I FOUND THE PATH

K.L. STAMBLER

RADHA SOAMI TARN TARAN

Published by:Balwinder Singh, Secretary

Radha Soami Dera Baba Bagga SinghRailway Road, Tarn Taran 143401Dist. Tarn Taran, Punjab, India

www.rstt.org.in

Radha Soami Dera Baba Bagga SinghAll rights reserved

First Edition 2012

Printed in India by 'Impression Prints' Faridabad-121001.

Publisher's Note

This is a story of an American Satsangi, his experiences along the way, and his continuing journey on the Radha Soami Path to God realization. It is interesting in that the pages to follow, illustrate simply the many struggles we all go through in life and the challenges we must meet in order to discover the self and ultimately union with God, the supreme divine power that sustains the entirety of this universe in which we all find ourselves prisoner.

This Satsangi has had the good fortune of having an association with two great Sat Gurus: Maharaj Charan Singh Ji and Baba Kehar Singh Ji, along with a western mystic of right acclaim Mary E. Blakemore who, to his great good fortune, was his conduit and sponsor to Sant Mat so many years ago.

In this perishable world only God is Eternal. To meet Him we need a Living Master who holds the key to the lock of the palace inside our body where He is sitting. That key is Nam and meditating on it, one can be liberated from this world.

Having faith in Guru, one can begin to

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understand the reality: that God can be realized inside the body. Searching for Him in the outside world is a waste of time and effort. We receive this precious human body only after going through the entire cycle of transmigration. Only in the human form does man have the privilege to meet God and attain eternal happiness. Therefore, it behooves us to not waste this great opportunity to go back to our True Home and True Mother-Father, Sat Purush or God, and leave this valley of tears, suffering, and grief. God himself finds his souls and showers grace on them by bringing

them to the feet of a Perfect Master. We hope this small book may benefit those seekers after Reality and Truth. In service of the Sangat,

Balwinder SinghSecretary

Radha Soami Dera Baba Bagga Singh

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Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to Baba Kehar Singh Ji, who had sent a message via Jasbir Singh in June 2011 that the Dera would like a few English books from the perspective of an American Satsangi. This was sent to a few of us. I saw this as a golden opportunity as I had some time on my hands I could use productively.

Well, I thought about what form a book could take. I quickly penned down notes and started thinking that it would be a great opportunity to tell something of the great lady Saint, Mary Blakemore, who had taken care of me like a Mother, and in fact, so many of us, for close to thirty years. Also, it was an opportunity to tell some of the interesting experiences I had upon meeting my own master, Maharaj Charan Singh. Lastly, I could give some reflections of the great gift that Maharaji and Mary gave us in that great and complete Master Baba Kehar Singh Ji. So, with those things in mind, I started penning down anecdotes about my experiences on the Path.

I was going through the final draft of this on my way to India for Baba Ji's birthday celebration on December 26, 2011. There is real quality time with no disturbances on a plane and I had ten or eleven hours to work up the final draft; however, as fates would have it, the British Air cooling system did not work, and I got very uncomfortable. In fact, I couldn't work, so I had the attendant bring me a big bag of ice, which I kept on my neck. I put it in the seat compartment in front of me

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when I had cooled down. After an hour or so, when the attendant again walked by, I pulled out the bag of ice to give to her. The entire bag poured out and right into my laptop. It went into all the circuits and poured into everything. The computer went totally black and made a noise which said only one thing to me: “I am dead. GOODBYE!”

I held the computer up on its side and the water poured out of the flash drive, the CD drive, and all the circuits and connections. I said to myself, now I have ten more hours with nothing to do and all my plans are

as naught! So I prayed to Baba Kehar Singh Ji. “Baba Ji, I am doing Your work. This is Your book and I have ten hours to finish, but what can I do? Please, please fix this computer so I can finish Your work!” Within ten seconds I heard a sound and the computer came back to life and started working. It worked for my entire trip to India and China. Now any computer technician knows that this is totally impossible. By the laws of this world the computer should not have worked. This book has been written on that note: only by Baba Kehar Singh Ji's Grace. Anything beautiful in this book has simply come into my mind from Baba Ji as inspiration or intuition.

Radha Soami!

Kenneth Stambler

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Table of Contents

The Early Years ..................................................................

Meeting Mary......................................................................

Going to Dera Beas ...........................................................

Village Ghoman..................................................................

Bhandara at Dera ..............................................................

Returning to the U.S.A.....................................................

Joining the Military ..........................................................

Business in U.S.A. ..............................................................

Meeting Baba Kehar Singh Ji ........................................

First Personal Interview ................................................

Arriving in New Delhi .....................................................

Dera Tarn Taran.................................................................

Going to Ludhiana ............................................................

Trip to Dayalbagh, Agra in 2010.................................

Canadian Tour ...................................................................

Visit to U.S.A. .......................................................................

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Param Sant Baba Kehar Singh Ji

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The Early Years

The Masters say that while in the womb, the soul cries out constantly to the Lord to save it. The oven of the womb, like the fire of a manufacturing plant, is extremely hot while molding the human body, and it is intensely painful. They say there is nothing like that pain. However the soul cries to the Lord, and that great Father-Mother never lets His child down. He saves it, protecting the soul with His Radiant Light and Music called the Shabad, or Power of the Word. These beautiful Harmonies of the Universe remove all pain as the soul listens, and it receives the bliss of the love and Presence of God. But the soul also promises to God that when she is born, she will never forget Him for a moment, as long as she lives, if Lord would save her. However, when the worldly show begins, the soul comes out crying and is tossed onto the world stage, immediately forgetting the promises she made to her Lord.

