The Author and His Theme

The author of this book is Saint Kirpal Singh, a well-educated, retired Public servant Whose life-long dedication to Spirituality, shorn of dogma, and to mysticism of the Highest Order, imbibed and practised for a long span at the feet of a Great Master has borne rich fruit in His fully integrated and exalted personality. His short lecture-tour of USA, U.K., and a few continental countries some years ago won him the acclaim of the audiences and brought light and cheerfulness into many homes. As the head of the Ruhani Satsang, at Delhi, He has been giving sermons to big concourses who periodically throng to that place to build up a new life, based on a distant glimpse of Reality which develops to varying stages of personal experience marking the Spiritual Progress of the votaries. His is not a method of mere hope and faith but of practice and achievement. From His place as President of ‘World Fellowship of Religions,’ He has been consistently preaching the basic Spiritual Unity of all religions and the equal right of all mankind to walk on the Spiritual Path for the attainment of God, and mergence in Absolute Reality.

The Yoga systems comprehend physical and mental development and Spiritual Progress. But they are understood and practised differently by different people and sects. Some lay stress on the amelioration of the body, others on the development of psychic powers to bring about results which are almost miraculous, still others are devoted to the yoga or self-discipline of the mind and body, with the object of liberating the soul from their sway. These tree divisions correspond to the tripartite of man as animal, mind and spirit. In this book a brief survey of the various systems is attempted but the pivotal theme is the Yoga of the Sound Current which aims at establishing direct, conscious contact of the soul with the audible Life-Stream which sustains the cosmos. This power is described as the Word in the Bible, as Kalma in the Quran and as Udgit or Anhad in the Vedic Literature, as Naam in the Granth Sahib of the Sikhs and by various other names in the scriptures and Holy Books of other religions. The see, according to St Mark, is the Word of God. The Word of the Lord all through the Old Testament is practically synonymous for the Divine Power. According to a great Roman Catholic divine,

The Word of the Kingdom is the life-giving secret, the energising power, the motive-force which brings the Kingdom into existence.

The theme of the book is that the contact of the soul with the Word or Celestial Harmony frees it from the shackles of body and mind and fits it for the journey towards Self-realisation and God-Realisation. Such rich harvest is reaped by persons who take the Surat Shabd Yoga. Such Spiritual Experiences can be had when the mind is intently abandoned by absorption in the Divine Music and is alertly passive. By persistent practice of this form of yoga one begins to combine will with effortlessness, action with relaxation. It is by means of this system of yoga that the human will can perform its supreme function of willing itself out of existence, so that the Divine Will may be done. If the Divine Truth, the Reality behind the creation, and in the creation, with its immanence and transcendence, which is of free access to all mankind is attained only by few, it shows that only few are willing to pay the price for it. Perfection at the human level is a task to be accomplished by conscious endeavour. Devotion to the Surat Shabd Yoga or the methodology of Spirituality, in its true sense, implies humility, obedience, readiness to serve, compassion and gentle love as the devotee longs to surrender himself, renounce self-will, and experience passivity in his upward march.

This book, one feels sure, shall be a course of solace and satisfaction to many souls who have a haunting sense of the vanity, the transience, and the precariousness of all human happiness, and seek a principle of harmony and peace, and ever-lasting life of bliss. To the scoffers and sceptics one can do no better than quote the words of Dean Inge that,

to attempt to explain the higher by the lower becomes mischievous or impossible when we pass from one order to another.

R.K. Khanna, M.A., L.L.B.
New Delhi, 6 June 1961