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An ancient Science

Baba Jaimal Singh gave out His Spiritual Message not as something new, but as an ancient science. Its traces were to be found in the scriptures of all faiths, but it came into full blossom, in known history, with Kabir and Guru Nanak.

Their writings reveal unequivocally that They had realised the Inner Science to its full potential. The great tradition that these Master-Souls had established was continued by Guru Nanak’s successors and then, as we have already seen earlier in this study, passed on to Tulsi Sahib of Hathras and from Him to Swami Ji of Agra, before returning with Baba Jaimal Singh to the Punjab.

The Surat Shabd Yoga was not merely a faith, but a science. It had not been confined to India alone, but was known to the greatest of the Sufis; and historical records suggest that the two movements, in India and in the Middle East, often met and intermingled. It was a Path open to all men and most suited to our times.

Swami Ji in giving out His message was not teaching anything new. He was doing what His Great Predecessors had done: revitalising and reinterpreting, for His times, the truths given out of old. Baba Ji strongly resisted any suggestion that His Master had discovered a wholly new path, as some people came later to suggest.

Had Swami Ji not Himself declared in Sar Bachan after stating His tenets:

Jo mun maen parteet na dekhe to Kabir, Gur Bani Pekhe, Tulsi Sahib ka mat joi, Paltu, Jagjivan Kahen soi. In santan ka daeon parmana in ki Bani Sakh Bakhana.

He who cannot realise this fact let him refer to the teachings of Kabir and the Sikh Gurus. Tulsi Sahib also taught those truths, while Paltu and Jagjivan point to the same. I refer the skeptic to the testimony of such Mystics, for Their teachings are in accord with what I say.

Sar Bachan, Beas, 1950, p. 350

And did Swami Ji not often base His discourses on the writings of Kabir, Tulsi Sahib, Bhikha, and especially of Guru Nanak?

Any hypothesis that Swami Ji while beginning in the footsteps of His predecessors suddenly, after 1858–1861, transcended to some higher realms unknown to any before Him, could at best only misrepresent Him. His poetical compositions were the fruit of the last years of His life, and in them He had said, while stating that the Satguru was identical with the Sat Purush:

Sewa kar puja kar un ki, Unhi ko Guru Nanak jan. Vohi Kabir Vohi Satnama san santan ko vohi pahchan. Tera kaj unhi se hoga, mat bhatke tu taj abhiman.

Serve and worship the Guru for He is Nanak; Kabir is also in Him, and even so is Sat Naam. Truly, every Saint is the embodied form of the Formless; your emancipation will be wrought by Him and Him alone.

In the light of such recorded statements – to say nothing of what Swami Ji directly told His disciples – how could one be so obtuse as to claim a new invention for Him?

The Agra Saint, Baba Ji pointed out, in spite of what came to be claimed later – about a decade after His death –, had always initiated His disciples into the Simran of the Panch Shabd. Indeed, this was the primary ground of difference on account of which Baba Ji was unwilling to join the Central Administrative Council at Soamibagh in 1902.

The Greatest Saints of the past had put Their disciples on the Panch Shabd, He said, as was clear from Their writings:

Kabir through the agency of the Five Words is now ever merged in the silence of the Formless.

Kabir

Know Him to be a True Master Who can open in thee the way back to God, and guides thee in the Spiritual Path with the clarion call of the five Sounds.

Guru Nanak, War M1

Without the Satguru one finds not the secret of Naam, sweet is the elixir of Shabd that flows through the Simran of the Five Words.

Guru Amar Das, Maru M3

Blessed indeed is one who, through the Grace of the Master, unfolds the Eternal Melody of the five Sounds.

Guru Arjan, Ramkali M5

Tulsi Sahib also referred to the same explicitly in His writings.

Swami Ji respected and revered Them and pursued the same course as Theirs. In Sar Bachan He clearly stated at one point:

Panch Shabd ka Simran karo Siam set main surat dharo.

