The following section contains the collected quotes from Satguru Sirio Ji and earlier Masters of Surat Shabd Yoga.
“We are all the time confined to and concerned with the physical bodies. But we have to reach the True Home – the home of our Father. We must first come above the physical consciousness. It is from there that the long journey homeward begins. “Strait is the way,” but when once you are put on it you have to traverse further and further. “My father’s house has many mansions.” There are many planes and subplanes in the Kingdom of God, which you have to pass through, one by one, before you reach your home. That indeed is the ultimate goal of human life, and all our endeavors must be directed to that end. It does not mean that we should neglect our duties of daily life. It only means that we must wake up from our self-complacency and gradually try to rise to the reality of things and devote some time to knowing the Self within us. This can be done, no matter where we are, what we are, what religion we profess; provided of course we have right direction and proper guidance from a real adept in the line. This is the point that Kabir raised in his discussion with the pundits: “My friends, you think that just by being a Hindu you will reach God. But that is not enough.” No doubt, allegiance to a particular religion is no bar to entering the Kingdom of God. All social religions are good in themselves and serve a useful purpose in their own way, yet each will have to work out his own salvation by himself and nobody else can do this for him by proxy. The ultimate aim toward which all religions converge is salvation; but the means to salvation lie within, and we shall have to traverse the way back to God, and that way back is one and one only for all mankind – the way of death in life.”
“Saints and Mahatmas lovingly tell us that in order to conquer the mind, we don’t have to give up our homes and go out into the wilderness, nor do we have to give up our families and children and live in solitude. We don’t need to change our outer appearance; we don’t have to put ashes on our body; we don’t even need to wear clothes of a certain color. We just need to go to a perfect Mahatma. After going to the perfect Mahatma and getting the Simran from Him we need to do the Simran and
come to the Eye Center and reach the Radiant Form of the Master.
When the Radiant Form of the Master gets manifested within us, He guides us. He doesn’t leave the disciple until He takes the disciple back to the Real Home. As long as the disciple lives in the world, he always gets guidance from the Master. At the time of Initiation, the perfect Master sits within the disciple in His Radiant Form and that Radiant Form of the Master always guides the disciple.”
“A living Saint is like that creature which we call a turtle; the turtle always hides his hands and feet and shows them only when he needs to use them to move. In the same way a living Saint always keeps Himself hidden and never exhibits the Power or strength which He has in Himself. That is why Kabir Sahib says, “Before I had the inner darshan of the Master I was only singing His praises, I was only singing His glory outside. But when I went inside and I saw Him in His real glory, in His true strength, nothing was left for me to sing, because I could not praise Him enough, I could not sing His glory enough.”
Every day before I start doing the Satsang I always say, “I bow down at the Feet of Almighty Lords Sawan and Kirpal.” These are the worldly words, but the true gratitude can be expressed, true thanks can be given to the Master, only by going in the within and seeing the inner Radiant Form of the Master.”
“The secret of a successful prayer lies not so much in the words we use, nor in the time we devote to it, nor in the effort that we put into it, as it lies in the concentrated attention that we may give it at the seat of the soul so as to make it soulful. The most natural form for a fruitful prayer is the yearning of a soul without the agency of words, oral or mental, with the tongue of thought. A prayer like this generates and releases such a fund of spiritual energy that all the cosmic powers are attracted and combine together, shaping out things as best as possible.”
“No one is hungry, oh Bheek: everyone has a valuable ruby locked inside him.” There is not a single human being who has not got God in him. Being all brothers and sisters in God, the whole of mankind is one. We have stuck various labels of the different religions on us, to show which school we are studying under, but which is the greatest religion? That which teaches us that we are all students of the same subject. From all those who are fortunate to have a human form, who is successful in realizing God? Only he who is able to control his mind. The mind wants some attraction, naturally, but if you give it a better attraction inside, why should it want to come out? The spiritual Masters give inside a taste of that nectar by tasting which the soul ceases to roam restlessly in the outer environments.”
“What is a Guru? The Name of God is Guru, and He is ever-existent. When vapor turns to water, it looks different. It may even turn to ice, but it is still vapor. The God which is in each life is the Sustainer of all things, but that Pole where He is manifested is called Saint, Mahatma, or Master, etc. The Master sees that God is the Doer and not Himself. Guru Nanak says, Whatever God’s voice speaks, comes out of my mouth. So this explains what a Guru really is: the Guru and God are one — that One which resides in all life.”