I entered the worldly show as a member of a Jewish family who did not have a strong belief in God. In fact, they never went to Temple, nor did they tell me anything about the Jewish faith or even about God. Therefore, I did not grow up with the basic principles and moral values that a valuable religious foundation in childhood gives. I did not even really know my parents because they were too busy to spend any time with me. I never learned the basics of

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how to live until after I had finished high school and met Mary – my real Mother and friend. She taught all of the “Men at the Shop,” as she called those of us who worked for her; how to cook, how to clean, and how to live. She would often say, “When you get

married, if your wife gets sick, what will you do? You will have to do all this, so why not learn it now?”

When I was thirteen years old, my mother wanted to have a birthday party for me. Unfortunately, every year she wanted to give a party, and every year, like clockwork, I would get sick with a serious cold a few days before my birthday. Thus the party never happened. However, this year was different. One of my teachers was teaching something I had never heard of before. It was not in the school curriculum, however, it was very good. He called it “Command Phrases.” He taught us that anything we think, a "thought" in the form of a sentence or phrase, that we accept or confirm in our mind, begins to control us. In other words, whatever thought we confirm in our mind and accept, from that moment on, that thought drops into the subconscious mind and, like entering something into a computer, controls us. So, if we think, we cannot do this, we cannot do that, we are no good at this, etcetera, those same negative thoughts begin to control our life, and we may not even remember the phrases or thoughts we put into our subconscious. Now, I started realizing that my fear of getting sick, and the words I used to

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confirm that I would of course get sick for my birthday, had become reality for me every year until the thirteenth year, when I remembered the lesson this particular teacher had taught me. That year was the first time I did not get sick on my birthday and enjoyed a party.

Nevertheless, I neither believed in nor thought about God until I was sixteen years old. That year, I was hiking and camping up in Tujunga Canyon with my friend and in the early morning, we awoke to a rustling in the bushes. We had nothing to defend ourselves with but one old BB gun between the two of us, and there stood a big and beautiful mountain lion watching us rather hungrily, I think. At that moment, despite my utter lack of exposure or training in spiritual matters, my faith in God was born, and I quickly learned the art of prayer. My first order of business as a religious person was to call God's attention to the urgent matter at hand. Kabir and all the mystics say that we forget God in the good times and only remember Him when tragedy or problems lift their ugly head. They also say that if we would learn to remember God in the good times, we would never have bad times since He would always be there to protect us. What good is a fair weather friend after all?

Little did I know at the time, God had been faithfully watching over me for many years already. When I started grade school, some of the bullies at the

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school would try to beat me up and were very cruel to me as kids often are. I went to an all-Jewish school and was persecuted by the Jews, or so it seemed! Perhaps I had persecuted them in a past life, I don't know. However, when I was about ten years old, there was one fellow who made himself my protector and we became fast friends. His name was David Johnson, and he was a tall, dark Mexican who was in a very dangerous Mexican street gang, even at that young age. He was very tough and very loyal and he was not afraid of anyone! Not only did he protect me from the schoolyard bullies, but when his mother re-married a very big and strong, white American truck driver who started physically abusing her, David got very upset. The day that he found out, even at just eleven years old, he told his new step-father that if he ever dared to lay a hand on his mother again, he would surely kill him. That was the last time his step-father ever hit his mother. David, even at eleven years old, was no one to take lightly. I was lucky to have him as my friend. From elementary school through high school, he would never let anyone beat me up and was always there for me; something I was especially grateful for since I was often a fool who would fight with kids I really shouldn't have.

When he and I were a little older, David came to see me. He was going to fight in the war in Vietnam, and he knew he was going to be killed and indeed, he was, after only six months of duty there. David was shocked to see me when he came to say goodbye. I

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was dressed in a purple robe, had long hair, and embraced the “Love-In”, hippie generation in Los Angeles. At that time I had found Maharaj Charan Singh, my Master, and I showed David the book, Light on Sant Mat. He was so shocked that he grabbed me and started dragging me to his car. “My aunt, my aunt, the aunt who I have told you about all my life! That is her Master. You must meet her before I leave for Vietnam!” Well, I was slowly understanding how the Master protects His children. I started to see that David coming into my life all those years ago, right up to his final visit before his death were all in the Master's plan. Meeting David's aunt was my first lesson on this subject.

Now even after David had died, I felt very attached to him since the kindness he had shown me was very hard to forget, and I longed to see him again. It so happened, maybe twenty years after he died, that Mary, started frequenting an Indian Restaurant. She was very kind to the family, and they looked to her for help at times. Well, hard times came when they started losing money and could not pay their rent. They were first evicted from their restaurant and soon after, were also evicted from their home. I suggested to Mary that since I had a large downstairs, which was like a separate house, they were welcome to live there rent-free until they got back on their feet. So Doug Brookins, Mary's business partner, hired the men, Khalsi and his son, Sunny, to work for us. One evening there was an ice storm, and no one could

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leave for a few days because the roads were simply not drivable. I happened to sit with Sunny and talk with him for hours at night. We made a soul connection, and I started getting an odd feeling that this was David come back to me. Through our talks, I came to see that Sunny's entire life was almost an exact duplicate of David's life. He had taken the same classes, he had the same likes and the same dislikes; in fact, he was like a carbon copy of David. Then one day, his sister told me that Sunny had been in a motorcycle accident that changed his face, and he had to have reconstructive surgery. I asked if she had a picture of him from before he got in the accident and she showed me. He looked exactly like David. Through this encounter, I felt that this deeply rooted desire of mine was fulfilled.

