – our separation from God.

Just sit there right now
don’t do a thing
Just rest.
For your separation from God,
From love,
Is the hardest work
In this
World.
Let me bring you trays of food
And something
That you like to
Drink.
You can use my soft words
as a cushion
For your
Head.
_{The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master}

Clearly, the soul suffers from being separated from its source. It feels a sense of loneliness, of never being at peace, since everything around it is in constant flux as we try to grasp at happiness.

In the book Be Human – Then Divine, the authors refer to what the ancient Greek philosopher Plato called regrowing wings. According to this concept, the soul once had wings and “flew light and free in the divine realm,” but after being filled with forgetfulness, the soul lost its wings and fell to earth. Now, trapped in illusion and the physical body, it endlessly looks up and yearns for its original home.

In The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the ancient Buddhist scriptures remind us of our true nature: “O Nobly Born, O you of glorious origins, remember your radiant true nature, the essence of mind. Trust it. Return to it. It is home.” Unfortunately, we have forgotten our home, but our Master has come to remind us.

We do not have to go very far as we journey on this quest of returning to our source. The path back home lies within us, and it is the Master who teaches us how to traverse it. It’s beautifully simple; there is no need for physical or mental accomplishments or groundbreaking feats, no need to figure out or solve the complexities of the universe. All we need to do is sit quietly alone in the dark silence, repeating five holy names. This is the simran part of our meditation practice, the repetition of the holy names, which helps us detach from the world. During the bhajan part of our practice, we pay attention to and listen to the sound current within.

In Light on Sant Mat, Maharaj Charan Singh reminds us to make the best use of this life:

We should turn our attention away from the body. Our object is not merely to seek comforts and pleasures but to seek and contact the most precious thing in the body, the Shabd Dhun. Then only do we fulfill the purpose of our human existence. We should not think lightly of our human life. It is only as a result of virtuous and meritorious deeds that we are born as human beings. We should not waste this life in useless pursuits.

As human beings we are endowed with vivek, a sense of discrimination, which can move us toward truth and goodness. With discernment we choose how we face our lives, what we invite in, what we let go of, and what we will spend our energy on. The Masters remind us not to waste our lives in useless pursuits and to prioritize what is most important and what we choose to pay attention to. What activities will we let go of and what weight will we drop so that we can be more present and attentive in our meditation practice?

If we faltered and missed our meditation practice or did not complete the two and a half hours of required sitting, then we can recommit, again and again. Tomorrow we can start anew, reminding ourselves that if we persevere, we will succeed.

In honouring what it means to be human, we enter a covenant with life, with our higher selves, and with our Master that we will use each of our days and all the breaths we have been given toward fulfilling the purpose of our existence. We will do that not through the possessions we acquire or the name we make for ourselves, but through devotion to our meditation practice, our Master, and the Shabd.

The true gift is simply being human. With it we can know love; cry, laugh, and feel compassion; and appreciate the profound beauty of nature. Most of all, we can know our Master’s love, practice the meditation he teaches us, and go home. It is the ultimate blessing.

The Most Powerful Transformation

Have we ever taken a hard look at ourselves and wondered how we – being so full of material desires and inertia and struggling with bad habits and temptations – will ever become pure enough to blend into the pure light and sound of the Creator’s Shabd? Thankfully, we can go to our Master to restore our confidence and reorient our desires so that we can strive to discover our divine self. Our faith and confidence in the possibility of transforming our inertia into light gains new momentum.

Our journey from materiality and inertia into the realms of light and sound resembles a modern scientific insight. Before Einstein came into the field of physics, everybody treated mass and energy as two separate entities. Einstein’s formula E = mc² (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) demonstrated the unity of mass and energy in the natural world. He completely transformed humanity’s understanding of the relationship between mass and energy. Essentially, he said that matter is equivalent to energy and that matter can be transformed into energy.

On the most basic level, the equation says that energy and mass (matter) are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing. Under the right conditions, energy can become mass and vice versa. We humans don’t see it that way – how can a beam of light and a piece of furniture like a table be different forms of the same thing? It is hard to fathom, but even a small paper pin converted into energy is equivalent to the atomic energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

In a similar way, we start our spiritual journey doubting that this lump of material desires and inertia (our body) can attain the lofty state saints talk about. However, just as Einstein showed that inert mass is not a fixed property but can be converted into energy and vice versa, the spiritual teacher, the master scientist, shows us that the weakness, inertia, and heaviness we detect in ourselves are not fixed properties but can be transformed. We can be transformed into the energy of Shabd because the divine energy of Shabd already resides within us, just as the tiniest mass of matter stores unimaginable amounts of energy in it. Saints tell us that souls in contact with the Shabd experience unimaginable beauty, joy, and light.

