Questions answered

The Master receives from devotees queries on various aspects of Spirituality. These may be personal or academic, but the Master’s answers have universal appeal for Spiritual Aspirants. We reproduce here some of the questions and answers from the Master’s book ‘Spiritual Elixir’ for the benefit of our readers.

Question: Jesus gave to Peter, according to the script the ‘keys’ of the Kingdom of God. Some teachers say these keys are Love, wisdom, understanding, compassion, sympathy and discernment. Is it not possible that the real keys are the five Charged Names? If so, will You please give us something for the Divine Pearls?

Answer: All these are the means to the end of Spiritual Perfection. The Holy Contacts with Holy Naam in its various aspects are the keys of Kingdom of God given to the disciple to awaken his self-consciousness, cosmic and super-cosmic consciousness. All these Divine Virtues follow of themselves by coming into contact with the Light and Sound Principles without your asking. The Sun of Spirituality when it shines high shows everything in clear form. Righteousness follows as a matter of course. Dharma when established does not leave any place for ifs and buts. You are not to elicit or pose but live in the actual sense.

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Question: I have always wanted a rebirth to help humanity in some essential way, biochemistry, organic, gardening or health measures, or the protection of trees, natural resources. Now we are taught to get off the wheel of re-birth, but I feel so inadequate and unprepared?

Answer: The Highest Aim of man’s life is to know one-self and to know God. If once we have attained that, one purpose is served. The divine phenomena which determines future birth of the initiates is left to the Master-Power, in Whom we should repose all our hopes. Your kind sentiments of helping humanity in various fields of your activity will bless you with an awakened outlook which in turn should grant you an impetus to work more zealously, selflessly and in a spirit of dedication. It is for the Master-Power to see how He can make the best use of you. A Master-Saint enjoys that the dear initiate should lead such a disciplined life that he or she should retire every night by disposing of all work assigned to his or her care, and repose all hopes and aspirations in the gracious Master-Power working overhead. Such a Sacred Schedule will endow you with a stillness of mind and be immensely helpful for Spiritual Progress.

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Question: According to Page 34 of ‘My submission’ ‘Surat Shabd Yoga is easy.’ I feel it is quite difficult to keep the attention completely on Shabd, others have the same trouble. Is there some method by which this difficulty can be overcome?

Answer: When we say that Surat Shabd Yoga is easy, we are using the words relatively. It is easier when compared with other forms of Yoga: Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raj Yoga, Hatha Yoga, the traditional Ashtang Yoga, all of which call for stern and severe outer disciplines, which a common busy man in the work-a-day world of today has neither the patience nor the time nor strength nor the leisure to do with all the wits about him. The Surat Shabd Yoga, on the other hand, can easily be practised by every one: man or woman, young or old with equal ease and facility. It is because of its naturalness and simplicity that it is often termed Sehaj Yoga. With a direct immediate experience of Inner Perception and Audition given by a Competent Master, one can, with loving devotion, steadily proceed along the Path under the guidance both without and within of the Master-Power that works like an unfailing friend and an unerring guide on the Spiritual Path.

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Question: Does the disciple see God in his meditation?

Answer: Nobody can ever see God-Absolute. God-in-expression called Word or Naam manifests in the form of Light and Sound Principle which can be seen and heard with the Inner Eye and Inner Ear with the help and Grace of a Competent Master. He has a two-fold function: one that of Kal and the other that of Dayal. Mohammedans designate these by the words Shaitan and Rehman, while Zoroastrians use the term Aharman and Harmuzd. These may be called the Negative and the Positive Powers, both aspects of the One Great and undivided God. The Negative Power, Kal, Shaitan, Aharman represents the power that is going into expression, bringing all creation into being, and the other, Dayal, Rahman and Harmuzd – Positive Power – represents the power of inversion, bringing the soul back to its Source. These then are the centrifugal and centripetal powers working in all creation. Mind is an agent of the Negative Power and always brings one into the outer world. On the other hand, the contact with the Divine Word within leads the soul back to God, which is Wordless or Absolute. Though mind is activated by the soul, yet it has come to dominate it. Again, mind is further controlled by the senses or the outside faculties which in turn drag us into the field of sensual pleasures born of our attachments to sense objects without. Master tells us how to withdraw the soul current by means of concentration at the centre of our being and grants us contact with the Divine Word which is within and which is the Way to God. Negative Power keeps in control the creation in expression or manifestation. But once the soul comes in contact with the Divine Word, it is liberated from the bondage of mind and matter with the help and Grace of the Master, and is freed from the grip of the Negative Power.

Question: Does God move us around like a chessman on a board or do we, with our free will, move ourselves?

Answer: It is our past karmic evolution which moves us around under His Divine Will. We are bound within certain limits on account of past karma and free within certain limits. We can make the best use of free karmas to change our course to proceed on our Spiritual Way. For exhaustive explanation please refer to ‘The Wheel of Life.’

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Question: If one sends loving thoughts and prayers for the loved ones who have passed on, do they reach and benefit the one who has gone from this world and will they know that they are loved and remembered?

