VIII / (i)

Religion: Outer and Inner

While physical sciences deal with and impart knowledge of the physical sensate world, ethical codes of conduct are concerned with an individual as a member of society, and these codes lay down rules of social relationship between the two. Spirituality, or science of the spirit, tells us about the soul´s evolution or unfoldment (a process of liberating it from the various sheaths or coverings in which it is clothed), its identical nature with God, and how it can be linked with the Divine Reality, its very Source and Fountainhead, and achieve its Godhood and be blessed forever.

The science of the Masters is an experimental science and, like any physical science, is capable of yielding results with mathematical accuracy. These results can very well be verified from the transformations that one can witness in the life of a man of sadhan (or one who practices spiritual discipline). It does not mean book-learning or accumulation of knowledge, but it means the coming into its own of the spirit, and its taking a new birth in cosmic awareness and rising into supramental or Super Consciousness. This realisation brings with it a blessed calmness and thereafter the immanence of God is always felt and the actual working of the Divine Will becomes manifest. Reason and intellect fail to comprehend the infinite Reality. Even after realisation, words but beggar one's attempt to describe the indescribable. This experimentation in Godhood can only be attempted and achieved in utter silence and stillness, both of the mind and the intellect, when like a revelation, His Light and Sound dawn upon the soul.

The knowledge of the world is far different from that of God. We are wholly engrossed in Apara Vidya and are totally ignorant of Para Vidya (or knowledge of the Beyond). We make all possible efforts to rid ourselves of physical ailments, but have never even thought of the subtle maladies that afflict the Inner Self, or how low we are in the scale of human values, and how helplessly we drift along the current of life whether we wish it or not. We spend our entire life-span in eating, drinking and dozing, but care not a bit to know the substratum of the very life itself. Ever engaged as we are in the objective world, we cannot introvert and witness the glories of the world within.

A person who for seeing depends on his outer eyes, for hearing, on his ears, for talking, on his tongue, is in reality not a living person but a dead one, a breathing bellows with no life in it. As God abides within, we must peep inside if we want to meet Him, to experience Him, and to have His blessings. God pervades everything in the form of Naam or Shabd, but we cannot hear His voice unless we turn away from the turmoil of the world and enter into the deep Inner Silence of the soul. As we go in and recede, we walk without feet, work without hands, see without eyes and hear without ears. 

Guru Nanak therefore said in this context: 

There one sees, hears, walks, works and talks without outer physical organs, viz., eyes, ears, legs, hands and tongue, provided he learns to die while living. Oh Nanak, know His Will and meet the Beloved.

Guru Nanak, Majh War M1

Gosain Tulsi Das in the Bal Kand of the Ramayana also affirmed the same thing.

To know God, one must first know himself. 

Self-knowledge is possible only with inversion, or turning the attention from outer pursuits and directing it within into the deep silence of the mind- technically called the Divine Ground, behind the centre of the two eyebrows. It is then only that the spirit experiences Naam, the Over-spirit, or God-in-action, which is the summum bonum of all religious quests after the Great Unknown. Buddha asserts that it is possible to ascend to the greatest heights of Godhood only within ourselves. 

Schopenhauer, a great German philosopher, declared that the fountainhead of all peace and blessed calm can be experienced within oneself. 

Christ emphatically declared:

The Kingdom of God is within you.

In the Sikh Scriptures it is stated:

The precious waters of Immortality surge within one's very soul.

One can undertake this inward journey without leaving one's hearth and home, forsaking kith and kin, or abandoning one's calling and avocation in life. This grand pilgrimage of the soul can be performed in spite of worldly pursuits. All that is necessary is to get instruction from some living Master who holds the key to the Kingdom of God.

Oh Nanak! Follow strictly the injunctions of a Perfect Master of putting you on the right Path, you shall then gain salvation happily while living the life of a householder in the midst of your family and friends.

Guru Arjan, Gujri War M5

One need not leave the world and retire into the deep recesses of the forests to achieve this goal. The entire mystery can be resolved in the solitude of the mind.

There is no greater sanctuary than that of one's soul.

Guru Arjan, Basant Ramanand M5

An aspirant can, by practice, still the mind, even in the midst of the hustle and bustle of life, and can, at will, retire into the silent chamber of the Divine Ground. Unless the mind is stilled, an abode in a forest or by the side of a stream cannot be of any avail.