Before getting in touch with a spiritual scientist, a master, we thought that our little self-centered reality was separate from everything else – the universe, God, and the spiritual realms we kept hearing about. But the Master told us to go into the laboratory of our body and perform a two-step experimental protocol that would prove our original beliefs wrong and transform our entire outlook on life.

The instructions were simple: sit quietly, repeat your simran and then listen for the Shabd. Most of this meditation period, at least in the beginning, should be spent on simran. Because of the simplicity of the instructions, we get confused and are easily discouraged. We think that because the instructions are so simple, we should be able to accomplish our task quickly and easily. We fail to understand that although the procedure is simple, the process is slow, labor-intensive, and yet incredibly powerful, as in a laboratory experiment. Even though the protocol consists of only two steps, the results can lead to amazing discoveries. We are seeking direct contact with the immaculate Lord.

Although our meditation instructions are simple, going through spiritual transformation is not. We are creatures of habit and inertia because we are an inert mass of earthbound thoughts and desires. Just as it takes a lot of energy to release the energy hidden in matter, we should be prepared to give our utmost to the slow, gradual process of transformation and put maximum effort into it. Only then can we hope for a successful outcome from our experiment: the discovery of our true reality and our divine source.

The energy that powers this experiment and leads to our transformation is love and longing, as Mira Bai expresses in this poem:

I am smitten with a longing
For the lotus feet of my Master….
And for crossing this ocean deep.

Nothing do I desire
Except to be at his feet.
The world with all its lures
Seems to me but a dream.

The world’s dreadful ocean
Has become dry for me.
To swim across it
Now worries me no more.

Mira’s almighty Lord!
Her Master’s shelter
Is all she longs for.
_{Mira, the Divine Lover}

The process of bhajan and simran powered by longing and love is the most powerful transformative process on earth. It is more amazing and powerful than the transformation of physical matter into physical energy. It is the ultimate goal of human life. The human body is the site of this transformative experiment, in which human matter is converted into the purest form of energy, the unstruck melody, the Shabd. Maharaj Sawan Singh Ji reassures us of this in Spiritual Gems:

The light and sound are always present at the [eye] focus…. Your wildest dreams or imaginings cannot picture the grandeur of what lies within. But the treasure is yours and is there for you. You can have it whenever you go there. Take it from me, and once and for all, that everything, including the Creator, is within you, and whosoever has attained it, has attained it by going inside the focus.

The conversion factor is our Master. He shows us how to enter the laboratory (the eye centre) and what to do there. He initiates us and instructs us, and in the process infuses us with that necessary energy of love and longing that will release the energy stored in the inert mass of our material self into the energy of the Shabd.

We are not simply this human body; we are part and parcel of the Lord himself. This is our amazing potential, similar to the potential of matter that waits to be dissolved into energy.

Experiments work best in an airtight tube or in a controlled environment. Similarly, our experiment, our transformation, needs a controlled environment where all thoughts are eliminated. Julian Johnson elaborates on this in The Path of the Masters:

When the mind wanders away, the repetition of those keynotes [the holy names] will bring it back to the center. The outer world is to be completely forgotten. Any means which may be adopted to that end may be helpful. But the Masters give us the best means. No man can improve on the Masters’ method. It is a method that has been proved and tested for untold thousands of years. No man can enter those higher worlds so long as his mind lingers upon things of the outer world. Hence the Masters speak of closing the nine doors of the outer world.

We are told that the protocol of the scientific experiment of meditation is stilling our attention at the eye centre by means of simran.

As in the lab, where discoveries take years if not decades, the spiritual transformation happens little by little, ever so slowly and perhaps imperceptibly. However, the outcome is powerful and nothing short of a miracle. Our earthbound petty self, obsessed and preoccupied with material desires and pursuits, becomes converted into the energy source of the Shabd. The ingredients are simple: love, longing and persistent meditation in a thought-free lab where from inert matter we become the pure energy of the Shabd.

Every time we sit in meditation, we are doing that most important task only a human being is capable of doing. We are trying to control the most powerful and formidable enemy on this earth – the mind – and then achieve the highest human objective: God-realization. We are trying to practise dying to inert matter while living in the inspiring energy field of the Shabd.

The most powerful transformation of all is when we begin to experience oneness. Then we come to the spiritual realization mirrored in scientific realization: matter and energy are one. Our petty, heavy self and our light, divine self are the same – and the latter is within the former. Under the right conditions and under the right supervision by the right scientist, one can be transformed into the other.

