Satsang by Dr Harbhajan Singh, St. Gilgen, 30 July, 1994
(Published in “Sayings of Sant Kirpal Singh”, edition 2010-1)
Audio Talk “Yearning, Devotion and Love for God” by Dr Harbhajan Singh (56:54)
Love and devotion is the keynote
to success in the spiritual way.
— Kirpal Singh
Dear brothers and sisters!
You all know, that the purpose of human life is very unique. It has its own glory. Even big kings were able to solve the riddle of life by coming in contact with holy Saints. How could they come in contact? They had yearning, they had devotion for the higher values of life because they knew whatever they possessed was not more than dust. So even some kings in the world could denounce whatever they had; they detached.
Master tells us, “Devotion is just like a morning breeze into the garden of our existence.” You know, the morning breeze is very healthy and our body — this body is said to be a garden, our existence has a garden. When there is spring weather, flowers come out of the buds, they give smell and the whole atmosphere is full of smell; so is the condition with our devotion unto our Lord. Master tells us, “Without devotion there is no right search.”
We can meet a lot of persons in the world who are very devoted, but they do not find the way out. They are yearning, but they are not helped. Is there not any way for them? Yes, there is a way. The way is very open for everybody, but Master tells us, that those who remain ignorant and go ignorant, they lose everything. They don’t take the heritage with them, they come empty-handed and go empty-handed.
A time comes in the life of everybody when there is yearning, there is devotion, and there is a ruling passion for God. It may come a little bit, it may come in very short time and it may go, according to the background. But some people do not make the best use of that time, so they are mislead. I have seen many people feeling unhappy. If you say, “Tell the reason of your unhappiness”, they cannot tell, they do not know why they are unhappy. So it is one stage. But everywhere in the world it is like this, that people are more in enjoyment of the senses and other things. They do not care for such things.
Guru Nanak used to be very unhappy. Throughout the nights he used to weep. His pillow was wet. So his parents thought, “He is suffering from some problem.” He said, “No, I’m not suffering from any problem. It is a stage in my life. I want to solve it.” He was shifted from one place to another place, but it grew more and more. They wanted to add something, a new life into him, but he did not accept. It (yearning) grew more and more.
It is said, that without a Master even yearning is not possible; devotion is not possible. His one word can change the whole creation. But He respects His own word. He has given some word to the negative power (that He will not show miracles to convince people, but only to explain the truth, so that they come to the path). Otherwise to make someone aware of everything is not impossible, everything is possible for Him; but the time factor is there. Master says, “If those who are selected on this way live in accordance with the teaching, within a few months their whole life is changed.” They would feel better and better every day.
Master tells us, “O man, if you have faith in yourself, then what you should do? You should demand awareness at every moment of your life, because this awareness will lead us to the devotion, to the surrendrance.” But rather they say, “O my heart, release my life, so that I surrender before the separation.” Because if we are separated (at the time of death) without surrendering to the Master Power, it is a hell, it is a heinous crime, because the purpose of human life is spoiled for all the time. This is a rare chance given to us. And if we lose it, we may or may not get (another chance).
Masters come and give this awareness. Surrendrance, awareness, devotion, that all only comes from the Master Power. Without Him nobody can tell about the devotion. Nobody can tell how to surrender. Nobody can tell what we are, who we are, nobody can tell. Only he, who experiences the positive life, can tell about the positive life. He creates awareness out of his love, out of the devotion he has for the higher cause. This devotion serves to all, irrespective of anything. We are blocking the way and say, “This is good for me, this is bad for me”, but the Master Power takes everything out of love.
For example, no one is pure with mind in the world. When Master sees, that one is suffering ninety percent with problems he has created and is creating, but He finds only a little goodness, He takes only that goodness and then develops him.
You know, if we use one goodness for the right cause, it multiplies like anything. It brings a very big awakening in man, because when we use the goodness — it always gives awakening. Without awakening we cannot use our goodness. And once it is used, it brings us some awakening.
Once we come in contact with Master, He tells us how to multiply that goodness in us. This goodness is just like a morning breeze. It will change your life, it will change the whole atmosphere around you, and you will feel, that this is a good way of life and that you have to surrender to that thing.