When I was young, before I found the Master, I spent my time being a hippie in Los Angeles. This was the Love-In era of the 1970s and I was fully into it – wearing strange, colorful clothes, walking around smoking marijuana, and spouting profound astrological insights. I soon became a vegetarian since I had started thinking deeply about where the meat I was eating actually came from. In a preface to Howard Williams' The Ethics of Diet, Leo Tolstoy wrote that by killing animals for food, “man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity—that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself—and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel.” Irish playwright and

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Nobel Prize recipient George Bernard Shaw similarly warned, “While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?” I did not need any further convincing – I never ate meat again.

Later that year I went to work at a mortuary picking up the dead because I wanted to work somewhere that would provide some peace and quiet. Let me assure you, I found plenty of quiet there! My tranquil work environment afforded me a chance to practice a yoga I had been reading about where I looked at a point on the ceiling. While doing this, the great realization came to me that in my long, arduous life of eighteen years, I had never stopped my mind from its constant spinning. Unfortunately, the peace and quiet didn't last. After only a few days, I was freed from that job: my parents were in complete shock about my working at a mortuary and arranged to have me fired. My father had several of his brothers, who worked high up in the Los Angeles Police Department, picked me up while I was on my way to meeting some friends one evening. They threw me in a jail cell for loitering and that was the end of my peace-filled days at the mortuary.

I decided it was probably time to go back to school and enrolled in some classes at Los Angeles City College. I did not have any real interest in my studies, though, and again spent my time walking around. One afternoon I heard about a Swami giving a

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lecture on the Bhagavad Gita. I immediately cleared my schedule and went to see him that very evening. It was such an enlightening talk to me since I had never really studied any yoga in earnest and my understanding was quite shallow. However, after the lecture, a fellow named Danny came up to me and told me that Living Masters existed! This was all I needed to hear! I was very interested and got myself ready to follow them! Danny told me there was a Living Master named Maharaj Charan Singh so I followed Danny to a bookstore in Hollywood, California where I got some books, and after a few months of studying, applied for initiation. I was rejected and the Master told me to finish my studies. I quickly finished my studies by officially withdrawing from all my classes at the college and then, I re-applied for initiation. I waited and waited and then I waited some more but no answer came. One day it struck me. I knew what the problem was! Firstly, I was dealing with God directly now since the Master is God and the teachings say that if one lives with his parents, he should always keep sweet harmony and not give them reason to be angry (especially when his parents are paying all the bills). Well, being a typical hippie, I had long, flowing hair, an overgrown beard, and no job to speak of. This was obviously wrong! The day I realized the problem, I went out and had my hair and beard cut, and started looking for a job. Exactly six days later, with a letter postmarked on the day I made the decision, Master accepted me for initiation. This, for me, was miracle number two.

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I received initiation from Master's representative, Mr. Roland DeVries, in Orange, California. I was still quite immature and still in the grip of the Love-In era so after six months, I began growing long hair again and went off on my own way. Undoubtedly, the Path is difficult, but if we go against the basic principles of life and the Path, it is very hard to find our way. The hippie way of life has its drawbacks because it has many ideals that oppose what followers of the Path are trying to achieve, including good morals, strong integrity, and other high virtues. The Masters always say that we should not make waves in our environment, not look different in order to cause people to notice us. They say there will be enough waves while trying to truly follow the Master's Path since the True Path is opposite everything the rest of the world holds dear. As we continue on the Path, we slowly realize this.

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Meeting Mary

Mary at 76 years old with her Dog, Queenie.Picture courtesy of the Mary E. Blakemore Foundation and Charitable Trust

I wrote Maharaji and told him that if he wanted me to stop taking drugs and leading an immoral life, he should take me to some True Satsangi. The next afternoon, I was in the desert meeting Satsangis and searching for Truth when a letter came from a lady Satsangi, who talked about a Saintly lady named Mary, who was authorized to give Satsang three hundred sixty-five days a year. She would give Satsang every evening in her living room in Los

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Angeles. I immediately packed up my guitar and went to meet her. That evening, I went to her Satsang in her home dressed in my pajamas – sleep clothes, not Punjabi pajamas. I sat in amazement of her. Not only was she beautiful but I knew that she knew everything about me since she said things to me only I could know! I wound up spending the next thirty years in Mary's dear company.

From the day I met her, I never indulged in drugs again and I stopped leading a hippie lifestyle. She was very kind to me from the very first day. She was sixty when I met her and I was just nineteen. Mary Blakemore passed away in 1998. She was a great Saint and one of Maharaj Charan Singh's closest and truest disciples. She was a Mystic who had only one interest: teaching and living the Path of Sant Mat. Nothing else interested her and everyone knew it.

She would work almost non-stop saying, “Love is Work, and Work is love,” and, “An idle mind is the devil's workshop.” In addition, Mary looked upon cleanliness as life itself. In that regard, she would say, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” and “Orderliness is Godliness.” She truly lived this out! She kept things immaculate and in perfect order. She would often say, “You can eat out of my toilet bowl!” just to let you know that she was serious about cleanliness.

She would also say, “What is on the outside is

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on the inside.” She would keep hammering the fact that without cleanliness and orderliness, real meditation is nearly impossible because the disorder in our environment sits in our subconscious mind so the clarity never comes since the pool is never clear.

