Recollections of Sant Mat and Charan Singh

Here's a mildly edited email message that I received recently from someone whose connection with Master Charan Singh, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), and Sant Mat started about the same time mine did. I added some links and bracketed explanations of terms.

His thoughts brought back memories, and stimulated some new ideas. He gave me the OK to share his message in a blog post. It's an interesting rendition of how someone can be converted to a faith, and then deconverted.

Dear Brian:

Reading your blog evokes recollections that have long been dormant. What a compendium of experience I long since left on the processing heap to decompose on its own!

What a saga of my youthful ignorance which commenced in Los Angeles in 1968 (I was 22) with my initiation by Charan Singh's stuffed shirt proxy and ended with a thud in 1975 in the living room in my Greenwich Village, Manhattan, apartment when, in merely a moment -- what could be called a mystical moment -- I experienced all of Sant Mat as pure evil.

I am sure I wrote at length about that experience in my journals as well as my self-created deprogramming which commenced at a brisk pace, but I currently do not possess the patience to revisit those ramblings found in my bound diaries on the top shelf of my wall of personal archives and books.

In short, I recall visiting long gone Wiser's metaphysical book store on Broadway seeking materials that might heal my damaged constitution, and I did. (Later I sold all my Sant Mat books to Wiser's which provided me lunch money and then some.)

In August of the year of my recovery I did Werner Erhard's est and had a great time with it all, and for Thanksgiving of that year I attended an est Thanksgiving dinner, and dined on turkey as strident indication that my "spiritual" vegetarianism had ceased. (It was an odd experience, as if someone other than "me" was consuming forbidden flesh.)

This barebones telling omits a exceedingly colorful story which could grace the multiple pages of a personal memoir. The cast of Sant Mat characters and my perception of them at the time contrasted with my contemporary observations might indeed prove an interesting read. Not sure I am up to such a task, but you might find my writings posted on what was then Yahoo Groups' "ExSatsangi Support Group" etc., amusing. Below this message are some of those postings.

Again, I truly enjoyed perusing your blog, and look forward to doing so again.

--------------------------

My inner child speaks: I tried, I really tried to love Mr. C. Singh, but alas I never did. Love to me comes out of heritage over time with another. He and I had no heritage of knowing one another, despite the lore. He offered no heritage. We never exchanged one word. I didn't even get to shake his hand because I was obedient. 

At the reception in Pasadena about 1969, we were told not to approach him, and only respond if he approached us. Others just walked up to him and introduced themselves. But, oh, no. Not me. I abided by the edict. 

I recall standing 6 feet from him and our eyes met. I waited. He didn't move, and then he moved on. That was my one chance, only if I were up to being disobedient. So you vow all sorts of things to this guy and he doesn't have the decency to introduce himself. 

That was that. I put a picture of him in my journal. I closed my journal entries with Radha Soami. I was supposed to acknowledge what a miraculous service he'd done for me. I did my meditation in my cabin in the woods north of Santa Cruz in the San Lorenzo valley, and he didn't show up astrally either. 

Ho hum! What a friend we have in Charan!

--------------------------

My outer adult: This was really lousy. Hell, I wasn't going to arm myself with paregoric and lomatil and pay thousands for airfare and head to the sub-continent, after that! Why there's plenty of Indian restaurants right here, amoeba free. Never made it to the Dera [headquarters of RSSB in India], just saw the PLM [Perfect Living Master] on stage talking.

The first night he didn't even talk. He just sat here surveying us! Paid for my ticket like everyone else and the guy just sits. No rapture, no lights, no fireworks. He just sits there [darshan]. 

When he did talk on the two subsequent nights there was a lot about the terribleness of sensuous pleasures, but unfortunately he didn't go into any puerile details. I tried to be in awe. It didn't happen. I suppose I mocked up being in awe just to go with the flow. 

Later I whipped up a Parshad Pillaf. It was tasty but I think eating it was giving me "sensuous pleasure" with the commensurate guilt. I suppose I should have gotten the message then and there, but I didn't until several years later, when I dined on Thanksgiving turkey with Werner Erhard and the gang. 

Werner shook my hand. Werner talked to me. He might not have been a PLM but he sure was damn good company.

And so ends the tale, inner and outer of "Charan Singh in Front of Me.”

