THE MASTER ANSWERS PART 6, Mysticism, reading, forums, Numerology, Sun Signs, Divination

Posts: 5115 · Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 1:38 pm

Q Maharaj Ji, could you briefly tell the story of the Audible Life Stream, the living force? For someone who is a seeker, a beginner on the path, what is the Audible Life Stream like?

A Brother, do you want to know the gist of the teachings? Every saint has been telling us of the soul's relationship with the Lord. The soul is the essence of the Lord. We are separated from that Ocean and we have taken to the company of the mind, and the mind is already a victim of the senses, the soul also has to pay, to reap the fruit of those karmas (actions). During our lifetime we do both, good deeds and bad deeds. Whether good or bad, the results of both types bring us back into this world, and we are brought back into this world, and we are brought back into that form in which we can best fulfill the results of all those karmas. Then, while we are fulfilling those karmas, we are also continually making new karma, and so we continue to come and go but always remain in this prison of 'eighty-four' (eight million, four hundred thousand species of life).

The human form is given to us to enable us to get out of this prison, the wheel of eighty-four, as we also call it, and go up and merge back into the Lord. He, whom we want to see and in whom we want to go back and merge, is nowhere outside. He is within us. Every saint, every Master, has tried to explain to us that this body is the temple of the living God. Christ also referred to it as the temple of the living God. Guru Nanak called it Hari Mandir, Hari means Lord, Mandir means the place where the Lord resides. And many rishis and munis have referred to it as Nar Naraini-Deh, meaning this body in which the Lord is located or in which the Lord resides, and in which our soul can become the Lord again by merging back into Him. Every saint has been teaching us this simple truth, that the Lord is within everyone of us. If He is within everyone of us, naturally we have got to seek Him within, we have got to make a research to go back to meet the Lord within the body. This body is a laboratory in which we have to make a research for reunion with Him.

Our spiritual journey starts from the soles of our feet and ends at the top of our head. In the body, the seat of the soul and mind knotted together is in the center behind our eyes. Some people call it til, some call it the door of our house, some have referred to it as the third or the single eye, as Christ has referred to it in the Bible. From here all our consciousness is scattered in the whole world through the nine apertures of the body, which are , the two eyes, the two ears, the two nostrils, the mouth and the two lower outlets. Even being here, at the thinking center, we are not here, our thoughts are, our thoughts are spread into the whole world. Unless we withdraw it to the eye center, we cannot start on our spiritual journey.

The first step is to withdraw our consciousness to the eye center. Christ mystically referred to this process when he said, "Knock and it shall be opened unto you." The Lord is inside and we are outside. We have to knock from outside so that the door leading to our house may be opened. This 'knocking at the door of our house' consists i bringing back our consciousness to the eye center. When we bring it here, the door opens; the third eye or single eye is opened. Then it is stated in the Bible, "Seek and ye shall find." When the door opens, we seek the path, we find the Lord for whom we were making our research. So, unless we withdraw by concentrating at the eye center we cannot take to our spiritual journey. The eye center being the seat of the soul and mind knotted together, it is from here that our mind is being pulled down by the senses. Our mind is fond of pleasures, so it always runs to the senses to seek pleasures. But, unless our mind gets something better than the sense pleasures, it will not cease dropping down.

Saints explain to us thathere, at the eye center, is the Audible Life Stream, the Shabd, the Nad, the Nam, the Word. Saints have given different names to that Music, to that Silent Music or to that Power. Christ referred to it as the Word, the Logos, the Sound. And that Audible Life Stream or Word or Shabd or Nad or Logos, or Gurbani, whatever name you give it, that is within everyone of us at the eye center. Unless we withdraw to this point, we cannot be in touch with it. That is so fascinating, so charming, so tempting, that once we are attached to it, we are automatically detached from the senses.

Only attachment can create detachment within us. Detachment never creates any attachment within us. So, once we withdraw our consciousness back to that Shabd or Word or Logos, attachment, to that automatically detaches us from the senses, and we start on our spiritual journey.