“Do it now,” was a big saying of hers also! DO

IT NOW! That was her motto and that is how she lived. She never put anything off and never procrastinated even the tiniest bit! She never left anything half done. She finished whatever she started, even if it meant staying up all night or two days and two nights! She had boundless energy and was a living powerhouse. Those who knew her will attest to this.

Mary taught the Path according to the real principles of Sant Mat. She had only one interest: her Master Maharaj Charan Singh. Only one love: her Master whom she referred to as “Master-God.” Nothing else interested her. She did not want to talk about anything except the Master and the Path. Every night when she had Satsang in Los Angeles, there would be from forty to sixty people, mainly young people like myself, sitting anywhere and everywhere in her small apartment. She would talk of the Master and tell stories that illustrated Maharaji's Great Love and explain the Path of the Saints. Most of the people who came were between nineteen and thirty-years-old and were having profound experiences with Light and Sound, and Visions of the higher planes but, not

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understanding their value, they did not appreciate them. Mary was in a blissful state during Satsang. A state that she managed to share by her radiation and, the young people being so open, would imbibe it. I knew this because for some reason, past lives and God's Grace, I suppose, I fell in love with her.

I found out that Mary was planning a trip to India and she was taking many of the young people from her Satsang with her. Maharaji had told everyone except her, “Mary Blakemore will be coming to the Dera and bringing twenty-two young people with her.” Even though she had no money, that insignificant matter did not even pass through her mind. She lived in such a positive state of mind that there was no room for doubt in her life at all! Whatever the Master said was the law for her and she would say, “Master-God said this or that,” and that was final. No question, no debate, no argument. She would say, “Mind is Negative, Soul is Positive.”

I wanted to go to Dera with Mary. However, I had no money either. I went to every single family member to borrow money. No luck on that front. Then I went to every family member to co-sign the loan for me as a guarantor. Again, no takers. Nevertheless, I knew I was supposed to go and so it came to me that there was a man who had interviewed me for a post office job that I had gotten some years back and he had liked me. I went to him and asked him to co-sign for a loan of around four thousand dollars so that I

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could meet my Master in India. Remember, this was 1968, and at that time, four thousand dollars was like thirty thousand dollars in today's economy! He said that he would trust me with anything and happily co-signed for the loan, which I repaid within three years time. This was another miracle for me because who would guarantee a loan to someone other than a family member for so much money? Then, on top of this first minor obstacle, I did not have a passport or visa but being naïve, without one ounce of common sense, I did not worry about it. I knew God wanted me to go and Mary had told me the same. I went to the airport with baggage, tickets, everything I needed except my passport and visa. Mary had told me, “Just

go and we shall see what we shall see!” Well, who do you imagine arrived at the airport carrying a passport and visa for me? The travel agents! Any person with the smallest amount of worldly sense would never try anything so bizarre as going to the airport without a passport or visa! Any worldly person knows the value of these documents when planning to travel abroad! But I did not even think twice about it. Now, I ask myself, “Who were those strange travel agents who brought me a passport and visa and never informed me of anything? How did they know I did not have these necessary documents?” Still, Mary watched all this and probably laughed to herself and she would often tell everyone this story in Satsang as an example of a miracle of God. I was off to India with Mary and twenty-one other young people!

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Going to Dera Beas

After a very long flight, and a stop in Germany, when we arrived at the train station in New Delhi, Maharaji had a beautiful room at the station set aside for us. In it was a banquet of the most beautiful food and fruits and everyone was taken to rooms for rest. Then we took the train to Dera Baba Jaimal Singh in Beas. It was quite a long trip, and we arrived about 6:00 P.M. When we got to the station, Mary, being very tired, stepped off the train, and her leg got caught between the train and the cement. She fell down. The bone was fractured and protruded through her skin, sticking out of her leg. She was on the ground weeping and bleeding. Being only twenty years old, I was now in a state of absolute shock. I ran to her and was listening to her cries as she was saying very softly, “Thank You Father, Thank You Father, Thank You Father.” Robert and I picked her up and carried her to the bus that was waiting to take everyone to Dera. I however, got on the tractors carrying the luggage with the old sadhus. When we arrived at Dera Maharaji had seen to it that we were beautifully received and looked after. A wonderful meal had been prepared. Maharaji left nothing undone, especially when it came to Mary.

When Mary saw me on the tractor with the old bearded sadhus, she had a great laugh; I went to her and said, “Shouldn't you be going to the hospital rather than to a dinner party? She just laughed and

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said, “Quiet.” So, that is how it began; my true relationship with my true Mother. We had dinner, and that evening, Robert and I sat in meditation outside her door – in case she needed anything. Robert would go in and carry her to the bathroom. I would just sit at her door and meditate. Now as a footnote to this, Mary would always teach us that if anything happened, like cutting yourself, breaking an arm, car accidents, etcetera, instead of complaining and weeping, we should immediately start thanking our Master, being grateful to our Master and to the Lord. For as the Masters teach on the Path of Sant Mat, our Guru is now in charge of our Karmas, and He converts a sword thrust into a pinprick.

1968 - Mary (center) and some of the people she brought.

C

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The next morning, Dev Prakash, who was in charge of the foreign guest house, and a few others, took Mary to the hospital to have her leg set. After they returned and Mary was back in her room, Bea Jauncey came to let everyone know it was time to go and meet the Master. I protested, as I wanted to watch over Mary, but Bea said, “Absolutely not! You have never met your Master! Please come right now!”

