Here's some additional interesting Radha Soami Satsang Beas-related material written by someone ("Waking Now") who was a high-ranking member of the organization. It was sent to me by my email correspondent, "Unknown."
I added some of this new information to the end of a previous post, Chapter 2, since it related to the subject of that post (business practices). Scroll down to the boldfaced "Note:" in the addendum to that post and you'll find the new stuff.
Whether or not you're familiar with this particular Indian guru-based organization, I think you'll find Waking Now's concluding comments of interest.
He speaks of his realization that he'd become caught in a limited form of spirituality that was at odds with broader Indian philosophies. I've had similar feelings myself, so resonated with words like these:
There is a difference between seeking on one’s own to understand life, and getting caught by a Guru to become a follower and believer.
In the first case, one remains alert and aware and fresh and finds joy in the discoveries.
In the second, one starts moving on the Royal Road to Dumbness, losing the appreciation of the beauty and vitality of one’s life.
For me, there is no enlightenment experience to run after. Our daily life is the wonderful enlightenment experience. When we are fully attentive to it.
The question is when, if ever, do we sink into this understanding that there is nothing to achieve, and then, relax into our everyday life.
Different people have different episodes which cause all ‘notions’ of enlightenment given by others to just fall away. Then they settle down.
There is no one who has traveled down the road we are traveling because the ‘road’ to our awakeness is the whole space around us.
As before (previous material from Unknown is here, here, and here), read on by clicking on the continuation to this post or by downloading a PDF file.
Download Chapter 4-5 RSSB PDF
This segment and poignant remark should have been included in a previous chapter.
RSSB-A Look (addition to earlier chapter)
What struck me in that experience [my insert-Sawan Sadan Satsangi flats case] was the ease with which responsible society people jettisoned their own common sense and humanity when faced with clearly unjust and unethical demands by their Godman leader.
How can such inhumanity be curbed?
Chapter 4-Palace Intrigue
Kirpal Singh and Beas
In Gurudom, spiritual successor is an oxymoron because Gurudoms are about power not spirituality. The only successor is the one who inherits the Palace. Of course intrigues, contention, before and after the event, happen.
In India, freedom of religious expression, founded on the Great Koan, You Are That, is unbridled. Anyone can start a shrine, religious or spiritual Center, and if the man or woman succeeds in attracting followers (and their donations) then he or she is a legitimate success. It is common for such enterprises to become family holy businesses. As example, Punjab has many Deras.
In Sawan Singh’s time, Kirpal Singh was providing important support to the Beas enterprise helping with books and preaching and he had developed a respectable status (Preachers who climb to the pulpit are naturally looked up to by the listeners). So when he found out that he was not going into the Palace and since he was interested in getting the importance given a Head of a holy enterprise, he decided to strike out on his own.
[My insert- of course this excerpt may only be of special interest to Beas history geeks, but the principle applies across the board. Also, the following excerpts provide fascinating Punjab historical references].
His claim to spiritual succession was simply a way of taking some of the Beas followers with him and in that he succeeded.
The subsequent letter legal tangle was another attempt by the parties to be one-up and in that Beas succeeded.
I can imagine that a Ruler as part of the Succession machinations sends one of the Contenders into exile so that he can transfer the rule to his family (in this case via a loyal servant) without too much commotion among the Subjects.
But I would imagine that both the Contender being exiled, and the Servant being asked to do the House a favor, would understand exactly what is going on.
Feudal Rule was common in Punjab States during those days and both Kirpal and Jagat would know the game.
Correspondence
[My insert-while this was personal correspondence with Waking Now, there is nothing of a personal privacy nature].
The Mafia is a feudal culture. The boss demands total loyalty, no questions asked, in return for privileges and membership in an exclusive organization. Black money (undeclared money), keeping assets in tested key loyal member’s names (blood relatives are conditioned to be particularly loyal) etc., are known practices.
I heard an insider refer to the Radhasoami Mafia. Its interesting how the military culture (Obey, Don’t Question, Saint-Soldier) is at the heart of the Sikh movement and its illegitimate (from the Sikh perspective) offshoot, the Beas Radhasoami Dera.
From the Times of India site ( HYPERLINK "http://www.timesofindia.com" www.timesofindia.com) [my insert-this correspondence was dated 2001] I learnt that for some weeks now, there is a huge political outcry in Punjab about a Dera of one Piara Singh Bhaniarawala, who is a Satguru, God Incarnate, to his followers who included Govt Ministers. There was a dispute between orthodox Sikhs who don’t believe in God in human form, and the followers at the Bhanairawais Dera. There was violence by some orthodox Sikhs who destroyed a book of the sect, Bhavsagar Granth (The Book about how to cross the worldly ocean). In response, it appears that the Bhaniarawala followers burnt the Sikhn Granths (Guru Granth Sahib) at some Gurudwaras.
