A Minute with GOD - Busy Life .......

Always remember that your body is mortal whereas your soul is immortal.

So always try to make happy your soul not your body.” “ Always remember that we are living in this Illusionary world where all things world are immortal and one day all these things will extinct except god, soul and saint. So, don’t run towards worldly thing, as you don’t get anything. Do MEDITATION because this will help you to reach GOD (the maker of this whole universe).”

One Spiritual Family

  

Sant Mat means ‘teachings of the saints.’ By ‘saint’ is meant a spiritual adept, one who has experienced union with the divine. These saints or masters teach a path of Godrealization which has existed from the beginning of time and has been described through the ages in many different ways.

As modern technology and international mobility make our planet increasingly small, we frequently encounter religions and cultures foreign to our own. Now more than ever, we are able to appreciate the relativity of our own traditions and historical perspectives, even as the leaders of the great world religions reach out through ecumenical movements to identify and acknowledge their common ground.

Sant Mat concerns itself with this common ground which is the spiritual heart, or heritage, of every great religion. Spiritual masters come for this one purpose only: to reveal to the world this common heritage which links all humanity within God’s love.

By experiencing the oneness of God within us, we can experience for ourselves that we are all part of one spiritual family.

The root of the word “religion” is “re-ligare,” which means “to bind back.” The true purpose of all religions is to bind back, or reunite, each individual soul with God.

Problems come when saints, the great teachers of reality, die. Their followers formalize their teachings in an effort to conserve them, or to gain personal power and prestige.

This is how separate religions are born, as the simple common foundations are developed into complex edifices, shaped and coloured by the historical and geographical conditions of the time. Issues of power and wealth gain precedence, and the original teachings become obscured. Spiritual practice is relegated to second place while maintaining the organizational status quo becomes paramount. Soon we find one religion setting itself against another, and man killing his fellow man in the name of God.

Yet if God is one and he is our Father, then we are all his children, a fellowship of humanity. This is what the great saints of all religions teach: There is one God for all humanity, although he is known by a multitude of names. Whether we refer to him as God, Khuda, Wahiguru, Ram, Lord, or by any other name, we are speaking of the same, supreme, omniscient, and omnipotent Being.

Saints teach that God, undifferentiated and one, through his own power, projects himself and creates and sustains the creation. This dynamic power of God is also known by many different names. In Christianity it is the Word, the Holy Ghost; in Judaism, the Word, the Name, the Holy Spirit; in Chinese philosophy, the Tao; in Islam, it is the Kalma; in Indian philosophy, the Shabd, the Word, the Unspoken Language. Each religion, differing in time and place, has described the same power with different words.

Saints tell us that each and every living being is imbued with this power. When we refer to the soul within any being, it is to this power that we are referring.

Since every living creature is enlivened by a power which is the projection of God himself, so everything that lives is in essence a part of him. Conversely, the supreme Being is immanent and present within every living creature. The soul is nothing other than pure spirit; but to function in the worlds of mind and matter, it is endowed with various coverings which conceal its true nature, and it becomes subject to the fundamental dynamics of the creation, the law of cause and effect. This is a law of perfect justice by which all action in the creation must be compensated – thus we live in an invisible prison of debts and credits. The soul, knotted to its covering of mind, is born again and again in different forms to settle this account.

Of all the creatures in the universe, only human beings are self-conscious. But as we live out our daily lives in the physical creation, our essential nature remains hidden, concealed by mind and matter, like a bright and shining light wrapped in many layers of black cloth. Thus, in spite of having the attribute of self-consciousness, most of us remain blind to our true selves.

It is only when we finally meet a saint or master that a soul can rise above this level of duality, of action and reaction, reward and punishment, and discover its true spiritual nature. It is this divine essence within us that is permanent and not subject to the law of justice. Masters have the power to awaken us to the divine spirit within, by acting as a mirror to our soul and reflecting our pure essence to ourselves in spite of the dense coverings that obscure it. They re-connect the soul to the holy Word, and explain the technique of discovering God within the body. They teach a practical method of internal prayer, or meditation, which enables the practitioner to still the mind by withdrawing the soul currents from the outside world and concentrating them instead at the eyecentre, the spiritual heart. Once the mind is absolutely focused at this point, he or she becomes conscious of God.

