
The following section contains the collected quotes from Satguru Sirio Ji and earlier Masters of Surat Shabd Yoga.
“In Sach Khand, there is no me nor you, there is no devotee, there is no Beloved. There is only the One! The vast ocean of resplendent light.”
“To reach the best, most divine side of yourself, you also need to experience the dark side of yourself. Those are two sides of one coin. You have to know who you are, in all possible ways. The best and the worst. And if you got to the worst you will get to the best. And if you get to the best, you have experienced the worst.”
“The doctor doesn’t come to those who are fine, without any problems, healthy. The doctor comes to those who are sick. The Master is also there for those who are somehow troubled, not for those who are fine.”
“What are we? Are we made out of ice cream that we melt with nothing? A person should have some strength. You should not be influenced by others, you need to have the strength to influence others.”
“The spiritual experience is a very subjective something. For those who feel the need for it and experience it for them, it’s a very tangible, very felt, and very real experience. For those who don’t feel it, for them, it’s not existent. Master Kirpal used to say “Blessed is the day when this need for self-realization enters into your life. That’s the most important and blessed day of your existence. All the other days were just common days.” Those who have had this awakening, those in whom this urge to realize oneself as a Divine Being has entered are very lucky. And they should understand how precious a gift this is. And they should pursue it through their all life.”
“What happens when you get a blessing from a blessed Master? It happens that then your life has to change by any means. If you get the blessing, you cannot be the same anymore. And this of course means a lot. When you get out from the human society and the trends, what usually human beings understand as important and valid. And your life shows that no, it’s not like that, it’s different. What is important is something else. You show it through your life. Then you are not liked by people. Because people do not want to change. People want to stay the same and do not want to face themselves.”
“Why the blessing comes, or why the blessing doesn’t come nobody can say. It is just the will of the Supreme. But we have to keep exposing ourselves to situations where these may happen.”
“The meditation of the Master is so important. Because it is through His meditation that He has become what He has become. And it is because He has become what He has become that He is able to transform the lives of others. To transmit to others what is already inside of Him.”
“Falling in love totally with God and Satguru. That is the only way to become Him! And this doesn’t mean that we lose our identity, our peculiar personality. No, we make it perfect. We make it complete. We make it from an ordinary human into an extraordinary Divine person.”
“In the spiritual Path, we have to go beyond the ordinary. We have to come into that inner condition by which we live a lifestyle, which is beyond any understanding of ordinary people.”
“At initiation, we teach two main practices. One is for coming in touch with the Inner Light and the other is for coming in touch with the Inner Sound. So there are two separate practices. First, we do the meditation to manifest the Inner Light, then we do the meditation to manifest the Inner Sound. They are two different techniques which are to be done differently, separately. Some people are more inclined to see the Light, and others are more inclined to listen to the Sound as it’s easier for them to tune in with the Sound than to manifest the Light. But they are all important in the same way. There is no difference. The important is to tune in with this Shabad, or Divine Stream, that’s how we call it on this path, Surat Shabd Yoga. Connect Consciousness, Attention, Soul with Shabad, the Divine Stream that manifests as Light and Sound. In both practices, you can withdraw from the physical body and have an inner experience that really transforms you.”
“In India, initiation is called Naam Daan, that is “Giving the Name”. What is Giving the Name? The Supreme Being, the Supreme Reality has been given so many names by so many masters, this is what is called Mantra or Simran. At initiation besides the explanation of the inner journey is given a Mantra which are names of God charged up by your own master who has been meditating on these names in his all life, or most of his life, and also by the lineage of the masters of this path. They have all meditated on this Simran, on this Mantra. They are charged words which are given to you and help you to withdraw your consciousness, and your attention from the physical body and take it to that spot in the body from where you can exit the physical body and enter into the astral plane into the astral body and so on. Once the practice is explained very well then we practice at initiation, because theory doesn’t take you anywhere. You need to practice. Just as it was said in the quote “to know is one thing and to do is another”. I can explain to you anything, but if you don’t practice then you don’t experience anything. So the theory is given, the inner journey is explained, the mantra is given and then we practice. Because it’s through practice that we experience what it means to come in touch with the Inner Light.”
