By- B.N. Kaul (U.S.A.)

At the time of birth, man is no different from animal-kind; he is not only totally ignorant and uncomprehending but also more hapless than a newborn calf or pup. The letter needs the mother's milk and care for few days after it opens its eyes in this world. In these few days it learns to stand up, walk, even run and pick up food and feed itself. Then it is on its own. Instinct guides the animal from the very beginning. It has only instinct, and no intellect that is exclusively bestowed upon man, because of which be claims to be the super-species.

Unlike animals, human beings need guidance, care and help throughout their existence, from birth to death. It takes them a couple of year or more to learn under the care of parents and the family to eat, drink, stand up, walk, speak and understand the meaning of words in day to day use. Only through proper training, teaching and guidance, they develop their intelligence and learn the ways of life.

Inequality is latent in such intellectual development. Most people remain ordinary even if opportunity of education and instruction come their way. Only 15 to 20 percent may attain higher qualifications. The Ultra-brilliant develop very high caliber nut they may not he more than one in a thousand. And all this attainment of whatever degree is possible only with the help of highly capable guidance, instruction and teaching. Men and women of extra-ordinary attainments welcome such guidance from their superiors and new sources of knowledge till the end of their careers.

Unfortunately, however, the man has failed to follow this golden rule of progression through competent guidance in his spiritual life, which if he had done would have helped him to realise the dream of utopia centuries ago-the dream of truly peaceful world with all humans leading a purposeful and comfortable life, all working dedicatedly for greater progress-spiritual social, economic and cultural, for a world totally free from poverty, strife, hatred, conflicts, suspicion and intolerance.

Why is there contradiction in the man's material and spiritual attainments? This is explained by the inherent dichotomy in man's nature. God has gifted human beings with intellect in varying degrees. Human life is an arena of struggle and conflict between good and bad; virtue and evil; truth and falsehood; love and hatred. Man is essentially made for leading a righteous and virtuous life and in proper environment he chooses that very path. But inherent in his nature are some weaknesses like avarice, anger, suspicion etc. In wrong environment and due to lack of proper guidance, he may fall victim of ignorance and the resultant evils. Provocation and misguidance may turn him violent and intolerant.

From his very birth man is by nature inquisitive, to know all about the world and life. He is possessed by the urge to know who he is, who created him and gifted him with life. What was the purpose of life? If the person is brought up in normal conditions, he develops into a good person, educated, wanting to know all the secrets of life. As in the case of material development a person needs education and training by qualified and competent teacher, he needs the same, indeed better, kind of guidance and teaching for spiritual advancement. Just as mundane temporal knowledge cannot be attained with the help of books alone and needs teachers, so also the spiritual knowledge cannot be attained with the help of scriptures alone but needs the guidance by True Master, who is gifted with full divine knowledge and with rare qualities of head and heart.

Reckoned as Righteous

The True Master can teach and guide not only a normal person but can reclaim even the fallen ones, bring to the right path those who for the various reasons might have gone astray. Lord Krishna says in Bhagwad Gita:

"Even if a person of the most vile conduct worships me (God) with undistracted devotion, he must be reckoned as righteous, as reclaimed, for he had rightly resolved."
                                                                            (Chapter IX, Shaloka 30)

The Holy Quran, Bible and Buddhists scriptures all emphasise that any body can seek to realise God, whatever be his or her past. All that is needed is to take the right path, abjure all evils, be virtuous and stick to the resolve firmly and in a spirit of dedication. God realisation is the birth right of every human being and to exercise this right one needs only a purified mind, various behaviour and steadfastness of the resolve to realise God with guidance of the True Master.

As Einstein, the famous scientist philosopher has said, "The quest for truth, full and logically sound, as different from myth, is inherent quality of man, which if developed by proper instruction leads to great achievements and if suppressed, blunted or distorted leads to denigration and superstition, easy belief in falsehood." In spiritual terms the search of Truth leads to realisation of God, for He is the Ultimate Truth. Another great thinker, Luther Burbank says: "There is no personal salvation, there is no social salvation, except through search of truth." Still another great intellectual, Socrates says in his work, ‘The light of Day’: "If we take science of truth our guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone what is verifiable, dogmas and falsehood will be dispelled."