When I met Sant Kirpal Singh on the very first day, I just wanted to sit very behind, because I was late. It was my first time, I never knew when there was a Satsang, but I was following Him. He said, “No, you come up!” I just wanted to sit in the middle, but He said, “No, come up!” He made me to sit very close to Him. He took a Shabad of Kabir,
“O dear soul, your darkened night has passed;
you are now going through the rising sun.”
This life is like a rising sun. And you know, that you can differentiate, you can see everything in its original condition, when the sun has already risen. There can be no doubt when the sun has risen. So, this life is a sun, where we must not create any doubt. If there is a doubt, we should overcome it — this doubt should be away. You should not be a part of that doubt, you should not revise it into your heart.
You want to overcome all these things? Then you rise above! You are just like a sun, rising sun, and you should not feel any shadow there. Whatever shadow you feel, it is your own shadow. Master tells us, “To live in shadow is also a doubt.” So Master’s life or whatever He gives to others, it is devoid of any doubt, it is devoid of any shadow.
What He does? He helps us to forget all those things. This is one beauty in Him. Only some traces are left there, if we try to remind those things, we see these have no value with us.
How does He change the life? It is also very beautiful. All that we do not forget in life, rather we want to multiply those things and hanker after and live with those things — these things automatically become tasteless, they have no value. So Master helps us to develop our life to be more potent. Whatever Master says is always pregnant with meaning, believe Him.
Master tells us, that a disciple when he becomes conscious rather feels himself: “O God, I now see that there was no reason to come back into this man-body than (to develop) devotion for You. If I came into this man-body, it is only due to have devotion for You. My only purpose was to take up devotion for You, to keep devotion for You, which I lacked in my previous life.” We were devoid of this devotion unto the Master Power, so we are sent into this world.
The wishful persons, they are the beggars of the world. They are begging from the world. They say, “Yes, we should have these things.” Their wishes are unlimited. So they are dragged in the world. There was one person without a wish, Bhai Nand Lal, he says, “I am the beggar in the vineyard of my Beloved. I perceive nothing but my Beloved.” Because for him the Master is the Supreme. He wants to get everything from the holy feet of the Master. And he says, “A handful of dust from the threshold of the Beloved can make the beggar a monarch, can make the beggar a king.” And this is reality, because all you need is contained in Master; not only here but hereafter.
As Christ said;
“Love and everything shall be added unto you.”
All Masters have told, that and those who came from the highest plane, they gave you the eternal life. Eternal life is full of millions, millions of happiness. We are separated from the reservoir, from the consciousness. We have never been there, ages upon ages. We are just like in the prison. A man in the prison always counts his days till his freedom, when he will be free from the prison. So those people who know about the reality, who know about the truth, they say, “O my heart, release me from my life, I don’t want to see the separation. I want to go with the Beloved. I want to go back.”
Maulana Rumi, when his last time came, out of love for him all others started to pray to the God Power, “O God, bless him with life, this is our wish for him.” At once he opened his eyes and said, “This blessing is now for you. I want to go back. This body was a wall, a separation. Ages upon ages it was standing against me and my Master, I cannot see (Him). Now I am going back. Don’t be a wall against my wish, let me go.” Those who really deserved it, they got it.
There is a story about Laila and Majnu, it is a great story in India. It was a true love though it was a worldly love. Majnu loved Laila so much, so that he became the skeleton of bones out of the sweet remembrance of his beloved. All people knew he became mad after her.
She was a princess and usually every day she used to give some alms to the beggars. A lot of beggars used to go to the palace to receive those alms. One day Majnu also went with those beggars by holding one cup also in his hand. She gave everything to everybody, but when the turn of Majnu came, she struck the bowl from below and put it on the earth, and it was broken. So he started to dance. Others said, “Majnu, she did not give you anything, but you are dancing like a fool.” He said, “No, you are fools, you have got something, but I have got everything.” He said, “She has told me, ‘You must break this body if you want to meet me.’ ” So far we do not break this body, (means) come out of our wishes, we cannot have the eternal life, we cannot rejoice with the Beloved who is within us.
