III / (v)

The Life without

The seeker who had found a True Guide and who had begun to develop the right kind of Love and faith in Him, would naturally attempt to fashion his life according to his Satguru’s will, and Baba Ji laid great emphasis on the need to transform our lives.

It was not necessary, He maintained, to leave the world in order to pursue the Inner Path. What was needed for Spiritual Progress was inner detachment, and he who had surrendered himself completely to his Guru was free from all earthly ties. Some of His disciples would, at times, express the desire for complete renunciation, but He always kept such tendencies in them in check:

You say you wish to give up home and service and devote yourself exclusively to Bhajan. Home or service or wealth – are they really yours? Turn it over in your mind. It is all a magician’s game and the world is a dream. Then, wherefore worry about clutching and relinquishing?

18 September 1902

The ideal He always held up before His disciples was that of the royal swan, that had its home in the water yet rose up from it dry and untrammelled. If He would not have His disciples attached to the world, He would not have them neglect their worldly duties either. When Baba Sawan Singh wrote that He would be taking ten-days leave and spending it at Beas, Baba Ji replied:

When on one occasion, His beloved disciple was unable to secure leave for seeing Him and offered to come over –  to the Dera – nonetheless, Baba Ji was far from happy and strictly forbade any such step.

He answered,

and added,

The work that you are doing, that is also the work of Radhasoami, the work of the Lord.

However, while living in the world one had to follow a very rigorous discipline.

The road to the New Jerusalem was a narrow and difficult one.

Your way of living,

said the Sage of Beas to His disciples,

must be different from that of other people.

And how exacting was the discipline He demanded becomes clear from one of His letters:

You do not seem to understand that when your official duties are over, you are not to talk to anyone. In the evening between 6 to 8, you should sit for Bhajan as long as possible, be it half an hour, an hour, fifteen minutes, or an hour and a half, and keep the surat, attention,  on the Inner Planes. Then hold Satsang from 8 to 10 pm, after which you may go to sleep or talk as you please. Then at 4.30 in the morning, you are to sit for Bhajan and continue up to 5.30 am. Then, throughout the day, you have to attend to your official routine and may, if you like, talk during those hours. But as soon as you are free from office duties, you must not waste time in idle talk or in the company of non-Satsangis. You should have your meals in private […]

You are never to have your meals cooked from non-Satsangis in your kitchen, especially if they take meat and drink. If you associate with non-Satsangis, you will have to suffer from the effects of their company.

17 October 1902

Abstinence from non-vegetarian food and intoxicants was a prime condition for taking to the Spiritual Path. Baba Ji laid equal stress on the need for honesty. In the same letter we have quoted above, He wrote:

If you are offered anything free, never accept it, for how will you repay it? If you do not adhere strictly to this rule, you will never attain the Highest Spirituality.

One must not be led away by the world, but look upon each object with discrimination.

The entire world is tied with the ropes of the love of parents, children, wife and earthly relations,

and one must free one’s self from this slavery. Running away to the jungles was no solution. It had to be an Inner Detachment, and this Inner Detachment could only come through the Love of a True Master. Hence the great value of Satsang, for it was only through association with Him that one imbibed the True Values of life, learned of the delusion of Maya, and imbibed a Love that displaced the love of the world.

Peace and blessing radiate from the person of a Saint, and whoever came under His spell was freed from worldly tensions, ambitions and jealousies. He saw all creatures as His own essence, and knew all worldly gains to be a passing shadow. Such a man alone could cut through the meshes of Maya and reach out towards the worlds beyond.