--------------------------

Starting off with my Sant Mat story and trying to keep it brief, for openers.

In Los Angeles, when I was about 19, I began having out of body experiences, extreme ones, extreme in their visual vividness and sound. These experiences involved high speed traveling, and I was curious to follow these travels to a destination point, for it seemed, while traveling I was on the way to "somewhere." 

I had questions. Was there a final destination of such travel, was the final destination a place I'd want to experience, what was this all about? I was not on a spiritual quest but the quest for some answers.

And it was near that time in 1967 that I met two young men through fellow UCLA students, both later it turned out were initiates of Charan Singh (and both homosexual). 

One named Danny was a dreamy bearded young man who was as I was told "very spiritual" and who talked very little. The other was a chatty singer who was once a groupie of Ella Fitzgerald.

One way or another, I ended up in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles at the apartment of a somewhat dour, but not unlikable, woman named Mary Blakemore at a local "satsang." It was the first time I'd heard the word "satsang" and I sat in her living room listening to her wax on and on about her Master and trips to a place called The Dera. 

At some point I broached the topic of my out of body experiences and described them.

As I spoke they seemed to be somewhat startled and their eyes got wider and wider, dreamier and dreamier. Only later did I come to understand the root of their reaction when I learned that it was clear to them from my descriptions that I had been travelling in the 3rd and 4th realms according to Sant Mat cosmology, realms that they been earnestly (perhaps) meditating to reach and never got near. 

I was told that such high grand experiences were "unearned" ones, gifts from a past life time, and that when and if I was initiated I would be starting from the scratch level at which, I came to understand, was the level of sound and vision that they were experiencing (if any). 

I merely wanted to find out where the journeys I was experiencing were leading and would perhaps take me, and thus I began to buy into the Sant Mat interpretation of such experiences. 

I was initiated in Los Angeles in 1968 by proxy by a man whose name I do not recall, who looked like a Methodist minister. There was absolutely nothing commanding about this gentleman upon whose face I never saw a smile or any affability or warmth. For several years I attempted to be a good Satsangi and failed.

--------------------------

A grand factor in that failure was that meditation never brought forth the profound, overpowering and spectacular sound and light experiences that brought me to Sant Mat in the first place. 

Oddly, the experiences which precipitated my interest in Sant Mat continued intermittently and spontaneously but never during meditation. Meditation did provide an occasional buzz, some minimal sound, and once, just once, the alleged astral form of Charan Singh himself.

I dragged on for several years being a guilty and bad satsangi, trying to love The Master etc. and so on, then sometime about 1975, now living in New York City, another kind of experience occurred. 

Standing in my living room, I felt an overwhelming wave of evil and that evil was associated with Radhasoami; I experienced the entire RS Master/Initiate relationship as sinister and manipulative.

From that point on I began deprogramming myself from the superstition and threats etc. that previous posts have clearly outlined. I was unaware of any support groups at that time in 1975, and went it alone, and withdrew. 

My involvement was limited in its duration and I'd not formed any close friendships with other RS people, so I suppose it was not the wrenching withdrawal from RS other have experienced. I consider myself extremely fortunate for having ended the association when I did at the age of 28, with a very rich life still to be lived.

And despite the "threats" such a rich life was lived and continues to be lived. 

I am indeed grateful to those who have contributed so abundantly of themselves in this and the other ex-satsangi groups, for the sharings have allowed me to confirm the appropriateness of my curtailment of my RS connection, and have allowed me to sever long forgotten loose ends.

Comments

[tucson]

The ex-satsangi writer was lucky to get de-programmed so quickly after just 7 or 8 years of involvement with RSSB. It took me a few decades from the date of my first satsang in the summer of 1968 to wise-up. So, hats off to him.

He wrote:

"One way or another, I ended up in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles at the apartment of a somewhat dour, but not unlikable, woman named Mary Blakemore at a local "satsang."

My first encounter with RSSB and my first satsang was given by Mary Blakemore. I was invited to go by a friend. It was in the L.A. area for sure but I don't remember if it was a Silverlake apartment. She had a certain charisma and the teachings captivated my imagination rather than my reason. I purchased a copy of "Sar Bachan", sort of the bible of Sant Mat, at least the RSSB version of it.