We cannot say anything about the Master Power, which is within us. He is the radiant form of the Master, He is the Supreme. His beauty cannot be compared on the level of senses, what He is. And when the disciple goes within himself and sees his own glory, that matters to him just like earth and sky. It is a beauty of the soul also within. When both get together and become one, they glorify each other, they become one. They are now having the eternal life. So all Masters have finished with these things. All these things are beyond description because this is a love matter, this is an everlasting love that has no end.
To follow a Master in the right perspective means something, it is always pregnant with meaning, if really we try to understand it. Masters always cried loudly, “O man, understand thy destiny, you are a living son of the living God, don’t forget. Come to the senses, only for the little enjoyment of a little time, very little time, very short time, you lose the eternal happiness and the eternal life.”
It is beyond all doubts and beyond all description, that all those practical experiences of our competent Masters can become our experiences. In the very same way, it (the experience) will not differ at all. The Master Power says, that He will drag you to the highest position as He is having. He will take you to the same height as He is, because otherwise you cannot become one with Him. In the worldly way nobody wishes, that others should be like him, he wants to be exceptional in the world. That is something out of greed, out of duality, out of ignorance with which we are affected. But the Master Power is loveable, He takes His child and thinks, that this child should become like Him. He loves each one of us from the core of His heart. That is His way of life — that is an art of life (with which) He is blessed by the God Power. He loves from the core of His heart, not with the outer attachment, I tell you.
He is full of awareness. Once when you go there (within), you will have a sip of it and some people who just went within have told, “O Master, we need only one drop, not more than that. O Master, in Your vineyard the consciousness is overbrimming and from that which is overbrimming, You may give me one drop out of it.”
But the Master says, “All which is over brimming is for you, not only a drop. You can take it according to your own wish. There is no discrimination in the vineyard of the Master Power, because it is free and it is approachable for everybody.” So one can have it according to one’s own wish. So who can accuse the Master Power? Who could tell the Master Power to bless us? No, He comes for blessing. He gives us the blessing. He blesses anyone who comes in His way, but — anyhow — sometimes we do not accept His blessing. Sometimes we say, “We are not free. We are not ready.”
We are on the level of senses, we take worldly matters more important than His blessing. But this blessing, His blessing, is already there. But it does not need anything, it needs only your attention. He says, “You do, you finish with all this give and take process, but you must give your attention back to yourself.”
Those who go within, those who remind themselves, they need only attention. If you want to know yourself, what do you need? Do you need anything to eat or you need anything to dress upon? No, you only need your attention, to correct your attention, this is the only way. But once you withdraw your attention back to your own self, that will work wonderfully. It will work in thousand ways, it can be multiplied. With single attention you can overcome one problem, and with single attention you help yourself to overcome other problems. So this attention will not keep you in any fix. It will release you from all the fixes, from all hindrances and barriers. When Master Powers come, they transmit into many, many attentions. It is the attention of the Master that works across the oceans, across the seven oceans and finds its way direct to the heart, direct to the yearning heart and He helps there.
We had a lot of incidences during the time of the Master, where people were helped. They wrote down the time (when it happened) and it was the exact (time) Master remembered (them). They started praising the Master and said, “No, we cannot live without Master.”
I know one example a lady was telling. Her two sons were initiated by the Master Power and she was not, she would not like it, she was more stick to other isms. This mother had a very setback in her life, she wanted to suicide; she found no way than to suicide. But her sons always insisted on her, “Mother, you only simply think of Him, He will help you. And don’t ignore Him, He is the Master, He is the Master of the whole creation, you just think of Him. You don’t stick to other objects, they are only objects.” So when she was just going for suicide, she thought, “Let me follow the words of my sons, if really those are true.” A picture of the Master was hanging in their house. She went there, she prayed to the Master Power, “If really you are the Master, you help me in this dreadful time of my life when I do not accept any help. My mind wavers all around, and it does not rest at all. Now I find no way than to suicide, please help me, if you are really a Master.” And she said, that a hand rose out of the picture, and the light came, and it struck unto her head and she was unconscious on the bed there. So she was lying there for nearly two, three hours. When she got up, she totally forgot if there was any problem in her life. So she was very happy, she flatly touched the feet of the Master (when she visited Him) and Master said, “I know it was your wish, otherwise I would never have given my feet unto you.” So she started to kiss the feet of the Master. She said, “For me you are Christ, you are God.” Because who can know who is the Christ? He is the Power that is innate in the soul. And he who helps us to recognize that One, that much we can say, he is connected with that Power. The one who is connected, he has some relation with Him. So let us follow Him in this way, so we can find a way out, if really there is someone.
