Below is a message I received yesterday from someone who describes how Gurinder Singh, the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), created a highly negative atmosphere in the United Kingdom after he became the successor to Charan Singh, a much-beloved RSSB guru......RS.
..........The message also is filled with praise for Flora Wood, a long-time RSSB initiate, or satsangi, who wrote a book for the organization and was a positive influence in the United Kingdom's RSSB membership.
It doesn't surprise me that Gurinder Singh comes in for such criticism in this message. There's plenty of other evidence that at best, Gurinder's ethics are at odds with how previous RSSB gurus have behaved, and at worst, Gurinder has engaged in financial fraud aimed at enriching himself and his family to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Here's the message. "Sewadars" means volunteers. "Sangat" refers to the RSSB community. "Radha Soami" is a greeting used by RSSB initiates. "Haynes Park" is a large RSSB center in the United Kingdom. The "Dera" refers to the RSSB headquarters in India. "Satsang" is a talk about the RSSB teachings.
......... I submit this to you anonymously.
In 2005 Mrs Flora Wood was asked by the Dera to write a postscript to her 1965 book In 'Search Of The Way' in which she recalled her Indian experiences with The Great Master Baba Sawan Singh, as well as the history of the birth and development of the British Sangat.
When Mrs Wood's friend, a secretary to her commanding officer in the British Army in India, told her that the colonel had became a satsangi, she followed him in that respect, but only after she had persuaded him to brief her, over dinner, on the teachings and the Master.
Flora Wood, born in 1923, and an early disciple of Sawan Singh, had served as representative to three masters. No satsangi in the UK could deliver a discourse at her level of spirituality and knowledge both of Sant Mat and of the Persian mystics. Under her quiet seemingly hands-off rule the satsang was intimate, peaceful, happy and without dissent.
All this changed when Gurinder made his first visit to the UK, and when Mrs Wood had booked the large Birmingham Convention Center in order to accommodate what had by then, under the guruship of Charan Singh, as well as mass Indian immigration, become a large sangat.
We sewadars positioned at the door of the VIP entrance were in awe expecting that another Charan Singh, whose bearing was that of emperor of emperors, who bathed in divine light, whose aura was of sanctified purity and spiritual radiance, instead witnessed the entry of an angry young man in a turban, boiling with rage, accompanied by a hired security made up of East London gangster types of the kind seen in Guy Ritchie's movie "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."
Gurinder glared past our Radha Soamis and into the main hall leaving behind a shocked air of surprise and disappointment.
The word quickly spread that he was furious with Mrs Wood for the expense of the venue. Mrs Wood was quickly replaced by a family relation of Gurinders who may or may not have been very familiar with the English language and who confined himself to the Indian group. It is said that he did give a few satsangs in Punjabi to them.
From then the British sangat was butchered and by the time of the purchase of Haynes Park and the changeover of once loving sewadars to a sort of unkind Stasi rule, western satsangis were detaching themselves from RSSB in droves.
A political shift to republican thinking about Northern Ireland saw its very capable secretary fired and all power moved far away to Dublin down in the Irish Republic; a long journey to satsang. As it happened however all the western satsangis in northern Ireland, disciples of Charan Singh, no doubt sharing a feeling of many around the world for westerners that the behaviour of Gurinder and his lack of any of the qualities of mastership including his allergy to giving satsang were intolerable, abandoned the Radha Soami Satsang Beas anyway.
Mrs Wood passed away at 100 years of age in 2023.
As stated in the beginning of this piece Mrs Flora Wood was asked by the Dera in 2005 to write a postscript to her book In 'Search Of The Way.' It can only be surmised that the reason for the Dera's request for this further addition to the text was that she would note in her postscript the new incumbency of Gurinder Singh at the Dera.
However, Mrs Wood did no such thing, she did not even mention Gurinder's succession or anything about him. One can only surmise that this very learned and old satsangi saw the successorship in a different light than the general conclusion.
It is one of those fantasies of a Dera Baba Jaimal Singh cut off from the larger Sant Mat world outside its gates that a master will always appoint a perfect successor, what used to be called 'Dera gossips.' In the reality of history this is not always the case.
Given the vast size of a possibly multi-billion dollar world-wide institution like RSSB with all its housing dependents and even old sewadar pensioners and huge numbers of Satsangars and other properties (particularly all across India) the last Master cannot just throw in the turban and say "OK, there is no worthy successor, we are closing down the RSSB tomorrow!"
No, it is just then allowed to rot at the head, true seekers are no longer drawn to it, or leave it when they find it is no longer true and it deteriorated into another religion. That is the kindest way to go about it, a gradual shutdown.
All these years later the surviving satsangis of Charan Singh are still in a daze at what happened and have had no explanation from expert sources. There is an unhealed wound in many hearts, there are disciples of Charan Singh who lost their faith in the confusion some of whom want to find the way back to the path.
Today the RSSB to any outsider seems like some closed cult, hidden in plain sight from the world. To the spiritually minded internet seekers it is a black hole out of which no Bani comes. Anyone who goes to YouTube and looks up videos of Gurinder might be forgiven in thinking he is an apparatchick or politician of the Bhrata Janata Party or some sort of Raja.
He is ever seen surrounded by a posse of police officers or army men as he arrives in his private helicopter or jet somewhere for some reason. There is no teaching that an enquiring mind can grasp from this output, no satsangs of his to listen to (some say he does not give satsang).
Is Gurinder Singh a perfect master? Is there something that numbers of people have missed? Or is he simply the manager of a large institution playing it by ear? Many would like to know.
The article comes from the The Church of the Churchless June 2024
The blogger Robert Searle of this site had a close connection with Radhasoami Satsang Beas notably in the 1980s. When he first saw a small photo of Gurinder Singh as the successor of the previous Master Maharaj Charan Singh he instantly knew he was not a perfect guru. However, he did take intiation in May 1993 into Shabd Yoga. He also attended the huge meetings in Birmingham where he saw Gurinder Singh. He also knew Mrs Wood with whom he had a number of conversations.
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