Prayers From the Heart

Once a group of disciples were walking with the Ba’al Shem Tov [the Jewish mystic and rabbi regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism] when they overheard an uneducated villager badly mispronounce the Hebrew words of a prayer he was reciting to himself. They all laughed at how he mangled the words of the prayer.

Later, the Ba’al Shem said to them, “Prayer must come from the heart. That is why the prayers of simple people are often said with great devotion – because they are spoken from their heart. God highly values such prayers. Uneducated people may badly mispronounce the words, but God judges all prayers only according to the faith with which they are offered.”

When a small child who cannot properly speak babbles something to his father, the father is touched and gets pleasure from the child’s unintelligible babbling. He feels joy in giving the child whatever he wants. In the same way, when a simple person prays with a sincere heart, though mispronouncing a prayer’s words, the Heavenly Father will not care if the words are mispronounced. He is listening only to the emanations of love coming from the person’s heart.
_{Stories From the Heart}

The Self in the Mirror

One of the delightful mysteries the saints refer to is that our soul is a mirror of the Lord. In mystic poetry, we read that when God looks at our soul, he sees himself. The saints say that when God made us in his image, he did so to display his beauty to us.

In the book The Face in Every Rose, the Sufi mystic Sheikh Fakhreddin Eraqi speaks first to himself:

My heart is a mirror
clean it well and polish it
so it may sparkle

Then he addresses the Lord, who looks into the soul of the disciple and sees himself:

You look in the mirror
to behold your beautiful reflection
You adorn me with your own being
so You may display to me your own beauty

God is love and love always wants to give. He creates us in his image – that is, his essence – to share his love and his beauty. Eraqi continues, saying that when our soul sees the wondrous image of the Master within, we worship him and mirror back his love.

Once the mirror of the lover’s heart is polished
he beholds the Beloved’s face there
Then the two worlds become mirrors
for the lover to witness and praise the Beloved’s splendor
When he thinks of the Friend
the mirror glows
When he harbors any thoughts of himself
the mirror darkens

For us to clean the mirror of our heart, we must free ourselves from our preoccupation with ourselves and allow our soul to regain its rightful seat as the overseer of our attention. Our soul, currently eclipsed by the powerful mind, exists in silent awareness, behind the noise, distractions, and deceptions of the mind, alive in the ever-flowing present, adorned with the love and virtues the Lord has given us.

Given the nature of our soul, Eraqi questions why we would want to hold on to our limited, egoistic self:

Why hang onto yourself?
You will hear from your Beloved
only when you forget about yourself
You will behold that Face
when from yourself you turn your face

How do we let go of the illusion of a unique and separate individual? How can we take control of a mind that resolutely supports a sense of its uniqueness, disconnected from the Lord and others? Letting go of our thoughts is a monumental struggle, the most difficult undertaking of our life. Not only is our mind continuously working, but also our thoughts steadfastly uphold our ego – the barrier to union with God.

Let’s look at some mental habits that feed the ego. During our brief lives, we have likely made many mistakes, both minor and grave. In the process, we absorb the lessons they present. Saints tell us that we should learn from our mistakes and move on. If we learn, we never have to look back.

This is not what the mind does; it lingers in the past. Rather than acknowledge a mistake, learn our lesson, and forget it, we hang on to the memory. By doing this, we focus on ourselves, while retaining and solidifying the memory. Not only does this sustain our ego and burden our mind with negativity, it also can create future problems.

We are trying to erase our karmas, but if we hang on to memories, regrets, and so forth, we may have to take another birth to clear those karmas. We have been told that when impressions arise in the mind, we should press the delete button so that, by the end of our life, our mind will be a blank slate.

Similarly, we need to delete unconscious impressions that arise in our dreams. The masters tell us that reliving past experiences in a dream state can help to clear the karma they created. But by recalling the events and analyzing them, we reinsert them into our conscious mind, creating a possible need for them to be cleared again.

Consciously letting go of mistakes, past actions, and even dreams is one way to chip away at our ego. Let’s consider a notion our mind steadfastly maintains – that we are a unique and separate self, apart from the Creator. What is that self? We define ourselves in physical terms, by our roles, experiences, personalities, abilities, desires, and accomplishments.