Sant Mat cannot be termed a religion in the historical sense of the word, as it is not related to any race, nation, community, cult, or sect of any kind. Despite the relatively large numbers of people practicing this way of life, it remains a personal, private bond between each individual and God. The teachings have no bearing on the external aspects of life, other than the requirements that a practitioner be at least twenty-four years old, lead a moral life, abstain from all alcohol and mind-altering drugs, maintain a lactovegetarian diet, and give time daily to spiritual practice. Masters do not require anyone to change his or her religion, they never charge fees, and they unfailingly support themselves from their own earnings. They teach us how to nurture the spiritual dimension of life while fulfilling our family and social responsibilities. In doing so, we expand our spiritual horizons and experience for ourselves that divine spirit which enlivens the entire universe. We receive internal proof that we are indeed all children of the same God.

Mysticism and the Search for Truth

A mystic is often thought to be someone lost to reality, head in the clouds, full of frothy, misty notions. Yet if we examine the writings left by great mystics throughout history, we find that real mysticism is practical, objective and scientific. Mystics instead turn out to be among the humans who have most dedicated themselves to the search for truth and reality and are among today’s great scientists, except that the questions they ask are different. Mystics only concern themselves with humanity’s ultimate questions, ones that fester in everyone: Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? Where has this consciousness of mine come from, and what happens to it at death? What is true? What is real? Mystics are like scientists in another way: they are not satisfied with words or promises, but insist on verifying every theory by their own experience, seeing and hearing the truth with their own eyes and ears, so to speak.

If this is true, then the question naturally arises: what have these mystics – who include among their number many of humanity’s most renowned religious leaders, philosophers, and thinkers–discovered over the millennia of their endeavors? If we turn to their writings, we find an extraordinary unanimity on many points – extraordinary given the diversity of cultures, times and places from which their voices come down to us. Indeed, the unity of their account is strong testimony to the validity of their discoveries.

One point on which all mystics agree is that no one, not even the accomplished mystics themselves, can simply tell us the answers we seek. This is, they say, partly because the answers cannot be captured in our ordinary words and concepts and partly because they must be experienced. Just as no parent can learn for his child, similarly each of us has to grow to see these truths for ourselves. While others can offer us guidance on where to look, and even suggest

what we will learn, still the looking and learning must be our own.

A second point mystics insist on is that the answers we seek, indeed all true knowledge, can be found nowhere outside us but must be uncovered deep within our own consciousness. Socrates declared, “Know thyself.” Mystics tell us that this self-knowledge is the first step in discovering the Lord. They make a most astounding claim: they say that God, the Ultimate Reality and Truth, himself dwells within us. As Christ said, “The Kingdom of God is within you,” and the Qur’an reads, “We are nearer to [man] than his jugular vein.” Guru Arjan, the fifth in the line of Sikh gurus, wrote: “He who believes in God as Truth in his heart knows the essence of the Creator, the Cause of causes.” Kabir Sahib, the great Indian poet and saint, wrote:

Complete, entire, and ever present

Is the one true Lord

Within the body of each man—

The Lord who is beyond all bonds.

This wondrous statement, of course, meets instant doubt in us: if God is within us, how then can we be unaware of him? This leads to another point on which mystics speak as one: we are under the spell of a deluded mind. It is our disordered thoughts that drown out reality and muffle God’s inner voice. The Theosophist Madame Blavatsky wrote, “the Mind is the great Slayer of the Real.” Mystics tell us that the purpose of human life is to overcome this delusion here and now, and they show us how. They teach various forms of prayer or meditation by which ordinary human beings can still their thoughts, develop inner calm and concentration, and gradually become aware of God’s presence. In the Psalms God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Another point of unanimity among mystics, handed down over the long reach of human experience, is that a life of purity and mental discipline is necessary for seeking truth. Immoral acts hold us back in several ways. One is because we have to account for our actions. Our actions require recompense. Indian scriptures call this the law of karma, or cause and effect;

Christ explains it as “As you sow, so shall you reap.” Immorality is also an obstacle because only a pure mind sees God within. Therefore mystics urge us to adhere to the highest precepts of morality, among them vegetarianism, avoiding all intoxicants, and earning our own living.

Finally, mystics always insist that we seek guidance on our journey from another human being who has already traveled it. Though we must make the journey ourselves, still, as in other difficult areas of endeavor, a living guide is essential. The true spiritual seeker will look for a guide who knows the way, who can teach spirituality, no matter his race, sect, or country of origin. As the Muslim mystic Rumi wrote: “ If you wish to go on a pilgrimage, go with one who has already made it, whether he be a Hindu, a Turk or an Arab.”

Spirituality.... Way of GOD Realization

The soul must get embodied in Human Form because GOD realization is only possible in this grab. For realizing GOD, man must know himself. The never ending cycle of birth and death is due to the karmic/deeds load and one can never merge in the pure ocean with load of his karmas on the soul.