Master used to give an example: You want to go to a certain country where you never went before. You will take some maps, you will inquire from a lot of sources where to go, how to go; you fully become conversant with all those things. But while you are doing all those things, a neighbour, who just happened to come from the same place you are going to visit, and — you know that he has come back — you will leave everything, you will say, “Yes, let me ask him, because practically he has gone and come back, so let me go and ask him.” Naturally he will give you some more practical examples of what is not even written in the scriptures.
Therefore Masters tell us, there is a mention about God in the Holy Scriptures, but God is not there. God is within us. But who can do that, who can reveal Him to you? Who has already revealed this truth unto him, he can easily help you to overcome all doubts and all shadows that are appearing and disappearing on our sub-consciousness.
In Islam it is said, “If you want to visit Mecca, then you should go by sea.” — ‘Sea’ means ‘the long way’, yearning is a long way. To go by sea means, to go through tears. When you yearn for somebody, tears flow automatically through your eyes.
Yearning is a big factor. One Master has told his nights are longer than many, many years. He says,
“Go to someone, who yearns for God.”
Once this yearning is off and he meets (the Beloved), then he says, “Let this night become millions of years,” because there is a union. So such is the condition with yearning. All those who went back, everybody had to yearn. If yearning comes in the life, when our soul transcends back to God, it goes very fast with yearning. Whatever we earn out of the Grace of the Master, it also becomes a big yearning on the level of consciousness. We do not know, but really if Master helps us to know, then we will stand nowhere in the world, we will feel, that we are above the world. Because all these things we do, meditation, selfless service, everything that creates yearning in our soul, this yearning turns into devotion.
Some people we saw, that they are very close to go back and once they are shown (their place within), then they cannot stay in this world. “O Master, now take us back, because otherwise You should not have shown me my purpose of human life, my yearning and devotion, that is linked with my life. Now I cannot stay in this world.”
There was one very devoted disciple, his name was Sadhu Singh, I told you a lot of times. Master told, “Now your time has come. You are now old, you can go back.” He said, “No, Master, I don’t want to go. Without me nobody will work. The duty I have taken up is very important. I am fit to do that, so I want to do that.” Master said, “Okay, well, it is very late night, now go to sleep.” Overnight Master took him above the body-consciousness and showed him the heritage, which he developed out of selfless service. This man, I tell you, he only did the selfless service, he was so devoted to the Master Power, that he did everything even without asking, without telling the Master Power. He said, “This is the right way, I must do it.” So, then in the morning he flatly surrendered unto the holy feet of the Master. He said, “Master, now take me.” Master said, “Yesterday night you were not ready, how you got ready?” He said, “Master you have shown me my way, now I cannot live without this place. You have shown me my life (thereafter within), it is rich, it is glory, glorified life I have. It is all Your Grace.”
Master tells us, “If you meditate for hundred years — as people are doing — you don’t become a real worshipper of God, because you never yearned for it.” It is only a dry worship, it was meaningless, it was not important, maybe it added to your wishes, worldly wishes, but it did not help you at all.
So Master says,
“You want to reach the Beloved, you go by road,
on foot, you won’t have Him.
Make thy heart and head thy feet and go there,
and it is only one step beyond, very close to you.
You will reach there within a moment.”