After the Satsang we went to a vegetarian restaurant called H.E.L.P. which is now long gone but it was the hip veg restaurant in L.A. for a long time. I had steamed vegetables with a scoop of millet topped with chia seeds. I was sold that night in the summer of '68. The veg diet and the teachings just seemed right to me.

They say that once you form an emotional bond with a house when house-hunting, usually formed within the first few minutes of seeing it, you will rationalize away any negatives and buy it. That was how it was with me and Sant Mat.

The writer said he had a revelation after a number of years and experienced Sant Mat as "pure evil". I actually had that in the very beginning while reading Sar Bachan and some of the passages in it. But I had already bought the house and pushed those feelings, doubts and intuitions out of my mind. I wanted it to be real and true. So, I made it that way...for decades.

I heard Mary Blakemore developed her own following and moved away from L.A. to New Jersey or someplace and had her own little Sant Mat splinter group.

I actually ended up working at HELP for a while making sandwiches, but I wasn't fast enough (I sweated the details) so I was made dishwasher. There was no pleasing the very intense owner, Warren Stagg, and I flew the coop. The kitchen was pretty filthy and I wouldn't eat there after seeing what went on behind the swinging kitchen doors.

[777]

Your Ex-Satsangi came in at the right moment (???)

He said :!
""Standing in my living room, I felt an overwhelming wave of evil""

Funny , . that I just related to the same, 2 days ago
my phrase about what Swami Ji writes on page 302 and how
I also expirienced this blackness :
that I could -(the Mind could)-
easily and under the right stalin circumstances
do
everything devilish, we find everywhere described in history books . . . and much more !

This the catholic mystics from old said "the" dark night of the Soul"
this is perhaps unavoidable, . . anyway in my case , having done mass-murder
and remembering that

and I do not know for others
(I believe there are also many angels )
but
this is my advise :

If such deep awareness comes
and rivers of tears come also , because of it

DON'T STOP MEDITATION BECAUSE OF IT
( yes He just was standing in the room - but med is not only while sitting )
Go to the bottom, . . or better
go to where the Guide -out of necessity- brings you for a relatively short time
and I hesitate to say it in this group
do e your 5 swords - They are All Excaliburs.

The trampoline will after this experience bring you to heights you never dreamed they were possible

stopping the black
one also blocks the white

and more : you might live the rest of your life in fear of the devil you saw , next blaming the wrong one
and miss totally the purpose of this life

Try it again, . . stop name calling here
and BELIEVE IT

You are initiated

Most Satsangis don't want to be reborn
perhaps it's also the wish of most ex-satsangis
( if EX was possible )

That correspondant was really far already,
it happens INSIDE the first crooked tunnel

May karmas this time be more in line :)

PS
There a a giant grand necessaty for this 'dark night' to happen before you
can't cross the eye of the needle
and
Realisations coming, experiences that a satsangi will dive in are so enormous

and go so together together with a majestic feelings
, yet if one deconnects a nano-second the link with the Guide, The Satguru
that
the mind seeing you comming back from meditations
starts nagging you with the thought of being God,
and seduce you to start your own RS group,
blocking you and what you ever collected it vanished to pseudo disci
ples

If not those black experiences would occur beforhand
and you know for sure
you really are and were the Lowest scum
and filth of the earth

you have no possibity to tell the mind that you are not God
at least : that nothing of what IT ever established
has any value as compared with the vibrations
of the Shabad

I hope I was clear with my bad english
and avoided sciptures you are all allergic to

Perhaps my presence is for this writer, perhaps for Brian, perhaps for Gaz to tell his parents
perhaps only One reader

These Radha Soami Masters
are collosal

They and other Masters of the Sound are the meaning, the purpose of the universes

If there was only One per Galaxy
God had a Good time

Cheers again

[777]

Question :

I start to believe after only few weeks on this blog
that most writers are Not satsangis

If "initiated" by a pseudo saint
without any power
any negative result is possible

even if they gave the right words
there ios nothing
and one is victim of fraud

Before the eye of the needle
before the third Eye crooked tunnel,
way before entering
there is a profound silence

It's the place where the bible says God placed some cherubines
to keep us out
Symbolic talk it is around some perfect truth like in
the Bardo Todol

The Boddisatwas are our own desires

Yogis, priests and all kind of "practicioners"
might have approached that silence
or have heard of it
and they claim : "God is Silence"

and next start a spiritual business, . . of their own

The USA is a fruitful ground with classifieds in magazines :
"Be a millionair, start your own church in 3 months"

[Skeptic]

777, you consistently creep me out, brother!