Keep repeating the five Holy Words, and focus on the dark spot within.

*When Swami Ji began using the term ‘Radhasoami’ brought into vogue by His devoted and beloved disciple Rai Saligram, He did not, Baba Ji affirmed, begin a new faith or creed. 

He simply accepted the word as yet another name for the Unnameable Infinite interpreting it on the outer plane to stand for the disciple, Radha, and the Guru, Soami, and on the inner one for the soul current, Radha, and its source, Soami

When Babu Sawan Singh Ji objected to the use of this new word at Murree in 1894, Baba Ji, as we have already seen, picked up a copy of Sar Bachan and read out the verse:

Radha aad surat ka naam; Soami aad Shabd nij dham.

Radha is the name of the primal soul current (Surat); Soami is the name of the primal source of Shabd or the Word.

He explained that the Absolute in His ultimate form was formless and indescribable, yet Saints in their zeal to point Him out to their disciples, had given Him countless names.

Had not the authors of the ‘Vishnu Sahasranama’ and the ‘Jaap Sahib’ coined hundreds of names for the All-Merciful Creator? Then wherefore object to ‘Radhasoami.’

The Reality which Swami Ji attempted to point out by the term ‘Radhasoami’ had been referred to by His predecessor by other names, like Khasam or Swami – Supreme Lord; Maha Dayal – All Grace; Nirala – the Mysterious; Nirankar – Formless; and Anami – Nameless.

Thus Kabir once said:

Kal Akal Khasam ka Keena; eh parpanch badhawan.

Time and the Timeless both spring from a single source. And are vital for His manifestation.

And Nanak had declared:

Kot Brahmand ka thakur Soami; Sarabh jian ka data reh.

Soami is the Lord of all creation and the Master of all the souls.

Tulsi Sahib had spoken in a similar vein:

Sab ki aad Kahun main Soami.

I address as ‘Soami’ the Creator of all that is.

Swami Ji Himself, like His Master, invoked the Supreme Reality as Soami or more often still, as Sahib Soami and Satguru Soami. He used those terms freely in His discourses and letters rather than the word ‘Radhasoami.’

It is just likely that these occurred in His original poetical compositions as well, but were substituted by the word ‘Radhasoami’ for purposes of homogeneity, when they – some fifty or sixty in number – were collected some six years after His death along with many of Hazur Maharaj Rai Saligram’s compositions in the volume entitled, Sar Bachan, (poetry), in which ‘Radhasoami’ word stands either for the Ultimate Goal – Soami or Anami – or for the Guru.

Baba Ji was prepared to go thus far and no further. He respected the term ‘Radhasoami’ as yet another attempt at naming the Nameless, but could not accept the special mystic significance that began to be given it after Swami Ji’s death.

Had not the Agra Saint Himself said in Bachan 115, Part II of Sar Bachan prose:

Naam is of two kinds: 

  • Varan Atmak and
  • Dhun Atmak.

Innumerable are the benefits of Dhun Atmak Naam and hardly any of the Varan Atmak Naam.1

All names that could be brought into verbal expression were Varan Atmak and were therefore outer and subject to variation from person to person and from people to people. 

The Inner Shabd was the same in all ages and the same for all people. It was wholly musical defying verbal expression or description, and was the source of all creation and, therefore, the sole object of the seeker’s abhyasa. Any word possessed in one’s mind appears to be reverberating in that Sound Principle.

Baba Ji, abiding by the spirit of His Great Guru, unhesitatingly declared, 

Any word which may possibly be brought into utterance and writing could not be an Internal Spiritual Sound which is the unspoken and unwritten law and order of the whole creation.

How could the word ‘Radhasoami’ be Dhun Atmak when it had been brought into outer expression, and how could it be said to be ‘resounding’ in the Highest Spiritual Plane where form did not exist and where the Shabd itself had not yet come into manifestation?

