The Paathi is singing from the Bani of Swami Ji Maharaj.....
Dhun sun kar man samjhaai.
Dhun sun kar man samjhaai.
Koti jatan se yah nahi maane,
Dhun sun kar man samjhaai.
This is the Bani of Param Sant Satguru Swami Ji Maharaj In this Bani, Swami Ji Maharaj has very nicely explained how our mind, which is completely out of our control, can be controlled. So, all that is explained in this Bani. The reason for our attachment and our sorrow is the mind. The reason we go into these 8.4 million life forms and we do all these deeds and then suffer all of that — the main reason — is the mind. Because the soul is pure. The soul is the daughter of God Almighty and she is as pure as God Almighty. And this body, which we have — that is, this mud and clay — has to be left back here.
So, the soul is immortal. It is pure. It has no deeds of its own and it is pure like God Almighty. Then, we may wonder why it is in this place? It is here because of the company of the mind. The soul has come down from God Almighty and when it came down — descended from higher planes — in Brahm, the first covering it was covered with was the causal body, and that is where it got connected with the mind.
Likewise, it further descended and it got another covering of the astral body, and further down, it got the body of these five elements.
So, there is an unbreakable knot between the mind and the soul. And this is not a knot from only this life, it is from scores of earlier lives that this knot has been tied. And this bondage with our mind is very strong and it is unbreakable. Till we go up with the Grace of the Master and go above Brahm, only then we will be able to break away from this knot with the mind.
There have been so many yogis before who have done so many tapas, austerities, and all of that, but they have not been able to get free of their mind.
So, therefore, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "With the Sound Current the mind quiets down because the mind is also used to following things which interest it. So, until it gets something like this, it will not focus. So the mind follows things, which it likes and follows all these worldly matters. And, in pursuit of these worldly matters, it is forever unhappy and it cannot get that happiness in these outward things.
When we go and surrender to the Master and, with the Teachings of the Masters, when we follow those Teachings, when we leave our nine doors and go to the Tenth Door within, then there we manifest the Form of the Master. We manifest the form of the soul there. And that is where the mind gets free. There, it manifests the Sound Current.
There are different Sound Currents below the Eye Center also. And these may please or they may be soothing, but they do not have the power to pull or attract the mind as much.
But the Sound Current that is emanating from God Almighty, from Sach Khand, that Sound Current is resonating at the Eye Center. And that is the Sound Current, which has the power to attract the mind. Masters say that it is this very Sound Current, which has emanated from God Almighty and has come down creating all of the planes. It is this very Sound Current, which has created all these three worlds. And it is this very Sound Current, which is resonating at the Eye Center.
This Sound Current is so intoxicating, it is so much of an attraction, and there is so much peace in this Sound Current. All the Masters have sung the praise of this Sound Current. When the mind listens or gets in connection with this Sound Current, it gets fully intoxicated with the Sound Current and then it kicks away from all the other worldly bondages, all the other worldly attractions, that it had been pursuing. There the mind comes to know that it is not of this world. It belongs to the Brahm and this world doesn’t belong to it. It has to go back. And there, the mind decides to go up, ride the Sound Current and go up, to its true place. And there, once it gets connected with the Sound Current, the mind becomes a true friend of the soul. Then the mind helps the soul thereafter. And both the mind and the soul, thereafter, go together upwards.
The same mind, which is an enemy today and is not allowing us to go within, that same mind, when it gets in connection with the Sound Current and gets intoxicated with the Sound Current, becomes a true friend of the soul and helps it to go within.
Therefore, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "With crores of practices or activities, the mind is not going to get still. It is only when it gets connected with the Sound Current that it become still."
Koti jatan se yah nahi maane,
Dhun sun kar man samjhaai.
Jogi jukti kamaaven apni,
Gyaani gyaan karaai.
Swami Ji Maharaj talks about when the yogis leave their homes and go into the hills, go into the Himalayas, and there in the caves, they do their meditation and their austerities. He also talks about the learned people and the pundits who have studied the Vedas, the Puranas, and all the religious scripts and they spend their time in debates on religious matters. With all these austerities, practices, for these learned ones, the mind doesn’t get into control. It continues to become even stronger than what it was.
It is all the Scriptures that have been written by munis and rishis, and they describe various deities and they talk about all the planes and about different things, so when one reads it, the mind is filled with more doubt as to who is more powerful. Is it Shiva or is it Vishnu? So, a lot of these kinds of doubts creep into the mind.
Jogi jukti kamaaven apni,
Gyaani gyaan karaai.
Tapasi tap kar thaak rain,
Jati rahe jat laai.
He says that some people feel that they will not be able to get salvation by staying at home. So, they leave their homes and they go into the caves and the mountains, and there they eat roots and they do and perform very difficult austerities and pranayamas. And they do various practices and there are several practices to try and control the mind. But, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "The mind doesn't get controlled by all of these things.”
