The Message of Christmas Day
A darshan session from 25 December, 1971
Question: Which does the Master feel is the most important birthday, 25th December or 6th February?
Kirpal Singh: Every day is a birthday; every day is the greatest birthday. You are blessed, you are seeing your Master in the physical body. I am not so blessed. [Master asks someone to read Christmas and New Year’s Message 1971. He then asked that the message be typed and distributed to everyone there.] There is a vast difference between the Physical Master in the physical body and the Master Who has transcend into the beyond. At the human level, He is at the same level as you – it is all joy and ecstasy. The Master does not leave the initiate until the end of the world, but if we are on the same plane both together … it is bliss giving.
How happy we are, of course, when we are in the physical body with our Master, we can never forget it. When we remember those days, tears are shed, the heart bursts, He is not away from us. I know my Master is with me. Yet with all that, the physical presence cannot be underrated. That is why, I tell you, you are happy of course – I am not; it does not mean that my Master is not with me – He is never away from me even for a moment. But to be on the same plane together, that is blessedness.
So every day should be enjoyed as Christman with Him. You are here only to enjoy that. To enjoy only eating and drinking, that is no enjoyment. We should enjoy being on the Way; if we are progressing on the Way, we should enjoy Him inside as well as outside.
When my Master left physically, I used to tell people who asked me,
Look here, when an officer, that soul, withdraws inside his own room, he just engages a boy to run, to carry on his work.
So somebody is carrying on His teachings, His work.
You are blessed, you see, but make the best use of it. May there never be a day when you forget your Master. Remain in contact with the Master – you have a great boon – in that case you don’t fall away in lower pursuits. If you see your Master is seeing you every moment of life, how can you do anything wrong? So blessed you are, I would say, on this Happy Christmas.
The Christ-Power is the same working at different poles; whether It is in Jesus or one of the other Masters, that makes no difference; Christ never dies. We have to become conscious of that, you see. Truly to commemorate, to celebrate the birthday of Master is to live up to it. But we should celebrate daily. This is the one thing you forget when you are sitting – if you remember Him daily with an anguished heart, how blessed you become! We should celebrate the Master’s birth daily, at every moment of breath.
Guru Amar Das said,
If I forget Him with one twinkling of an eye – so much time – it passes like a million years.
So Master is the very life of the initiate: don’t forget Him. Do nothing more, you’ll become what He is. So Master is the very life of the initiate. Don't forget Him. Do nothing more, you'll become what He is. But we are always thinking of the worldly things. If your attention is always diverted to the Master – higher consciousness – you'll be charged with Him. Whatever is in Him, will be transferred to you without request. You’ll become the mouth-piece of the Master.
There is one event in the life of one Saint whose name was Bheek. Bheek was the name of the Master. His initiate used to remember Him; he forgot God, he simply remembered, Oh Bheek, oh Bheek, oh Bheek. That was his constant remembrance, repetition of the Master’s Name. During the Mohammedan reign, it was a heinous crime to say that Bheek is God. They considered somebody else as God. (Social rules were strict.) Somebody asked him, Well, who is your God? Bheek, Bheek is my God. – Who is your prophet? – Bheek is my prophet. That was a heinous crime at that time, so he was sentenced to death. The orders were passed and sent out to the King for further sentence.
The King sent for him and saw that his eyes appeared to be intoxicated. Well, the King asked, Who is your God? – My God is Bheek. – Who is your prophet? – My prophet is Bheek. – Release him. – Why? He will run away. – Don't fear, he has some intoxication in him. Then the King requested, Well, look here, Bheek, your Master, is very good. As there has been no rain in the country for so long, will you kindly pray to your Bheek to give us rain? – All right, I'll ask him. – When will you return? – Sometime during the day after tomorrow. So he went away.