His Master, Baba Ji explained, had always held His teachings to be those of Kabir and Nanak and had never claimed to have entered realms unknown to any man before Him in human history. Had not the greatest mystics of the past left definite testimony of Their access to all the eight Inner Planes, and did not one read in Nanak:

Sat Lok ke oopar dhave Alakh, Agam ki tab gat pave tis ke oopar santan dham Nanak Das kio bisram.

He who transcends the Sat Lok alone knows the essence of Agam and Alakh, the Saints have Their abode above them and poor Nanak, too, is a resident there.

Swami Ji’s last words placed His adherence to the traditional Path beyond any shadow of a doubt. He had made it clear that He had nothing to do with ‘Radhasoami’ developed as a cult.

His Path was that of Sat Naam and the Anami, and if He did accept the term ‘Radhasoami’ it could only be as another Varan Atmak name for the Unnameable One.

All names like Sat Naam, Onkar, etc. given for Simran were in like manner Varan Atmak

Their sole functions were:

a) to help build up Dhyan or one-pointed concentration, and 

b) to serve as passwords for crossing from one plane to another. 

The soul’s task – and the Satguru’s – was to reach the fifth plane, Sat Lok, and for this five passwords, one for each realm, were needed. Once the soul entered the regions of pure spirit, no further passwords were necessary. As it beheld the Sat Purush, the deity of Sat Lok or Sach Khand, and the first definite manifestation of Name and Form of the Formless and the Nameless, it realised that He – i. e. Sat Purush – and the Satguru were not distinct but One and the same, and that it itself was also of Their very essence.

Its search for the Absolute was at last over and it began to merge in Him.

As it entered deeper and deeper, being absorbed from Form into the Formless, it passed through Alakh – indescribable – and Agam – inconceivable – until it finally lost itself in the Ocean of Bliss and Consciousness that is the Ultimate Reality beyond any name and form, ineffable, immaculate, indescribable, and immeasurable.

It was what It was and nothing more could be said of It. The only way left for describing It was through negatives. It was neither Light nor darkness, neither Sound nor silence. No Shabd could be said to be resounding there as Shabd had not yet come into manifestation and to say that the strains of ‘Radhasoami’ could be heard vibrating there was a contradiction in terms.

All past Adepts in the Surat Shabd Yoga had taught as such. Any perceptive student of Their writings could see that They all regarded the entry into the fifth plane as the goal that both disciple and Guru must set before themselves. For achieving this the Simran of the five Sacred Names was essential; and once the soul had entered Sat Lok it remained the Sat Purush’s task to merge it into Himself and permit it to recede further and still further into the Formless and the Nameless.

It was this very two-phase process that Swami Ji underlined when He said,

My Path was the Path of Sat Naam and the Anami Naam,

and at the conclusion of Bachan 26 in Sar Bachan, poetry, while describing the soul’s entry into Sat Lok and its journey beyond, He made the whole method very clear indeed and left not a shadow of doubt:

Puhap madh Sae uthi avaza kau tum hoe kaho kaja Satgur milae bhed sub dina tis ki kripa daras hum lina Darshan kar ut kar magnani Sat Purush tub bolae bani Alakh lok ka bhed sunaya bal upna dae surat pathaya Alakh Purush ka roop anoopa Agam Purush nirka kul bhoopa Dekh achraj kaha na jaye Kaya kaya sobha varan paye.

From the lotus there arose a voice:

Speak who are you and what brings you here?

– My Satguru gave me the key to this realm and through His Grace I am blessed with thy darshan.

Beholding the Lord, it was lost in ecstasy; thereupon the Sat Purush spake giving forth the secrets of Alakh Lok and by His own power raised it further. The form of the Alakh Purush defies description; Agam Purush, the Lord of all creations His wondrous sight cannot be described and His Glory cannot be rendered in words …

Baba Ji strictly adhered to His Master’s original teachings and assured His disciples that if they lived by His instructions they most certainly would reach Sach Khand, and, passing through Alakh, Agam, Anami Radhasoami, get merged in the Wonder Region.

