Bridge Over Troubled Water

Maharaj Charan Singh said, that in our original state we obviously are in a perfect balance and that it is important to get again hold of this balance. Each one of us has lost his balance during this lifetime or during past lives.¹

The foundation under our feet has lost its solidity with each time we react. We obviously have to fight back into this state of balance and we have supposedly external but first and foremost inner enemies. The enemy which is the most close to us is our mind.

Maharaj Sawan Singh said:

This world is the region of struggle. There has never been peace here, nor will there be. Problems of today give place to problems of tomorrow. In a place where mind and matter are active, there can never be peace.... The soul must seek other planes to find peace. To find peace is the business of the individual. Everybody has to seek it within oneself.²

If we want to fight for our balance – doing it on our own- it is a very stony and long way. If it is successful at all, you can never be sure about it. Even if “many roads lead to Rome” as Baba Ji often emphasizes, we as seekers on the RS path and as satsangis can be convinced of having a friend at our side, who never abandons us: our master.

Maharaj Sawan Singh says about having a friend:

You may certainly look upon the master as a friend if you find that helpful, and he is certainly the best and the truest friend.³

and

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.⁴

The singer-songwriter Paul Simon wrote in his song “Bridge Over Troubled Water” about the friendship of a spiritual friend. The song is based on the old spiritual “O Mary don’t you weep” which refers to the story about Lazarus (in John 11: 32 -33) The unshakable longing of Afro-American slaves, who had sung this gospel, led them to the realization and they knew from their heart, that their misery here on earth was only a transient state. The revelation in the form of Moses or Jesus, in other words a spiritual master, sent from God, is like the personification of this bridge leading towards a divine freedom.

Paul Simon’s chorus is quoted:

like a bridge over troubled water. I will lay me down.

Maharaj Charan Singh Ji as well speaks of the friend, which we need and we may look at our master as this friend of ours: at the beginning he is drawing us towards him, mostly by means of satsang, books, inner emptiness, which we get aware of. Later on he is the inner friend, which we consult for advice.

On the board at the Dera an interview was published, written by a journalist in which he asked Mother Teresa about her relationship with God.

She had Jesus as her spiritual master, but felt her inner emptiness, as she wrote in her biography. She always prayed to the Lord that He would grant her the “inner light”. The journalist wanted to know:

“Mother Teresa, when you pray, what do you say to God?” M. Teresa answered: “I don’t talk, I listen”. Believing he had understood what she just said, the interviewer next asked “And then, what is it, what God says to you when you pray?” “He also does not talk, He also simply listens”. There was a long silence as the interviewer was now thoroughly confused and not knowing what to ask next. M.Teresa broke the silence by saying “Sorry, but if you can’t understand the meaning of what I said, I won’t be able to explain it any better.”

Why are we still when we pray to the Lord? Why are we still when we meditate? Because anything around us is in a sort of restlessness, noisiness all around. As we need this bridge over troubled water, this bridge is simply there, our master, who does not move away from us, we must become still to be aware of him.

He is the friend, who is bringing us across the wild river of our worries, our fears, the wild river of difficulties and resistances of life. If we stand on this bridge of support and we are looking down on our failures and shortcomings and our karmas, we still feel secure and saved from them, because he is taking us over to the other side. All threatening things, we let them flow away. We are convinced that we can go over the bridge of friendship.

Once Baba Ji said (paraphrasing his answer from the Q&A-session in February 2023): “don’t look back” He said: don’t look back on your former conditions of exhaustion, inferiority, despair, grief, weakness, inner darkness. This all could place you in a state of wild river of negativity. We should better be the one who removes all these shadows from our mind. We know the five miraculous words of Simran, which are so strong and you know your friend, who would lie down like a bridge over troubled water.

The Master brings us across and then the storm and the troubled flow of the water will be calmed.

Therefore we need the courage of a person who begs: make a request and it will be answered, what you are searching for you will get, give the sign and the door will be open to you.⁵ And M. Sawan Singh encourages us: “Let nothing discourage you. This is no light proposition but your getting Nam means more than if you had inherited a million dollars, or many millions. You are one of the lucky sons of Sat Purush and He has chosen you to get Nam and go with the master to Sach Khand.You must reach there. Nothing can prevent you.”⁶

Even the helplessness caused by this troubled water of life-events will not prevent us from going to Sach Khand, because we go across the bridge, which is our master, our friend.