To have a Living Master is of the foremost important. He attaches the seeker to the Shabad or Sound Current by providing Naam/Word/Kalmaa. He helps the seeker to understand, so that the truth can be put across and proved in a practical manner in this life itself. That is why Bhagat Kabir had given more importance to the Guru or Master than the God. The Guru helps the Soul to develop spiritually and finally merge in the supreme even while living in physical form on this earth.

The soul is super conscious energy, and is always in search for peace and happiness. Its seat is in the human body, the center of consciousness in man is at a point behind the two eyes. This center is known the third eye or Teesra Till, and from this point flows the sustaining power of soul to various centers of the body.

The Master initiates the discipline into the techniques of Surat Shabad Yoga. i.e. the union of soul with the Shabad or the Sound Current. This Sound Current of the Audible life Stream emanates from the mansion of the Lord and is characterized by the both Sound and Light. The Sound directs the disciple and the Light reveals the path where the Lord resides. The Sound Current dwells in everyone irrespective of nationality, race, creed, wealth, authority or possession.

The Journey of the Soul back Home starts by withdrawing the scattered attention from the outside world by closing the nine apertures of sensual pleasure and concentrating between the eyes and listening to the melodious Sound (Current) which is continuously reverberating in us from birth till death. This is a spiritual exercise by which the Current of consciousness is applied to the hearing of the Shabad within. And this is done through Simran or the repetition of the Five Holy Names and Dhyan or the contemplation of the form of Master at the eye center. Although it is not an easy task, regularity and persistence on this path surely pays.

Sant Mat or Saint’s path does not require asceticism but asks for complete detachment for every activity that retards the progress of the Soul. To eat the simplest and the purest nourishment definitely helps in controlling the five passions—Lust, anger, greed, attachment and egotism. High ethical and moral life is necessary for spiritual progress and God realization. This path also enjoins the followers to earn their livelihood by honest means. The Master Himself rigidly follows this principle and accepts nothing from his disciples.

Sant Mat is not difficult to follow. The only need is a disciplined life and regularly meditation for at least two to three hours daily in complete devotion to GOD with one pointed concentration, under the guidance of a Perfect Living Master.

Soul Survivors

The teachings of the gurus/saints/murshids is like this: human beings are all the time tempted by desires, attracted and influenced by the worldly environment. To overcome all this and realize the divinity within us, this Human form is big blessing. God is within each one of us, but we cannot realize God without a true and a perfect living Master.

The purpose of every saint coming into this world is to save his chosen souls put them on the right path and take them to their eternal Home. Only a living Spiritual Master can guide us to initiation. The Master initiates you, shows you the path of Meditation, which leads to the ultimate goal of salvation of the soul.

Saints’ Services and teachings are free; there are certain conditions if one has to be the member of Spiritual pat. One has to be a total vegetarian, abstain from alcohol and drugs, Meditate for two and half our and lead a clean moral life. True living Masters do not believe in Idol worship or any kind of superstitious. 

The devotee of the saint must lead strong faith and complete belief in his/her Saint. Saints often say us to walk on the right path and leave the wrong side but we Humans choose to do the wrong even knowing what is right and wrong. We choose wrong because it is easy to do it, not only that, we also try to justify why we have done wrong. That’s the Human Mind!

Finding Peace & Happiness... AT LAST ! ! !

The pursuit of happiness is universal and valid. In one way or another, we are all seeking peace and happiness. We search for it in relationships, work, food, alcohol, movies, sex, shopping, money, and what not. But, although these things, if we achieve them, give us some type of happiness, it is only a second-class type of happiness, which doesn’t last and usually ends in frustration or sorrow. That is because all things of the world are perishable; they have a beginning and an end.

Human beings have physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects with which they search for peace and happiness. Our physical, mental and emotional selves are only capable of connecting with these things of the world that change and die. Because they are impermanent, the happiness they provide is impermanent. Only by developing our spiritual nature can we find a source of peace and happiness that is permanent. People refer to this fountainhead of permanent joy and peace by many names, such as God, Universal Consciousness, Tao, Shabd, Word, and so on. One way to make conscious contact with this infinite source of peace and happiness is taught by the masters who teach Surat Shabd Yoga, the method of uniting our spiritual self with the inner sound current. Their teachings are known as Sant Mat, an Indian phrase meaning the teachings of the saints. These masters teach a practical way of developing our spiritual nature so that we can achieve lasting peace and happiness. 