Bea Jauncey was a very well known British Satsangi. Mary used to tell the story that when she first met Maharaj Charan Singh, she was concerned that she would be spending eternity in a kitchen cooking for people (since she was such a great cook). She was very concerned that when she would reach Sach Khand, the True Region, she may be sent to the kitchen. Can you imagine? So, she asked Maharaj Charan Singh if there were kitchens in Sach Khand. He just laughed. No answer. Anyway, when Mary got to the Dera Beas the first time in 1962, and she met Bea Jauncey, Bea looked at Maharaji and said to Him, “Is she the one?” And He said, “Yes.” Mary of course wondered what the meaning of “Is she the one?” Soon she found out. She was in charge of the Foreign Guest House Kitchen at Dera Beas with Bea, and was to teach her how to cook.

Now back to the first meeting with Maharaji. He came into the great Marble Hall that was fashioned after the Hall on the inner regions. The Great Satsang Hall, which is a magnificent structure

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you can only stand in awe of, is a replica of the Hall we go into when we finally reach our True Home in Sach Khand; where we wait to go in and see our True Father-Mother, as Baba Kehar Singh Ji explains. He says that when you first view the Great Lord Sat Purush, you notice that He has the form of your Master; and yet, your Master is also standing next to you.

It was quite amazing and beyond words to express seeing the Master for the first time. Even the old Sikhs that were giving out the pillows to sit on scared me. They were so real – and I was not used to being around real devotees. When I saw the Master, I kept repeating to myself, “This is your Master, this is your Master,” as it was kind of like something in a dream. He looked like a great benign American Indian to me, most beautiful and awesome. From that moment on, looking upon the Master as my true and loving benefactor, I found myself free from the constant wanderings of mind (at least during my stay at Dera those many years ago). What happened to Mary shocked me so much, being so young and naive, that I enjoyed the Dera in the True spirit. It stripped the mind's continuous reasoning and intellectual ramblings from my being, just as the skin of an orange is stripped off and all that is left is the actual fruit. I look back at these experiences, and wonder why everything became so difficult as I 'grew up.' It is obvious now. When the mind becomes worldly wise, it becomes jaded, corrupt, clever, and manipulative. A

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real tragedy. Then it takes a mountain of effort to become that childlike person you once were... or perhaps just real love for the Master.

My first interview with Maharaji was most beautiful. He was sitting up in bed, and I sat by His bed. He said, “Do you have any questions?” I said, “No.” He asked that a few more times, and I kept repeating the same answer, “No.” But then I said, “Mary is very beautiful.” He smiled and said, “Yes.” Then He asked how I came to the Path. I said, “You.” He said, “No, No... who brought you?” So, I said, “Danny,” who had told me about Living Masters. Again, he looked at me and said, “No... Tom Curtis brought you.” Well, no one but God knew how much time Tom had spent helping me learn about the Path early on. He owned a bookshop in Hollywood California that mainly had spiritual books. Danny had taken me to see him. You see, Maharaji had close to 600,000 disciples at that time, yet He knew everything about me. After He had said this about Tom, He became transformed and starting getting brighter and brighter. He became Radiantly Beautiful, in fact, I had never seen that kind of Beauty before. There was nothing to compare it to.

Now let us skip to the last interview I had right before I left Dera to show how attitude makes all the difference. Instead of going to the interview in a state of surrender to Lord's Will like the first interview, I made the big mistake of listening to an elderly

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gentleman who had come up to me before my interview and said to me, “You should tell the Master that all you want is to see His Radiant Form inside.” So, I became a foolish parrot and when I sat down for my interview, I said this to Maharaji. Master looked at me, knowing it was not coming from my heart and after about thirty seconds He motioned to me that the interview was over. You see, I believed someone outside myself, instead of trusting my own inner being (not having any preset words to say). Preset words take away the spontaneity of the soul. I think that is the secret of True Prayer, as should be done first thing when we sit for meditation, as the Masters advise. We must speak to God from our heart. No set prayers. No set words. No set Phrases. No! We should dig down deep inside ourself and talk to Master-God from our heart. We should practice feeling His Presence while talking to Him. That is what the Living Master is - He is inside us. When we speak to Him that way, he is hiding there. Our job is to bring Him out of hiding by being truthful and sincere. He loves that. The words should come from our heart. Nor should we ever ask our Lord and Master for worldly things, only for Spiritual Blessings.

Again, the Masters say when we sit for meditation we should pray for the entire world, and for all the Satsangis to be blessed. Of course if something in the world is interfering with our Spiritual life, then what other door do we have to

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knock at? We can't take anything with us of value but our meditation when we leave this place. You see, meditation is counted; our sincere efforts and especially our love for God and Master are counted. You could say this is counted in the same way a computer keeps track - Baba Kehar Singh Ji explains it that way. He also says that the eyes and mind are like a tape recorder or a computer and everything is recorded and from that, we get our just desserts when we die. Our wealth, our property, and our good looks mean little to nothing. What true value does anything here have? The bottom line is that we all need to ask ourselves, “How much have we pleased the Master?” Have we made pleasing Him priority number one in our life? It is a serious question, because the mind is very foxy and it is a great trick of the mind to make us think we only want to please the Lord and Master, when really we are pleasing ourself. He alone will protect and take care of us. He has long arms that reach across the oceans. Whatever He says comes to pass. We must do our duty to everyone, but no one except Guru and Shabad will be there now and when we die to truly help us.

