Radhasoami History 3

The experience of the 'infinite sublimity' as Einstein described it, is an old one. Rock paintings in Australia, Africa, Europe and the Americas show clearly that the shamanic experience of the mystical goes back to the earliest times in human history. And the experience of the mystical is a common one. Millions of Americans can describe 'out-of-body' experiences, many more can describe 'near death' experiences. Many more can talk about how, in a blinding flash of an all-consuming experience, they have felt, even seen the presence of Jesus, the Virgin Mary or of any other particular religious personality. They talk about how, in minutes, or hours, or even days, they had experiences that convinced them that God is real, Jesus or whoever else is real, and that there is no question but what there is a guiding presence in their lives.

With all that testimony, the testimony of millions, how could science doubt the reality of the experience?

For many scientists, the whole question of the "god experience" was a matter they didn't want to undertake - not because they feared the outcome, but because they feared the difficulty of undertaking the research. With a reductionist view, trying to explain an experience that was not reproducible in the laboratory made the whole investigation of the spiritual experience to be one that was far too difficult to research, and one that was unlikely to be reproducible to the extent that research could be published and verified.

Dr. Michael Persinger, working at Laurentian University, in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, has pioneered a method for inducing the religious, spiritual experience of the shaman. Without drugs, herbs, hypnosis or invasive surgery, he can quite literally flip a switch and induce the experience of "god."

Using an ordinary striped yellow motorcycle helmet, which he has modified with electromagnetic coils, he can place the helmet on your head, connect the wires to a device he has constructed that generates the proper signals, and when the magnetic fields produced by the coils penetrate the skull and into the temporal lobes of the brain, the result is the stimulation of those lobes and a religious experience results.

In common with the Hindu view that a confrontation with God is a confrontation with the self, the nine-hundred plus people who have undertaken the experience produced by Dr. Persinger's helmet have had some very profound experiences. Four out of five say that they've had experiences so profound they would be life-changing had they not understood the mechanistic underpinnings of what they had experienced.

How does Dr. Persinger's helmet work? It works by inducing very small electrical signals with tiny magnetically induced mechanical vibrations in the brain cells of the temporal lobes of the brain, located in the skull just above and forward of the ears. These lobes are the portions of the brain that produce the "Forty Hertz Component" of the brainwaves detected in electroencephalograms. These mysterious "forty hertz components" are present whenever you are awake or when you are in REM sleep. They are absent during deep, dreamless sleep. What the "forty hertz component" does is not well understood, but we know that it is always present during the experience of "self." We cannot have a "me" experience without the forty hertz component being present.

What this means is that the forty hertz component is essential to our experience of self. We cannot experience our sense of individuality without it. It stands to reason, then, that if the forty hertz component could somehow be suppressed, the sense of individuality would be suppressed with it, and indeed, this is what Dr. Persinger's helmet does. It turns off the forty hertz component and with it the sense of individuality which your brain uses to define "self" as opposed to "rest of the world."

When the brain is deprived of the self stimulation and sensory input that is required for it to define itself as being distinct from the rest of the world, the brain 'defaults' to a sense of infinity. The sense of self expands to fill whatever the brain can sense, and what it senses is the world, so the experience of the self simply expands to fill the perception of the world itself. One experiences becoming "one with the universe."

There are two temporal lobes in the brain, one on each side. The one on the left, in most people, is the dominant one, responsible for language, which becomes dominant when we first learn language as children. The one on the right, non-dominant, contributes to the sense of self with constant communication with its opposite colleague. But being on the far side of the brain, sometimes the communications get out of whack, often as a result of stress or disease, and the forty hertz component falls out of sync. When this happens, the result is that the normally silent right-hand sense of self becomes experienced as a separate presence by the left-hand sense of self.

This is the experience of the God presence. There is an overwhelming sense of presence, an inescapable feeling that someone is there. But when the forty hertz component is deeply attenuated or entirely absent from, say, the left side, and there's no "self" experience occurring, the feeling of unity with infinity is occuring with a sense of an overwhelming presence resulting from the continued operation of the right hand side, there is no way to describe it other than feeling that one has experienced the "infinite presence." Hence the God experience.

