SPIRITUALITY
-- What it is
XVI
THE PATH OF THE MASTERS:
The Three Practices' of Methods Prescribed
There are three distinct entities in
the composition of a person: (i) physical body, as made mostly of solid
matter; (ii) mental body, as made of subtle matter, and (iii) causal, or
the seed body, that holds me first two.
The spirit or soul works through all
the three bodies. The various bodies, sooner or later, are bound to disintegrate
and dissolve, while the soul is indestructible, an ever-living entity beyond
the sway of Kaal (time) or death. It is the spark from the Divine
Forge, at which the Life Current is forged to shape the world and to bring
it into being. The human body is the veritable temple of God, and this
microcosm simply works on the lines of the macrocosm.
"Macrocosm is in the
microcosm, and he who seeks the macrocosm must find it in the microcosm."
- Dhanasari Peepa
Truth, or Naam, alone is imperceptibly
working both in man and in the universe. God and His spirit are but one
in essence. To know God, one must first know the self within. Without self-knowledge,
through self-analysis, the realisation of Oneness within and without does
not dawn. The Mohammedan saints also impart that Alam-i-Saghir (the
little world) is a prototype of Alam-i-Kabir (the greater world).
Thrice blessed indeed is man. He is
the roof and crown of things! To be a complete man is the culmination of
human existence. "Be ye perfect as thy Father in heaven is perfect,"
is one of the cardinal principles in Christianity. Kabir says that the
devotee should be like God himself. This perfection must, therefore, be
three-fold: physical, mental and spiritual To a certain extent, one has
to depend on his own individual effort, but much depends on outer aid.
In Nature fruit trees fructify in a much shorter time if they are scientifically
fed than if left to themselves. The same principle works with still greater
force in the case of sentient and conscious human beings. A person with
the help of a Master-soul can more readily, more easily and more quickly
gain spiritual attainments than otherwise. But the association and aid
must be sought from a perfect Master, well versed not only in the theory
but also in the practice of the science of spirituality.
Again, an aspirant has to be very
particular in the matter of his food, his conduct, his environment, all
of which exert a powerful influence on his body and mind. A simple Satvik
diet (barring meat, fish, fowl and eggs), abstinence from all intoxicants,
idle talk and idle pursuits, a spirit of detachment from the glamour of
the world, are therefore enjoined as discipline on the spiritual Path.
With this background, the Sadhak is then initiated into practices that
are conducive to his spiritual welfare: (1) Simran, (ii) Dyhan,
and (iii) Dhuni Abhyas. (Charged repetition, spiritual contemplation,
and sound-current absorption.)
Our mind at present is engaged in
the Simran of the world and worldly objects, so much so that we are completely
identified with them. We know not if we have a separate existence apart
from these things. Howsoever hard we may try to introvert the mind, we
cannot do it. The thoughts of friends and relations, of office files and
records, of law courts and law books, of medicines and diseases, of profits
and losses, of wages and strikes, etc., come up on the mental screen as
in a motion-picture house. In order to wean the mind from these, one has
to do Simran of God's names, and to meditate on something else. The saints,
therefore, enjoin for a Sadhak, or aspirant, Simran with the tongue
of thought and Dhyan with the eye of thought. With these two mental processes,
the mind gradually learns to get equipoise, and there comes a lull in its
ever-vacillating tendencies. Lastly, one has to listen to the Voice of
the Silence with the ears of thought.
Shabd or Naam or Word
is continuously vibrating within each one of us, for we live by it.
The soul and Sound-current are one in essence. There is such wonderful
music in it that the Hydra-headed serpent of the mind, on hearing it, gets
altogether docile. The attention (the focus of the spirit), hitherto a
slave to the mind, is attracted, attuned and absorbed in the inner strains
of music. It is no longer capable of serving under the mind, and the result
is that the latter is rendered helpless and falls off as a carcass. The
spirit, thus drawn by the Sound-current from the ocean of physical existence,
loses its separate entity and becomes one with the current. Though one
may hereafter continue to be in the world, to spin out his allotted span
of life, he is a Jivan Mukta (a liberated being or a depersonalised
spirit). He is no longer a bonded slave of the mind and the senses, but
is now firmly established in Godhood, basking perpetually in the Divine
Inner Light, listening to the Divine Music in his soul. The detailed instructions
in this three-fold Atma Sidhi, or spiritual practice, are given
by the Master to every Sadhak (aspirant) at the time of initiation.
By Simran and Dhyan the sensory currents
in the body gradually get collected and concentrated at the center of the
spirit between the two eyebrows. From here, the spirit is led on by the
Sound-current and, after traversing the various planes, reaches its Native
Home, Sach Khand or Muqam-i-Haq, which is the Source and
the Fountainhead of the Sound-current itself. This is Moksha, Nijat,
Nirvana or Salvation, in the true sense of the word.
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