Here is what Maharaj Sawan Singh (Great Master) said about our physical form:

Outward beauty, loveliness of form, charm of personality, whether it is yours or possessed by another, is of no lasting worth. Be not allured by this false show. Be not deluded by these transitory qualities. Handsome or ugly, fair or dark, delicate or coarse, exquisite or plain in appearance, all the forms that you behold are born of dust. They are dolls of clay. They are fleeting forms that will soon vanish and be no more. They are exactly like garments that we have purchased at the vanity-fair of this world, but which have to be discarded before we depart. Your aim in life should be to transcend them.
_{Discourses on Sant Mat, Vol. I}

How does our concept of the self compare with the truth the saints teach us? The mystics say we have been here since the beginning of creation and will continue to live after we shed the mortal form. They say that throughout the ages, we have lived in countless different life forms. They tell us that even if we are born again in the human form, the persona we created in the last life died forever at the body’s death.

Yet our idea of who we are, the composite of personal traits and experiences that we think define us, applies only to our current life. Who were we in all our previous lives, and who will continue to exist after our current life ends?

The masters tell us we are eternal beings; our essence is pure consciousness that dwells behind thought, unanchored to the world and the changing roles we play. They say that our true identity is the spirit, which is pure, eternal, sacred, subtle, and sustained by the all-powerful energy of the Shabd. Yet the knowledge of who we are is lost in the material world. Immersed in the play of maya while lured by the pleasures of the senses, we have allowed our mind to run wild, leaving the soul imprisoned. But it is our duty as disciples to discipline the mind and make it once again a useful servant of the soul. Once the mind is brought under control, it will no longer bind us to the world. When its continuous activity is stilled, it rests in a reality beyond this world.

According to Buddhist teachings, the mind in its natural state is like the sky, hidden under layers of clouds. The pure nature of the mind is emptiness, lucidity, and intelligence.

How can we arrive at that emptiness and clarity? The masters tell us that can be done only through the power of the Shabd. Soami Ji Maharaj writes in Sar Bachan Poetry:

Listen to the melody of Shabd
and bring your wayward mind into line.
A million other methods will fail to tame it,
it will submit only by listening to that melody.

The mind and senses have induced our amnesia. Great Master, in Discourses on Sant Mat, Vol. I, describes their effect on the soul as a magic spell, and states that it is only by listening to the divine melody within that the soul can escape from this material world:

Without Nam the soul, completely sodden with carnal appetites, can never find escape from the snares of the mind. Its deep involvement in the phenomenal world, complete forgetfulness of its high Origin and utter indifference to the great purpose of human life are the direct result of the magic spell that the mind and the senses lay on it. Nam is the only charm that can break the spell and revive its consciousness of its supreme heritage.

While journeying endlessly through this world of deception, we have lost consciousness of our supreme heritage. Shabd is the charm that will break the spell and cleanse our mind of the dirt of ages. Meditation will awaken our soul to the divinity within.

Eraqi tells us that when we relinquish our self, the Lord will carry us back home.

By yourself you won’t reach There
but should you abandon yourself
on your inner wings you’ll be carried There
Once a wave from the Absolute lifts you
neither knowledge nor ignorance
neither union nor separation remains
Only He is
And of you there is no trace.
_{The Face in Every Rose}

The self we identified with will have fallen away. Only our essence will remain – the consciousness that belongs to the Beloved himself, reflecting his beauty, joy, and love.

The Days of Our Lives

Several years ago, when I was going through a hard time, a childhood friend, who is not initiated, said to me: “You’re vegetarian; you don’t drink or take drugs, you meditate – and you’re still a hot mess! What’s the matter with you?” I would have been mortified if I hadn’t been laughing so hard. My reply was something like: “Imagine how much more messed up I’d be if I didn’t meditate and abstain from meat, drink, and drugs?” She couldn’t argue with that.

Clearly, I have not always been a good example of the teachings – although my old friend does admit that I’ve stuck with this path for more than 50 years and that I do seem happier and more balanced as the decades slip by.

Many of us older folks, when we received initiation, imagined that we’d “go within,” see the radiant form of the Master, and/or hear the Shabd in a matter of a few years at most. We would work very hard, overcome our weaknesses, see the Master in person as often as possible, and inner bliss would be our reward – along with a successful career and a loving family.

But at a certain point we had to concede that perhaps our spiritual journey was not like driving from New York to Los Angeles (or Bangalore to Amritsar) in three days when we were young college students, capable of surviving with little sleep and few material comforts. As we aged and experienced the normal ups and downs of life, it dawned on us that this path is a long and winding road, traveled at the pace of a slow trudge rather than a quick leap across time and space in a blaze of astral glory.