[Tony]

Although I never had fireworks in Sant Mat meditation, after a meditation in the middle of the night (eg. 3 - 5am), I would go back to sleep and often experience some awesome lucid dreams, including those that might be considered 'out of body' experiences (although I never verified whether they were any more than just cool dreams, and I suspect that's what they were).

I've done some mindfulness meditation at about the same time, but without the lucid dreams.

Could it be that concentrative meditation (as opposed to observational meditation) enhances dream lucidity ? Who knows.

[Sandra]

777
I refuse to accept that humans are categorized whether they are satsangis or not.
Moreover you think that there are Saints and Pseudo Saints.
It is pure romance to think that there are humans who are saints.
There are no saints at all. It’s fiction. It’s business.
You are believing in fairy tales.
And – to use your own words – you are a victim of fraud.

It’s your brain which does all these stories. Your experiences are pure imagination. It’s fact that the brain is able to produce hallucinations. Step out of your bubble and have a look!

[777]

Thank You Sceptic

Tony,
Have you ever seen a diamond
that is - a appearance of a say a 3 dimensional kind of 'object'

not as described a flash - although they come flashy but not with the random of a flash
but yes a "suddenly" appearance

but more stable

stable that is that although it's half a second at the start,
the observer sees an enless clarity in the thing
and you have even time to do some study about it

Of course these phenomenae are different per person
but my wife and I had that once in a while at the start
and my wife saw immediately Sawan Singh in it
who 'saved' her at her raping incident in 1947 in now Pakistan

I said diamond s because of the extreme clearness
as if the resolution is a billino x a billion
although it's analogue, no pixels :)
and it has volume

It was the beginning on the light side

like the extreme light at the end of the tunnel

For satsangis
itr is what the Bardo Todol says exactly in the middle of the book

ps
On a forum like this , it would be nice if Charan-Gurinder initiated writers would start with: #

Beam me Up Scotty

Tony , in my case but opposed to the forum-tenure
the strenth, the Power is in those words - 24/7

and in the person who gave them
so
from who do you have them?

[cc]

Brian, maybe you should start a blog about the Sant Mat religion because there are a lot of disciples and ex-disciples who need to vent, but most of what they say is lost on the unititiated. Church of the Churchless should be non-denominational.

[the9thGate]

I can't speak for anybody else but in my personal experience; after all my reading and praying and meditation (maybe not the sufficient amount according to some and I agree somewhat);all I can say is...I have not reached any closer to the ideals I once had as a young person, my fantasies were there to be broken; I dreamt up some idyllic scenario where I have a soul which can be romanced; I felt more love and longing in my lonely frustration than I did in the company of a thousand satsangi's; in spite of whatever love and longing I felt I am none the wiser, not even half the man I feel I should be in terms of spiritual development. Perhaps this is my purpose. I could play my role on this Earth cheerfully but then I would not be doing it any service as the cynic I have been born to play. A cynic that secretly hopes to be wrong everyday. Goodnight all

[Mike Williams]

You can't die anymore, no joke.
Religion is dead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzlNoyCUkAM

[777]

the9thgate
that is a beautiful name
i would say : the highest
if there was any highest :)

777
[email protected]

[just me]

Brian, hope you will post this, a bit off topic but as a Charan initiate, this is now where I am at...

to the9thGate - I think, or maybe I should say I feel, that you will enjoy this movie... taking back your power...

THE COSMIC GIGGLE (full film) (1:03:54)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lhOX1aY5DE

A documentary film that explores the human energy field’s dynamic relationship with our environment…

"The Cosmic Giggle is a randomly roving zone of synchronicity and statistical anomaly.

Should you be caught up in it, it will turn reality on its head.

It is objective and subjective, simultaneously “really there” and yet somehow sustained by imagination and expectation."

