Changing Sant Mat Teachings....

May 03, 2011

Has Gurinder Singh revised Sant Mat to v. 3.0?

Sant Mat is an Indian mystical philosophy that can be translated as "path of truth." I was an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), one of the various Sant Mat branches, for about thirty-five years.

Back in the old days, the RSSB guru taught that spiritual truth was unchanging. But with a new guru, we've got new truths. To me, that's refreshing. It's probably disconcerting to those who held a rigid fundamentalist view of Sant Mat, though.

Five years ago I wrote a post about "Sant Mat, version 2.0." This is how I summarized the changes that Gurinder Singh apparently has made to the RSSB teachings.

(I say apparently because the current guru doesn't allow his talks to be recorded, and he doesn't write anything himself. So this makes it difficult to pin down what he's telling people.)

Sant Mat v. 1.0
--The guru is God in human form
--The guru is perfect, possessing God’s divine qualities
--God has chosen certain souls to return to Him
--God delegates the guru to initiate these “marked souls”
--Without initiation by a perfect guru, God-realization is impossible

Sant Mat v. 2.0
--The guru is a human who is seeking God, just like us
--The guru is imperfect, just like us
--Whether we want to pursue God-realization is up to us
--The guru is a spiritual guide, not a savior
--There are many paths to God, not just Sant Mat

Now it looks like Gurinder Singh is wandering even farther from the tradtional Sant Mat path. On a recent Church of the Churchless post, someone who signed his/her comments "A Typical Follower" shared these thoughts:

I was at the national satsang [gathering of disciples] in the UK last weekend. Gurinder has changed from the old days. His teachings are going through a noticeable change - and so is he himself.

What I noticed is that
(1) He talks a lot about The ONE
(2) He laughs and jokes a lot
(3) He tells people not to be so serious
(4) He tells them that the master will not come at the time of death - that they have mis-understood the teachings. Just as it does not take four lifetimes.
(5) He says there are no regions - that Sach Khand does not exist - neither does Sat Purush. He says they are levels of consciousness

He says the purpose is to REALIZE that there is only the ONE - and that we are caught in maya - duality.

Having the darshan of the physical master is not even mentioned anymore. He says seva will not help you make any progress - it simply makes you humble if done correctly. There is no spiritual merit.

You will NOT be able to succeed through meditation. Meditation is just to make you give up. You can never get there through your efforts.

Now these kind of teachings have never been given before in rssb.

---------------------------------

yes - things are changing and they're changing fast. If a satsangi (just imagine for a moment) from charan Singh's time was in deep meditation (just humour me!) for the last 35 years - isolated from the world, and if he had reached Sach Khand and shared amazing moments with Sat Purush Himself, can you imagine the culture shock if he came back to satsang? So all his 35 years were for nothing and the Sat Purush thing is just his own personal illusion.

I am sure he would get just a little upset when he realised he had wasted 35 years trying to get to a fictional Sach Khand.

It would be kind of funny really - but that might just be because I have a wierd sense of humour.

Anyway - the point is - that older generation - from the 80's and earlier still don't understand that the teachings have been definately changed. Gurinder is currently teaching a hybrid version of sant mat - a sort of halfway station between the old teachings and Advaita / Enlightenment.

Many of the statements he now makes have never been heard of in sant mat. And he sometimes says that he is trying to confuse everyone - well - he's not doing a bad job there because most people who follow it - and listen to what he is saying - have no idea what is going on at all.

And confused people make good subjects - the just do as they're told without thinking - which might just be his strategy.

Having written a book called "Return to the One" about Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, I like the new emphasis on The One. I have no idea what The One is, and neither did Plotinus, because The One is -- obviously -- not something separate that we can have ideas about.

"Return to the One" started off as a RSSB publication back when I was a true believing disciple. Eventually I published it myself, partly because I didn't want to change Plotinus' teachings to make them conform to what RSSB editors wanted.

I guess I was ahead of the times.

Now it sounds like Gurinder Singh is embracing much of Neoplatonism, a monism that bears quite a bit of resemblance to Vedanta/ Advaita/ Buddhism if you unfocus your mental eye and don't pay too much attention to philosophical details.

Anyway, it's nice to see that the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas is loosening up, laughing more, letting go of a lot of rigid traditional Indian supernatural beliefs.

Some have suggested that this is what happens when a guru makes over $250 million while on the job. Being super-rich can people encourage to say how they really feel. However, it isn't possible to say with certainty what is causing Sant Mat to morph into version 3.0.

I just like it better.

You might also like:

• How Sant Mat is moving from duality to oneness
• Q and A about me and Sant Mat
• Why I'm not a Sant Mat true believer

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2011/05/has-gurinder-singh-revised-sant-mat-to-v-30.html