The next day it rained torrents, cats and dogs; and on the third day, he came up. Well, very many thanks to your Bheek who has sent us rain. Then, what did the King do? He just ordered the revenue of 21 villages to be taken to his Master so that he may have it for use of those coming to him. Oh, I won't take these amenities to my Master. He never invited it. He doesn't care for any worldly things.
Then he went back and his Master said to him, When you were just in unison with me and I was in unison with God, what you wanted was given to you. – Why do you do it? – For the sake of the world over, his Master replied.
Sweet remembrance of the Master is the sum total, of all practices. We do them only to show that He may not be forgotten in weal or woe. As you think so you become.
Celebrate your Master’s birthday daily. He is not the Physical body; He is working through the physical body, and those are very fortunate who See Him at that level. Every moment spent with Him is very precious because you have got the teachings both ways – one-third by word of mouth, and two-thirds by receptivity. I think that is what I would enjoin on you – become Masters yourselves.
It is I, not now I, but Christ liveth in me.
After all, for what purpose do you do all these practices? To see Him inside, to see Him everywhere, wherever your attention has gone. He is not a son of man; He is God in man. Once He initiates you, He can never leave you till the end of the world. The attitude of mind of the Masters cannot be appreciated by those who are grovelling in the physical body. So Happy Christmas to you every moment of life! You people are more fortunate than me, you see. I’m talking of the physical plane, don’t misunderstand me.
Yes, any questions?
Question: Why have You come for us? Why?
Kirpal Singh: I’m a friend.
Question: Why don’t You stay with Your Master?
Kirpal Singh: I’m under orders. I was not prepared to live even one moment after Him. I prayed to Him all through life. I was initiated physically in 1924, but I was with Him seven years before I met Him on the Inner Planes. In 1927 I had a vision. I saw Master was leaving us – twenty-one years before He really left the physical body. I never had a moment of joy afterwards in His lifetime because I always had that sting, I tell you. I knew that was the very thorn of separation which was awaiting me.
So I always prayed,
Master, let me go before You.
He said,
No – you are to continue.
Why, why, why do I have to? Orders cannot be questioned.
Gurumat Sidhant is a book written by me – through my hands, I would say, not by me – by the Master within me. I used to write it down and take it to the Master to read it to Him so that He may give the final yes.
Once I wrote what happened to an initiate who was left behind after his Master had left the physical plane. That was a very practical statement, description given. There was a Master, Dadu by name, Who had an initiate who was not at the place when His Master left the body; when he came to His tomb he lay down on the tomb and passed away.
And he repeated this couplet:
Oh Master, without You I could not live for a moment. It is not bearable.
So he passed away. The second Guru of the Sikhs, when His Master left the body, became a recluse never to show His face to anybody. To live without the Master is very difficult, unbearable. We know when the Master leaves He is never away from the initiate, but the initiate, as a son of man has great suffering. Even now when I remember my Master I shed tears. But He left His orders. Why? There is no question why.
When I read out that part of the Gurumat Sidhant to Him, He said,
That’s all right; Kirpal Singh, read it again!
I had just quoted two or three sentences like that. Then again I read it to Him. Again He said,
Will you read it again!
Again I read it. Perhaps He was telling me,
You, poor fellow, will have the same fate awaiting you.
These are so many sweet remembrances of the Master, you see; this is everything.
One poet says,
To live in paradise without the Master is a hell for me. And to live in hell with my Master is a paradise for me.
But these words can be appreciated only by those who are really devoted to the Master.
If your son passes away, your mother passes away, how grieved you feel! I never felt any grief, thank God. That’s a great suffering you usually feel for the physical relations. What about the relation which is spiritual? Anyhow, to be with the Master is a great joy. That God-Power never leaves you. But make the best use of the time you have here on the physical plane.
Once it so happened that my Master was photographed for the first time; I was there. He moved from one station to another; I followed Him wherever He went. At one place a man who was a big landlord was standing by Him and I was sitting by the door outside.