“Only one who has himself experienced what the great scriptures describe, can guide us to their real significance. But the task of a spiritual teacher does not end there. The elucidation of the true meaning of religion is no more than a first step. After the aspirant has understood the nature of his goal, he must pursue it practically and rationally. To know is one thing, to do is quite another. It is only after he has explained to the aspirant the end to be attained that the Master’s real task begins. It is not enough that the doctor diagnoses the cause of the blind man’s ailment, he must perform the operation as well. So too the spiritual guide at the time of initiation gives the disciple a first-hand experience of the Inner Light and Sound. He puts him into touch with the Divine Stream, be it at its lowest level, and instructs him in the sadhanas to be followed for consolidating and developing this inner experience to its full extent.”
“You are protected by the Master-Power working overhead. Depend on Him. You will have all the necessary inner help. The Master is waiting for His dear children to come to Him within.”
“The Masters do not tell us that we should give up the family which we have formed according to our karmas, and go to live in the jungles. They say, “No, you have to live with them, and you should understand them as of God. Pay off your karmas with them, attend to your responsibilities and, at the same time, keep your attention towards God.”
“Those jivas are very fortunate ones who, going to a perfect Saint, receive the Naam Initiation from Him and make their lives successful. A perfect Saint comes from God Almighty carrying the ship of Naam. Those who get into that ship of Naam, the perfect Saint saves them from the waves of this ocean of the world and makes them reach their Real Home.”
„Everybody knows how to love. But we have not understood the right way to love. That is misused. I would say. Love is ingrained in our own selves. God is love; and love is also ingrained in us, because we are of the same essence as that of God. Love knows attachment; that is but natural. We must have somebody to be attached to – it may be right, it may be wrong. We are spirit. The love of the spirit or the conscious being should be love with the All-Spirit, All-Consciousness. That natural love which is within us is attached to the outward things: to the body. to the passions. to the enjoyments. Those are not conscious. But the more you are attached to those things you feel drawn from inside; that is but natural. But that love has been misplaced. When that very love is attached to the body and outward enjoyments. it is called attachment. And when that very love comes in contact with God, it is called charity. It is the same thing – misdirected. Misdirected love is called attachment, and rightly directed love is called charity.”
“Just as we make temples and we make the doors to those temples, in the same way, this temple, the human body which God has created, also has the doors or openings. It has ten openings, nine of them open towards the physical world which we see. Those nine openings or nine doors are the two eyes, the two nostrils, the two ears, one mouth and two down below. And the tenth opening or the tenth door opens toward God, it opens within. We cannot open the tenth door by ourselves because we do not have the knowledge. We do not even know where that door is. So we will have to go to such a competent one who has opened this door, He Who goes through that door every day. The One Who owns this house has put a lock on that door and He Himself has the key. Unless we take refuge at the feet of the Master we cannot get the key and open that door.”
“It is not your karma that holds you back, nor is it responsible when you miss your meditations, but rather the treacherous misleading of your mind, which can be subdued and controlled by careful planning and execution.”
“Kabir Sahib also says, “The performer has come, and he beats a drum and everyone comes to see his performance, but when he finishes his act, when he finishes his performance, then he collects everything and he goes his way.” So God has also performed this performance, in which someone is made an animal, someone is made the human being, someone is made the mother, someone is made somebody else. He who has come here to do this act, this performance, he is performing his play, and everyone is involved in this. It is all deception and illusion. Those who understand the reality of this performance do not get attached to it; they are neither happy nor are they sad, and they know that when this act will end, they will go their own way. But the others, those who are attached to it, and those who do not understand its reality, they suffer a lot; sometimes they weep, sometimes they cry. This is all because of the deception. They live in illusion, they die in illusion.”