Tapasi tap kar thaak rahe,
Jati rahe jat laai.
Dhyaani dhyaan maansi laaven,
Vah bhi dhokkha khaai.
Swami Ji Maharaj says that some people also do their practices with the mind. They do their worshiping in the mind. They contemplate on a particular deity that they are following and then after they have had a bath, they come and sit down and there they start visualizing the deity, or their god within, in the mind itself. They do not have any idol of that deity or they do not have any photograph of that deity. It is all visualized in the mind. And there they perform all the rituals and all their puja within the mind.
Swami Ramanand, who had initiated Kabir Sahib, also used to do Mansik Puja. He used to do this contemplation within his mind only.
So, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "All these different paths are adopted and followed by different people to try and control their mind." But He says, "With all of these crores of different paths or different rituals or different practices, the mind is not going to get controlled. The only way the mind will get controlled is when it comes in connection with the Sound Current, which is emanating from Sach Khand. And that is resonating at the Eye Center."
Dhyaani dhyaan maansi laaven,
Vah bhi dhokkha khaai.
Pandit parrh parrh bed bakhaane,
Bidya bal sab jaai.
Swami Ji Maharaj talks about the learned ones, the pundits, who study all the Vedas, the Puranas, the shastras, the Bhagavad-Gita, and all the other epics, and they spend their time studying these or debating these. But this does not quiet the mind. By reading, one develops an ego that he is so learned and he has read so much. And they end up debating and trying to show their prowess and their understanding of these Scriptures or these religious books. So, the mind does not get freed or does not get controlled by this.
Even in Andhra, there was this person called Lakshmaiah, and he considered himself a pundit in the Vedas, and he used to take pleasure in going and debating with people and showing his knowledge about the Vedas. He once turned up at Somanath Baba Ji’s ashram on Pahad.
Somanath Baba Ji used to respect everybody and when this gentleman came there, he was offered a room. And there was another sevadar called Sharanappa.
So, Baba Ji instructed Sharanappa to take care of Lakshmaiah.
The following day, there was a bhandara. So, in the nighttime, he was staying with some other people also. When they switched on the lights in the night, he saluted that light and he started saying "Govinda, Govinda” to that light. He started praying to this light and calling it ‘Govinda’. So, Sharanappa was there and he witnessed this and Sharanappa also had been doing pranayamas earlier. And when he saw this, he rebuked the person and he said, "What is this? You are praying to this outward lamp and you should be looking and praying to the ‘lamp’, which is there within — the light which is within you.”
So, he listened to the Satsang for two days and then, after two days, when he was leaving, he told Somanath Baba Ji, "I am standing for elections, so please ask your sevadars to vote for me!”
Somanath Baba Ji told him, "I cannot tell the sevadars for whom they should be voting. Each one has his own choice to vote.” So, such is the thing about all these learned people. His name was also Vedanta Lakshmaiah who was known to have his prowess on the Vedas.
Pandit parrh parrh bed bakhaane,
Bidya bal sab jaai.
Buddhi chaturta kaam na aave,
Aalim rahe pachhtaai.
Then, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "It is not intellect and your smartness that is going to be of use here. This Path of devotion is a path of surrender." So, you have to forget about all of your intellect all your smartness, and you have to surrender to the Will of the Master. The intellect doesn't last forever. When we leave the nine doors — when we focus our attention at the Eye Center — and when the soul gets above the Eye Center, the intellect ceases to exist. It is then the Sound Current on which, with the Grace of the Master, that the soul goes forward.
Aur amal ka dakhal nahi hai,
Amal shabd lau laai.
Guru mile jab dhun ka bhedi,
Shishya birah dhar aai.
Then, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "There is no other way, or there is no other practice that is there that we follow to go back to God Almighty. The Path to go back to God Almighty, the Surat Shabd Yoga, is the only Way, it is the only Path." This is not being created by any Mahatma or any other person, it is being created by God Almighty himself. And it is only on this Path that you can go back.
In the Guru Granth Sahib also, there are different names given to God Almighty. But, all these are all different names given by various Masters out of Their love and affection. God Almighty does not have any name. He is Alakh, He is Agam, He is Anaami. He doesn't have a name. He cannot be seen. And He cannot be fathomed by our intellect.
So, Swami Ji Maharaj has kept His name as Radhaswami.. And it is these names, which have been kept by love and affection.
You can keep any name with your love and affection of God Almighty. He doesn't have a name of His own and He listens to His loved ones. He is in the form of Sound and Light. And even the soul has the form of Sound and Light. And He stays within our body, also in the form of Sound and Light. The soul has descended from God Almighty and has come down riding on the Sound Current. And the soul will go back to God Almighty also riding on the same Sound Current.