The Sikh fundamentalists asked, I believe, for murder charges against the destroyers of the Granth, which they regard as the living Guru.
Now the Bhaniarawala Satguru is in jail. There is a judicial inquiry instituted on the whole affair. The Sikh religious leaders are calling the Sikh masses not to associate with the various Sants (Saints and Babas) and their Deras (which of course includes the Beas Dera).
Interesting times.
Chapter 5
Waking Now’s comments on spiritual awareness since leaving RSSB and what prompted the departure
The first seed of doubt came to me on picking up Krishnamurti’s book Think on These Things, at a US airport. I realized for the first time that there was an important area in my life which I had accepted without my own questioning. That prompted me to learn of my Indian spiritual traditions first through reading whatever I felt like reading and later through travel to whichever places of pilgrimage in India caught my intuition.
I was struck by the grandness of the Indian vision expressed in the Great Sayings such as “You are That’ which gave every human being the highest possible inherent value and also by the Eternal Dance of the symbols for Shiva.
I realized clearly that Sikhism was a branch of the Hindu tradition and Radhasoami was a branch of Sikhism and during the process of branching the wholeness of life at the roots was lost.
From there I moved to a study of the Buddhist traditions and realized that the stillness and silence of Buddha and the stillness and silence of Shiva were the same.
I also realized that all effort to obtain spiritual (mental) experiences was a terrible waste of one’s time and energy and took one away from the wonderful opportunity to respond attentively to what faced us at every moment coming to us, one by one, always newborn. I shudder at the stories I heard at the Dera of these ‘advanced souls’ moving about there with their attention in their Guru’s form or in some brain sounds, while the precious newborn unique moments slipped away for lack of full attention.
When I finally left RSS Beas and faced cultic wrath, I had a Great Doubt and some anger in what had trapped me in all those years and the habitual attachments just fell away.
I have of course to contend with a diminutive social life because I jettisoned my cult world view and the people there are not comfortable with free thinkers. I have family members who are unwilling to respond to questions about their life from their own true perspective. The mental straightjacket and lack of joy which I see in their life is sad.
I have now settled in the Zen way of living our ordinary life attentively as the most dignified way to live.
From my perspective, hearing the sound is nothing special, maybe your genes dispose you to have that sensitivity.
The shabad Master idea is just another idea, for catching people.
We are all alive, or to put it more obtusely, connected to our life force. That life force is not limited in any way to specific frequencies that may activate one’s brain cells and create sounds etc.
We hear sounds, see things, feel the air, water, taste food etc. All are part of the experience of living.
To concentrate on specific frequencies out of an infinity as being very special is to start imprisoning oneself.
That finding out who one is, is an individual journey and all promoted paths are misdirections. That’s why the Indian tradition allows a multiplicity of approaches. ‘god’ is everywhere and can be touched everywhere and in everything.
Chasing Enlightenment
You are quite right. Hard earned understanding is invaluable.
Ramana Maharishi is reported to have said that when you realize is was all a false chase and ‘you yourself were It’, you will laugh.
There is a difference between seeking on one’s own to understand life, and getting caught by a Guru to become a follower and believer.
In the first case, one remains alert and aware and fresh and finds joy in the discoveries.
In the second, one starts moving on the Royal Road to Dumbness, losing the appreciation of the beauty and vitality of one’s life.
For me, there is no enlightenment experience to run after. Our daily life is the wonderful enlightenment experience. When we are fully attentive to it.
The question is when, if ever, do we sink into this understanding that there is nothing to achieve, and then, relax into our everyday life.
Different people have different episodes which cause all ‘notions’ of enlightenment given by others to just fall away. Then they settle down.
There is no one who has traveled down the road we are traveling because the ‘road’ to our awakeness is the whole space around us.
At any time we may look back on our own footprints and see the unique trail we have left.
**
Krishnamurti pointed people in a Zen way towards living a life of freedom, free from the mental conditioning continually imposed on us by Societal leaders. The Institutional Spiritual Leaders are to be specially guarded against because we are conditioned to become trusting of them.
His message was: See and understand everything by yourself. Do not succumb to external pressures and enticements. Be Free.
He really taught nothing. Simply said, Live your own life sensitive of everything around you. Our mental freedom does not come from books or talks or other people, it comes when we connect with the core of our own Self.
