Q    Is the astral form of the Master on astral form that all initiates see when they go in? Or is there one astral form with each initiate?

A    It is very difficult to say what you see. Actually it is what you know, what you feel, what you realize. When you come back into physical consciousness you may not be aware whether you have seen the eyes, or the head, or the feet, or anything. Yet you now that you have seen the Master. There is nothing physical about it: though we feel, we think we have seen him physically inside, but it is not physical. So, it is more of a realization. Yet we feel we have seen him and we try to analyze; we cannot say that we have seen him; we cannot describe what we have seen. Yet we see him actually. So, the Master will be the Master. There is no question of changing form. But if you say he will be in the same clothes, or the same car, that is just just a question of your own individual way of thinking, because we cannot describe what we have seen actually.

Q      What I meant was the astral form of the Master? Is there just one astral form for all the initiates?

A      It is just one Power. The Sun is one. You have a thousand picture of water. You see the same Sun in each one of them. Every pitcher does not have a different Sun. The Sun is the same in all the pitchers. What you see is the reflection. The Master is one. The Lord is in everyone of us. That does not mean we have so many Lords. The Lord is just one. For all disciples there is just one. He is in everyone of us and yet He is separate from everyone of us.

Q      When one makes the contact within, goes in and sees the Master, does the awareness take place only in the spiritual realm, or does it also take place in the physical realm?

A      Well, it does take place in the physical body also. Yet, you feel changes in yourself by meditation. You yourself feel quite detached. Your outlook on life automatically changes. Things do not please you any more. You do not feel like being in that material atmosphere and you start shunning that society which you are so used to. So, practically, you yourself feel what changes are brought about.

Q      We all realize, of course, that one day this life must come to an end. One who is initiated by a Master... Will the Master definitely meet him at death?

A      If we remain within the commandments and we practice and we do not want to come back to this world, definitely the Master will meet us at the end and will take us up. But if we compromise with the principles and we do not want to meet the Master, then it is for Him to come or not to come. We cannot demand it. We have to deserve it, but somebody has to come to take you at the time of death. Naturally, an initiate who does his spiritual practice cannot go with the Negative Power, which is Kal. Who else is there to come and take you which is Kal. Who else is there to come and take you back? We want assurances perhaps from the point of view that we may do whatever we feel like, still the Master will come and take us back. We perhaps want to justify our weaknesses, justify our not doing the spiritual practice. I think from that point of view this approach is not right. That is for the Master to come or not to come, but we should work hard. We must do our duty and then naturally He must come and take us.

If a child commits any mischief, does not behave properly, even breaks the law, the father never hands him over to the police. A father never likes his son to go to jail, but all the same the father wants to put him on the right path, so he punishes him, though he may not hand him over to the police or to the jail. That does not mean if we do not practice even then we will be accepted and taken back. We have to get punishment; sometimes perhaps the father's punishment is more severe than that of the police, but all the same there is love coupled with the idea of discipline behind this punishment; there is no revenge in the father's heart. His object is to improve the son, to make him a better human being; but he will not hand him over to the police or the district jail. Similarly for those who come on the path, the question of their going back to the Negative Power does not arise; but if they do bad karmas, they do not practice the right thing, they are punished. Punishment is there.

Maharaj Ji (Huzur Maharaj Sawan Singh Ji) often used to explain to us that a potter always keeps his hand under the clay which he is trying to mould. He spanks from above, probably to expand it. But his guiding hand, his helping hand is always at the bottom, just to give it a shape. Similarly, we get punishment but the guiding hand is always there. There are no failures on the path. When we want to run, want to achieve some destination, we try to run, we fall, we get up, we run, we fall again, but as long as we know the destination is there and we sincerely try, we have got to achieve it. On the other hand, if you do not make a start at all, of course there may not be any falls, there may not be any pitfalls, but you definitely are not going towards the destination. You are not going any distance. When we try, there are sometimes pitfalls here and there, but His guiding hand, loving hand, is always there to set us right, to put us right and to help us overcome our weaknesses, to rise above them, follow the path and merge back into Him.