He requested the Master,
Well, Master, will You give me a copy of Your photograph?
The Master’s ways are very mysterious. He told him,
Look here, even Kirpal Singh wants it, but I won’t give it to him.
I was sitting outside, you see. Mysterious are His ways.
Later I said,
Well, dear Master, I know Your Love for Your Master is the richest. You cannot scale it, how much Love You have for Him! But still with the little Love You have given me, won’t You give me a copy of Your photograph?
– No, no … Surely I will give you one.
That was the first time He got Himself photographed. If you have Love, it is the panacea for everything. Love is God and God is Love. But if you want to have this marriage you are having now … So the Master always tries to quicken the Love of the disciple for His Master. He knows what it was like with His own Master.
Question: I am still so young and selfish, I wonder if You could reassure me that You'll live till 120.
Kirpal Singh: It is God overhead. It is all His will. So the Master always tries to quicken the love of the disciple for his Master. He knows what it was like with his own Master.
Guru Nanak, was in a shop weighing out the wheat for those who had paid for it. He was weighing out: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times, eight times, nine times, ten times, eleven, twelve, and thirteen. The word, thirteen is tera in punjabi. Tera means: I am Thine, oh Lord. When he weighed out the thirteenth, tera, he got intoxicated. He was going to weigh out bushelfuls. When they think of their Master, you see, they are intoxicated like anything.
The tenth Guru, Whose birthday was celebrated yesterday, played the role of a Saint as well as an Avatar. Once He was found in sweet remembrance of God repeating,
It is You, it is You alone, it is You.
‘Tum hai’ means it is You alone, nobody else but You, all the world is You personified.
He was meditating
Tum hai, tum hai. – You are all, everything You are.
He got intoxicated and went on repeating this for three days, day and night,
Tum hai, tum hai. – It is all You, Thou oh Lord, it is all God.
How can you imagine, appreciate these words of those Masters? If you have Love like that for the Master that will give you blessedness as if you had done penances for a hundred years. The reason for all of this is to develop love in us.
If you take the Master as a son of man, what will you get? Sonship – physical relationship. If you take Him as a rich man, you’ll have the same thing. If you take Him as God, then you become God. There are different angles from which hundreds come to Him – only very few really have that attitude.
Guru Ram Das says,
Go and gather together all the riches of the world, gold and precious stones, from the plains and the ocean and put them all together at one place. Then ask a devoted initiate of the Master, ‘Would you like the wealth of the whole world – or the Master?’
Master is All-Wise – yet when we do things do we put the Master first, or the world first?
If you learn this message of Christmas Day! think you’ll become Lords yourselves. You are Lords. You are microgods. Supposing the Father wants His children to progress more than Himself. All children coming to Him must become Saints.
Why do you delay? He simply wants you to obey His commandments. You obey the commandments of your mind as compared with the commandments of the Master. We give preference to the commandments of the world – there we lack badly. That is why we have very little progress. Well, this is the message for today; take it to your heart and live up to it. If you die in that sweet remembrance of the Master, you are not to return to the world. Even Yama cannot look at you – he will run away when you repeat the Names of God. What are the Charged Words? They are charged by the Master. The Master is not the physical body, mind that, but the presence of God. I have written this message (just read out) to remind you of what I say. I is from the intellectual level, but this is more real. It is from God direct.
Yesterday I went for the sweet remembrance of the Tenth Guru. We read from Sikh scriptures and I offered my heart to them. Who knows what I was and what He was there. The Guru was always the same – one or two living there. They’re all One, you see. All Masters are One. Masters never become two. One bulb is fused, and another is put on. When that is fused, a further third one is put on – that’s all. The Light is One.
So we’ll have a feast today in sweet remembrance of Christ.
Question: Will we have a Satsang during the day also?
Kirpal Singh: This is more than hundreds and thousands of Satsangs what you have got now. Is it not? It is the very gist, the very soul of all preaching of all scriptures. What I have told you – would you like anything more once you get That?