It is this spiritual journey, which our whole life is going on. One day we had felt that longing, which brought us into his care.

Any rapids, any destructive drifts cannot bother us any more, as we are on the bridge, we are secure. The loud and agitated turbulence disappears when we step onto the bridge. Everything around us becomes still. As Elija in the Old Testament experienced the storm and the breaking rocks, “but” as it is said in “a sound of a low whisper”, because it was “not in the wind,...not in the earthquake,...not in the fire.”⁷ It is the subtle, the silent, that which becomes audible, when we are quiet and listen, as Mother Teresa tried to explain to the journalist.

And what happens in the silence? M.Sawan Singh explains:

With every step taken on the spiritual journey, he is coming into his own by casting off the heavy load of matter – physical, astral and causal- which really is not a part of him but which the soul takes up as tools to function in the causal, astral and physical worlds. When contact with the astral form of the master has been made, the outlook, which is now based on the experience gained in the world and the worldly relations, is that the master and the shabd are the two real friends and companions who are here with us, and go with us after death. All others have their limitations. It does not mean that he has an aversion for others. He does his duty by them but knows their true worth. He is in the world but not worldly, outwardly attached but inwardly detached; like a duck in water and yet not wet.⁸

What does this bridge represent? Is it what our master means to us? The bridge being his grace, his mercy and the divine calmness and peacefulness.

The Jewish mystic Sarmad said about the grace of the spiritual friend:

In life’s experience of varied kinds this I have seen:
Thy grace far outweighs my sins, black and ugly:
Strange far from bringing on me punishment for
  trespassing,
They have become an excuse for the exercise of thy
  boundless mercy.⁹

One of the gracious and kind deeds of the master friend is his loving and humorous communication with us. Sometimes he recites pop songs, such as “I never promised you a rose garden” or “Cecilia.” The singing and dancing during the Christmas-session in the Dera seemed to be a highlight for those who regularly attend this session.

What is it that makes it easier for us to go on this “bridge”? It is his friendship, his love and understanding, his smile and the inner guidance.

Sarmad says:

The world acknowledges Thy abounding love for all,
The glory of thy friendship has no parallel.
For this reason I have become your lover,
Though veiled you remainest,
Yet Thy light shineth in all creation.¹⁰

The friendship with our master is incomparable. If you imagine to stand on the bridge, to look down to the stream of our karmas and at the same time we realize, that at the end of the bridge, we have overcome all hindrances, not only the worldly ones but also the inner ones, then we have become one with Him. We have our master friend, but other people don’t have this friend, because it is all his grace. It is his grace, if we must fight or search or take a rest on the bridge or if we should take a different way. To live in God’s will is the task of everybody.

Baba Ji often emphasizes that Sant Mat is not the only way to worship God and to be near to Him. Paraphrasing he says that we can be aware of God’s presence by different means, if it is His will. We can be aware of the divine and every individual finds his own way to do it. The main thing is, that we have confidence in Him and live in His Will, we are not superior because we are on the Sant Mat path. That was the answer to a young man during the February session 2023, whose father was a satsangi and was going to die from cancer. The father had chosen a different path two months before he died. And this young man was embarrassed about it.

Across a wild river leads a bridge. It is firmly built, it stands idly there. It is the picture that awaits us inside: quietness, steadfastness, stillness: that is the Divine. Baba Ji said (paraphrasing) “If you know your inner self, then you are near to God realization”. He recites from the Bible:

Be still and know that I am God¹¹

This is not difficult to understand. If you want to know a person, you don’t speak all the time, but you listen, what the person will say to you. Remaining silent makes you aware of what the other person is like. The psalmist has expressed it in the above quote, which Baba Ji often recites. The psalm speaks of “dangerous times, the wild sea, menacing roaring waves, a churning sea, breaking mountains, fighting nations, pharaonic kingdoms waver...and God burns the shields... be still and know that I am God”.