All of this has been verified not only experimentally with Dr. Persinger's helmet, but by use of high-tech brain scanning machines similar to the CAT and MRI scanners that many of us have experienced.

Many deeply experienced meditators feel, when deep in meditation, an experience of transcendance of the here and now. They feel a sense of being outside of time and space. How is this experience produced?

We now know from the results of investigations using a brain-scanning technique called SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography), how these experiences arise. Researchers have produced images of the brains of Tibetan Buddhists who undergo deep, profound meditative experiences as the result of years of practice. They have done the same with a Catholic nun, who, after 45 minutes of deep prayer, had her brain scanned to determine what centers were active and what centers were not.

The results show that in both cases, the pre-frontal cortex, which controls attention, is highly stimulated. The subjects are clearly deeply attentive to their task. But the superior parietal lobe, the center that processes information about space, time and the orientation of the body in space, is suppressed, and is almost totally quiet. The result is that there is no sense of time, space or being in the world. And not feeling "in the world" leads to an "other-worldly" experience. So it is not surprising that those who have this experience describe it as being in the "spiritual realm."

The near-death experience that is described by many patients who have been revived from life-threatening events contain elements of all of these and a few more. We have seen how the presence of the "god" feeling arises from the result of a lack of communications between the temporal lobes. And we have seen how the sense of timelessness and infinite space arise. But what about the vision of the tunnel with the light at the end? And the sense of rising out of the body?

The sense of orientation is lost when the superior parietal lobe shuts down. The 'self' no longer feels anchored to the body, because the sense of self being in the body is lost, and one seems to be rising to 'heaven.' We now know that the vision of the tunnel is produced by the visual cortex being disconnected from sensory input, and beginning to shut down. Same with the light at the end of the tunnel, which is an artifact of the brain 'looking' for sensory input it cannot 'see.' The visions of a beautiful summer garden or lovely mountain landscapes are the result of the memory centers acting on the centers of the brain that organize visual input into things we recognize, which is operating in the near-total absense of sensory input. All of these brain activities together produce the familiar being of light at the end of a tunnel, and the entrance into the beautiful summer garden.

These experiences have a deep feeling of reality to them. This is simply because the centers of the brain that are producing the experience are cut completely off from sensory that would dilute the 'realness' of the experience. Hence, the subjects who report these experiences describe them as being so real they were not at all like a dream. Indeed, they weren't. They were dreams undiluted from sensory reality.

It is clear that the meaning of the understanding of these phenomena are easily explained in detail through well-understood neurological processes in the brain. What are widely regarded as evidence for the existence of a spiritual realm can easily be explained by the material, the mundane. So in the light of that reality, what does the religionist have to say?

Those who have communicated their interpretations to me say that they remain unconvinced that this means any new. I disagree. For most who write to me regarding my essays about the reality of a metaphysical universe, I have but one thing to say: your most powerful, persuasive evidence, namely your own powerful, personal experience, can now be easily and rationally explained, in all its features. No metaphysical explanation is necessary. Because no metaphysical explanation is necessary, your evidence is no longer evidence of anything metaphysical.

Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, by Andrew Newberg M.D., Eugene G. D'Aquili Ph.D., Vince Rause. This book is a great explanation of the biology in this essay. Frequently cited by both religionists and atheists alike, this book explains the physical basis of the 'god' experience, without being a polemic against religion. At the same time, it also undermines the position that the experience of God is a purely spiritual phenomenon, without a physical basis. While some of the book is wasted in philosophical musings, the explanation for the biology of religious experience is there, and is reasonably complete.

The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious ExperienceEugene G. D'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg. This book is one of the more comprehensive books on the subject. A complete and thorough explanation, it does not get lost in the arcanities of neurophysiology. If you can read Scientific American, you'll be able to comprehend this book. It's one of the best around.