It’s a good thing. The Masters emphasize the importance of learning from our experience and from our mistakes. Those of us initiated at a relatively young age who have survived into older age can see the long arc of our lives and realize how all the twists and turns have formed the destiny that was ours to go through, come to terms with, and learn from. The illnesses, the failures, the losses, the dark years – along with the joys and triumphs – have deepened our appreciation of the mysteries of life and our good fortune to have been initiated into this path of the sound current. Oh yes, we’ve made mistakes, taken some wrong turns … but here we still are, struggling and striving, learning and growing. Here we still are, grateful to be initiated, to have a master, to have the opportunity every day to deepen our relationship with him and do better.

We’ve learned so much: that we really don’t know anything at all, especially about spirituality; that we need to take responsibility for our actions; that nothing in this world can make us truly happy; that nothing here lasts – not the happiness or the sorrow, the pleasure or the pain; that the Master really does seem to have our backs. Even when we can’t feel his presence, we sense that our lives are working out for the best, especially when we don’t get what we thought we wanted. We’ve learned that it is really true: the Master does not judge us; he wants us to succeed more than we do; if we keep looking forward and not back, keep looking inward and not out, we will be guided and supported.

The Masters have often said that the Shabd and inner experience are not what we think they are. Indeed, traveling on this path is not what we thought it would be. We get to be grateful for and appreciate all that our Master has given us, all that he has done for us. But as we have been told, everyone needs something to look forward to. One thing we can count on: the best is yet to come.

The Great Escape

Our human body, like every living thing, is perishable. It is simply a covering that allows us to function and operate in this world, and eventually even this body will expire.

A poem by Saint Namdev in Many Voices, One Song captures the fleeting nature of life:

One moment bubbles appear
on water – the next, they’re gone.
This is life: the moment you see it, it’s gone,
and in the end your hands are empty.
The magician’s show lasts a few moments
and the tricks look real, says Namdev.
Life looks real, but only for a moment.

In this moment, life seems so real, but then we are gone. Poof! Here today, gone tomorrow. To most of us, death seems very distant, and we commonly approach life as if we will have it forever. But life is like a coin in a magician’s hand, only seen for a moment before it disappears. This life is fleeting, elusive, frustrating.

The greatest gift the Lord offers is the opportunity to die while living. In doing so, we prepare to shed our worldly disguise of the body and free our soul. Over time an awakening takes us from this outer reality to the inner reality, where we need no disguise. What we see on the outside is a mere shadow of the truth within. Not only does our body wither and die, but also our possessions disintegrate and the people in our lives stay only for a limited time. Eventually, we realize that we live in a world of illusion.

As life changes, we fear losing our identity. However, in spirituality we must lose our identity to discover our spiritual self. The great escape from this temporary outer illusion takes us to the ultimate reality that is permanent and eternal: God.

Sometimes the greatest escape starts with recognizing our own folly, so that we can learn from our mistakes and then make decisions that keep us out of trouble. Saints tell us that we create a karmic web for ourselves through our actions, since all actions have consequences. As we sow, so must we reap. So, we need to think before we act, look before we leap, to avoid hurting ourselves by binding ourselves even tighter to this world of karmic cause and effect.

Until we are able to balance our karmic account, we are not free to leave. Over time we have accumulated much karma, good and bad deeds, which keep us in this world. During our spiritual journey we need to recognize why we make certain choices and whether those choices are helping or hurting us. Too often we may engage in actions that are destructive or take us away from the Lord rather than toward him.

To realize the great escape back to our true home with the Lord, we must make use of our short time in this human body by facing our destiny, doing our duty in the world, being a good person, and obeying our Master’s instructions, including attending to our meditation every day. Maharaj Charan Singh explains why in Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I:

We do this meditation from two points of view: First, so that under the influence and intoxication of the mind we may not sow any bad seed that would cause us to come back into this world. And second, whatever we have collected in the past births, … our stored karmas, they also have to be burned. Because unless they are burned, we can never go back to the Father and we can never get rid of these karmas at all…. Whatever our stored karmas are, those we can burn only through meditation.

Only then can the soul be released from the body and the mind at the time of death, and we can finally go back home to the Lord. This escape is often a slow process, as we must account for a mountain of karma across countless lifetimes.

Every day our meditation propels us forward on our search for God. As we undertake this journey, we might find ourselves in the position of being a doubter, a seeker, or a believer. When we doubt, we question, and then we seek answers and truth. When all our questions have been answered, we become believers, committed to this path.

Saints tell us this world is not our true home, and that we have been trapped here for many lifetimes. Being blessed with this human body, we have the opportunity to return home to the Lord. It is up to the Lord how he reveals the way home to us. Throughout the journey, our Master is always there to offer a helping hand, a kind word, and perhaps even a push when we need it. He awakens our yearning, which creates such an intense longing that we cannot ignore it. At the time of initiation, the Master promises to take us out of this world and back to the Lord. Initiation is not a ceremony or a ritual. It is a commitment. A true living master is the link, the intermediary, between us and the Lord. We can meet him, talk to him, and seek answers from him. He is essential for setting us on the right path on our spiritual journey.