Saints in the past had attained the Highest State through the agency of the Five Names, so why change them now? Why travesty Swami Ji’s message merely for starting a new cult? The Surat Shabd Yoga was an ancient science and it had not changed overnight.

* (This section is adjusted to the First Edition of 1960;
Editor’s Note 2011.)

Before His last day, Baba Ji (Jaimal Singh) called all His disciples then present at Beas and declared:

It is the Will of Din Dayal Swami Ji Maharaj that I open the doors of the Spiritual Treasure House even more widely than before. My Master wishes that I give you in even greater detail than before an account of the Inner Realms, the first five and the last three, so that you should not be put in doubt and say that one who was favoured of Swami Ji passed away in silence.

He then spoke at length on the wonders of the worlds within and ended with the words we have already cited in the conclusion to the biography:

All my life I have only sought to serve my Master, and now whatever He had to accomplish through this poor physical frame is over.

It is impossible to reduce to bare statement the outer teachings of a great man. The task becomes doubly difficult in the case of a Saint of the eminence of Baba Jaimal Singh Ji.

Such spirits speak from a wisdom that we cannot understand and act not as limited human beings but as the agents of the Lord:

Jaisi maen aavae Khasam ki bani taisra kari gian wey Lalo.

What my Lord speaks within me, oh Lalo, that alone I utter.

Guru Nanak, Tilang M1, 722

Their message lives in every little word They speak and in every little gesture.

The abstract statement of Their philosophy is but the skeleton of bone and cartilage that misses altogether the flesh and blood of Their direct impact on Their disciples.

Who can now recall those words of wisdom, of peace, of consolation, of reassurance, of encouragement, of loving reprimand that Baba Ji uttered as He moved among His disciples? And who can now record those little acts of selfless kindness and superhuman Love that unconsciously brought home to those around the unquestioning conviction of the truth of what the Sage taught? If ever there was a problem that could not be solved, He sat wrapped in meditation, and when He returned from the Inner Planes the answer was with Him.

But all that – beyond a few brief recorded accounts – is lost forever: the meaning spoken and the meaning left unspoken and expressed through the agency of the eyes, the words of advice on every conceivable subject to the never-ending stream of disciples and seekers; and it is gone beyond recall. We can only give the husk, the skeleton, and leave the rest to the reader.

And for Baba Ji’s better remembrance and our convenience we summarise here some of the main features of His message – the most ancient, and yet, in His hands, as in those of every Great Saint, the most new and the most vital.

_______________

Explanation: 1) In the light of Swami Ji’s Bachan 115, quoted above, which Shri S. D. Maheshwari himself cites (Correspondence with Certain Americans, Agra, 1960, p. 193), one fails to realise how the latter could commit himself to such patently self-cancelling statements as: "Radhasoami Naam is resounding in all refulgence in higher spheres" (p. 192); "Like the word Om, Sat Naam is resounding at the seat of Sat Purush (True Being). In the same way the Shabd or Sound Radhasoami is resounding in the Radhasoami Dham" (p. 266). It is indeed interesting to learn that Hindi is the 'lingua franca' of the transcendent worlds. One had thought that the Inner Shabd was Dhun Atmak (musical and irreducible to speech) and not Varan Atmak; and further that the Anami or Radhasoami realm was beyond Naam and Form, the Parent and Creator of Shabd (which came into full manifestation only at Sat Lok) and not its seat and center. It is not irrelevant here to point out that mystics have attempted to describe the music of Shabd only up to the fifth plane – speaking of the bell, the conch, the drum, the kingri (one-stringed harp), the flute, etc. – but beyond that have been forced to utter: Herat! Herat! Herat! – Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Form and Shabd, as we have already stated, progressively disappear after the fifth plane, and what finally remains is the Ocean af Blissful Consciousness that defies all description.