The Demon Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark is Carl Sagan's last book, and in it, he predicts the outcome of the research outlined in the books above years before the work was done. Its prescience is classic Carl Sagan.

However, while I agree that the disciple is really a chump to PROJECT all sorts of psychic junk upon a guru figure........ there is no getting around the REAL crux of the problem:

The Beas Lineage has de facto nurtured a concept that the gurus are PERFECT MASTERS (God incarnate) and, as such, have the power to do anything.

This is the real problem.

And Sawan, Charan, Jagat, and Gurinder are directly to blame for perpetuating this fraud.

Everything else is merely a footnote.

That is why Faqir Chand argued that these gurus were robbers and thieves.

What did they steal?

The disciple's innocence, naiveness, projections, desires, love, good will, and hope.

This is a much greater sin than stealing their property.

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"The hearing of the nadi sounds is included under Pratyahara, and under Dharana the rousing of kundalini." Page 223, The Serpent Power, Aurthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe), Madras, 1964, 7th edition

But, whereas the Jnana-Yogi attains Svarupa-Jnana by his mental efforts WITHOUT ROUSING KUNDALINI, the hatha yogi gets this Jnana through kundalini Herself. Buddhi itself becomes Laya and the Yogi attains the true unmodified state of the Atma, in which the Jivawho is then pure Buddhi is merged in Prakrti and the Brahman, as salt in the waters of ocean and as camphor in the flame.

Kundalini as Mahamatrka-sundari has 51 coils, which are the Matrkas, or subtle forms of the gross letters or Varna, which is the Vaikhari form of the Sabda at the centers. Kundalini when with one coil is Bindu; with two, Prakrti-Purusa; with three Saktis .... In the body, unmanifested Para-shabda is in Kundalini-Sakti. That which first issues from it is in the lowest chakra, which extends upward through the rest as Pasyanti, Madhyama and Vaikhari-Sabda.

Yoga therefore is the method whereby mental intellection and feeling and Prana are first controlled and then stayed. When the Citta, Vrtti, and Prana are stilled, then Cit, or Paramatma stands revealed. It supervenes without further effort on the absorption of matter and mind into the primordial Power (Sakti), whence they sprang, of whom they are manifested forms, and who is Herself as Siva one with Him who is Siva or Consciousness.

The arising of such a state is called Samadhi... the experience is achieved after the absorption (Laya) of Prana and Manas and the cessation of all ideation (Samkalpa). Until then there is that fluctuation and modification which is the mark of conditioned consciousness, with its self-diremption of "I" and "Thou".

Many individuals whose Kundalini has been unexpectedly unleashed DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING, and the prevailing social ignorance about this multidimensional transformative process makes it hard to find medical or alternative health practitioners or spiritual advisors who recognize the symptoms, particularly when they are strongly physical. Many people know that the risen Kundalini flings open gates to all sorts of mystical, paranormal and magical vistas but few realize it can also dramatically impact the body. A large percentage of our old Shared Transformation newsletter subscribers reported long bouts of strange illness as well as radical mental, emotional, interpersonal, psychic, spiritual and lifestyle changes. Over and again we hear stories of frustrating, sometimes desperate visits to doctors, healers, counselors, etc. who neither understood nor were able to help with the myriad pains and problems catalyzed by raging Kundalini.

This letter is typical of the hundreds we receive from people struggling with strange symptoms and Kundalini illnesses:

The following are common manifestations of the risen Kundalini:

Muscle twitches, cramps or spasms.

Energy rushes or immense electricity circulating the body

Itching, vibrating, prickling, tingling, stinging or crawling sensations

Intense heat or cold

Involuntary bodily movements (occur more often during meditation, rest or sleep): jerking, tremors, shaking; feeling an inner force pushing one into postures or moving one's body in unusual ways. (May be misdiagnosed as epilepsy, restless legs syndrome (RLS), or PLMD.)