Question: Some day maybe You’ll give us a feast of Satsang all day long? Just for one day?
Kirpal Singh: Pity it is, the feast is given every day by radiation, and you people don’t enjoy it. His very moving on earth is a regular feast. An actor acts in whatever he’s doing. Even when he’s eating, he is acting. The Master is radiating Love.
Even if He is harsh, still that Love is radiating.
Once it happened that a lady came up to my Master when He was busy. He does not become angry, but … This lady came up and bowed down to His feet.
He said,
Get away! What is it? I’m busy! Wait!
And this lady said,
That’s all I want, Your radiation.
You see? His whole attention was there:
Wait! Wait! Get away?
Is it not the whole attention?
That’s all I wanted. Thank you.
So He radiates Love Who has got Life in Him. Very few people really appreciate this because they have no Love for the Master.
Hafiz, a Great Saint of Persia, referred to the Master as a lady with red lips.
He said,
The very harsh words coming out through those red lips are the sweetest in the world.
The fifth Guru says,
Even when You chastise us it becomes very soothing to me, on account of Love.
Why is it sometimes He is strict like that? He wants to give you a lesson in Love; He wishes you to become like Himself. And you delay because you have no Love for Him. So take this to your heart – don’t forget it or Him – then you’ll progress like anything.
Question: Could you kindly speak more on humility because we need it so?
Kirpal Singh: You become humble only when you see some Higher Power working, that you are merely a puppet in His hands. When you see some Higher Power working and you are merely at His beck and call, what are you? How humble. Blessed are the humble, the Bible says, for they inherit the Kingdom of God. When there is no ego, that is humility. The word world, w-o-r-l-d means world. If you take out one 'l' out of it, what remains? Word. Word is God. So humility means striking out the 'I' from within you. You are Word personified. Those Who are Word made flesh, come up of Themselves and reside with us to guide us on the Way. Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. And that is the Bread of Life. This Bread of Life comes down from heaven to work on the physical plane along with you. But He is the Son of God, not the son of man, the Word in Man, God in Man, you see? Whosoever partaketh of It shall have Everlasting Life.
How to eat and drink, I explained to you the other day. By receptivity you eat and drink Him, the sweet elixir of the God in Him. In Gurbani also [Hindi quote]. First, He manifests in the son of man, and then that manifested Word in Him, God in Him, unites others also to the Word in Him [Hindi quote]. Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. Then the God in Him is the Guru [Hindi quote]. If anybody says I am God, I am Guru, they simply act and pose. Shabd is the Guru, Word is the Guru. Word made flesh is the Controller. He has got two phases of life, as Son of man and Son of God. He is the mouthpiece of God, and if you become the mouthpiece of the Master, then God speaks within you.
Question: How come, Master, we’re so privileged to be with You when thousands of initiates would like to be with You?
Kirpal Singh: This is the Grace of God, not me as son of man. It is all His Grace – He affords the opportunity. You have come from a foreign land, spent thousands of money with love and anguish to come here and stay a month or two. The people living here don’t appreciate it like that – there are some who do, but many do not. Some may say the Power of God is there. So this appreciation arises out of a grateful heart. It is His Grace, of course.
Man-body is the highest in all creation. Every moment is worth millions, trillions, I would say, billions of trillions of money. Direct every moment to Him, if we are to make the best use of every moment of life.
Kabir said,
The time taken in taking one breath is worth more than the three worlds – physical, astral, and causal.
You see? This appreciation arises only out of a grateful heart. But how many are there who really go to the Master for Master’s sake? Very few.Very few who come to the Master for the Master’s sake!
Question: What is Master’s sake?
Kirpal Singh: The reason you come to Him is to meet God. This is a room, it has four corners. There is a man in one corner who has millions of dollars. Whoever goes there, he gives him money. The second corner is only for diseases. Those who come sick to him, he heals them. The third is for supernatural powers. And in the fourth corner, God is sitting Himself. How many will go to God? Very few. People come to the Master only for these three things – most of them.
