IFS AND BUTS
Devotion is not a subject of paranoia or apprehensions and misgivings. And we have been stressing all this while that the Knowledge of the Almighty is highly logical. A devotee has strong belief (and it is not fanaticism) in the True Master and he has full faith in and no questions about the doings of the Lord Master. It is because a devotee has realized the Almighty with the blessings of the Lord Master. But for inquisitive readers of this book or seekers of “God-Realization,” there are many questions that must have been simmering in their minds. Though it’s all about faith, I will try to explain it you logically and therefore, you must read it without any prejudice in your minds. It is just like a kid who comes to know that who his parents are i.e. kids are told by the parents themselves to call them papa or mama and as the child grows up, he comes to know that his parents are who have taken care of him and brought him up. Similarly, a person who realizes God comes to know of the real entity that is not just taking care of him but the whole world.
Q. How did only Nirankari Baba Ji get the Divine-Knowledge?
Ans. Some people have time and again questioned me and other followers of His Holiness Nirankari Baba Ji that how do you say that you have the “Brahm-gyan” i.e. the “Divine- Knowledge” which immediately leads to “God-Realization.” And yet those people have just questioned us and never tried to seek and realize the Almighty that each follower of His Holiness would most humbly claim. And despite the fact that we say it won’t take more than a few seconds if they shed their ego and take the refuge of the Lord Master Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj, few people have been able to spare their time for such an invaluable thing that promises to change their lives and the world at large.
The only answer to how we claim that we have “Brahm-Gyan” is that we cordially invite everyone to come and see for himself or herself that what we most humbly claim is correct or not. Then, it is for you to decide. And it won’t change your religion too. The Sant Nirankari Mission’s aim is to make people realize the God they worship without effecting a change in their religious affiliation.
Q. How did Satguru Baba Hardev Singh Ji become so spiritually endowed overnight so as to become the spiritual master of the Sant Nirankari Mission?
Ans. Divinity is all about the supreme power – the Formless One. Just like the power of a union that is vested in the Central government is transferred to the next government, the power of the Formless one too does not take time to transfer. A spiritual master is not elected the way leaders are. His election or selection is of divine origin. Baba Gurbachan Singh Ji had himself verified that your next master would be Baba Hardev Singh Ji. Also, we are more concerned about knowing how he became the True Master. The actual curiosity should be how do I know whether he is a True Master. And the only touchstone to that is that the True Master bestows the seekers with the “Divine-Eye” which instantly reveals His imperishable consciousness pervading the whole universe. Actually, this question can be best answered if one has realized the omnipresence of the Almighty from the Lord Master.
This is the opportune moment for me to share with you an interesting incident. Long time back, an under-secretary in the Government of India at Naraina, Delhi, invited me to a tea party. The gentleman questioned me how did Nirankari Baba get this “Divine-Knowledge” (that leads to “God-Realization”), which nobody else claims to have. Truly, the question marks the curiosity of the uninitiated. But the trap is that we just want to know how His Holiness got the “Divine-Knowledge.” The sequence of inquisitive questions is, quite mistakably yet unnoticeably, wrong. The curiosity should be - and which is the right approach – what is this gyan and that I want to have it. The next question which is how did Nirankari Baba Ji get this Gyan has an esoteric answer which simply means that you need to realize God first with the blessings of the True Master and then the irrelevance of such questions becomes evident. So, once the approach is corrected the puzzle itself seems to take shape. So, all these answers are a puzzle because the approach is not correct. And when the approach is correct, the puzzle is no longer a puzzle but a logical built-up to the final picture.
The only and the satisfactory answer to this question is the “God-Realization” yet I tried my best to give the answer to that gentleman. I replied to him: “See, I have been invited to your house for a tea party. The party is good and the tea is tasty. I can say this because I have seen the party and tasted the tea. If I ask you that from where did you get the milk for this tea and from where did you get the tealeaves, it would seem funny and even irritating. If the tea is tasty it can be known by taking a sip. My job is to relish the tea and thank you for it and push off. But if I ask without even taking a sip that how tasty is the tea, you would simply ask me to have a sip. Similarly, when I ask you to realize the Almighty with the blessings of the True Master and you say that how did Baba Ji get this Gyan or how will it change my life, the only answer to this is to take a sip of this Divine-Nectar. The constitution of the tea and its effect on you will be known to you.”
So the answer is simple but we complicate situations by questioning or imagining too much. The approach should be to try it out. Just like we go to a shop to buy some clothes we try out the clothes to check if what the company claims is right or not.
Q. How should one choose the True Master (Satguru)?
Ans. The touchstone is that if you realize the Almighty in an instant, you have the True Master. If the guru is an impostor he will give you a “mantra” or ask you to recite a set of words on the count of the movement of the rosary beads or a mala. He won’t show you the Almighty because he himself has not realized the Omnipresence of the Almighty. Our scriptures have clearly mentioned the traits to recognize the Almighty. A seeker must be aware of these to test the authenticity of the True Master. Bhagvad Gita says that the God can neither be cut with the sword, nor wetted with water nor burnt with fire and so on. And the scriptures also vouch that God is beyond the comprehension of the five senses or other worldly methods because the imperishable and the unchangeable is not understandable or reachable through changeable or perishable means of five senses.
MAN BUDDHI TE AKLON BAHRE TAINOON LAKH PARNAM KARAN
- Avtar Bani(1)
(O’ Thou, beyond the comprehension of mind, intellect and wisdom, millions of bows unto Thee.)
A Master who reveals such an entity to you is the True Master. His Holiness Satguru Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj is revealing to the seekers the same formless consciousness that is mentioned in the scriptures.