Alterations in eating and sleeping patterns

Episodes of extreme hyperactivity or, conversely, overwhelming fatigue (some CFS victims are experiencing Kundalini awakening)

Intensified or diminished sexual desires

Headaches, pressures within the skull

Racing heartbeat, pains in the chest

Digestive system problems

Numbness or pain in the limbs (particularly the left foot and leg)

Pains and blockages anywhere; often in the back and neck (Many cases of FMS are Kundalini-related.)

Emotional outbursts; rapid mood shifts; seemingly unprovoked or excessive episodes of grief, fear, rage, depression

Spontaneous vocalizations (including laughing and weeping) -- are as unintentional and uncontrollable as hiccoughs

Hearing an inner sound or sounds, classically described as a flute, drum, waterfall, birds singing, bees buzzing but which may also sound like roaring, whooshing, or thunderous noises or like ringing in the ears.

Masters such as Darshan Singh and Sawan used to to say the consciousness is raised, without kundalini being touched. Kabir talks of the kundalini, so did Nanak, Amar Dass, Angad and Gobind. If you take a Yogananda successor such as Paramhansa Hariharinanda, he gives almost exact light and sound initiation as sant mat, as does Yogananda group proper. The inner planes are identical as are the inner sounds. How do they raise the kundalini with the exact method sant mat uses, and sant mat people only raise their consciousness out ?

I have read this line of David Lane many times and I am always surprised by this. Treasure Beyond Measure clearly indicates that Charan Singh made vigorous early efforts to evade his fate (becoming the Guru) , finally concluding that he had no choice but to accept the guruship. Given his total social circumstance, family relations, etc., he may have felt he had no choice, that he was trapped, with not way out, however painful and difficult it was for him.

Yet, even then, he had the integrity to clearly and plainly say that he made no claim to any spiritual attainments whatsoever, a very bold and honest statement under the circumstances.

In a private letter allegedly written by Kirpal Singh in late 1951, a definite attempt by Charan Singh to arrange his early abdication is described. This letter was circulated back to Beas and a law suit was threatened and an apology demanded, likely regarded as a face saving action on the part of the Beas administration.

Kirpal Singh did apologize for the letter, agreeing that he had been misinformed, thereby avoiding a messy legal confrontation. However, both the booklet, Truth Triumphant, and Darshan Singh in private conversation, emphatically declared that the allegations of an arrangement by Charan Singh to abdicate in favor of a relative, with promises of financial support as an inducement to said relative, after the lapse of a year or so, were true, had emanated directly from Beas, and that the apology was merely to avoid a court engagement. Lane dismisses this due to his slavish adherence to literalism under all circumstances: since Kirpal Singh apologized it invalidates the content of the letter attributed to him, as if the apology were prima facie evidence of the illegitimacy of the content). However, in the context of all that we now know, particularly since Treasure Beyond Measure, the allegation of Charan Singh? attempted abdication seems perfectly credible.

(In a strange twist of fate, the circulation back to Beas of Kirpal Singh's alleged letter may have indirectly brought the scheme to an end.)

Therefore, I disagree with David's position on this. I feel that Charan Singh did everything he reasonabley felt he could. He was constrained from going all the way with his feelings by family and cultural forces to which he was deeply bound.

During Sawan's life Jesus Christ was considered a 2nd plane master. During Charan's life he was considered a full Sant.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Word Mark SANT MAT

Owner Name (REGISTRANT) RADHA SOAMI SOCIETY BEAS - AMERICA

Owner Address 18 Countryside Drive Hutchinson KANSAS 67502 NON-PROFIT CORPORATION CALIFORNIA

Attorney of Record Anne DeNieto Risk

Serial Number 75-128078

Registration Number 2102969

Filing Date 07/01/1996

Registration Date 10/07/1997

Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING

Register PRINCIPAL

Published for Opposition 07/15/1997

Type of Mark SERVICE MARK

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Letter No. 40 Received about February, 1882.