The Masters say that money is something that you can share only while you are alive. Its value is to help the poor, the homeless, and the girl whose family cannot afford a wedding, as Baba Ji Kehar Singh advises. The Masters explain that we must give ten percent of our earnings in charity or to the Spiritual Society for helping the less fortunate, feeding the

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Satsangis, etcetera. This ten percent actually purifies our income. In other words, most of us are not honest at our work, and probably slack in some ways, (at least ten percent of the time) – or do not work the full one hundred percent for our wages. So, this ten percent purifies the part that does not actually belong to us. The Masters say we get it back in many ways. One way is that we will probably not be sick that year and will not have to pay so much for doctors. So it is like a cash transaction. There is a story in Tales of the Mystic East that points out that the money we give in seva to the Master, for the society, is the only True Wealth that belongs to us! The Masters never use anything for themselves; whatever comes in is distributed. Of course, ten percent is just the beginning. We should learn to give everything to the great Path of Sant Mat: body to seva, mind in surrender, and wealth. Of course, this is quite easy to say but most difficult to do. Just one more point on this is that the Real and Complete Masters know who to give to and where it will help and be of the greatest benefit. And, if we give to someone who uses it wrongly, on meat, killing, wrong living, anything that is not up to our principles, we share in that sin.

The first day I was at the Dera, brick seva was going on and I joined it. I got in line to carry bricks on my head in a basket. There was an old lady who must have been 88 or 90 years old in front of me, hunched over and looking frail. She carried so many bricks that I figured certainly I, being a young and strong man,

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could carry much more. Well I told the sevadar to keep loading the bricks. “Keep loading, keep loading, keep loading.” Before I even had as many bricks as that old lady, I fell down with all the bricks and almost broke my neck. Certainly I was stronger than an old lady (who had spent her entire life in a village carrying water baskets on her head).

When I would go to the Dera vegetable seller, I would buy carrots and apples and they were the sweetest I had ever tasted. I figured it out. When anything is planted with Master's Love and Simran, the living vegetables or fruits are blessed and happy, so of course they taste heavenly! After that first day, I stayed with Mary.

The first evening meeting went like this. At the evening question and answer session for foreigners, Maharaji looked around and asked, “Who's missing?” I spoke up and said, “Mary Blakemore is missing.” He looked at Dev Prakash and his secretary, Daryai Lal, and said, “Go get her!” They went downstairs to her room to get her and dragged her, wheelchair and all, up the steps, huffing and puffing. Later I found out that Mary was sitting in her room, upset – not about her leg, but about missing seeing the Master who she would call Master-God, or just 'my Lord and Master.' She was sitting in her room praying, “Master God, please come get me!” It so happened that Maharaji had a hip injury and was bedridden and unable to go to Satsang for a month

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before we got there. However, on the very day after Mary arrived and fell and broke her leg, Maharaji miraculously got better and was able to walk around and start coming to Satsang again. The great ones take care of each other.

Now, the next morning, after Maharaji's Satsang in the Great Hall, I was beating myself up terribly for not meditating the night before. The mind was telling me that I did not love Master at all, or I would never have missed my meditation. And indeed it is the one thing that should never be missed, unless we are dead. After Satsang an Indian gentleman named Ishwar Singh, who had been the Dera Veterinarian in Baba Sawan Singh Ji's time, came up to me and took my hand in his and walked with me. He started talking to me very kindly, telling me 'how

much I loved the Master.' He went on and on in this vein and everything melted away. This is what really happens at the Deras. These are the miracles of God. It is a game of love. God touches our soul every day if we keep our eyes open. This happens at the Dera, at our homes, in fact everywhere if we only slow down our mind enough to practice our Simran and remember Lord and Guru. What else do we have? God speaks to us through all creatures and all things: the wind, the leaves, birds, humans, everything, if we practice our Simran sincerely as priority number one. This is the work we have to do. Not to be entertaining our mind's thoughts as priority number one, with our Simran in the background. The Masters say there will

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be a gift every day, a miracle every day, when we do this. No day is bereft of Master God's gifts to us, but we close our eyes to Him. We do not pay attention to our Great Benefactor, our Mother-Father who is watching over us.

Each morning after Satsang we would sit in Maharaji's rose garden as He enjoyed tea and we enjoyed His Presence. I would sit right at his feet on the ground, and did not care about anything except looking at His beautiful face. I would just look in His eyes and enjoy. That is the best medicine for us, I think, as it is a higher language than words that we need to learn. I wrote a song to music about the days in His garden that I would play on the guitar.

Your Black eyes musing at your children. Your loving Black eyes, melting in your act, my love. Your simple joyous laughing love. Your Black Eyes musing at your children. Your loving Black eyes, melt me in your glance my love. Your simple joyous laughing love.

I see a father looking at his son through your eyes. I see a mother looking at her son through your eyes. I see a woman looking at her lover through your eyes.

Some mornings these days, I sit doing my

breathing exercises outside before work and a dragonfly will land on my hand or my shoulder, and

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sit and watch me. This happens especially if I am upset about something. I love dragonflies, so that may be why Lord uses them to talk to me. God and Master's love and compassion are overwhelming. If we do our duty, He is there for us; but what is needed is just to be sensitive to the Great Master Power that can speak through everything and everyone. The key of course is sincerely doing our meditation and duty and knowing the two Great Secrets of Sant Mat. What are these two secrets? They are that meditation and our life itself after initiation is based only upon these two things: 1) Pleasing the Master and 2) Pleasing the Master.

If Master is pleased, God is pleased. There is no meditation without this. That is the only thing that will slowly attune us to God's Will and to become conscious co-workers of that Will. Swami Ji explains this in Sar Bachan Prose. He says it is not easy to find out what really pleases the Master; and if we find out that our seva is not really pleasing to the Master, we should immediately stop it.