The man who comes to Him for His sake gets put on the right Way. So you’re blessed, you see. God has directed you from within to meet you somewhere where you can have your True Chance of Life, which is never like the world’s relations, frittered away, never ruined, never lost.
Those who have got the man-body have the hereditary right to meet God. Those who think of the Master, who come in contact with All-Consciousness, will become more conscious. If you think of the material things where there is less consciousness, your consciousness will be decreased. You will go to the lower level of creation. So that is why it is most important to think of God – All-Consciousness – so that you may not come back in the lower levels of life. If at all you are sent back, that‘s another thing. As I told you yesterday, they are given the title,
You are my son, go and do this work.
When I first went to the West, you see, people told me,
Well, Christ is the greatest.
– Oh, I'm glad to hear. Is there any proof that He said He is the greatest?
Yes, yes, he said, ‘I am the Son of God, Father has sent me.’
Then I quoted some references from the tenth Guru, fifth Guru and so many others who said the same. Then I asked,
What do you think now?
– They are all Sons of God. They are begotten Sons of God. They are the same as God Himself.
The Tenth Guru when He was ordered to come back, gave references to His past life too. Very few Masters do state,
I was there.
But Tenth Guru gave the place,
I lived there.
(I have found the place He referred to, I was there.) He said,
I was in sweet remembrance of God, so much so that I forgot myself. I became One with Him. Then God ordered me to go to the world. I could not dare refuse, even though this was all-blessedness, bliss. But God said, ‘All right, you go.’ And I had to come.
When He was questioned,
Why did you come here?
Orders. He had to come. Then he said,
Well, what should I do? You’ve sent so many already.
Then God told him,
Look here, all who were sent before they preached their own names rather than Mine.
You see? These are the words given to the tenth Guru; He said,
God ordered me.
Like that. So when he came here the first thing he gave out,
Whoever tells me I am God, he will go to hell.
You see?
Who I am? I am sent by God. I am a slave of you, a slave of you all. Don't think it an iota otherwise. I am Son of God. I am ordered to come here to preach His Name, not my name.
Then He enjoined so much so,
Whoever tells me I am God he will go to hell.
All others who were sent before (most all of them), we remember them, not God. Oh Rama, oh Krishna, oh Prophet Mohammed, and this and that. Is this not a vast difference? He came to awaken the people.
I am Thine, oh Lord.
All said,
I am Thine, oh Lord.
So those who are celebrating today do not appreciate what Christ did. Did not Christ say,
Whoever loves me will love my commandments, and my Father Who has sent me, He will love him. When He will love him, I and my Father both will manifest to him in vision.
Do you remember? You read that in your own Bible. Read your scriptures and see what they say. All Masters say the same thing. If you love me, keep my commandments. Those who keep my commandments are loved by me and my Father Who has sent me. When my Father loves him, I and my Father both manifest to him in an experience. You see? I'm not telling you anything new, only quoting from Christ.
So tenth Guru came here to revive the Tue Aspect of life. Remember God, or respecting Those Whom He has sent, Word made flesh. They always direct you to God.
I am Thine oh Lord. – I am Thine oh Lord.
Every time you are meeting each other. I am Thine oh Lord. The man meeting the other, both, I am Thine oh Lord. May, by Thy will, we become One …
Question: Could you explain to me what the meaning of Kirpal Singh is?
Kirpal Singh: Names are names.
Question: But does it not have a meaning? Singh means something and Kirpal means … ?
Kirpal Singh: Kirpal means Merciful.
Question: And Singh?
Kirpal Singh: Singh means lion. When the two are put together: Lion of Mercy. So His ways are full of Mercy. He’s very strict, mind that. He has got an iron hand – but His gloves are very smooth-like.