To your first -- there's little to answer: "Can you do anything to help on the Society?" Want me to speak frankly? Well I say so: neither yourself nor the Lord Sang-yias Himself -- so long as the equivocal position of the Founders is not perfectly and undeniably proved due to fiendish malice and a systematic intrigue -- could help it on. That's the situation as I found it, as ordered by the chiefs. Watch the papers -- all except two or three; the "dear old lady" ridiculed when not positively libelled, Olcott attacked by all the hell-hounds of the press and missions. A pamphlet headed "Theosophy" printed and circulated by the Christians at Tinevelly October 23rd on the day of O.'s arrival there with the Buddhist delegates -- a pamphlet containing the Saturday Review article and another filthy, heavy attack by an American paper. The C. and M. of Lahore hardly missing a day without having some attack and other papers reprinting them, etc., etc. You English have your notions -- we have our own upon the subject. If you keep the clean kerchief in your pocket and throw but the soiled one into the crowd -- who will pick it up? Enough. We must have patience and do what, meanwhile, we can. My opinion is, that if your Rattigan is not quite a scoundrel, one of his papers having thrown and throwing daily dishonour upon an innocent woman, he would be the first to suggest you the idea of translating and publishing her uncle's letters (to you and herself) in the Pioneer; with a few words in a leader, to say, that a still more substantial official proof is shortly expected from the Prince D. which will settle the vexed question as to her identity for ever at rest. But you know best. This idea may have struck you; but will it ever be seen in such a light by others?

Suby Ram (Salig Ram)-- a truly good man -- yet a devotee of another error. Not his guru's voice -- his own. The voice of a pure, unselfish, earnest soul, absorbed in misguided, misdirected mysticism. Add to it a chronic disorder in that portion of the brain which responds to clear vision and the secret is soon told: that disorder was developed by forced visions; by hatha yog and prolonged asceticism. S. Ram is the chief medium and at same time the principal magnetic factor, who spreads his disease by infection -- unconsciously to himself; who innoculates with his vision all the other disciples. There is one general law of vision (physical and mental or spiritual) but there is a qualifying special law proving that all vision must be determined by the quality or grade of man's spirit and soul, and also by the ability to translate divers qualities of waves of astral light into consciousness. There is but one general law of life, but innumerable laws qualify and determine the myriads of forms perceived and of sounds heard. There are those who are willingly and others who are unwillingly -- blind. Mediums belong to the former, sensitives to the latter. Unless regularly initiated and trained -- concerning the spiritual insight of things and the supposed revelations made unto man in all ages from Socrates down to Swedenborg and "Fern" -- no self-tutored seer or clairaudient ever saw or heard quite correctly.

No harm and much instruction may come to you by joining his Society. Go on until he demands what you will be obliged to refuse. Learn and study. You are right: they say and affirm that the one and only God of the Universe was incarnated in their guru, and were such an individual to exist he would certainly be higher than any "planetary." But they are idolators, my friend. Their guru was no initiate only a man of extraordinary purity of life and powers of endurance. He had never consented to give up his notions of a personal god and even gods though offered more than once. He was born an orthodox Hindu and died a self-reformed Hindu, something like Kechub-Ch-Sen but higher purer and with no ambition to taint his bright soul. Many of us have regretted his self-delusion but he was too good to be forcibly interfered with. Join them and learn -- but remember your sacred promise to K.H. Two months more and he will be with us. I think of sending her to you. I believe you could persuade her for I do not wish to use my authority in this case.

The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett Theosophical University Press Edition

................................

Exact reproduction of the secret Thakar letter below, written to group leaders.

CONFIDENTIAL (typed)

Handwritten notation by unknown person (Please do not tell or show to anyone)

MY MISSION IN THE WORLD

We have been reading the scriptures and life-sketches of the past masters and had been trying to understand their way of working in the world. They had been arranging to take out the souls out of the clutches of negative power but not disturbing the set-up of negativity. And had been keeping rules and regulations as agreed upon by God Power, that in what way the Saints and Masters will be working.