There is a story in the life of Lord Krishna: His wife was very devoted to him and once a time came, when he was to separate for six months. So she said, “Lord Krishna, you are going and I will be alone for six months, how will it be?” Anyhow, she said, “Okay, you go. I will see with what to do.” She was yearning and she surrendered to that power. After six months Lord Krishna came back he knocked the door. She said, “Who is there on the door?” He said, “I am Lord Krishna.” She said, “Now I don’t need you, because now I myself have become Lord Krishna.” — She had remembered him so much. Because out of yearning, out of devotion, you become one with Him. This is the only way. If you remember Him, He will also remember you. Your heart is there, His heart is with you, I tell you, this is the way.
Once I wished to go to Master for a certain reason, your Biji was with me and some more. In the way we could know that Master is not there. He had gone to Dehra Dun for a certain work, and He was to come back after ten days. We thought for a little, “O, Master will not meet us.” Later on we forgot, we went there in His sweet remembrance. But when we reached in the evening, we saw Master — He was there in Delhi. One person from Delhi came there and asked, “Master, You went to Dehra Dun and You had to stay there for ten days. How You came back? You just went and came back. Whole day You were in the car, You were travelling!” He said, “This is right. When I went to Dehra Dun and it was so big storm and it was raining and anyhow — I could not stay there. I thought, better I should go back.”
And looking towards us He said, “I do not know whose love fetched me back.” So this is a way of love, this is a way of yearning. He knew that we are coming. I said, “Master, we knew that You are already away from Delhi, You will not come back some person told me, but there was a smell, there was a good vibration from Your side and we did not feel at all that You are away from us.” Master answered, “When Master remembers, smell is there, but Master also smells the smell of the disciples. It is both equally affecting each other.”
So this is a way, I tell you, we have to create a yearning. How this yearning starts? If you remember the Master Power, it will give you a radiation for some moments, but you will see, that there will be the interruption of the mind and the intellect. It will try to bring you outside, away from your own self. But if you bring your attention back again to the Source, then when you are able to hold your attention there to yourself, you will see, that there will be a sweet remembrance of this Master Power, because He is within us.
He is not far away from us. He is innate in our soul. So to hold our attention on the level of our consciousness over here (at the seat of the soul) is a big help for creating yearning in us, means to remain in sweet remembrance of the Master Power.
There was one shepherd. He was grazing his sheep and was alone in the forest; he started to yearn for God. He said, “O, God, if You meet me, I can provide You the sweet milk. If You feel cold, I will dress You with woolen things…” and so many things he said in the praise of the Master, in the praise of God. He created so much yearning that he started to talk with the God Power within himself. So his own thoughts were reverberating in him, till Moses passed by him. Moses heard those things. The shepherd was unconscious about his whereabouts, so Moses heard all what he was uttering out of his mouth. He said, “O foolish child, whatever you say that is all not good for God. God is not dependent upon your milk. God is not dependent upon your woolen clothes. He is above everything.”
Then the shepherd thought, “O, I have committed a big blunder. I do not know how to worship a Master, how to worship the God Power.” So he went away and cried very loudly, “O, God, I have created a blunder, I do not know how to remember You.” While crying, he rose above the body-consciousness. God met him and said, “Well, don’t cry my child, I will come to you, I will accept your milk, I will accept whatever you will give me, I love you.” And he felt, that He (God) is taking him to His breast and he felt overjoyed. But overnight God appeared to Moses and said, “Moses, I have sent you to unite the humanity (with Me), but not to disunite the humanity. That is your purpose.”
It can be very easily told, that Masters come in the world, they unite all of us (with Him), they come to unite all of us in one knot. And whereas a lot of people come, they disunite us. They bring in new thoughts, they say these are the thoughts, this is well, good; these will make you separate from all, you can become a very familiar figure. Like so many choice they gave out of their own wishes. So such is the thing.
This is not a new philosophy, it (the truth) is innate in our soul and without this, there is no possibility. People say they have no time, but who says you must have time? Master says, “No, you must have the heart, you have the head, you have the heart, use it.” Whereas we are using it in useless things, we should use it in the proper way, in the proper sense.
It matters to your attention, how to use your head and heart for the right cause. It does not cost you anything, but it gives you a lot. It benefits you throughout your life. It gives you eternal life. It gives you a devotional touch in your life. Rather it brings your life very smooth, healthy and it brings calmness in your life. So these are the things, which come from our competent Masters. Not from one, but from the life of all competent Masters, their experiences are very unique. Some Masters have told, some Masters have not told, but there is the reality.