As we begin to put the teachings into practice, we start to develop our spiritual nature and come to understand more and more that our suffering is rooted in our distorted or unclear way of perceiving the world and ourselves. But when we achieve peace through the practice of meditation, our minds become settled and clear. We then begin to see life as it really is. We see events and people for what they are, rather than for what we have always projected on them. The resulting light-heartedness we experience enables us to go deeper into our meditation practice. The deeper we go, the more clearly we understand the true nature of the mind. We are able to watch how the mind creates infinite scenarios and then dissolves them again. We start to recognize that the source of our problems lies in the deceptive nature of our mental creations, and in our yearning for permanent or lasting solutions in an ever-changing world. As we continue with our meditation practice, our mind becomes still until eventually our soul is left unencumbered and we can contact directly the Source of all peace and happiness: the Tao, the Shabd, Buddha Nature, or God. 

These teaching don’t belong to any race, nation or community. Sant Mat cannot be considered a religion, because it does not have any of the elements common to religions, such as rituals, holy books, churches, holy images, clergy, and sacraments. Yet the fundamental concern of Sant Mat is the same as all the world religions--reuniting the soul with the ultimate Source of everlasting peace and happiness.

Making the Spiritual Journey

For the practice of mysticism to be successful, a person works both on the inside and on the outside to create conditions favorable to the expansion of consciousness. 
On the outside, he or she minimizes the binding force of cause and effect through compassionate and mindful living: a vegetarian diet, no intoxicating or mind-altering substances, and a code of conduct that shapes positive and spiritually supportive relations with others. On the inside, time is given daily to the practice of meditation to re-orient the mind inwards. 

Meditation techniques engage the dominant faculties of speech, sight and hearing to focus the attention and shift it away from the senses and towards the spirit—and from this arises a state of concentration, heightened awareness and perfect stillness. When concentration becomes perfect, dedication absolute, and yearning so intense it can no longer be supported, consciousness passes naturally into another dimension. 

Wisdom literature from all traditions describes this experience as blissful beyond imagination, filled with the experience of spirit as captivating sound and radiant light. Look to the writings of any mystic to learn about this ecstatic state of being!

Meditation is thus the path leading to the depths, breadths and heights of spiritual experience. Meditation enables contact with spirit, the one continuum that holds creation together, the thread of life on which creation's pearls are strung. Spirit has been referred to in the writings of religions by many names—Logos, Word, Nam, Shabd, Holy Spirit, Tao, Kalima, Akash Bani, and many other names. Once contacted consciously within, this spirit draws our consciousness, our soul, upward through ever more subtle realms to the luminous tranquility of ultimate reality. 

Meditation is the journey of attuning oneself with the spiritual ocean of pure being.

Only as human beings can we make this journey. Only a human being has the ability to direct consciousness to its advantage. To meditate is to install the complete human software, to awaken the spiritual capacity. Through this practice we embark on the path, the ‘middle way’ of balanced living, that takes us to our ultimate destination.

Mystics down through the ages have left teachings that make us aware, inform us, about this path. But living mystics, if we can find them, perform a still more fundamental role. Because they have walked the path themselves, they can guide us personally along the way, just as they were themselves guided by their own teacher. And, because they have realized the spiritual dimension, living mystics manifest its reality even on our plane of existence, giving us immense inspiration and a powerful example to follow. Mystics explain to us that it is part of the natural order that true masters are always living on earth to guide spiritual seekers. 

In the Sufi tradition of Islam these teachers are called murshid or pir, in the bhakti traditions of India guru or satguru, in the hasidic tradition of Judaism, the zaddik.

To travel the path back to our divine source is the true purpose of life in the human form. Whether this divine source is referred to as spirit, God, Lord, Allah, Wahiguru, Adonai, Buddha, the One, any other name, or no name at all, is a matter of individual preference. How to describe one’s spiritual life, what outward practices to follow in support of one’s inner life, whether to belong to any religion and which one, are all equally individual choices. What is of importance is to cultivate the experience of spirit.

Spiritual Journey

Mystics describe the quest for spiritual truth as a journey we make within our own bodies, within our consciousness. To understand this journey we need first to understand where we start from, our present spiritual condition. The life of each of us, mystics teach, is projected in its perfect whole from a single source beyond time. But on planes of mind and matter, we live our lives under the illusion of time and the law of cause and effect or action and reaction.

Everything we do we have to pay for. The soul, coupled to mind and body, must reap the harvests of these sowings, and moves from life to life, form to form, living and dying over and over again. We are now caught in this cycle, called the wheel of life, the cycle of reincarnation, or the law of karma, which many of the world’s peoples have long understood as a basic fact of life.