When at certain occasion the negativity becomes extra controlling, then special arrangements from God appears to check the powersand its activities. So, in addition to the work of taking out souls I am also to fight with the negativity, so that its control in the three worlds is checked up to such an extent that for long times to come, it will not be able to blind up the situation of the world from God Power. And souls will not suffer in this world in the way they are suffering now.

From the very start of my work this struggle began and I had to start the fight from the lowest standings of negativity. Simultaneously I was then raised up after I had conquered and gone through the lower set-ups of negativity to deal with the higher one. In this process the law of Karma is to be maintained that first the negative power is allowed to injure or to disturb me and do any other terrible actions upon my body, mind and intellect. Then with the help of my Master and His Powers, it was paid back in reaction. And that reacton was then really proving fatal for negativity. As for example the child of a King comes out and an ordinary person gives a beating to the child, that is also hard. But, when the Father King comes, then He manages to put the person into prison for the whole of the life or even to kill him. In this way the King has not done any illegal offense, but has kept the ruling.

Similary in this process from the very beginning I had to go through diffferent (incorrect spelling) kinds of sufferings and tortures through negativity, physically and mentally. Physically also at so many times I was given hard beatings, injuries, wounds resulting flow of blood from my body and so much pain was there in the bones for long time. But, it was only known to me and nobody could see anything on my body. And, my shoutings, cries and tears were also not to be heard or felt by anybody. During the nights it was something terrible when I was alone. Through some agencies humiliation, abusive and hard language was also used to me on very much occasions and negativity had been hovering over me 24 hours like an eagle on a rat, but the protection of my Master who was working behind the curtain and his help was there that I could survive and could go on getting stronger and stronger and conquering over different phases of negativity, step by step. The negative power also effected my mind and intellect sometimes and could use my body in a way that I get bad named and that my Mission is to suffer. But the things could be kept going along by the Grace of my master Great Master due to His wonderful and regular help behind the curtain.

This conquest of devils of different stages was not only for me, that I got rid of some devils who were hard and controlling me, but it was the general release over whole of the world from the clutches of devils. Sometimes back while I was in Manav Kendra, some special conquest was there over some devil and when I came back to Ashram after two days, it was informed by some person in the Ashram that since two days there had been much easier atmospheres in the Ashram and all the people felt much released and lifted up in meditation.

The situation as per now is very encouraging as this war is going on much better in speed of conquest. But still there is something left to be done which only my master knows and who has planned this conquest in its own ways. But now I feel that one of the hardest last phases of negativity has awakened and it has taken the most drastic step to snatch away the poor, innocent souls from me, which is unbearable for me and also for my master. Surely and necessarily this seperating agency will have to be dealt with accordingly. The last action of negativity, as it is trying to disturb the Mission itself, will really prove fatal for itself. All previous struggle was mainly going on in higher planes. But, now this struggle has also started openly in the physical plane. The results of which will be really very hard and will appear in course of time in some form which we may call catastrophe.

The abnormal delay in occurance to destruction which has been main cause of confusion to Sangat, seems also planning of God Power for some useful purpose, and may prove blessing in disguise, as all my previous sufferings and tradgedies uptill today had proved blessings in disguise. Further also, the more I suffer the better humanity will be benefitted. But I am sorry that so many of my dear ones have also been put to suffering with me under this confussion. But their devotion will bring sweet fruit for all in plenty.

All these informations I did not want to tell to anybody, but now only for the information of the dear ones it is conveyed, not openly. The action of destruction of the Mission by negative power may bring out its own destruction in this physical world and whole situation of world may be improved wonderfully. I do not feel like claiming anything. All is done by my Great Master and due to Him only, but we may wait to witness personally.

In all Love and humbleness in my Great Master Sant Kirpal Singh Ji Maharaj,

yours in service

Hand written date is either

28-5-84

28-5-89

Date fuzzy

Thakar letter quote end .