We can mourn or feel self-pity, but we can also abstain from it and look for God in his Radiant Form internally. Our spiritual friend wants from us, that we don’t slander, that we don’t worry about the daily events in the world, just “let go”, “be still”. The word “be still” which means to not move, to lay down, to be peaceful, to pause, is the English version of the Hebrew noun “raphah”. You often find it in the Old Testament under several meanings, such as slack, to let drop, to loosen, to let go of, to be disheartened, weak. The latin translation is “vacate and videte”, which means “make room or move aside and see”. By using this quote Baba Ji probably wants to explain to us that we first have to become receptive in order to be prepared to see God. Or as it is said in the song: You only set a foot on the bridge when you have to cross the troubled waters of your life, when you are weak (raphah) and need a friend.

You are drawn by his grace.

“Let go” Baba Ji often said. You just have to sit down for your meditation and wait, what happens.

You are not supposed to put a strain on your mind, don’t tense up on the vigilance on the inside, just relax, don’t think that “now I am going inside,” just not wanting to go anywhere, just be there.

The master is in your 3rd eye anyway, his generosity makes us humble and still.

The times wear us down in certain moments. We notice that in spite of our effort we don’t achieve that much which is asked of us. Then as it is said in the song “When you’re down and out, when you’re on the street...I will comfort you.”

We are not living in the street, but maybe we feel helpless before our enemy, the lower mind. This helplessness motivates us to stand on that bridge, our master has pushed us towards it.

In a letter Maharaj Charan Singh Ji wrote:

Alas! We are all lonely in this world, even in the midst of friends and the pomp and show of the world. Only we do not realize it. When we meet with failures and disappointments, then we realize our loneliness. I think the sooner we realize it, the better, for then we would seek some other and better support. Worldly relationships and friendships are temporary, and leave us moaning and mourning. But if we turn within, and seek solace and comfort and support within, we can find that we can be really happy. The Master within and the Shabd are incontestable realities. They guide and protect you here, and make you happy and guide you after death too...till you reach your home.¹²

He said that we don’t need to search for happiness in the streets of daily life, because happiness lies within us. We don’t need to despair, because in our despondency (Hebrew: raphah) lies our longing for the “bridge over troubled water”.

Naturally the troubled water of our life is a normal mixture of karma, of good and bad days. And as it binds us to the world, like a river flowing over its stream bed, we need a bridge to rise above the water: a current over the stream, the current of sound and light. This is the master in his radiant form, the one, who overrides all the troubles we are in and shows us the good way across by meditation.

A satsangi asked the master: “

When the majority of our heavy karmas has been paid and only lighter karmas remain, will we be given by the Lord better circumstances, better environments for meditation?¹³

Maharaj Charan Singh answered:

Sister, which is a heavy karma and which is a light karma? Every karma is heavy, which is keeping us tight down to this creation. Every karma is heavy, as long as the soul is separated from the father. Even a little weight over the soul, which is in its way, is heavy for the soul.

She said: “Yes, it just seems like the heavy karmas cause stress”. And Maharaj Charan Singh:

As I have given the example the other day. Needle is always anxious to go back to the magnet. It is attracted by the magnet. Whether there is a little stone over the needle or a big boulder over the needle. There is a weight on the needle which does not let it go back to the magnet. So even a little stone is heavy for the needle, a big boulder is also heavy for the needle. As long as it is separated from the magnet. So all load has to be separated from the needle before it can go back to the magnet.

Our master is always at our side. He is the bridge over troubled water: If you throw a small stone in it or a trunk of a tree, the water will be moved. Or as Baba Ji (paraphrasing) said:

See this glass of water. If I move the glass you cannot see the surface. We can only see the reality if we don’t move, if we stay still.

As long as thoughts, feelings, mind, relationships and actions move us internally, there is karma and we need a helping hand, to overcome it like this bridge over mundane life’s realities of darkness, attachment and powerlessness.