The seed once sown is never destroyed. If the field is fertile and the seed is there, it is only a question of time till it comes up. It may be one rain, or two rains, or three rains. It may need watering but it is a seed that must sprout. So, we, who are only a part of the Master, must look to it that we merge back into Him. H just does not initiate us and then forget about it; He is responsible to take our soul back to the Lord. But we have to do our part. Without doing our part we are not entitled to go back. But with His grace He also makes us do our part and we achieve what we want to achieve.

Q     Does a guiding hand pull people to you?

A     You mean somebody guiding?

Q     Yes, guides individuals to you?

A     I do not follow your point.

Q     I mean, does the hand of God pull people to you during their lifetime?

A      You have read in The Bible, you are a preacher, you know that Christ said that he had been sent for the marked sheep, marked souls. The hand of God is at the back. They will come to Christ, those who are marked for him. They are his sheep, and they will come to him. They will be brought back to him. You call it coincidence. There are no coincidences here. You do not know how one is being drawn to that side, what had led us to come to that side. So many factors have played a part, then suddenly we find that we are on the path. When we try to analyze it, we have no explanation for it. Suddenly, overnight, we feel the teachings appeal to us. How simple they are. Why did we not think about it before? But it is not very sudden, for we do not know how many things we had to rough through to come to this. We call it just coincidence, but there are no coincidences.

Q    Is there a link in between the initiate and the Master?

A    Yes, as you have read in The Bible, Christ has referred to it somewhere by saying that I have been sent by the Father and I have been sent only to collect those whom He has marked. I have just come to collect my sheep and take them back to the Father. Every saint is sent into this world for particular souls --- allotted souls, and those souls alone will come to him. They alone will have faith in him. They alone will be receptive to hsi teachings. They alone will practice meditation and go back to the Father. So, it is always with the grace of the Father that a disciple is drawn to the Master, and the Master initiates him and he works his way back to the Lord.

Q     Master, I have read in the literature where souls who are initiated are marked before their birth. Why is it that some of us reach the age of forty or fifty or sixty years, living lives contrary to Sant Mat, eating meat, and so forth? Why is so much of our life spent in a manner contrary to the teachings of Sant Mat?

A     There are many barriers in our way. Unless we clear them, we cannot come on the path. There are so many karmic barriers which have to be cleared before we can come back on the path. And some people take a few years to cleare them; some people take more years to cleaer them. Some just get a little time in Sant Mat, and some are initiated even two days before their death. This just depends on the individual. It does not mean that right from birth everybody can be put on the path, or everybody starts meditation. Whenever an individual's karmas bring around the proper time, he comes on the path.

Q     Why do some satsangis in this life have to go through three or four various religions and different paths before they come to the Radha Soami Path, whereas others come directly to the Radha Soami Path from their first religion, which they were born into?

A     It is very simple. Each seeker is being driven to the path according to his own karma. For some it is the first time on the path. For some it is the second time. With some it is the third time; while with others it is the fourth time. So, everybody does not take a start right from "A", Some have already taken a start, they just pick up the thread and get going. Naturally, everybody has to take a start from where he left off. You may have read in The Bible about the sower and the seed. Some seeds just fall on the ground, which is not ploughed and which is not worth yielding any fruit at all. So, the seed lies there, and when the rain falls, it comes out a little and withers again. Some seeds fall on the rocky land, but also wither after coming up. And some seeds fall on absolutely fertile land which is properly cultivated. They alone yield fruit. But the seed is sown everywhere, sooner or later the seed definitely yields fruit. Every seed takes it own time to give fruit. So, we cannot say that all of us start from the same step. Some are on the first step, some have already traveled a few steps, some are just about near the top, and need only a little push to go ahead. So, everybody has his own way of starting.