The Soundtrack of Our Lives

Following a spiritual path requires earnest commitment but sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. Baba Ji, however, encourages us to enjoy life, explaining that fun and spirituality are perfectly compatible. We’re not expected to adopt a solemn persona or an ascetic lifestyle! This makes us think: since the mystics tell us that our existence on the material plane is nothing more than the projection of an epic film being streamed from Dharam Rai’s platform, we need a soundtrack to complement the roles we’ve been assigned to play. Can you imagine a Bollywood picture without music? While there are plenty of songs to choose from, we’ve settled on using tracks from the world’s best-selling group of all time – The Beatles.

Help!

Help!

Help! I need somebody Help! Not just anybody

Help! You know I need someone

As the film’s opening credits roll on the screen, our theme song can be none other than The Beatles’ 1965 hit, “Help”. Why? Because the song’s lyrics – “I need [the help of] somebody” – express our realization that, without help, we’ll never be able to satisfy the innate longing within us, or the sense that there’s something missing. At one point, we’ve all turned to what we thought might help – relationships, careers, possessions and, maybe even alcohol and drugs, but no matter how much we might pin our hopes and dreams on these things, that emptiness kept gnawing away at us. We come to understand all these things are short-lived.

Our search for the ‘missing something’ represents the soul’s yearning. Consequently, attempts to satisfy the needs of a particle of divinity with things of this world (sensual pleasures, relationships, ambitions, wealth or possessions) are doomed to failure. So, acknowledging that we’ll experience completeness once the soul returns to its spiritual origins, off we go searching for the “somebody” to help us with our quest. Stumbling along one blind alley after another, it finally dawns upon us that the help we seek can’t be from “just anybody”. We might not know who the “somebody” is, but our heart and soul intuitively tell us who it isn’t.

Eventually, when our search brings us to our knees, and we cannot bear the intensity of the overwhelming longing within us, the Master appears. Marking the momentous new juncture in our life, the soundtrack to our life changes to “Sat Purush’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Readers, we can hear your groans, but we think it’s an ingenious take on The Beatles’ 1967 album and title track, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.

Sat Purush’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Much like The Drifters, the American band whose seamless changes in membership has allowed it to keep performing sixty years after it was first formed – the humble hosts of Sat Purush’s Lonely Hearts Club Band also change continually. It has, for instance, included Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Guru Nanak, Soami Ji and many others. Given Sat Purush’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has been going since the dawn of time, one might be forgiven for thinking that it has a huge library of lyrical messages. On the contrary, this Lonely Hearts Club Band sings but one song, key lines from which are:

It’s wonderful to be here
It’s certainly a thrill
You’re such a lovely audience
We’d love to take you home with us….

The above lyrics conjure up an image of Sat Purush’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, singing about how wonderful it is for them to be in the same place as us, the audience. Yet, the mystics have a way of turning things upside down and inside out. Therefore, the first two lines of the above verse are not about them, but us. The world is a captivating place the mystics explain; it’s ensnared us, the audience, with its thrills and spills. Unfortunately, our enjoyment has come at a huge cost in that we’ve forgotten our true identity and real home.

Yet, you – the mystics continue – are so much more than the physical body to which you’re devoted. Your heritage is divinity, and what you label as feeling disconnected from the world is, in reality, homesickness. This is why you’ve been chasing one pleasure after another. But now that life’s “thrills” are losing their shine, we’ve arrived “to take you home with us”.

As the song fades gently in the background, Sat Purush’s Lonely Hearts Club Band asks if we want to listen to a very special song, one that, if we’re prepared to learn, will take us directly to the musician of the universe. Going to him is essential, the Lonely Hearts Club Band informs us, because only then will we find what we’re looking for and, in turn, be free of the ‘something is missing’ feeling. And that, my friends, is the cue for us to play the next track.

Do you want to know a secret?

Listen
Do you want to know a secret
Do you promise not to tell…
Closer
Let me whisper in your ear
The words you long to hear

When bestowing the gift of Nam, the mystics, much like the lover speaking to his beloved in the song, ask that we “promise not to tell” the holy names we “long to hear”.

When we were teenagers, we couldn’t help wondering, if the mystics’ teachings are available to all, why the secrecy? Isn’t this exclusionary? Upon reading the Sant Mat literature, we learn that it’s not the words that are important but the power of the Master who gives them. Even if one was to disclose Master’s simran to somebody not yet initiated, this would have zero impact. As Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh explains in Die to Live:

A man with a little intelligence can find all the names from our books.… There’s no problem in finding them, but that is not going to help him at all. A bullet kills only when it comes through the gun barrel. It is the same bullet if you throw it, but it is not effective unless it comes through the gun. Similarly, it is only when the names are given to us by a Mystic that they have any power behind them – power to eliminate the ego, to purify our mind, to bring our entire attention to the eye center. Otherwise, the words in themselves have no power.