Now back to Ishwar Singh. He would tell me many stories, most of which I did not follow. I concluded that he was telling something about my past lives. Mary would often point him out to me, telling me that he was a Saint. He never spoke openly with Mary, at least around me. Anytime I would be with either of them and the other came into view, they would point out each other to me. Even in 1968, Dera

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Beas was a very big place. Now it is like a large city.

Ishwar Singh told me two stories that I never forgot. One was about his father that goes like this. One afternoon, he and his brother begged Baba Sawan Singh Ji to initiate their father, and the Master replied, “If you can get him to the Dera, I will initiate him.” Well, they went home and tied him up and threw him in the back of the buggy. They took him to Dera Beas like a criminal, and Baba Sawan Singh Ji initiated him on the spot. So his father got the greatest blessing in Gods Universe while tied up like a thief. They say this is the biggest thing that can happen to a soul (that has been in the cycle of transmigration for millions of ages)! It says, “Now it has been stamped by the Creator to go Home and nothing can stop it from going Home!”

Another story he told me was the how and why he got true faith. He was walking alone once when two thugs grabbed him and stole his wallet. Then they suddenly dropped the wallet and ran away as fast as they could! Ishwar Singh was so puzzled by this behavior that he ran after them, and when he caught up to them, he shouted, “Why did you leave my wallet and run away?” They said, “Didn't you see the Sikh with a big stick who was chasing us?” Ishwar Singh did not see him, but took out a picture of his Master, Baba Sawan Singh Ji, and showed it to them. “Was he the Sikh that chased you?” “Yes, that was the one!” From that incident, true faith was born. Ishwar Singh

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told me that after this incident, he was very upset that the thieves could see the Spiritual Form of his Master but he could not. He thought to himself that he was so dirty, he could not see his Master! And this burned in his mind and changed his life.

In the daytime, I would wander around the Dera with the South African children and collect roses from Maharaji's garden and put them in Mary's room. I later learned that Master would, each afternoon, go to Mary's room with Daryai Lal, Dev Prakash, and his entourage to check and see how Mary was faring. He would complain to her that someone was stealing all the roses out of his garden. One night during the evening session I noticed Maharaji picking his nose. He was also reading from the Sant Mat book to us and it was upside down. Being so young, I asked Mary about it after Satsang. She said, “He is just testing you to see where you let your mind go.” She then said, “If Maharaji came walking down the aisle on His hands like a monkey to give Satsang, I wouldn't question Him. He is my Master!”

Another night after the evening question and answer session with foreigners, everyone had left except the few who would sit around the hall meditating. I went and sat in Master's chair and meditated. I felt as if I had just gotten on a rocket ship. It is said that if you sit in a chair after a Master, you enjoy the vibrations or Darshan He has left in that

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chair. It is a great blessing. It is also a great blessing if a Master offers you an article of clothing, a ring, or anything He has touched or worn since these become what we call Parshad, or blessed articles. So, it actually makes you extremely happy to wear these blessed articles; and of course happiness, in truth, only comes as a gift of the Lord or Master. It is the state we should make every effort to remain in, as it is a positive state, and in that state we can meditate and remember our Master and the Spiritual; whereas in a negative state of mind, we sever the connection with the Lord and Master, as it clogs up the communication, or as the Masters say, thought-

transference. In any case, the next evening when Master sat down in his chair the first thing He remarked was, “Who's been sitting in my chair?” They say 'discretion is the better part of valor.' I also totally believe in a saying that Maharaj Charan Singh would sometimes say: “Don't plead guilty unless you're accused.” Having said all that, you can guess whether I raised my hand or not.

One fitting example of the blessing of Parshad is a story about Michael Pollack, a Satsangi we had all known many years ago. He was down on his luck and staying in a YMCA in Philadelphia. He had all his possessions there in his room. One evening, two thugs came in and started taking all his possessions. They had a gun and were going to kill him, and he was so frightened that he did not even remember the Five Names, which is of course our protection. Anyway,

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they took a scarf that Mary had given him for Christmas, stuffed it in his mouth to shut him up, and put the gun to his head to kill him. Right at that moment the Five Names started repeating out of the scarf. The thugs left everything and ran away.

After two weeks of being wheeled around, Mary started walking on her own. I did not think anything of it as the Dera is not of this world, and too, any worldly knowledge or wisdom that I may have possessed at that time was surely limited at best. I did not even guess that a bone takes longer to mend itself than two weeks. We stayed a total of four weeks and it felt like an eternity. I remember how easy it was to meditate at that time. When I closed my eyes to sleep, I dreamed of the Master. In fact, that is all I thought about: the Master. How easy it was at that time when my mind was uncorrupted, and how difficult it has become as I 'grew up' and became 'worldly wise.' One of the young people Mary had brought told me an interesting story. One evening, the great Church Bell sounded at three in the morning, as it did every morning, waking everyone for meditation. It would ring eight or nine times. This lady was already meditating when the bell started ringing and she told me that the bell never stopped ringing; it went on for 20 minutes. She of course realized after a little while that it was not the outer Bells but the Inner Church Bell ringing! It is a Living Bell, or as the Masters call it, the Audible Life Stream. At the Dera, they had made a Bell that had the same ring as the inner bells.