If we analyse from the lives of competent Masters, or those, who yearned for it, they say, “O child, yearn for your full awareness.” If we have to yearn, then we should yearn for our full awareness, not half awareness. We are not to stay in the way, we have to go back. So with full awareness we can have our heritage back, we can be one with Him.
Just like a child, who is hungry, he demands milk from his mother, he cries for the milk. You may provide many, many toys, he will throw them away, he will not accept it, because he needs milk, he is hungry. When the milk is given, he is happy. So is the condition with those who really yearn (for God). They won’t demand anything in the way, they even don’t demand the heaven. They don’t even demand for the salvation, they (only) want the love of God.
They want to go to that (highest) place once they departed from. They want to come in contact with the One who has come from that place, not below. Yearning is such a thing. Master tells us, “O, my child, yearn for your full awareness, not a little bit less.” If you do that now, what will be there? Your whole purpose of life will be solved. People (when travelling inside) would like to stay at certain places, so our purpose is to yearn, to learn and yearn, more we learn, more we yearn.
It is also said, someone went to the heaven and knocked the door of the heaven. The attendant within the heaven said, “Who is that person?” He said, “I am a teacher, I was a teacher there.” He said, “You stay at the door, let me ask, I will inform you.” He came after a short time, he said, “There is no place for any teacher in the heaven. Only disciples are admitted. Those who want to learn more, they are admitted over here, others are not admitted.”
So such is the thing. It is even from the spiritual philosophy, that one has to yearn till the last breath. More we yearn, more we learn. If you yearn, then you have something within you; that will come automatically within you; that can become a part and parcel of your life. And that will help you.
If you do not pay your attention to your own self what will be the things? You will start to become ignorant. People become ignorant, because they do not use their awareness. You have some awareness, yearn to have it more. Then you will have more.
Baba Sawan Singh used to say,
“Sant Kirpal Singh has drunk all oceans
and still His lips are thirsty,
because He has crossed all barriers.
Still He is thirsty to know something more.
He yearns more and more.”
So, as there is no end to the love, it grows more and more, it widens and gets vast. So is the condition (with love), there is no end to it. This is from the practical life of such people who really yearned and had it. But in the world fake and very hard experiences are being told, and they are not our subject. Our subject is within ourselves, not outside.
Master tells us,
“Go into the sanctuary of your heart,
everything is there.
It is blooming there.”
You just go there, you see your own glory within yourself. How you feel, how you developed, how you come up with all those problems?
You know, one cannot be developed unless one wants to develop. So when one is on the way, one can find a way out, when one is yearning for it.
During nighttime, when it is very dark, pitch-dark, you do not know where to go. But you have to go somewhere, where you never went. There you have to put your full attention, very strong attention to find (the way). Is there any voice coming from anywhere? You will hear that here are the dogs barking. From where you hear some sound, you will say, “Yes, there is a place, there some people are living” — this at least you are knowing. But same is the thing (within). Yearning itself finds a way out, I tell you, and Master Power helps us. So yearning means to find something within our own self. This is what is really meant by the yearning: to find the solution to all our problems within ourselves. The disease is within — the remedy is also within. The question is within — the answer is also within. So what is within, how can you get it outside? You have lost something outside. Now outside is darkness, and — are you searching it in the room because there is light? How can you find that thing you have lost outside?
Or (the other way round): If you have lost something inside, are you getting it outside?
It is not possible. So you have to find it in the proper place.
The Master Power is innate in ourselves, and It cannot be had without yearning, without devotion, without love. Everything — yearning, devotion and love — that is within ourselves, it is not outside. So all these things we have to find (within us). So Masters said, they found a beautiful way back to God, which they never knew (before). It was meant for everybody. There is nothing wrong with anybody. Physically there may be a lot of differences, a lot of opinions, but when one transcends within the body, one finds only one opinion, only one, a grand trunk road going back to home eternal, very easy way. And more you yearn, more it is accessible.
So thank you, wishing you all that is good for you.