Hazur Maharaj Ji’s reasoning helps explain why disclosing simran to a non-initiate would be of no value to them, but this still doesn’t quite explain why we must keep simran a “secret”.

Reflecting on this, you may realize how difficult a master’s job is, not least because human nature is such that we place much more value on something when it’s exclusive. By impressing upon us “not to tell”, the mystics are underlining just how valuable the gift of Nam is. In Light on Sant Mat Hazur Maharaj Ji describes initiation as “a wonderful thing and … the very soul and essence of Sant Mat”. Nam, he said, “give[s] one an entirely new outlook on life; in fact, that is when life really begins for us”.

So, after all the tears, loneliness and longing, it’s understandable why, when initiated, we think, “Fantastic! Brilliant! Job done!” Yet, changing the habits of many lifetimes is not, we discover, so easy.

The long and winding road

The long and winding road,
that leads to your door
Will never disappear…
Many times I’ve been alone,
and many times I’ve
cried…
And still [my tears] lead me back
to the long and winding road…
Don’t leave me waiting here,
lead me to your door.

Of all the songs featured on the soundtrack of our life, “The Long and Winding Road,” resonates most strongly with our experience as spiritual seekers. We’re so locked into the illusion of the material world that, despite our newfound purpose in life, we continue to devote nearly all our time to satisfying our animal instincts (for food, shelter, relationships, and power), thinking about our spiritual duty fleetingly, if at all, during the day. Therefore it seems unreasonable to become frustrated both with ourselves for not having made more progress and with the master for leaving us waiting by his door.

The irony, of course, is that it’s our actions (or lack thereof), which make the road leading to his door long and winding. Instead of focusing on our effort and strengthening our faith in the Master, we start questioning the method, or our ability to implement it. “Why do we have to meditate, can’t you do this for us, please?” we protest to the Master, or some variation of “Meditation isn’t working” or “I can’t do it”. While we desire union, we aren’t quite ready to put in the level of effort required. We behave like toddlers, wondering if, by throwing a tantrum, the Master will take pity on us or get fed up with hearing about how difficult it is to combine spirituality with life in the 21st century. However, in much the same way as a parent who, for the good of a child, does not give in to their outbursts and demands, the Master does not concede to our pleadings. He waits.

Have you noticed that it’s the toddler who, upon realizing that their shouting and screaming has no effect, runs to the parent for hugs and kisses? While the parent is prepared to wait it out, the child, to whom fifteen minutes is almost an eternity, can’t be without a parent’s unconditional love, comfort and security for long. Similarly, once we understand that our moans and groans are of no avail and that there is no option other than to practise meditation, up we get, for the die is cast. No other road leads us to his door. Irrespective of how long it takes, now that the journey’s begun, neither the Master nor we have any choice but to keep going until we arrive, together.

He loves you

He loves you
And you know you should be glad…
With a love like that
You know you should be glad

The penultimate track to our soundtrack is the song that launched The Beatles into stardom in Britain, “She Loves You”. Hinting at the tremendous love a girl has for her suitor, the love we each receive from the Master is by far the greatest of all. Unconditional, without bounds, the Master’s love is unfathomable to our ordinary human mind. It is not our understanding of Sant Mat, but his love and mercy which is slowly and subtly bringing about our transformation and making us fit to enter the kingdom of the divine.

It is stated in One Being One:

The divine Beloved is our guide, drawing us ever on. Our effort is simply a response to His call. “If we take one step towards Him, He takes a hundred steps towards us.” And He is the one who makes us take that one step. His grace is inestimable, His love incalculable. We live in it, could not exist without it. If our attention is distracted and we turn our back on it, we may think He has gone away. But He is always present. There is nowhere else for Him to go. He is helpless in His love for us, united by the bond of shared and indistinguishable being.

Sacrificing themselves for our benefit, to lead us out of this illusionary world, the Masters’ love inspires us to fill our hearts with love of the Shabd which, in turn, cleanses and purifies us to be worthy of union with the divine. So when times are tough, when things are not going as we would like or when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves, let’s remember meeting our Master and the sheer joy and relief we felt. In much the same way that the Master’s love for us is beyond our comprehension, so too is the opportunity we’ve been given to liberate our soul.

Our puny efforts and Master’s guidance will take us to the eye focus, where we will start to realize the truth: that all there is – is love, not the emotional or limiting kind, but a love that is pure and noble as reflected in the closing track of our soundtrack, “Across the Universe”:

Limitless undying love
which shines around me like a million suns
And calls me on and on
across the universe

As the closing credits of our film roll on the screen, the house turns on its lights, but our light within is shining even brighter.