Somebody asked Maharaj Charan Singh Ji about the topic of reward:

A lot of the time I think that I am owed something, that I should get it. But when I look back into my life, if I were had gotten what I wanted, I don’t know if I would be here today. What is it that I can do or anybody in that situation to better accept when you get things t that you don’t want or things don’t go your way.“

Charan Singh:

Brother we always pray for those things which are not in our destiny. What is in our destiny will automatically come to us. But we are more anxious to get what the Lord has not written in our destiny. Then we feel frustrated. Why not leave everything to him? Let him give whatever he thinks best. And we should just go through it.¹⁴

The view from the bridge on to the stream of joy and misery, into this colourful mixture, let us think about where we want to go. To drift away with the waves by keeping one’s head above the water is no option, if master has taken us by his hand and wants to carry us across. In the Hebrew letter 3:14 is expressed what we should feel for our master:

For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the confidence we had in the beginning steadfast unto the end.¹⁵

What about our confidence, when we came to the path of Sant Mat? We had read about the sound and light, maybe we heard a far off sound inside, and we knew that we could reach that divine sound if we lived in the will of the Lord.

The master is really encouraging, with a wonderful sense of humour. He is there in us, when we meditate. He is audible in the Shabd-dhun, when we are quiet and able to listen.

People sometimes are scared and feel unwell, when there is a pondering silence. If we want to realize the divine inside of us, then silence is needed.

He gives us the divine sounds from the inside and we practice to listen to it. If we are not advanced in our training of simran and bhajan then it is good enough to keep silent and to develop our awareness that he guides us until the day when we become the sound of shabd ourselves.

In February 2023, someone asked Baba Ji why he seemed less joyful in recent years. Baba Ji replied that this perception comes from our own minds, which have no real power over us. He advised against letting negative thoughts control us, emphasizing the importance of staying focused on positive goals. When asked if meditation practices should change, Baba Ji said no, the task remains the same. He added that everything happens according to God's will, and our meditation is a devotion to that will, which is something positive.

If we have an easy life or a very sorrowful one is dependent on our Sanskaras. If the stream of life is full of riffles, shoals, dirt and hindrances, it is due to the sanskaras and karmas.

“Sanskaras are the impressions, which are saved and stored on our mental body, the mental tendencies, which stem from the previous lives and which come to the surface in this life. They influence the doing and not doing of the individual.”¹⁶

If we stand on the bridge over the “troubled water of our life” and are surrounded by the protection of our spiritual friend and he says: “see it positively, devote to His Will”, then success or failure in meditation is not our concern.

Once Maharaj Charan Singh¹⁷ to a question,

is the result of this life’s meditation solely based on our efforts in this life or has it also to do with sanskaras of previous lives?

Charan Singh answers:

Brother, it has a lot to do with the sanskaras of the past life, because our progress depends upon the birth where we have taken it, in what atmosphere we have taken the birth, and in what environment we have been brought up, what facilities we get for meditation, that all goes along with our birth, what type of friends we have got in our life, what type of company we have been able to get, they all influence us towards meditation and these all things come to us due to our past sanskaras.

The headline for us as satsangis reads: how to overcome the troubled water of life. The source of the stream will some day dry up according to our attachment to the Shabd. Stillness will come and the master takes us across. The awareness develops slowly, because we still get carried away by the stream.

We don’t have to be scared: our spiritual friend comes and shows us the way across and we can stay with him.

With increasing attachment to the master the water gets purer and purer. And even in the utter darkness the moon reflects in the clear water. That represents the lightheartedness, which Baba Ji speaks of. He will “ease your mind”. Attachment to the master is foremost, and the attachment to family is a hindrance, only if we go to the extremes. Being connected with the family is something positive, we should love our parents, children, friends, and that is the normal human inclination. And we attach with the weak, who need our help. “That is the feeling at ease, which you are surrounded by during meditation and that helps you a lot.” (paraphrasing Baba Ji).

In the 3rd verse of his song, the song writer describes a spiritual friend starting their journey: “Sail on silver girl, your time has come to shine”.

We also can shine, as disciples of a spiritual master, who takes us across our troubled waters of life to the clear divine light and sound.

The sailing away is our meditation and our master gives us daily assurance that he protects us on the bridge.