Christ said, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." So, when we open that single eye, when we open that third eye, that door of our house, of this temple, then we see that Light. With the help of that Light we have to travel on the path. With the help of that Sound, we have to know the direction of our house. For example, if from your house in the evening you go out for a very long walk and while you are out it becomes pitch dark, you absolutely forget the direction of your house, to the right or to the left, in front or behind. You generally stand quietly in that darkness and try to hear some sort of sound coming from your house. It my be of your television, it may be the barking of dogs, it may be some people talking. With the help of that sound, you try to determine or know the direction of your house. After catching that sound and trying to know the direction of your house, another obstacle comes in your way, which is, the darkness. There may be another man's yard, there may be some bushes, there maybe some lake, a forest or a pond, but if you have a light in your hand, then with the help of that light and the sound, you come back to your destination which you had lost.

Similarly, the Lord is within everyone of us, but we have absolutely forgotten the path leading back to Him. He has kept the Sound within us, and He has kept that Light within us. With the help of that Sound we know the direction of the Lord's house and with the help of that Light we have to travel on the path leading to our Home. That is why sound and light are both mentioned in the Bible. These are the two fundamental things which are essential for us to go back to the Lord. So, Christ said, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Now if we close our eyes, we see nothing but darkness inside; but when we open that single eye by withdrawing our consciousness to that eye center, then what do we see? Instead of darkness, we see Light within and we get real bliss and peace. We have to merge into that Light and with the help of that Sound and Light we go back to our Home. Christ said, "In my Father's house are many mansions." The journey is not just straight as we have to pass through many stages, with the help of that Sound and with the help of that Light, before we can go back to our own Home.

Such are not the teachings of Christ alone. Every saint who has come from that Home,who has traveled back to that destination, has the same message to give, and the same teachings to impart. No saint comes into this world to create a religion, to divide humans, to set one nation against another, to set one religion against another religion. They come only to show us the way, that path which leads us back to our own Home. People generally, after the saints go, not knowing what to do, make organizations called religions. Then we become bigoted, we start hitting and back-biting one another, and the real teachings of the saint are soon forgotten.

Every saint has the same message to give, every saint has the same teachings to explain to us, and whether they are in the East or whether they are in the West, it hardly makes any difference. It is only common logic that if the Lord is one and He is within everyone of us and we have to seek Him within our body, the path leading to that destination, to our Home, cannot be but one. It must be one. It is impossible even to think that for Christians there is one path leading to the Lord's house, and for a Hindu or a Sikh or a Muslim there is a different path leading to HIM. There may be a difference in our interpretation, in our understanding, but there cannot be two paths leading to His house. If we seek Him within, we will find the same path, the path of Sound and Light. Butif we search for Him outside, we find that everybody has his own path, leading perhaps nowhere.

It is only on th spiritual basis, on the spiritual platform that we can come together and be near to each other. Then we experience real brotherhood and enjoy real peace and bliss. But if we are searching outside, if we are seeking Him in different directions, we are being driven away from each other. As I said, probably in one of the group meetings, the nearer we are to the Lord the nearer we are to each other. The more we are way from Him, the more we are being driven away from each other. So, in order to find peace even while living in this world of unrest, we have to make research within ourselves. We must have a spiritual outlook. The political, economic or social outlook can never give us peace. It may improve our physical environment, or improve our standard of living, but perhaps in the long run these things make us even more unhappy and frustrated.

Real peace and happiness we can get only from within ourselves. Unless we make an effort to seek that real peace within, we can never get it. The nearer we are towards our Home, towards our destination, towards the Lord, the more peace and happiness we will find within ourselves. The more we have wandered away from Him, the more frustrated and unhappy we become everyday. I think that this is the gist of the teachings. You may read the Bhagavad Gita, you may read the Adi Granth, you may read the Bible, you may read the mystic works of the Muslim Saints, you may read the teachings of any saint and you will find that every saint has the same message and the same thoughts and the same thing to tell us to do. This, in a nutshell, is the teaching of the saints.

While the same teachings are in the Bible and other holy scriptures, in most cases they have been obscured by rituals, ceremonies, creeds and dogmas introduced by the priestly classes and so, after a particular saint departs, people just forget the teachings of that saint. Under the sway of the priestly influences, they give more importance to the rituals and ceremonies and outside formalities. The real practice, how to seek the Lord within the body, they generally forget. Saints again come to remind us of the same path to the one God. So, Sant Mat is no new faith, no new religion. It is just a science, so to say. It is just a practice, a method by which we have to develop our consciousness at the eye center and then travel on that spiritual path back to our Home, our Source, the Lord Himself.