Meditation prepares us for death by allowing us to practice dying daily, so that when death does come, we are ready and welcome it. Often death is seen merely as the demise of the human body, but from a spiritual perspective, death is so much more.

What is death? It is when our desires fade away and our attachments quietly disappear, and we no longer see ourselves as trapped in this world. Meditation allows us to experience that inner reality guiding us home to the light and sound of the Shabd. It is the spark that creates the opportunity for the awakening of the soul. Saints tell us that through meditation we prepare ourselves for death. That preparation calms us and allows us to glimpse the wonder that awaits us. We need not be frightened of death but can embrace it as our great escape from this imperfect world and a gateway to bliss and perfect love.

To make this great escape and pass through the gateway between illusion and reality, we need to open our hearts and quiet our minds. We need to tame daily distractions through meditation, so we can make room to feel the presence of God. Everything begins with love and our receptivity to all that he is offering us. The Master stands ready to take us home at the time of death, and we have been given the keys to the kingdom. The Lord is waiting for us.

We need to ask ourselves why we hold back. Are we afraid that we aren’t good enough, that we might falter and fail, that he won’t accept and love us? Such fears are unfounded; the Master accepts us when we are initiated, with all our faults and imperfections. Saints pass no judgment, as only mercy is offered in the court of the Lord. Most important, the saints tell us that failure in Sant Mat is not an option.

Because the Master has revealed himself to us, we have the chance to be courageous, work hard, and put in effort through our meditation. Love for and devotion to the Master is best shown every day through our best effort to do simran and bhajan.

Let us take advantage of this gift of human birth and prepare for death as a beginning rather than an ending. We have been blessed with a God-given gift to escape the cycle of birth and death and free our soul. We have all been invited to the court of the Lord. The journey to get there requires no physical steps. It is a state of awareness that lies beyond the mind. We must first become mindful and then mindless so that we will not be held back in this world.

The Master has promised to take each disciple home. Let us graciously accept this invitation, throw off our worldly disguise, and free our soul. This is the greatest of all escapes: to leave the prison of our karmas and this world behind and attain true union with the Lord.

The Sufi mystic Chishty sums up this journey:

No veil intervenes between
lover and Beloved.
I am free of every possible enemy,
having attained union with the Friend.
_{Khawaja Moinudeen Chishty}

Understanding Love

Religious scriptures and mystics have often conveyed that love is not just an emotional experience but is the very essence of our being and the intrinsic nature of the creative energy that governs the universe. Maulana Rum eloquently expresses this idea, stating that the current of love from the one God flows through the entire universe. When we look at a person, we are not seeing a human being but a manifestation of divine essence:

The current of love from the one God is flowing through the entire universe. What do you think when you look at the face of a man? Look at him carefully. He is not a man, but a current of the Essence of God (Love), which permeates him.
_{A Certain Kind of Selfishness: Rumi’s Transformation of Sufism}

Our true essence is love, and we are often told that God, too, is love. In this context, we are like drops in the vast ocean of divine love. However, spiritual masters also emphasize that our understanding of love is often limited to the physical realm. This contradiction urges us to explore the conditions that enable us to recognize true love and ponder whether we are capable of being genuine lovers.

In the book Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. II, love is categorized into two types. The first type is based on special qualities, actions, or circumstances associated with an object or person. For example, when a horse is beautiful and has a fast trot, we value it. But when its leg becomes injured, we no longer feel that awe. This love is conditional and tends to fade when circumstances change. Most worldly love falls into this category, driven by our unique perspectives, needs, and preferences.

Saints and mystics have emphasized that worldly and physical love is rooted in selfish needs, even in the closest relationships. This is the Sufi concept of Ishq Mizaazi, which represents the dispositional love determined by our current temperament. On the other hand, Ishq Haqiqi, or true, divine love, transcends material circumstances and originates from the soul itself. This love is unconditional, not contingent on external qualities but rather on the essence of the beloved. To experience this love, we must discard the sense of self, letting go of attachment and preference. We must make enough space in our heart for this divine love to manifest by emptying ourselves of our own desires.

An instance of this loss of self in love is captured in the story “Divine Intoxication” in Tales of the Mystic East, about Lord Krishna and a loving disciple:

Lord Krisha once paid a visit to the house of Vidur. At the time Vidur was not at home and his wife was having a bath. Krishna called out his greetings to Vidur at their door. When his wife heard Lord Krishna’s voice, she was so intoxicated with love that she ran out to meet him, forgetting to cover her body. In this state of divine ecstasy, there is neither sin nor virtue.

