From the Editor’s Desk

The importance of Satsang cannot be overemphasised.

Satsang,

Hazur used to say,

is a protective hedge around disciples engaged in Spiritual Sadhans or practices, and it keeps them safe in its fold.

Satsang is a must in everybody’s life. One cannot do without it. The need for it is felt, at one stage or another, as man advances in age and faces the ups and downs of life. The sooner one realises it, the better it is, not only for one’s own self but for all those around him.

Life without Satsang is a sham tinsel, a base coin. however bright it may appear to be. It has no currency in the realm of God.

Most of us, however, take a very limited view of Satsang. We generally do not know what the term Satsang really implies. We consider any and every talk by a religious teacher or a preacher as Satsang. A congregational kirtan or chanting the name of the Lord and singing hymns in His praise go in common parlance as Satsang. To attend customary service in a church. a gurdawara, a temple or a mosque is considered to be enough of service to the Lord. All these practices undoubtedly are steps in the right direction but are not enough. These, more or less, prepare some ground for understanding the higher values of life, the highest being Satsang or communion with the Lord within.

Satsang in the terminology of Master-Saints has a much deeper significance than is commonly known and understood to be. ‘Sat’ stands for Truth, the unchangeable permanence in the ever-changing panorama of life. It is in Sat, by Sat and through Sat that the universe and all that is in the universe exists and subsists. Paradoxically enough, without Sat there is naught and where there is naught there is Sat. Sat is the substratum of life, nay it is the very life itself that lightens the life of each one who is in tune with Sat.

To be in tune with Sat is Satsang in the real sense of the word. How to be in communion with Sat is the question? Sat is not a mere abstraction. If it were so, then there would be no Satsang, for it would imply contradiction in terms Sat and Sang; while all the scriptures emphasise the need of Satsang.

Sat is all-pervading and yet in the world of men It works from a chosen human pole for purposes of regeneration of mankind. Man is to be the teacher of man in Apara Vidya – empirical knowledge – and Para Vidya – the Knowledge of the Beyond. One in Whom God-Power works in fullness can lead us on the God-Way leading to the Power and Spirit of God.

We all live, move and have our very being in Him and, strange as it may seem, we do not know this and much less are conscious of this. A Godman, Satpurush, can consciously awaken us to the Reality within and we can, like Him, revel in our native God-head if we, for sometime, hear to what He has to teach and practise the Inner Sadhan as He enjoins. The former is called outer Satsang while the latter is termed Inner Satsang or experience of the Power of God within one’s own self.

Such Godman are very rare but the world is not without one. Godman is as much a gift of God, as God is the gift of the Godman. And fortunate is one who, knowing the value of Satsang, strives to be a Satsangi.