To allow that inner connection so we can truly be ourselves in our ordinary life is for me the greatest practice.
A Spiritual Institution, which claims to guide its followers toward the Ultimate Truth, surely must show itself as honest and truthful and having the highest standards of ethics and morality.
I remember hearing a talk by Joseph Tussman, UC emeritus Prof., who said that for him Immorality was:
When you use others for yourself.
When you get somebody to do something for your interest and purpose.
He said that was all the morality and ethics that he was interested in.
I found that such a clear window to see one’s actions.
On that basis, the Immorality of the Godmen, I know, is monumental, for they are steeped in self interest.
I think in order to be mesmerized, we have to allow the Personality to hypnotize us. In a group setting where others are allowing this, a lone Individual may become susceptible to the Group consciousness.
Normally hallucinations refers to dream like visions so we would not emphasize sounds.
My view is that visions or sounds are produced by brain activity. They come and go.
The power that experiences everything while inhabiting our body is our real self.
Knowing that Power, our real self, is it…
After personally writing 9 pages of piffle, I find that I don't really have much to say. In summary of all this, I was initiated through the RSSB organization, I am not interested in the religious organization itself.
My priorities:
RSSB religion - not for me
Goddesses one might meet - okay (met one, lost same)
This present moment - Absolutely! :)
Essentially, I agree with most (if not all) the spiritual commentary above and accept the personal experiences presented at face value. These experiences seem consistent with my own doubts and considerations. If one has no doubts, they must either be enlightened or fooling themselves. Mostly I just fool myself.
----------------
Thank you Obed and zenjen for your kind comments posted on Chapter 2 of RSSB expose: business practices. If I said anything interesting it is only because of all these insightful posts on Brian's site.
Kind Regards,
Posted by: Jayme | January 25, 2009 at 11:06 PM
Brian, et. al.
This paragraph, I found interesting, regarding the succession story,
"In Sawan Singh’s time, Kirpal Singh was providing important support to the Beas enterprise helping with books and preaching and he had developed a respectable status (Preachers who climb to the pulpit are naturally looked up to by the listeners). So when he found out that he was not going into the Palace and since he was interested in getting the importance given a Head of a holy enterprise, he decided to strike out on his own."
---How long before Sawan's death, did Kirpal strike out on his own? From my initial internet (2 years ago)readings, I think, I remember Kirpal becoming the santmat Guru at the time of Sawan's death.
---How did Kirpal officially declare succession to the santmat Guru title, and start his branch of RSSB?
Thanks for any replies,
Roger
Posted by: Roger | January 26, 2009 at 08:44 AM
Mate, reading all this sends me to one conclusion: “You all are living a mind fuck”
Posted by: Chris | January 26, 2009 at 08:34 PM
Chris, thanks for sharing such a profound, meaningful, thoughtful comment. You make me want to read this material over again, because when somebody (like you) reacts to it so strongly, this implies that there's unwelcome truth in it.
Posted by: Brian | January 26, 2009 at 08:41 PM
Brian and Waking Now,
Thank you. I went through this more carefully. I will leave my previous comment as is.
I will add that, in my experience, there are sounds and lights associated with this practice. I can't say what they mean except that they seem to arise out of the silence experienced through the meditation practice offered by the RSSB Master. Having a fair background in the sciences (engineering) I have never deluded myself to think there isn't also a neurological phenomena associated with shutting down the systems of the mind/brain/body organism. There is certainly a greater peace associated with this practice but there did/does seem to be a great deal of "being alive" given up in the process. One could argue that the ego self must be given up and that this literally leads one to the brink of death. This is the stated aim of the practice. This certainly isn't a simple thing to "do." It has always bothered me that a lower protein vegetarian diet is also associated with arrested brain development, brain damage, and a weakened will. I was concerned about all this when requesting initiation through an organization.
Even in my awareness of the physically harmful effects the practice could potentially have, my self-image was very much in discord with mass media culture. What the culture said I needed to make me happy was making me less happy. This had to change. I can't argue the heart of the Master's of Sant Mat. The teachings draw from so many sources but, as with any religious interpretations that explain the transcendent, the fundamental message seems consistently covered over by so many words and concepts that the message of stillness in the present moment is lost. I've read thousands and thousands of pages of Sant Mat literature. To me it all says the same thing - "be very still both in mind and body." The simran is sometimes a useful tool to bring attention back to center. Perhaps my mind is not so needy of such a device but simran does often times seem too noisy when it is dark and quiet.