“At least put your clothes on,” said Krishna, so Vidur’s wife got dressed.

There was nothing in the house to eat other than bananas. Delirious with joy, she peeled some bananas, handing the peels to Krishna, while throwing away the fruit. Presently, Vidur arrived and saw the folly of his wife’s actions.

“You fool, what are you doing?” he shouted. “Feeding the peels to the Lord and throwing away the fruit?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” she answered innocently, and handed the fruit to Krishna.

“Vidur,” said Krishna, “the peel was far sweeter than this fruit.”

This is the condition of those in love.

Saints consider love the currency of spirituality, a gift of meditation. Divine love is earned through selfless actions and obedience to the guru’s commands. We are urged never to become dismayed by our objective conditions, since he is aware of our destiny, which is a result of our own karma. Even our innermost feelings are known to him. Baba Jaimal Singh Ji, in Spiritual Letters, explains how to manifest this mindset practically.

With love and devotion, keep the inner faculties and the higher mind always attached to the Shabd-dhun, and remain content at whichsoever place he keeps you. All work is his work; remain happy wherever he keeps you and take on whatever work you do as the Satguru’s work – do not keep your self in it. Instil it firmly in your mind … that the body, mind, wealth, and the inner faculties, the eyes, mouth, nose, ears, … every article that exists in the world, belongs to the Satguru: “I do not exist.” Look upon everything you do as Satguru’s work; do only that which is appropriate.

Simran and bhajan, the meditative practices on the Sant Mat path, serve as the method to prevent falling into Ishq Mizaazi – worldly love – and the pleasures of the world. Meditation is how we achieve divine union, face our karma, and gain the strength to transcend dualities. As we surrender more and more, good and bad dissolve into one, and we become absorbed in love. This brings with it the gift of peace and happiness that spreads to everyone around us. Maharaj Charan Singh explains the why and how of loving in Die to Live:

Just give yourself to Him. To love somebody means to give yourself without expecting anything in return. To give yourself, to submit yourself, to resign to Him is all meditation. We are losing our own identity and our individuality and just merging into another being. We have no expectation then…. In love you don’t exist. You just lose yourself, you just submit yourself, you just resign to His Will…. The more we give, the more it grows, the more we lose ourselves, the more we become another being.

So, we are invited to love the unchanging and indestructible Truth rather than temporary worldly attachments. This true love leads to everlasting union, transcending maya or illusion and fulfilling our quest for divine love and our return home.

Book Review

Down to Earth Dharma: Insight Meditation to Awaken the Heart
BY: Rebecca Bradshaw
Publisher: Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2024.
ISBN 9781645473213

As human beings, we have an inner compass that calls us to our true home. The author describes this using an analogy from nature, the homing instinct of wild geese. Just as geese take off in the morning after a night on a lake, resuming their migratory journey,

…each day we too take off in the morning light, embarking on our spiritual journey, courageously facing the ups and downs of life, embracing the inevitable joys and sorrows…. Just as the geese courageously travel through all the obstacles, answering an ancient call from the depth of their being, we claim our own age-old calling from the depths of our being to fly to our true home…. We have a long journey ahead of us. May we meet it with grace, courage, and a willingness to open to this wild human life.

In the title of this book, Down to Earth Dharma: Insight Meditation to Awaken the Heart, “dharma” means the teachings of the Buddha. While the book covers all the basic tenets of those teachings (the Four Noble Truths, the four Brahma Viharas, and the three poisons of aversion, greed, and delusion), its major objective is to encourage us to go beyond a merely conceptual understanding of these teachings to understand them deeply through down-to-earth experience and a genuine connection with the world.

According to the author, an important balance needs to be struck between the individualistic conceptual mind and the receptivity that comes with love and compassion. The conceptual mind tends to view meditation as working toward the goal of enlightenment sometime in the future. However, when we are too fixed on the goal, we risk missing the journey. We want to reach enlightenment, but we may miss the important moments along the way that lead us there. Adopting a more receptive perspective grounded in a state of openness and love, we can, while still remembering our goal, also learn to love the journey itself. We orient ourselves to the present moment in a state of restful openness and relax. This allows us the space to experience the mystery of life here and now, “unconfined by the limits of concept.”