Q. What does Baba Ji mean when he calls himself a daas (slave or servant)?
Ans. Because I have been in service of the Lord Master for more than 24 years now, I have been privy to some very revealing traits of the consciousness of the True Master, which are hidden from the world. About a year or two back in Bikaner (a city in Rajasthan, India), Director of the All India Radio (Bikaner station) attended a very big congregation held in the divine presence of Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj. After the congregation got over, the gentleman questioned His Holiness that “you sit on a high stage and thousands of your devotees bowed in front of you and yet you called yourself a “daas” (slave). Is it just for the rhetorical effect and pull the masses? I don’t see how you are a “daas?”
His Holiness replied that I call myself a “daas” (slave) because “I see in each and every human being a twinkling spark of divinity. Because I am the daas of the Almighty so I am a daas of his devotees.” The gentleman was satisfied with the simple and frank answer of His Holiness. And yet this answer said more things about the Mission. Where the Master is humble, the devotees too need to be down to earth irrespective of their social standing.
Q. Are the True Master (Satguru) and God two separate entities?
Ans. Another question that is mooted in the context of the Mission is that how is True Master an embodiment of the Formless One or how is the True Master a Manifestation of the Formless One. The thought is tricky because our thinking is not logical. When we say that the Infinite, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Formless One or Almighty has no parallel, it is understood that only the God himself can reveal His own identity and it is not within the realms of human intellect and comprehension. So, the True Master who reveals to the seekers the Formless One or the Almighty is actually a manifestation of the God whose knowledge He imparts.
Q. Can rites, rituals, pilgrimages, etc lead to God-realisation?
Ans. Many have also questioned about the rites, rituals, pilgrimages, fasting, et cetera as the alternative means to achieve God. But these are the inventions of the human intellect. Scriptures say otherwise; that God can be known only by the grace of the True Master. Rites and rituals, pilgrimages, etc. are good insofar they signify theistic bent of mind that is a good sign for a seeker of the Truth.
Q. Is God to be found within us?
Ans. A few years back I went to Germany. I went to a restaurant where one of the waiters of the Indian origin was informed of my visit because he was told by a disciple of His Holiness that Mr. Sharma was coming from India and those who wish to realize God can be blessed with the “Divine –Knowledge.” The waiter, prima facie, was confused. Because he had expected a person endowed with the realisation of the Almighty to be having an unkempt long beard and wearing saffron-coloured clothes (that’s the way people in India think of religious people). But I was wearing a three-piece suit, was clean-shaven and also wearing a tie. Having come to terms after sometime that there could be a well dressed man endowed with the realization of God, the waiter insisted that he wanted to “see” his soul and not the all-pervading formless God. I questioned that gentleman if he had ever seen his face. The person replied affirmatively. I again questioned him that how he saw his face. And the obvious answer was that he saw his face in a mirror. “Right,” I said. “Just as you see your face in the mirror, you can see your soul in the mirror of God-Knowledge i.e. by realizing the Super-Soul first.” His Holiness Satguru Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj has said that:
“The human eye can see everything except itself. To see it one needs a mirror. Similarly one can see one’s real self in the mirror of God-Knowledge.”
Now that gentleman, a waiter by profession, agreed to be a seeker of the “Brahm-Gyan.” I, with the blessings of the True Master Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj, shared the “Divine-Knowledge” with that soul and he, too, became ecstatic by realizing the imperishable formless God.
Q. A word for atheists…..
Ans. Once I accompanied His Holiness to Mussoorie. I was standing outside the Nirankari Bhawan (congregation hall) on the Camel Back road when I met a Canadian couple having a leisurely walk down that road. Because I wanted to pass on the message of the Lord Master about the realisation of God to that couple, I talked to them about the precious gyan of His Holiness True Master Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj. But they said that they did not believe that God exists and that they were atheists. Therefore, realization of God is an irrelevant subject for them. To a disciple like me who realized the omnipresent God with the blessings of the True Master, such a remark was simply unacceptable, discordant and out of tune. I wished that they accepted not just the existence of God but realize Him too. So, I started to help them out with this. I questioned them “Do you believe in consciousness?” And they replied they did. So, I explained to them that the fact that they say God does not exist is their reasoning and consciousness. And the all-pervading consciousness is the divinity or God. The couple was satisfied with the answer and believed that God existed. Even otherwise, God has to exist. If Theory of Relativity is applied to spirituality, we are able to understand that all things exist in relation to each other (i.e. have correlatives) and have effects on each other. The matter has to have anti-matter or non-matter i.e. insentient ought to have a sentient correlative. We know that the whole universe is in momentum but is working in a proper fashion. The planets do not run into each other, the stars do not create a havoc all the time i.e. all the celestial bodies are functioning in programmed way. It requires unfathomable intelligence to coordinate such expanse, which is not possible without an all pervading entity or consciousness, which is also the energy behind the momentum. Such consciousness is God. When we see some coins scattered on the floor, we say they are disorganized. But when the coins are heaped in different denominations, we say that the coins have been arranged by someone who has intelligence and consciousness to do so because the coins are organized in different heaps or columns. Similarly, when we see that the whole cosmos or for that matter different organs of our body are functioning in an organized and coordinated way, we ought to believe that an entity is governing them and that entity is the Formless One – God. However, God can be realized only, as mentioned time and again, when the True Master bestows the “Divine-Knowledge.”
… … AND
I know there may be many more questions in your mind. However, my humble request to you is to take the refuge of the True Master of the time, Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj and dispel your ignorance about the whereabouts of God and also all such questions, which may arise in the mind of the seeker.
The Sant Nirankari Mission aims to spread the message of the True Master not on the basis of any miracles and I request you to take them out of your mind as soon as you read them. The only basis of spreading the message is that His Holiness is blessing people with “God-Realization.” If you miss it, human life is such that it does not even give a chance to repent or atone.
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