Q I was just thinking that one of the problems as far as the Western people are concerned is to re-educate ourselves on the idea of healing being so important, and to go to the basic problem of getting on the inner path. Is that true?

A That is right.

Q Is there a mystical interpretation that you can give us of Jesus' death, the resurrection, the ascension? How much emphasis is to be put upon that?

A The mystical explanation is very clear. When the saints leave the body, they do not leave their disciples, they do appear to their disciples. As you have read in the Bible to the effect. Now I am with you, you do not believe in me, but after a little while I shall leave this world, but then you shall see me again and you will have no questions, no doubts. That means the saints leave the body but they do not leave their disciples. As long as the disciples see the Master in the flesh they have all sorts of doubts and questions, but when they behold Him inside they have no doubts or questions. So that means, when the Master leaves the body we should not be dejected, for he is always with us. And that applies only to the particular disciples who have been initiated by the Master living in his time. When the saints leave the physical body they do not leave their disciples. They live with them, they are in them, and the disciples do see them. If Christ's disciples saw him after his crucifixion, they must have seen him inside, as they had seen him in the flesh, but in his radiant form. So, that is the resurrection of Christ, as referred to in the Bible.

Q And the ascension? The ascension of Christ? He was supposed to have made an ascension into heaven with his physical body?

A That is not physical at all. I do not know much about the Bible, but that is not physical. What would be the use of the saints first leaving the body and then again physically appearing to the people? Why should they not then retain the body? Why should they go through crucifixion and all that?

Q Well, why was he crucified? In a mystical sense?

A Historically it is very difficult to say anything, because there are different versions, whether he was crucified at all or not. I do not know the historical facts about his whole life, but many saints have been crucified. There is hardly any saint who has not met the same fate. Many Gurus have been burned alive or martyred in other ways, because of the priestly classes. The priests have made religion a profession and they cannot see the people going out of their hold on them. If you read the history of the different saints in the Far East or Middle East, everywhere you will find the same treatment meted out to them. What happened to Christ is nothing new.

Q The ascension then or the rising up into heaven, may have been the experiences inside?

A That is right, by the disciples inside.

Q They could see him?

A They could see him as they saw him outside. As they had seen him outside, they must have seen him in his radiant form inside, merging into the lap of the Father. They must have told the other disciples that they saw Christ, and so others might have written that he was seen outside in the physical body. There can be so many misunderstandings, and so many explanations can be given.

Q Do you think the crucifixion could also be a symbolism of what the disciples saw inside, about how they made the Master carry their karmas?

A Masters definitely carry the karmas of the disciples. I cannot exactly say whether it was a symbol or whether it was a historical fact, but what I can say is that this is what happens generally with saints. I do not see anything new in this reference to Christ, as it is said of man saints that they appear to their disciples after their departure. They appear to their disciples living thousands of miles away. So, there is no wonder that Christ appeared to his disciples after his death; rather, that is as it should have been.

Q Maharaj Ji, could you explain the difference between metaphysics, the Universal God, and Sant Mat?

A The God of Sant Mat is the same universal God. Sant Mat is the Hindi term for the teachings of the saints. It literally means the teachings of the saints. It is no particular religion. The teaching of the saints is simply that path which leads us back to the Lord. That is Sant Mat.

As I explained yesterday, the essence of every religion is absolutely the same. The basic fact of spirituality of every religion is the same. We have different rituals and different ceremonies, of course. These are always introduced by the priestly classes after the departure of the Founder because, after a certain period, the people forget the real teachings of the saints and lose the essence. All that they pay attention to is just rituals and ceremonies and dogmas. However, that is not actually the teachings of the saints. The teahings of the saints are meant simply to lead us back to the Lord. Every saint tries to tell us that there is one God, there cannot be two, and He has creates the whole universe, and that God is within everyone of us. The human form is given to us just for the purpose of realizing the Lord within our own body. And we have to search for the Lord within us, because this body also is referred to by various saints as the temple of the living God.

So, if the Lord resides within us, naturally the path leading to the Lord must be within us. If anything is lost in our house, we must search in the house to find it. If we start searching outside instead of inside, we cannot be successful in our search.