Quote: Terence McKenna

[hope]

My name is hope Smith from united states of america. I never believed in love spells or magic until i met this spell caster once when i went to Africa in February this year on a business summit. I meant a man who’s name is Dr johnson oracle he is really powerful and could help cast spells to bring back one’s gone, lost, misbehaving lover and magic money spell or spell for a good job or luck spell .I’m now happy & a living testimony cos the man i had wanted to marry left me 3 weeks before our wedding and my life was upside down cos our relationship has been on for 3years. I really loved him, but his mother was against us and he had no good paying job. So when i met this spell caster, i told him what happened and explained the situation of things to him. At first i was undecided, skeptical and doubtful, but i just gave it a try. And in 7 days when i returned to Canada, my boyfriend (now husband) called me by himself and came to me apologizing that everything had been settled with his mom and family and he got a new job interview so we should get married. I didn’t believe it cos the spell caster only asked for my name and my boyfriends name and all i wanted him to do. Well we are happily married now and we are expecting our little kid, and my husband also got the new job and our lives became much better. His email is ([email protected])

[H]

Brian, aren't his experiences examples of what RS is talking about? Granted they didn't come during meditation, but he claims to have experienced the astral form of the master no?

[observer]

"I felt an overwhelming wave of evil and that evil was associated with Radhasoami; I experienced the entire RS Master/Initiate relationship as sinister and manipulative."

Isn't this the negative power? Doesn't this happen when a satsangi is getting very close to full inner realisation of self? I often think when I read your postings Brian, that you as well as others like tucson reached some kind of threshold where Kal really started to take notice. Just like this fella quoted in this thread.

Also, when I read about satsangis wanting to commit suicide because it all gets too much. It gets difficult and we do get pushed to the limit but even if we do have doubts and want to chuck it all in, its a choice and we can just keep going with an unknowing attitude. Having an open mind and 'Not knowing' really helps imo.

I think there is also pressure to conform to the scientific viewpoint and anyone who experiences anything different is put down and told to use the reasoning, logical side of the brain. So we keep our silence and use the intuitive part of the brain with logic and reason, balance in all things. Also comment here on your blog Brian :)

[june schlebusch]

Observer Iread your comment with interest..I followed the sound current and got to a{place, Point?} not sure what, but knew it would lead somewhere..I did not like the direction it was leading as I did not like what I was becoming..I,m more comfortable with The Cloud of Unknowing..I just can't trust a man to determine my direction anymore.

[Brian Hines]

observer, wow... you're using the "devil made me do it" argument? I realize this is a favorite of Christians, but geez, it makes no sense.

If we want to go down the supernatural route, it seems a lot more likely that the Positive Power, God, showered her grace on me to keep me from being deluded about her divine nature.

[observer]

Brian,

I guess you were waiting for one of your 'watch dogs' to chase me off with some kind of abusive comment.

No, as you very well know, I'm not talking about the devil from the Bible, but the negative power, Kal, which is mind.

It's not the 'supernatural route' its about you 'changing' your mind about the path of Sant Mat. You now believe you have woken up.

I know you don't believe in a supernatural god in some heaven showering divine grace at her every whim. Neither do I. So, sarcasm aside, you do seem to believe now that you were deluded in following Sant Mat.

I agree that Sant Mat seems very fanciful and our reasoning mind rejects so much of the belief system that it prescribes. This is why I choose the 'not knowing' path.

[Brian Hines]

observer, so you've never changed your mind about anything in your life? And if you did, you consider that this was the doing of a "negative power"?

Wow. I consider open-mindedness to be a positive power.

Also, you do realize that choosing the "not knowing" path is a choice by the mind, don't you? Or are you the only human in the world who can write blog comments without a mind?

Since the mind is the brain in action, if you say "yes" to that last question, you're saying you don't have a functioning brain.

[observer]

Brian,

I consider an 'open' mind to be an 'unknowing' mind. You consider an open mind to be a positive power. Maybe what you see as positive may actually be negative, as in you have now defined in your mind that Sant Mat is totally wrong.

Yes, of course I still use the mind, just like you and of course I have changed my mind and my opinions many times. I am also aware that the mind is very tricky.

The difference is that I have not 'made up my mind' that Sant Mat is totally right or totally wrong.

[Brian Hines]

Thanks for clarifying. We agree! I'm not 100% sure about anything. I certainly haven't made up my mind about Sant Mat, not completely. I still hope some or all of the Sant Mat teachings are true, because that would be super great for my afterlife.

I just base my life on probabilities, as we all do. The probability Sant Mat, or any religion, is true/correct strikes me as very low. So until I see evidence that changes my mind, I'll keep on living my life accordingly.