Swami Ji Maharaj says, "It is only a True Master Who knows the Path. And when we surrender to that True Master and we follow His teachings, then we can go back to God Almighty."
Even when we meet a True Master, but we do not have the pangs of separation with God Almighty, and we do not have that devotion, even then we will not get success, even though we have met a True Master. It is because we are lost in all worldly pursuits that we have identified ourselves with this world. We are unable to extend that same love and affection and that devotion, which is expected, to get success on this Path.
So, it is very important for us to develop that love and affection. And we are able to develop that love and affection by doing our meditation, by doing Dhyan Bhajan. And it is important to do this very regularly so that our deeds get reduced as a result of this.
If we want to be successful fast on this Path, then we should do Simran as much as possible. When we are sitting idle at home or we are otherwise engaged in mundane matters, we should continue to do our Simran instead of focusing our attention elsewhere. When we do our Simran very regularly, then it develops to a level where, when we are talking with somebody else, we will also be doing our Simran within. But, initially, it is very difficult because the mind does not allow you to do Simran. Because, it is not for this lifetime, but for crores of earlier lifetimes that the mind has been attached and outwardly drawn by this world, all the materiality of this world, and it has become completely entangled in this over so many past lives. So, it is difficult to get the mind out of that.
So, therefore, if we persevere in doing our Simran then, gradually, our deeds are also reduced, our karmas are reduced as a result of this and we start developing our attention also.
Surat shabd ki hoye kamaai,
Tab man kuchh thaharaai.
Hirs havas se haath na aave,
Tan man dev charrhaai.
Swami Ji Maharaj says, “If you practice the Surat Shabd Yoga and you do the practices regularly then, slowly but surely, you will be successful on the Path and you’ll surely get control of your mind.”
We will not be successful if we keep procrastinating this and we feel that we will do our Simran later and we keep waiting for that one fine day to do it. That way we’ll not be successful in doing it.
Sant Ji used to often give this example of these fishermen who go and search for oysters for getting pearls. They go in this small boat in this rough sea and, wherever they see these shells floating on the surface, there are these oysters at the bottom also. And then they dive deep to the bottom to procure these oysters. They are fearless and they are not worried about being attacked by some other fish or some other thing in the water. They go fearlessly down. They deep dive and get these oysters. And they keep collecting these oysters and these shells, which are there at the bottom of the seabed. There are some which have insects in them, some which are empty, but some of them have these pearls. These pearls are created when there is the Swati Nakshatra, during the constellation of Swati, and it is with that raindrop of that constellation that a pearl is formed.
So, they are able to get these pearls because they are fearless and they are not worried about their life and they go and collect all of this.
Unlike this, if one sits on the shore and he wonders how he will be going into this high sea and what will happen to his family if something were to happen to him while he was diving — all such people who sit on the shore and just keep thinking — they are not successful in getting those pearls.
In the same way, when we are pursuing this Path, if we are not following the Teachings of the Masters and we keep procrastinating things — we keep thinking of one fine day, when we will do these practices, sit for meditation, all of that — if we just keep thinking and not actually doing it and following the Teachings of the Masters, then we are not going to be successful on this Path.
All those Masters and all those people who have been successful on this Path, they have all been of firm resolve. They have followed the Teachings of the Master. They have taken a deep dive into devotion. And they have done their practices and then they have been successful. They have not bothered to think what will happen in various eventualities, etc. They have just followed the instructions of the Masters and they have dived deep into devotion. They have surrendered to the Will of the Masters and they have resolved to do the practice without worrying about the difficulty around it.
Bulhavasi aur kapti jan ko,
Nek na dhun patiyaai.
Yah dhun hai dhur lok adhar ki,
Koi pakrren sant sipaahi.
Swami Ji Maharaj says, "Those who do devotion with fear — they fear to take the plunge into devotion — the Sound Current does not manifest in such people.” He says, "Those who have a firm resolve and who surrender to the Will of the Master and they do their devotion at the Feet of their Master with full love and affection, they’re successful on this Path and the Sound manifests for them."
So, this is about Bhai Lehna. There was a deity, a goddess, and that deity was there a few kilometers away from where they resided, and the people would go to offer their prayers to that deity. This deity was at a certain distance and people had to travel there, so those who were more prosperous in the village, they would pay for the other people to travel. So, Bhai Lehna also used to pay for the travel of other people and he would take them to pray to that deity.
So, once he was taking some twenty, thirty people like that and, after traveling about twelve kilometers, Nanak Sahib’s Satsang was going on.
So, on the way, Guru Nanak Ji’s Satsang was going on and all these people who were going to offer their prayers to their deity with Bhai Lehna, they all decided to listen to the words of Guru Nanak Sahib. So, they all attended that Satsang and they all sat with the rest of the sangat. And, after that, they took the Prashad also.
