(Full text can be read here):
https://www.kirpalsingh-teachings.org/index.php/en/talks/third-world-tour/480-satsang-one-of-the-three-pillars-of-spirituality28.html
By Sant Kirpal Singh, in Oakton, Virginia, USA, 29 September, 1972
There are so many yogas – different kinds of yoga. Each has its own scope. Hatha Yoga is there to keep your body fit. Prana Yoga is there to prolong your life. In Bhakti Yoga you have to make a hypothesis before you reach the ultimate goal. And in Gyan Yoga you have to draw an inference – not direct contact. That’s the work of very intellectual giants – not for everybody.
But the yoga that you have been put on is the most natural, quickest way of reaching the ultimate goal – God. So, in this yoga there are three pillars. First: the God-Himself-into-expression-Power, which is to be reached. The natural yoga, called Surat Shabd Yoga, which you are following is the direct way back to God. If you just catch the ray of the sun, that will take you – where? To the sun from which it emanates. So in the Surat Shabd Yoga you have to catch the God-into-expression-Power, which has two phases: light and sound. When you have a contact with that, that is called Satsang. As I told you, there are three pillars: Sat Naam, Satsang, and Satguru.
So, we will talk all about the Satsang today. What is called “Satsang”? “Sat” means “eternal” – which never falls away in dissolution or grand dissolution. That is God Himself. God does not die. And “Sang” means “to come in contact with It”. So, who has to come in contact with that God-into-expression-Power? That is our own soul. That cannot be contacted by outgoing faculties or mind or intellect. So it is we who have to contact God – not the Absolute, but the God-into-expression-Power. That is the Creator of all the world over – all universes. That Power is controlling all this creation – and also controls us in the body.
So to contact Him, first we will have to know our selves. Do you know who we are? We have got the man-body, we have got the intellect; but we are conscious entities. God is All-Consciousness, and our soul is a drop of the Ocean of All-Consciousness. This – our consciousness – is identified with mind, outgoing faculties, and all the world outside. We are identified with them so much so that we have forgotten our self. So, the first thing to have a contact with the God-into-expression-Power is to know our self. Knowing our self is at two levels: at the level of feelings, or drawing inferences. Feelings and drawing inferences are both subject to error. Seeing is above all. Seeing will arise – to whom? Your self. And you will first find your self or know your self. So it is a matter of pure self-analysis.
We say, “It is my body”, “It is my handkerchief”, “they are my spectacles”. Now, it is a quite different thing to say, “It is my handkerchief”, or “spectacles”, or “coat” and “my body”. Those three things we can take off. But can you “take off” your body? It is our body … my body … my outgoing faculties. So it is a matter of self-analysis. All Masters who came in the past – that first thing that they gave out was to know one’s self. Philosophers of the West or the East all say (the same) in their own languages. So a demonstration (is necessary) of how to analyse our selves from the outgoing faculties, mind, or intellect. That’s a matter of demonstration, which can be given by one who rises above body-consciousness daily, who has realized God, who has become the mouthpiece of God, who speaks as inspired by God. So, the first thing is that attainment, when you know your self – when you know (by first-hand experience within).
As I told you just now, our soul is under the control of the mind; mind is under the control of the outgoing faculties. And the outgoing faculties are absorbed in outer things. The first thing will be: “How to rise above body-consciousness”.
It is we who give strength to all these outgoing faculties and body. When the indweller, soul, just leaves the body (at the time of death), the body lies intact as it is but it cannot work. So all Masters have said, “Please man, know thy self.” When you know your self – you also reside in this very man-body. You cannot run away out of it, although there are eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and other things. Some Power controls us in the body. That Power is called “God-into-expression-Power”. That very Power controls all the universe over. We reside in this man-body, and that Power whom we have to contact also resides in this very body. Those who go out to find Him, they are never successful. Those who come to a Master, He tells them, “All right, please, tap inside! (The One) whom you are after, He is within you already. Why are you going on wandering outside?”
So when you sit at the feet of the Master, He gives you some first-hand experience how to rise above body-consciousness: withdraw from outside, withdraw from the body below, and come to the tenth door of the body which is at the back of the eyes – which is the seat of the soul in the body – from where it (the soul) plunges, it is ushered into the beyond. Then you know you are soul. When you know it, then you find that that Power is controlling you. The first, the highest class of Satsang is to know your self and come into contact with the God-into-expression-Power.
Now, so long as we do not come in contact, by rising above body-consciousness, with that Power which is controlling us in the body, (we need) the company of those who are in contact with that Power, conscious contact; they may be learned or unlearned. In their company they can teach us how to rise above body-consciousness and come in contact with that Power which is already within us. The company of the Saints, those who are the mouthpiece of God, who are conscious of that Power within them all the time, is also called Satsang. They are competent to give us first to know our selves by withdrawing us from outside and from the body below; they drag us up, and open the inner eye. We see the light of God, we see God, come in contact with God.
So, it is said, there are two such Satsangs: first class, when you have a contact with It; or (second class) sit in the company of somebody who has got that contact and can give you a contact. Do you follow? This (Satsang) is one of the pillars of the Surat Shabd Yoga. Each (pillar) has its own work: Sat Naam, Satguru, and Satsang.
So Masters tell us, they pray, they tell us how to pray, that’s the point. They have that contact, but still they tell us something so that we may know how to pray and what to pray. Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru of the Sikhs, prayed, “O God, bring me in contact with the Guru who works like a philosopher’s stone.” The quality of a philosopher’s stone is given that whenever it comes in contact with any metal, that is turned into gold – any kind of metal. So He prayed, “O God, let me meet such a Guru who, like a philosopher’s stone, would turn me to gold.” He said, “I did pray, and my prayers were heard.”
To be continued…
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