Reflection 8. It's Either One or the Other

The belief that the only real way to love God is through a current living master is not only incorrect but also blasphemy if you are a Christian. 

As a Christian, you believe there has only ever been One God. He revealed Himself through Jesus Christ to break the bonds of sin through crucifixion as a one-off act of love, resurrecting and conquering death for all time. Opening the gates of eternity for everyone who believes ( Luke 14:13-23 ).

This is the deal breaker. You cannot be a Christian and be a follower of Rhada Soami Satsang Beas at the same time. Period. No matter what Sant Mat tells you.

It's simply impossible if you read and accept the Bible and believe what Jesus taught us ( John 14:6 ).

 Rhadha Soami Satsang Beas directly attacks Jesus Christ replacing Him with Gurinder Singh.

It's either one or the other.

Don't believe these wishy-washy statements that you can still follow your own religion and follow Sant Mat. Lies and deceptions.

Don't believe Jesus Christ is part of a long line of Masters including John the Baptist. This is another attempt to mainstream the only Son of Man.

Have you ever heard Jesus mention anything about His disciples meditating or listening to the Shabd?

Was Jesus a vegetarian? No, he ate fish. He was a Jew ( Luke 2:21-24)

Why do you think He performed so many miracles, walked on water, cast out demons?

Because He was the only begotten Son of God and He had the power of the Holy Spirit. ( John 3:16-18)

No one has ever come close to matching Jesus Christ or ever will but there are plenty of forces that desire your worship over Him.

Reflect on the five names of Simran. Who are they? Have you ever met them? Have you read any books about them specifically? What sort of spirits are they really? Are they rulers, angels, demons?Do you really know?

Just remember that you are repeating names. Five specific names. Not Gurinder Singh's name. He's your guide.

When I was a satsangi this aspect of the path of Sant Mat always made me feel uncomfortable if I thought too much about it.

How comfortable are you with this?

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Reflection 7. A Lukewarm Love Affair

If you're not fired up with love for God and keen to share this with others then you might have missed the boat somewhere along the way or been conned out of the real deal.

I was in a lukewarm love affair for 12 years. Yes, I guess I started off with high expectations and passion but this only lasted for a short time. The daily struggle of meditation and lack of response from this habit soon extinguished my burning desire to know God.

I put God in a box and figured He didn't want to know and love me yet. I would just have to try harder or so I thought. Eventually, through failure, I settled for mediocrity and a semi-warm on the way to cold heart.

Sant Mat meditation for me was the path to despair. The worst kind of hopelessness in which I believed God just wasn't interested in knowing me for whatever reason. According to all the Sant Mat books, I read he was very interested in other satsangis but not me.

Oh how wrong I was.

How God reached me, in the end, was standing on top of a sup board looking at a sunset after endless perfect rides at a surfing spot called Omaha. His love erupted in my heart as spontaneous praise for his wondrous beauty as I held my hands up high in worship. Right then and there I knew something had shifted inside me and my passion for Him and His love for me was ignited once more.

I achieved God realisation yes I realised God loved me! Very simple really. No bells or whistles, astral travelling, third eye revelations or Shabd adventures. Just a knowing that my Father cares for and loves me passionately.

Heard this song today on Radio Rhema on the way home from work by a New Zealand folk psalmist called Strahan.

The title is Call Me. Hope you enjoy.

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Reflection 6. An Actor in a Bizarre Role

As a westerner, you are privileged to the opportunity of a sit-down question and answer session during the 3 weeks of your stay at Dera( Beas, Punjab). This lasts for around 30 minutes after the evening satsang. I remember when I asked my first question how nervous I was to be addressing Gurinder Singh. My mind had literally given Gurinder a God like status. That's why it's so surprising that Gurinder answers your questions as a very normal person which is all he really is. Just another human being like you or me that has found himself in an extraordinary hereditary position. Through time and many sessions of giving satsangs and answering questions, Gurinder Singh has become very good at what he does. I guess it helped that he was trained as a lawyer earlier on in his life. But this is his job and like any job it has its perks and down side. I think anyone famous would empathise with Gurinder with his total loss of anonymity but on the other hand, his every need is taken care of and the wealth of the world is available to him and his family. His position of power guarantees most doors are open to him.

So the irony is that satsangis tend to worship Gurinder Singh as a god and yet he is just a normal guy like you or me. An actor in a bizarre role who over time has become his part. 

Unlike Jesus Christ,  God's only Son,  infinitely powerful and the real source of love in the universe. 

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Reflection 5. Stopping Simran

Over a fair amount of years, I developed the daily moment by moment practice of repeating simran which was ironically very hard to stop. It was as if simran was stalking me from within and repeating itself at every available opportunity, even in my dreams. 

So I started repeating a form of the Jesus Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner

This worked in combating simran although it took quite awhile for it to completely stop.

My Jesus Prayer actually went:

Lord Jesus Christ, Only Son of God, have mercy on me

The best thing though that I ever did was getting baptised and giving my heart to Jesus Christ alongside marrying a committed Christian who had done this.

This for me was a game changer bringing me the most peace. Although it did take me over 2 years to do this after leaving Radha Soami Satsang Beas

If I could advise you one thing then I would say don't leave this step for too long as the transition out of Sant Mat leaves a void. A vacuum that needs to be filled with the real power of the Holy Spirit.