True spirituality is true science. Man by inborn urge wants to know God, his own truth about the Almighty. But absence or lack of proper guidance strays the seeker and pushes him into dark grooves of myth, dogma and superstition.

Perfect Master

The first step for spiritual ascendancy is that the person interested in knowing the Truth and realising God with sincere desire and genuine determination should follow the righteous path that convinces his or her logic that answers positively to his or her conscience. That perfect resolve will inevitably lead the seeker to find true teacher and guide the Perfect Master, which for him is the second step after self-purification.

It is in this context that we may judge the Nirankari Baba and the relevance of the Sant Nirankari Mission headed by him. His unique message is aimed to build a global spiritual awakening, to turn the aim of Universal Brotherhood into a resplendent reality.

The Nirankari Baba has not and will not initiate a new faith or religion as the term is used and understood. He underscores indisputably that like God, humanity and its religion, the way to realise God and lead a worthy life to win salvation, is one and the same, only given different names in different languages. The teachings of all the Holy Scriptures and prophets of all ages who appeared in different regions of the world are one and same. Only rituals, dogmas and superstitions are different and conflicting, which tend to hide the truth and turn the attention of naïve people from the basic tenets of religion that unite the human beings. The Nirankari Mission has proved the eternal and all-pervading nature of the true religion. This is key to global unity, the salvation of mankind.

Accessible to All

The Nirankari Mission does not say leave the faith to which you belong. It is against every kind of conversion. It says to every seeker of spiritual enlightenment to open wide the windows of his mind and follow the basic tents and teachings of all prophets which are one and same. Divine knowledge is accessible to all, regardless of ethnical origin, caste, community and creed of the seeker. God-formless, All-prevading, Omnipresent and Omnipotent not only can be realised by every seeker but also constant communion can be established with Him. He can be seen with spiritually awakened eyes and His presence felt everywhere, within and without.

The Mission has proved beyond any doubt that God can be realised by any one with the blessed guidance of the True Master. He needs neither any rituals, nor penance, nor renunciation of normal domestic life. What is needed is leading a purposeful productive and worthy life dedicated to the Divine Will.

Once one realises God through self-realisation, which is first step towards spiritual enlightenment, the enlightened one becomes a saint with the grace of Satguru (True Master). He will lead a pious, clean, morally sound and dedicated life. The spiritual discipline will make him or her to love all fellow beings in whom lives the same soul as in him or her. If all people or at least a big majority of them round the globe cultivate such spiritual and social culture, there will prevail peace, harmony, concord and feelings of human brotherhood all over the earth. That is the essence of global spiritual enlightenment, which only a Master with global message and approach can usher in. And this is the third essential stage in the spiritual redemption of mankind.

Communion with God

The fourth and final stage is God Almighty Himself. He has no visible self. He is eternal, was never born, will never die. One, who perfectly realises Him with the blessed kindness of Satguru, remains in constant communion with Him. The purified and enlightened soul who has conquered all the human failings becomes a true saint, the beacon of divine light for other seekers, an example of perfection for them. With the Satguru's blessings he spreads the light and fights against darkness by his spiritual force. He realises the true purpose of the mortal life and attains Mukti or Salvation to be merged into God (Paramatma), the source of Atma.

Since Nirankari Baba insists on developing conviction and the need for enlightenment for each seeker at individual level, so the Mission is growing and spreading steadily. From few thousand votaries in the time of Baba Buta Singh Ji the Nirankari votaries now numbering tens of millions are spread all over the world. It has become truly a global movement with hundreds of branches appearing on the maps of Indian States and many other countries. The Mission encompasses followers of all the faiths belonging to all communities, castes and ethnic groups. The Nirankari International Brotherhood transcends all these distinction and dividing lines. The Mission today represents gradual building of the much dreamt new world order.