“The Master teaches that it does not matter in the least what happens to a man from the outside: sorrows, troubles, sickness, losses — all these must be borne by each and must not be allowed to affect the calmness of his mind. They are the result of past actions, so when they come you must bear them cheerfully, remembering that all evil is transitory, and that you are enjoined to remain always joyous and serene. They belong to your previous lives, not to this; you cannot alter them, so it is useless to trouble about them. “
“I expect everyone to behave lovingly and to be tolerant and to exhibit in all matters a spirit of humility and self-discipline.”
“So the first principle of devotion or bhakti is to know that God is everywhere. We are living in Him and He is in us.”
“Saints give us initiation not because they think that we are very rich, or very intellectual, or kings, or anything like that. They give us initiation only because of the grace and mercy they have for all souls in this world. It is just like a dog who wanders from door to door, asking for food: in some places it gets fed, and in some places it doesn’t. But when it comes to the door of a very good man, that man thinks, “This dog is a poor animal and it is starving; let me give it some food.” He does not give it food because he thinks that it is a mighty or strong animal; he gives because he is gracious, and he has mercy on that dog. Our condition is also like the dog. We wander from one place to another-from one door to another – and finally when we come to the door of a Saint, He gives us initiation only because He is gracious on us. Saints know that many times we take birth in the world, then again we go back, and again we return: sometimes in the body of a dog, sometimes a cat, goat, horse – in one body after another we keep on coming and going to and from this world. When we finally get this human body, after wandering here and there, and we come to the feet of a Saint, He gives us initiation in all His grace and mercy only because He is gracious upon us. It is not because of our merits. It is only because of Grace.”
“Our soul is of the same essence as God Almighty, but our mind is the shepherd, and the organs of the senses are the sheep. Our soul has been living in the company of our mind and senses. She is involved in their company so much so that she has forgotten her origin, her reality, and since she is living with them, that is why she is behaving like them. When our soul is suffering so much in this world full of suffering, looking at our pitiful condition, God Almighty, Whose essence we are, cannot resist. So He comes down into this world, assuming the human body, and He tells us our real condition through the Satsang. He comes in the form of the Saints and Mahatmas and He tells us, “You are not one of them, you are my essence. You are of the same essence as that of God Almighty; so go within and look at your original form, your real form.”
“Ups and downs do come. Even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. We must always look to the bright side of things. Many good and necessary lessons are derived from adversities. These are indeed helpful.”
“Everything that comes to you in the divine dispensation is invariably right for your spiritual progress.”
“When Sant Satgurus come into this world, no doubt they protect the disciples – They do everything for the disciples; They take the suffering and pain of the disciples, but they never exhibit their qualities to their disciples. They never say, “We have done this for you.” They always give the credit to Their Master.”
“At initiation, the Master will explain to you very well what is the inner journey, what we are as human beings and what we know and think that we are. But there is also something of us that we don’t know about: the inner being, the inner man. We are not only this physical body, we have also an astral body, we have a causal body and there’s an astral plane and there’s a causal plane which we have to cross in order to reach the Abode of Truth. This is the theoretical part of initiation. All these explanations will be given in a very detailed way.”
“Nobody wants to be near the person with problems of any kind. People like to be in the company of people who are happy and smiling and enjoying life. If you have problems, it’s your problem, you solve it yourself. This is the general attitude, we’re not all like this, thank God. There are many people who are very good people and they like and want to help those in need.”
“Falling in love with Satguru is the most blessed happening in our life. Because all the other loves are temporary, they come and go. Today they are there, but tomorrow they disappear and fade away. But if love for Satguru is deep and true, then it will stay with us forever.”
“The repetition of the Simran is the way of expressing our love for our Beloved by continuously calling on Him. So, has to manifest our love and devotion and show practically that we so much care about Him, want His closeness, and so much we want to attract His presence in our life and being.”
“On the Path what counts is love. Love for everything and everybody. Love for Satguru and God. For a human being to love God manifested in human eyes that you can look at, that you love, and that you like to look at it’s very important. And we need to love God by giving Him a face. Otherwise, it’s too abstract for most of the people. Of course, there are exceptions. Some don’t need this. But for most of the people, this is very important. And this is the way things work. Sentimentally, we need a person to love, a concrete person. And also spiritually it’s the same phenomenon. It works the same way. So, this love has to intensify until it becomes the dominating factor of life. The love for God has to saturate our being. And love is the way, above all other ways.”
“We keep going on the Path. We overcome everything, all the obstacles, because we are brave. We are strong seekers of Truth. So, we keep going until we reach our goal, which is the void, which vibrates and sounds.”