I can't assess the business aspects of this path but do know that in general, people are very poor at "doing nothing." They continually do stuff and so they gather, and gossip, and build, and complain, and on and on, until they are spent in the world. In this case, the RSSB organization and all the associated activities and physical wealth has been the result. Sant Mat appeared to be a religion when I requested initiation - which was a deep concern since I didn't want something in the way. I think I expected some kind of extra benefit from the initiation. Not a physical benefit but a benefit associated with the "inner master" and this untying the "soul-mind" knot thingy. It was just a concept of mine and I still don't understand what it means. In a sense there was greater quiet in my life as I set aside more time to meditate, but there was the problem of disconnecting from the world while being in the world that I couldn't quite understand and to a large extent still don't. Particularly if I am supposedly the world.
I had heard another satsangi say that they expected my eyes to glaze over like other satsangies who were deeply committed in their meditation. I found this comment about the glazing eyes odd but I understood what it meant. After all, I really was trying to die and my external attachments were in fact loosening. As my thoughts about the past or future subside, I am becoming more joyful. Though not significant, there are sounds and lights too. I still don't know what the relevance of these lights and sounds is. Not usually interesting or pleasant but this is simply how it is. When I remember what the practice is about - I am not casual about it - it is a serious commitment to "die while living." My commitment is a sincere devotion to the practice of stilling the mind, not building an organization. All external observances don't mean anything. I don't go to satsang (there isn't one around) and don't follow the Master around the country or wish to go to India or the Dera. These are external practices completely filled with both physical and mental noise. I was aware of those who wished to "hang" with the Master, but I never understood this since the real master was supposed to be in me anyway.
So, I don't know about any organization and am glad that the world isn't limited to just the RSSB organization's official policies. Perhaps it is a blessing I am not able to attend "satsang." In the Sant Mat literature, it is said that the True Satsang is within. The only time I heard Gurinder Singh speak, paraphrasing what he said, "all you have are concepts of these teachings." I don't know what everyone else sees in the Sant Mat teachings but it seems clear that the teachings aren't clear. Perhaps it is this obtuse vision through the mental landscape "we devotees" have which creates religious institutions of our concepts. In essence, perhaps the more successful a religious organization is, is an indicator of how obscure the true spiritual message has become to its disciples.
I don't know - the great bindu from which all else comes...uhh what Chris says. :)
Ramana Maharshi (1 hr)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6865032740128202927
Posted by: Jayme | January 26, 2009 at 11:43 PM
Sorry to beat this to death but if you watched the Ramana Maharshi video at the link above you will notice toward the end that all the self proclaimed "followers" of Ramana began construction projects and eventually denied access to Ramana. Ramana responded by moving himself outside the ashram doors. He seems to me to have been a marvelous being.
Posted by: Jayme | January 27, 2009 at 05:37 PM
The bit on Kirpal Singh, it is important to realize, is nothing more then a restatement of the Beas promulgated view of his succession. It does not demonstrate any research or serious review of the subject, which when considered in depth, is not so simply dismissed. I wrote an extensive review of the subject titled, Crisis and Renewal, which considers the entire context of the Kirpal Singh succession claim. It can be had by writing me.
Posted by: Dr. Neil Tessler | February 19, 2009 at 08:42 AM
PS: [email protected]
Posted by: Dr. Neil Tessler | February 19, 2009 at 08:45 AM
Can anyone research and get information on what happened to sawan sadan case, what did mr. babani's legal heir's do. Or is it all closed.
Posted by: x | February 18, 2010 at 02:10 AM
Dear X,
It would be rather difficult to obtain any information from RSSB ( Radha Soami Satsang Beas ) for this kind of query. The representatives are usually tight lipped when it comes to anything questionably controversial.
Maybe you could get in touch with someone who may know Mr. Babani's legal heir, or find someone who knows a relative from the family.
Posted by: Many Splits | February 18, 2010 at 03:51 AM
What you really trying to prove on the issue of sant mat. Have you ever experienced it or you simply wants to criticize to satisfy your ego to pose yourself as knowing everything about the thin thread of sant mat.
Posted by: Kailash nath | May 29, 2011 at 07:08 PM
There is nothing wrong with following certain frequencies or doing inner work, preferably when undertaken with a sense of (and for) the sacred,the good and the true. But this personal business, the inner forays should remain just that and ought not to be used as a "replacement" for the richness, the goodness, beauty and the sacredness of our outer daily life and (precious) relationships. Keeping the two separate will enrich both states. The ratio is: One step inwards, two steps outward.
Posted by: Janya Barrish | September 09, 2012 at 04:33 PM