Given this situation, how should we choose to act? Mystics urge us to wake up, ask ourselves what it is that makes us suffer and where our real happiness lies, and then make the appropriate choices. They advise us to turn our consciousness away from the pain-filled material life of ceaseless change, the spinning rim of the wheel of life, and toward the stability of life’s unmoving centre.

They explain that at the centre of life is spirit, one and indivisible. Spirit is perfection, imperturbable, the origin of all. From the one emerges all diversity, all forms from the most subtle to the most gross, all activity and complexity, the entire creation. Spirit is love. Spirit is energy. Spirit is life. Mind, matter and senses have no life of their own—they are the means by which spirit expresses and manages itself in material dimensions. Spirit comes from a source beyond mind and matter, and beyond the law of cause and effect. Soul, a drop of spirit that allows a being to be defined apart from the ocean of spirit, is the energy or power that sustains individualized life. When soul, the life force, leaves a body or living being, that body dies, disintegrates, and reverts to its original matter, dust to dust. If spirit leaves the creation, the creation disintegrates and reverts to an earlier, less-formed reality.

The mystic journey of enlightenment, then, is the expansion and deepening of consciousness from life's most transient material manifestations to the permanence of its spirit-filled heart.

Spirituality Perspective

Study shows that the message of mystics of all times and places is in essence the same, irrespective of language, culture or religion. A mystic is someone who finds answers to the big questions of life by research within his or her consciousness. Through their research mystics have discovered that that there is a ‘spiritual’ world that lies behind and animates the ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ worlds. While for most of us things spiritual are no more than concepts, for the mystic they are facts of life, constantly experienced.

It is as if mystics are telling us that the human being is highly sophisticated hardware that comes with three software programs, the senses, mind and spirit. Most of us know of and use only two programs, the senses and the mind. The mystic shows us how to activate the spiritual program and make human life complete. To follow mysticism is therefore not like adopting a new religion or philosophy, which is a re-programming of our mental and physical software. Mysticism activates our spiritual software, our innate spiritual capacity, which benefits us regardless of what teaching we follow. Every human being has equal potential in this respect.

When we try to answer ultimate questions about our existence using only two of our natural software programs, we become confused and, due to our differing cultures and backgrounds, come into conflict. If anyone, whether a mystic or a priest, tells us profound truths about who or what we are, those words alone do not make us understand or feel those truths. We need, by developing the third software program through spiritual practice, to experience these truths for ourselves, to make them a lived reality. When we see the spiritual reality, our conflicts over religious dogmas evaporate. On the platform of spiritual life human beings can come together as one.

Spirituality

Spirituality is the inner joy of the life or even a greater frequency of the consciousness. Scientifically, the excitement and joy is explained as the energy state which is higher than the normal. This state with the higher energy may manifest itself in 2 dissimilar forms:

1.     As higher power at same frequency, or

2.     As the higher frequency.

Higher consciousness is the consciousness which is at the higher frequency than the normal, therefore the inner joy is equal to the higher consciousness. This means that the inner joy and the excitement is portal or the opening of the conscious mind to excitement which already prevails within you which is also called the soul or higher self. The soul is the actual you. The outer self which is your other part is the outward oriented perception which focuses on all the challenges of the outer physical world. Your inner self is the true inner guide and you should always listen to it.

In the opposition to the outward self, frequency of the inner self consciousness prevails within the frequency band that is higher. When the conscious mind holds even a slight glimpse of the spiritual essence which prevails within self, you will feel the excitement and joy which is caused by higher frequency. Thus, when you converse with your internal self you come in an exciting process. The more you get in contact with the inner self, you get more excitement. The inner excitement and joy is basically the barometer of the contact with the soul which is actually the real you.

Now, a lot of people think as to how and what they need to do in order to connect with the higher self or soul? The best way to connect with the soul is through meditation. It has actually worked for a lot of people. Here are few steps which will help you:

1.     Breathe very slowly and evenly. Focus on the breath. Keep noticing the flow of your breath as you pass in and out.

2.     On every inward breath, repeat "I am an infinite being".

3.     On every exhale, keep noticing the flow of the air. Let the exhale to take at least two times in every breath. It will encourage an instant tranquilizing outcome.

4.     Now, repeat this form of meditation for around 20 minutes.

You can find the spiritual identity of yourself. But for this, it is very essential that you select the spiritual path and do not get carried away by the people around you