Answer: Before understanding the correct answer to this question it should be borne in mind carefully that unions and separations of this physical world are governed by the inexorable Law of Karma. They have severed all connections with this physical plane and have been granted protection in accordance with their earnings. The prayers and their loving thoughts sent out by advanced souls do help the departed souls and they are cognisant of the same. It may furthermore be understood that the near and dear relations of the sincere initiates are granted feasible protection in the beyond, even if they had left much earlier before they took initiation.

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Question: Is initiation pre-destined or pre-ordained?

Answer: Yes, it is pre-destined and pre-ordained in the framework of the Divine Plan that certain souls are to be accepted and initiated by each Master during His ministry and many a time it so happens that those who are ostensibly unworthy are accepted.

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Question: When a soul has made its seat in the eye-focus, is it not the Master Who is seated at the eye-focus?

Answer: No, when soul is completely withdrawn to the eye focus, contact with the Holy Shabd Dhun can be had. Soul and Shabd Dhun are of the same Divine Essence. The Radiant Form of the Master manifests at times to assure the initiate that He is with him or her.

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Question: Why is initiation considered very necessary for Inner Spiritual Progress?

Answer: Do we not need a teacher for learning all empirical sciences – engineering, medicine, technology, industry and agriculture? The Science Spiritual is a highly obtruse subject, dealing with the world beyond. The sense-organs, the senses, the mind and the intellect do not, and cannot, cognise it for all these limiting adjuncts fail to measure and grasp the Limitless. Here the soul is to be disfranchised of all that is personal, and has to cast off the mask of terrestrial personality – persona –, and become pure soul before it can experience the Truth which has no form or shape. It is more of a practical subject than anything else, and for this one has to pass through a process of self-analysis and self-transcendence by gradual inversion, and withdrawal of the sensory currents from the body. In order to completely understand and to successfully practise a super-sensory subject, unwritten and unspoken, one has of necessity to seek the aid of an Adept – Murshid-i-Kamil or Master-Soul –, fully conversant with both the theory and practice of Para Vidya, and competent enough to disengage the human soul from the human frame, and to transhumanise the human in man and lead him to the mount of transfiguration to see the Reality face to face. Again, the Inner Spiritual Planes are so bewitching, bewildering and so vast, and full of diverse temptations that one cannot without the active aid of the Master, traverse them.

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Question: I have an ant hill in my garden which I wish to get rid of; is there any natural way, prayer or planting some seeds or powers which could disperse them?

Answer: You should not please wish like that and let them live there. How would you appreciate the Divine Grace when you are blessed by providence with a charming house to live in which is adorned with a beautiful garden and your act of removing them would be sheer cruelty to the dumb and mute. You will appreciate that here in India, the Hindus feed the ants with wheat flour which shows their deep compassion for their lower brethren. However, for sanitary purposes you may please take remedial measures as advised by the health department of the government.

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Question: Several occasions I had fallen asleep and was shaken out of it by a tremendous high pitched roar at the right side and flashes of Light. I could not move the body. What is this?

Answer: The sensory currents from the body below are withdrawn up to the eye focus with the aid of Holy Naam. The slackening of the Inner Gaze at the eye focus results in sleep as you experience. During this period the Surat or attention slips down to the gullet ganglion instead of ascension within. The Divine Revelations of Holy Light and Sound Current awaken you and you feel the numbness or stiffness of the body below.

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Question: What is God and how can we know Him?

Answer: God, as all the scriptures and the Saints have said, is nameless and unknowable. Then how can we know God? The answer is that Absolute is not knowable, yet makes Himself known by manifesting Himself as Light and Sound Principle. Most religions tell us that the creation began from these primal manifestations. Now the Divine Light and the Divine Sound or Word may be contacted by rising above the physical consciousness. They exist in a latent form in all of us. Our Goal must, therefore, be to contact them and develop them within us. To do this, we through meditation learn to withdraw our soul to its seat behind and between the eyes. Having once contacted the Inner Light and Sound, we can progress towards their Source, passing from plane to plane until we reach God.

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Question: Is artistic talent, as some people say, a God-given gift which is meant to be used in this life or is it something which one has worked at and developed in a past life and must now be put behind one, when entering this Spiritual Path?

Answer: All talents inherited as a result of past karma are good provided they are utilised for attainment of Spiritual Progress by regular meditations. Every body comes to this world with certain instincts and impulses which can be harnessed for Spiritual Development under competent guidance. It is the single-minded devotion of the initiate which should be developed carefully and should be considered as the best of Godly Gifts.

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Question: Can a sinner like myself attain to God-hood in this very lifetime?

Answer: Yes you can attain God-hood during this lifetime provided you work for it strictly according to the behests of the Master. Let His words abide in you and you abide in Him. You have been granted the Sacred Boon of the Holy Initiation which is a valid visa on to the Sach Khand and it your earnest efforts and steadfastness which would bless you with fruition of your wish in due course.