Indian preaches old Faith
World Spiritual Science Leader stresses Search for Inner Truth
by Ira Greenberg
An Indian ‘Saint’ is bringing to Louisville and the world a religion which its adherents claim is 20,000 years old and which sees no conflict between itself and the various established churches and religious de-nominations.
He is His Holiness Kirpal Singh, world Spiritual Leader of Ruhani Satsang, known in ancient India as Para Vidya, or the science of realised Truth.
The religion is based on seeking Inner Truth by a form of self-analysis that in its higher stages brings about a direct communion with God, the Spiritual Maharaj explained.
To know oneself is to know God. I’m not advocating any one religion, I’m taking the subjective side of all religions.
Spiritual Science is a common ground on which men of all religions can seek God.
His Holiness is a 61-year-old patriarch-like gentleman who speaks softly but eloquently through His heavy beard.
He smiles readily, but it is in His eyes one gets a true inkling of His personality. They twinkle merrily and from them one gets the feeling of a gentleness and warmth that comes from within.
Referred to by His disciples as the Master, Singh stresses that it is within oneself that God exists and,
It is by opening the Inner Eye that we see the Light of God.
Singh and His entourage will be in Louisville about two weeks. He will speak at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Room 304 of the university of Louisville’s Social Science Building; 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the lecture room of the Y.M.C.A., and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at St Mark’s Evangelical and Reformed Church. Religion’s Adherents Vegetarians.
He is the guest of Mrs M. Gordon Hughes, 216 Shawnee Drive, His Spiritual Representative here. Spiritual Science places few restrictions on its adherents, but one of them is that they be vegetarians.
We must love all living things, and therefore can neither harm or kill nor eat of them,
Singh said.
When one becomes a student of Spiritual Science, he still may maintain his own religion because this is something that transcends all religions, yet is a part of them, the Maharaj explained.
Though interested mainly in discussing His religion, Singh told of His own background, pointing out at the same time He did not consider Himself at all important as an individual.
I am a man and I come as a man to men. I am here to help those who are searching and being helped … and those who are ready and are coming up (in Spiritual Science attainments).
Singh, a retired British civil servant in India, makes no charge for His service, but lives off His pension, now paid by the Indian Government.
The son of a Sikh father, also a civil servant, Singh entered Government work as a clerk in 1912 and retired as assistant controller of military accounts in 1947. He lived in Lahore, the capital of Punjab before India was partitioned and this area given to Pakistan.
He is the Spiritual Leader of 1000 disciples and 1000 ‘interested’ persons in this country and 50,000 disciples in India.
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Note: Article in New York Times of 4th July, 1955.