Satsang refers to a gathering for the purpose of learning Truth ("sat" means Truth; "sang" means gathering). To accomplish this, the local meetings present a themed satsang using portions of video recordings of talks given by Sant Rajinder Singh and by reading aloud portions of transcribed talks given by Sant Rajinder Singh and other teachers of this lineage. Below are the themes for this month's satsang meetings. Click here for location and time.
Role of Living Master
Theme for Sunday, March 7, 2010
Fortunately, there are people in the world who have found spiritual fulfilment and can guide us. If we look through history we find that in every generation there have been people who have realized themselves as soul and have realized God. Some of their wisdom and experiences have been recorded in history and, in some cases, a religion has been created from their teachings. Other realized souls have come and gone but have left behind no records because they did not found a religion or leave behind any scriptures. Some of them we know of through references by other people who wrote about them. One thing is clear: these realized souls have the ability to teach us how to realize ourselves. If we find such a being, we can learn how we, too, can discover our soul and its attributes. True knowledge comes from seeing and experiencing on our own. We may read what others write or listen to what others say, but we cannot be fully satisfied until we experience for ourselves.
Note: The West Palm Beach Center will be presenting a First-Run Discourse in place of this themed program.
Positive Mysticism
Theme for Sunday, March 14, 2010
When we balance our lives by pursuing our spiritual goals as well as fulfilling our worldly obligations, then we deepen our relationship with the divine while making a positive contribution to society. In fact, the two are not distinct, for what we achieve in the domain of the spirit is expressed in our every day life. The goodness we bring to our outer life contributes to the enrichment of our inner life.
Sant Darshan Singh coined a phrase for this approach to spirituality. He called it “positive mysticism.”
The program explores the meaning of positive mysticism. Specifically, we will learn what the Masters of Sant Mat have to say about three aspects of this topic:
Helping Factors in Meditation
Theme for Sunday, March 21, 2010
iThe program focuses on meditation and explores specific and practical ways to improve our practice. As Sant Rajinder Singh has pointed out:
We should go within, see the inner Light of God for ourselves, and hear the inner Music of God for ourselves. We should do our meditation practices diligently so we can rise above body-consciousness and experience our soul and God. We should traverse the inner regions to find out if there really are higher planes. A true Master will even say, “Do not believe in the words of the Master until you see for yourself.”
All the talks and books are useless unless we prove their validity for ourselves. Books and lectures can point the way and give us inspiration, but it is not sufficient unless we see and hear with our own spiritual eyes and ears.
As we sit for meditation, we should not be content with intellectual knowledge that there are higher regions, the soul, and God. We should sit in meditation with full devotion, accuracy, and regularity to experience the inner treasures for ourselves. We should be filled with fire and passion to experience firsthand the truths of what we read about in the scriptures. When we utter something, it should be from our experience and not just parroting what others say. Let us see the spiritual truths for ourselves.
Attaining Lasting Happiness
Theme for Sunday, March 28, 2010
We are all searching for peace and happiness in our lives. When we do so, we unfortunately tend to look outward into the world of things and relationships for happiness. But the saints and mystics of all spiritual traditions tell us that true happiness can only be found by coming into contact with that divine source of all bliss and peace within ourselves. The program explores how meditation and the spiritual life lead to true happiness.
Many of us have read the beautiful stories and accounts from mystics and saints of different religions, as they describe their experiences with God and the divine ecstasy they have found when their soul merges with God. In the Christian faith, Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross come to mind. Sant Darshan Singh has given such beautiful accounts of their lives and experiences in his book, Streams of Nectar.
Also Sant Rajinder Singh reminds us that divine ecstasy is not only attainable by those who came in the past. He says, “What they tasted, we can also savor. The secret is to find the sweetness within ourselves.”