A “down-to-earth dharma” approach encourages us to deeply understand ourselves and the world around us. “We discover that we are larger than we thought, more capable than we knew, and wiser and more loving than we believed possible. This too is part of intimacy with our own experience, familiarity with who and what we are as a living, breathing human being.” As we make a deeper connection with ourselves, we also develop more intimacy with the world around us, valuing the earth and all the beings we interact with. The author quotes the philosopher Thomas Berry who said, “We are most ourselves when we are most intimate with the rivers and mountains and woodlands, with the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens; when we are most intimate with the air we breathe, the Earth that supports us.”

Our expectations about what happens in our meditation practice can become a hindrance when we fall into the trap of spiritual idealism. We expect that our meditation will make us a perfectly transcended person full of light, equanimity, and love. Too soon in the process, we try to make ourselves look like this ideal, and we reject qualities we deem to be “unspiritual.” Unfortunately, this separates us from what is really happening in our lives and can lead to something called “spiritual bypassing,” trying to be conceptually spiritual while denying the ups and downs of life. The author says, “We forget that the purpose of practice is to be with what is true, not to attain an imaginary ideal.” The key is to move beyond our conceptual framework, to accept our own humanness while practicing with receptivity and openness, and to gradually work toward the qualities of a spiritual seeker.

In Buddhism these qualities are known as the four Brahma Viharas of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, and to further illustrate her theme the author explores each one of these. On lovingkindness, the author suggests that when we want to measure our spiritual progress, we can ask ourselves the question, Am I kinder? She uses the example of Dipa Ma, a well-known spiritual adept who was a mother and lay meditation teacher. Dipa Ma went through tremendous suffering before she began her spiritual practice. Her husband and two of her children died and she was so wracked with grief she nearly died. She began to meditate out of the sheer need to survive and to heal her misery and sadness. As she practiced, she became a highly evolved meditator and began to teach lay students from her small apartment in Calcutta. She was once asked by one of her students what was in her mind. She answered, “Concentration, lovingkindness, and peace.” The student persisted, “That’s all?” Dipa Ma replied, “That’s all.”

In explaining the Brahma Vihara of sympathetic joy, which the author describes as “the heart’s release of gladness,” the importance of gratitude is emphasized. Gratitude for all we have been given softens the individualistic, competitive and self-centred viewpoint that is dominant in today’s world. We are not self-made, but rather we have been given many gifts:

Gratitude softens the aggressive tendencies of our hearts by deepening and understanding all the way down to the cellular level that this world is generous. Moment by moment we are receiving countless blessings, including air to power our cells, food to energize our bodies, sunlight to brighten our hearts, and beauty to nourish our nervous systems. It is extraordinary to be a live human being on this vibrant earth… With gratitude, we let ourselves be touched by the generosity of life.

On the Brahma Vihara of equanimity, the author explains how we need to understand impermanence and letting go. Impermanence is an undeniable truth about life. Everything is shifting all the time, like walking on “the deck of a ship at sea.” Certainties we have counted on become unpredictable. Our conditioned response to change is reactivity; we want to hold onto things or push them away and this creates a constant restlessness. When we stop resisting impermanence, we begin to be able to rest in the middle of the flow of life.

Letting go is also key to equanimity. Grasping at the ever-changing circumstances of life causes continued suffering. The author says, “Letting go ends our argument with reality…. Reality always wins.” Ending this useless argument leads to becoming balanced within the vicissitudes of life: pain and pleasure, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. The author writes, “We experience freedom from entanglement and burden right in the middle of this very life… We’re left with just life – awesome, mysterious, ordinary, simple, and just what we’re looking for.” She describes a sign on the office wall of a meditation centre where she was a teacher: “This is the way things are right now.”

The book returns repeatedly to meditation as the means to realization. The author writes,

What is meditation? It is a technique that facilitates directly experiencing our lives as a way to understand deeply the nature of reality, the way things are…

We acclimate to the silence that emerges from the vast spaciousness of our own heart-mind. Stillness, silence. We listen to the world and receive it rather than own and demand it. Backing off from our mind-activated assertive stance with the world, we rest in receptivity. We are not separate…. We can hear this space below the hum of the traffic and the symphony of the creek. We can sense it but never own it. It belongs to no one and to nothing and to everyone and everything.

Meditation is relaxing into ever-deepening intimacy with the mystery of life.… We open out of the contraction of the small ego-centric self and relax into being life itself.

Published every alternate month, Spiritual Link is produced by teams of sevadars from different countries around the world. Its original articles, poems and cartoons present the Sant Mat teachings from numerous perspectives and cultural environments. Every issue also includes a review of a book of spiritual significance drawn from the world's religious and spiritual traditions. New editions will be posted on the 1st of every alternate month, starting on January 1st.