Every religion has two aspects or divisions: one is social and the other is spiritual. The social side consists in making ethical rules of conduct, which aim at rectifying social evils, developing society on healthy lines, observing certain rites and rituals and performing charitable deeds. By such means, one may best prepare the ground for higher spiritual life. The spiritual aspect of religions deals solely and primarily with the spirit, an investigation into its nature, its relation with body and mind, the way it can be detached from both these appendages, and how it can be linked up with Naam or Word, leading to realisation of and identification with the Great Ocean of Consciousness.

Man is no doubt a social being, but society can rest safely only on the bedrock of Spirituality. Just as spirit enlivens the human body, so does Spirituality give life and sustenance to society, without which all types of social evils, such as narrow-mindedness, petty prejudices, selfish aggrandisement, clash and conflict, gradually creep into its very vitals and make it enervated, gangrenous and septic.

In these days there is no dearth of social reform, but what we woefully lack is self-reform. Society has no doubt made a tremendous advance in the realms of science and art, politics and philosophy, and has not only unraveled the mysteries of Nature but has actually harnessed most of the forces of Nature and pressed them into its service in various ways. All this, however, has been achieved at a great cost and a mighty sacrifice – sacrifice of one's own spirit or soul. The natural result, therefore, is that with all this material advancement and multiplicity of material comforts, we are as far removed from happiness as we were before. 

What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

St Matthew 16:26

Man must, in the fitness of things, first know himself and have the experience of the Reality. Once this is achieved, it matters not whether a person remains a householder or renounces the world and becomes an anchorite. The Path of the Masters is purely spiritual. The Masters, of course, have to remain in one or the other of the social orders, but Their only mission is to bring home the Ultimate Truth to embodied souls, who are steeped in darkness. This They do by means of the Surat Shabd Yoga.

The Masters enjoin all to join the army of God, and take the various social religions as the recruiting centres thereof. They, therefore, continue to stand aloof from social squabbles, racial wrangles and religious recriminations. They do not come to destroy the existing religious orders or to raise new orders, but to purify and elevate the existing ones, restore them to their original pristine Glory in which they were set up by their founders. They try to remove the mass of useless accretions that gather around them through the ages, and pull them out of the morass into which they sink, and also strengthen them by transfusion of the blood of spirituality into their decaying veins.

At the core of all religions there is the age-old Truth and the tradition of Spirituality, both of which have, by lapse of time, almost been lost. Religion is now nothing but an outer husk of rites and rituals. But the Masters actually experience the same Reality which is described in the sacred scriptures by the rishis and munis who came in the past. As such, Their teachings are not based on any sacred scriptures nor are They held fast and tight in the rigours of religiosity. They are concerned with Para Vidya alone (the science of the spirit which is beyond the realm of thought, reason and intellect). This knowledge, experience and realization can neither be learnt nor taught but may be caught, like any other infection, from a person infected with it.

Men enter the Path by coming into contact with Master-Souls, listening to Their words of wisdom, attending Their discourses and following Their teachings both in letter and spirit. In this way the Masters attract, magnetize and make divine the spirit, thereby removing all vacillations of the mind and rendering it immune forever from the onslaughts of matter and the material world. The spirit, thus freed from all the shackles that bind her to the material plane, is enabled to take up unfettered flights to higher regions that lie beyond the human ken. Such travels are a matter of experience by the soul alone, apart from mind and intellect. These outgoing faculties remain helpless, far down in the abyss below, with nothing to sustain and enliven them so long as the spirit is absorbed in higher spiritual experiences.

The Spiritual Teachings of all Masters in all ages and in all countries are one and the same, though described in the different words and languages prevailing at a particular time in a particular country. They come with the message of Spirituality, and their sole object is to spiritualise human beings by linking them in the process of spiritual evolution and unfoldment. Their teachings are therefore termed Ilm-i-Seena or Ilm-i-Laduni (knowledge of the Inner Man or Soul, the knowledge of Reality), which is the Inner Experience of the soul without any outer aids. It is the very core of all knowledge, and by it everything else becomes known. It is the most natural science, and like other natural, gifts – light, air and water – costs nothing. It is the common heritage of the entire humanity and can be claimed as such, by one and all alike, without any obligation, from any Master-Soul. Saints are the children of Light and they come to diffuse Light into the universe.

I am the Light of the world, and he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the Light of Life.

St John 8:12