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Reflection 4. Sitting Targets

I remember when I went to daily mass in a Catholic church in those first few months after leaving the Radha Soami Satsang Beas path, my mind was sometimes attacked by the most repulsive thoughts. This cleansing process lasted for about 4 months with some days at church being far worse than others. If I had given my heart to Jesus and got baptised a bit earlier on I might have been spared this stage but it is interesting that such ugly thoughts were in my mind during church. The same thoughts were in my mind on and off during my years of Sant Mat meditations which raises quite a few questions about the source of these projections. They can't have been coming from God. I know in Sant Mat teachings these sorts of images are described as sanskaras but that's a bit too broad, convenient and unscientific for me. I just wonder how many other satsangis are currently meditating and being attacked with these sorts of filthy, disgusting and disturbing images. Unfortunately for satsangis there is nowhere for them to turn as their suffering is completely isolated and alone in the quiet hours of the morning or night. As I now have the real protection of Jesus Christ I think satsangis are a very vulnerable group of people. The very nature of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas path isolates people from each other which makes them sitting targets.

I remember I was once attending satsang here in Auckland among a couple of hundred other followers and a person went into an unconscious state and started shaking quite violently around on the floor. So someone held his head while he shook for about 20 minutes which seemed endless. This disturbed me greatly at the time as he could have been having an epileptic fit but it was just assumed he was in some form of spiritual trance. Again I think this man was vulnerable and due to Sant Mat belief, at risk.

So the real hurdle of a satsangi is breaking the silence and reaching out to someone. If you have no one to talk to and things are not exactly as you would have imagined, then feel free to email me on christsthunder@gmail.com . Your own experiences might not be like mine but I bet there are some common themes that we can share. I hope and pray you make the first step as I did.

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Reflection 3. The Power of Belief

When I decided to leave the Radha Soami Satsang Beas path I was afraid at first about the repercussions of stopping my meditation practice and what the inner master ( Gurinder Singh ) might do to me. So much power is given to the master in Sant Mat that it is written that if he can't burn your kama's off by you meditating and living a pure life style, then he can end your life early and start again with you in a new incarnation. So you can imagine the grip sant mat dogma has on its disciples. Gurinder Singh's role is to get you to Sach Khand whatever way possible. He rules supreme.

Now with that thought in mind try closing your eyes and going to sleep when you know that you are disobeying the master.

The only way I found to change such a strong belief is to develop a stronger one with the real power of the Holy Spirit behind it ( Rom 15:13 ).

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Reflection 2. Eating the Forbidden Egg

Funny as it sounds eating an egg was a major step for me in recovery and breaking free from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas belief system.

My family and I regularly travel to a place in New Zealand called New Plymouth to visit my parents which is about 5 hours south of Auckland on the West Coast of the North Island. There are a couple of cafes that we stop at to break the journey. Now if you have ever had the unfortunate opportunity of eating out with a satsangi you will appreciate how tiring it gets when a meal is ordered. The poor cafe attendant is first questioned about the ingredients of every single vegetarian item, revealing that egg is in just about everything. Eventually, something is found that is egg free and cheese free (as most cheese has animal rennet) but just to be sure the chef is now called in to confirm that the vegetarian food you are about to eat is completely pure and not cooked in the same pan as meat. By this stage, your wife and kids are totally embarrassed as everyone in the queue thinks you're completely bonkers. My poor wife and family had to endure this experience countless times both here in NZ and overseas when we traveled. I feel totally embarrassed and ashamed of myself now when I think how selfish I was ( Matt 15:11 ).

It gets worse. While we were just starting out dating it happened to be Summer's birthday. So we went out to a fancy place called the Auckland Sky Tower which is 220 meters high with a revolving restaurant. Summer looked at the menu and asked would I mind if she ordered the smoked salmon entree? To which I replied, "go ahead but I won't be kissing you tonight".  She said years later it felt like I had just slapped her across the face and she realized then and there that if we were to stay together she would have to be a vegetarian.  I can't believe we are still married after so many trying years.

So you can imagine when I announced to my wife during our journey to New Plymouth, that I'm leaving Sant Mat, she thought I was joking. That was until reality hit home as she watched me eat my first mouthful of eggs hollandaise. Then her jaw dropped, eyes widened and tears started flowing.

From there on I had to force myself at first to eat more eggs and eventually fish but I felt freer with each forbidden mouthful from the invisible chains that had bound me for 12 years of spiritual imprisonment. I actually went a bit crazy on cakes for about 6 months eating everything I desired and there was a list I had in mind. Eventually though once the pendulum had swung back I reached my equilibrium again. The same thing happened with alcohol starting with red wine and then white but now I have the occasional beer and that's about it.

The whole  Radha Soami Satsang Beas vegetarian teetotaller life style seems completely strange to me now. I mean if the meditation practice actually yielded results then I guess these sacrifices might be justifiable but I spent years scratching a stone wall. That's just plain mean and very hard on other non-satsangi family members.

Praise to Jesus Christ who found His lost sheep - Luke 15:1-7

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Reflection 1. Worshipping a Man

As you progress on the Radha Soami Satsang Beas path the idea that the master is watching your every move starts to take hold. Gradually for me, the fear of God was replaced by the fear of Gurinder Singh. I began to think that the inner master was watching my every move and I started talking to this so-called entity believing that he was also protecting me and guiding me through life. The master became God for me and meditation was my attempt at worshipping him.

Over the course of 12 years of following Sant Mat, I visited Dera, the headquarters for Radha Soami Satsang Beas, five times. It's at this place that you really witness worship of a human being on mass in the thousands. At Dera Gurinder Singh reigns supreme as a god in living form. Everything at Dera is reflected as worship for Him. I think most satsangi's would agree one of the highlights of your trip is getting chapatis after satsang and watching Gurinder Singh walking around the huge kitchens and seeing hundreds of ladies sitting cross-legged with worshipful hands singing shabads, gazing at Him. Even then something made me feel uneasy about this whole spectacle.

Now though looking back, I think this is totally misdirected love towards Gurinder Singh which is meant for God alone, breaking the first and second commandment of the Bible( Exodus 20 ).

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