So, what Guru Nanak Sahib had said affected Bhai Lehna. So, they decided to stay the night there. And there, over the night, Bhai Lehna kept contemplating on what was said in the Satsang. And a lot of his doubts had been cleared in that Satsang and it had created a deep impression on him. So, in the morning, when everybody woke up, all the other people who were out to go to the deity, his companions, all of them said, "Let us go now." And they all got ready to leave. But, Bhai Lehna told them, "All of you proceed and I will stay here for some more time. And when you are returning, I will join you to go back to our village."
So, Bhai Lehna then gave them money to facilitate their travel and return, and all of them left. And Bhai Lehna continued to stay there for about twelve more days and he listened to the Satsangs.
And when these people returned from that deity and they were going back to the village, they came to fetch Bhai Lehna. But, he told them that they should go back to the village as he wanted to stay some more days there.
Thereafter, Bhai Lehna permanently stayed there. He never went back to that village. And he continued to stay there in Guru Nanak Ji’s ashram and he did a lot of practice there.
It so happened once, while Guru Nanak Ji and he and some sevadars therewere going out to some place, there was this small ditch on the way and there was loose mud in that. Guru Nanak Ji said “I will not be able to step in that" because it was quite dirty. So, He asked His sevadars to get some stones or bricks, which they could put in that ditch so everyone could cross over. So, all the sevadars, accordingly, went to look for some stones or bricks, but in this fertile land of Punjab, there are very few stones. It is very fertile land. So, they went quite far to search for that. Meanwhile, Bhai Lehna was standing with Guru Nanak Ji and he could see that Guru Nanak Ji was waiting for so long. So, he lied prostrate on that ditch and he requested Guru Nanak Ji to walk over him so that He could cross over that ditch.
So then, Guru Nanak Ji, accordingly, crossed over. He walked over Bhai Lehna and went over to the other side. And when Bhai Lehna got up, his white clothes had all become dirty with mud. Guru Nanak Ji was so pleased with the seva of Bhai Lehna that He embraced him in that same condition. And He said, "You are a part of my body." And that's how he got his name ‘Angad’. Angad means ‘a part of your body’. So, his name, thereafter, became Angad Dev.
So, it is this firm resolve — to believe that the Master is the be-all and end-all and to surrender in the Will of the Master —that is needed. When one does this, he gets success on the Path. So, with such firm resolve, one looks at the Master as being of more importance than all worldly matters.
But, unlike this, what happens in today’s world is that we all consider the world and all the materiality of the world to be of more importance than the Master. So, if some tragedy befalls us, then we start pointing out to the Master on this.
Man ko maar karen asavaari,
Gagan kot vah len ghiraai.
Khaai sunn paar maidaana,
Mahaasunn naaka parmaana.
Bhanwar-gupha ka phaatak torra,
Sheesh mahal satguru dikhlaai.
Adbhut leela ajab vahaan ki,
Kiran kiran sooraj darsaai.
So, that way, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "With a seamless love for our Master and a continuity in the practice of doing our Bhajan Simran on a very regular basis, we are able to focus our attention at the Eye Center, withdraw from all the nine doors, and go to the Tenth Door.” And then, plane-by-plane, we go up. We cross all the planes and go to Sach Khand, which he describes as a glass palace. There the soul gets to live on nectar. It gets nectar and it has the luminance of sixteen suns.
Sooraj sooraj jot niraari,
Chandr chandr kotin chhabi chhaai.
Ghat akaash aughat parkaasha,
Lakh akaash kotin parsaai.
So, Swami Ji Maharaj says, “All this creation is all contained within you. And if we imagine thousands of millions of suns and moons — the brightness and the luminance of all of these — that emanates from each cell of God Almighty in Sach Khand — from Sat Purush. So, all these worlds are all contained within the body.
Yah leela kuchh ajab pech ki,
Ulat palat koi gurumukh paai.
Kahaan lag barnu bhed agaadha,
Jo koi laave sunn samaadha.
Samajh boojh goonge gurr khaai.
Akath akah ki baat niraali,
Kyonkar kahoon banaai.
Radhasoami raaz chhipe ko,
Pargat kar sarsaai.
So, Swami Ji Maharaj says, "All this Creation, which is there within — and God Almighty Who resides within — all this is beyond our intellect.” All this is beyond our thinking processes and it is difficult to fathom all of this. And what is written about it is all misunderstood and it is explained in different ways by different people without an understanding of all this.
It is only a true Master gurumukh Who has gone within, Who has seen all of this, He is the only person Who can come and explain all of this. And the Creations, which are beyond Sach Khand, are completely outside the intellect and outside of anything that we can possibly imagine.
Samajh boojh goonge gurr khaai.
Kyonkar kahoon banaai.
Radhasoami raaz chhipe ko,
Pargat kar sarsaai.
Radhaswami