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Village Ghoman

One very rainy morning, I was told everyone was going on a bus to Satsang in Ghoman, Baba Jaimal Singh's village. There were two or three bus loads of mainly foreigners with Indian ladies singing Shabads in the back of the bus. We were traveling and traveling, and suddenly we stopped. The bus could not navigate through the mountains because of the flooding. We all got out and started walking in procession up and down the hills and over the streams. I was at the very back with Robert, and it so happened that two nice old ladies were also at the back and could not walk over the rocks in the streams. Every time there was too much water, or a stream, he would carry the one, and I would carry the other lady. When we finally reached the top of the hill, I was surprised to see Master leading this procession of people, and of course I did not know it! People would travel the world to spend two minutes with this complete and perfect Man, our Master, Saint, or as He is called, Satguru; and here he was leading our way through the hills among His people. The Masters say that if you even once have the Darshan of a True Master or Satguru, your cycle of coming and going is ended and you are in the queue to realize God. He then got in the buggy with the two old ladies we had been carrying. I later realized that one was his mother and one was Bibi Ralli, whom I had carried. She looked very sweetly at me and handed me her umbrella when I reached the back of the buggy, and I

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took it. Then I ran to the front and two beautiful white horses that were pulling the buggy were rearing up so I held them down, thinking I was protecting the Master. That reminds me of something Mary had told me when we first got to Dera. She noticed jagged cut glass on top of the wall around Maharaji's house. She then said to Maharaji, “I have to ask you, what is going on with the jagged glass around your house?” He said with a laugh, “Oh, the protectors are protecting the Protector.”

We finished our hilly walk on the road to Ghoman, got back in the buses and soon were at the Satsang Grounds. Because of the rain, the grounds were all soaking wet and muddy but I just happily sat in the mud in the very back. Would I do it now that I am worldly wise? The Indian children in front of me noticed I was white and American and started laughing at me, thinking I was crazy. The lady in front yelled at them and gave me straw and ordered me to sit on it. When Maharaji was on the dais, His beautiful Beard was flowing with the wind, and He looked like a Celestial Being. After the Satsang was over, I went to Bibi Ralli to give her back her umbrella. When I got to her, she was having a hard time putting her shoes on but I did not like touching anyone's feet, so I backed away. She gave me a look which instantly told me I had just insulted her and she was most probably a Saint. She did not look at me after that but just took the umbrella.

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The bus ride back was great fun. We were given bananas as Parshad and on the way home, I was lost with the Indian ladies singing Shabads in the back of the bus. Not knowing the words, and not knowing Punjabi, I was singing along with them as someone's child would sing Happy Birthday with you; but they knew I was enjoying myself.

Later that week, thinking I was a sadhu on my way to the pure spiritual region of Daswan Dwar, I did something that I still do not believe I did. In fact, no one believes I did this. I hid this from everyone, including Mary. I decided I was a sadhu and I wanted to walk to the Beas River; and do you know how real sadhus walk? Naked, of course. I was carrying my clothes, my wallet, and a very expensive solid gold wrist-watch my father had given me as a keepsake. It did not bother me that a group of children were following me, laughing at me the whole way, as I believed I was a sadhu. So you see the illusions the mind can foist upon us fools. Again, they could see I was an American and surely thought I had lost my mind. When I got to the Beas River, I went for a long swim, forgetting the crocodiles, the children, my wallet, my clothes, and my solid gold watch. When I came back to the bank after a refreshing swim, the old expression was borne out: God protects fools and children. My wallet and clothes were there! (But no gold watch.) That night when I sat in the evening Satsang, Maharaji was discoursing on how we foreigners should not go down to the river alone. In

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fact, He was quite unhappy about it and continued in this vein for fifteen minutes. No one but myself knew this story, and I decided it might not be the best time to express it in Satsang. Doug's wife Jennifer was the first person I told this deep, dark secret to after thirty-five years of hiding and denying it happened. Jennifer enjoyed this story so much, she asked me to promise not to tell anyone but to save it and tell it as an anecdote at her funeral so that no one would remember to weep.

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Bhandara at Dera

It was now Bhandara time at Dera Beas. When the Bhandara began, there were 250,000 people coming for Satsang. They were fed out of five or six large pots. Being the worldly person I am now, I know that five big pots may just feed 4,000 people, maybe. However, 250,000 people? Who could even calculate how many pots and how many fillings it would take to actually do this? It would probably take 40 pots filled 125 times each. There were many miracles at the Dera every day; and if you kept your eyes open you would see them. Of course if Mary had not have pointed them out to me, I would never have seen them.

During the cooking and making of chapatis for the masses, the Indian ladies would sing Shabads and

Baba Pratap Singh and Maharaj Charan Singh on Dais

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the devotion was most beautiful. Maharaji would stand right where the smoke was bellowing out black soot (in order for all the ladies who were cooking to have His Darshan). He never cared for himself. All the ladies would cook in the burning heat and start at three o'clock in the morning just to please the Master. His coming meant everything to them as they had so much love for Him; and He for all His children.

My roommate was the Prince of Yugoslavia. He was very tall and would dress in long black robes and had long hair. We would go to Satsang together. I remember one morning during the Bhandara we were just getting to the Satsang and going to sit in the front (as the foreigners were allowed) and Maharaji came in his car. I stopped and watched Him get out and walk in the door; and right afterwards He again got out of His car and walked in the door. I thought nothing of it. After all, miracles were happening every day. I just thought to myself that there were two of Him. It turned out that it was Baba Pratap Singh, Master of Tarn Taran, who would sit on the dais with Maharaji at Bhandara time.

Later that week during the Satsang, I was very pleased with myself as I had pulled my attention up and withdrawn to the knees. I sat in the lotus position and was in a state the yogis call 'proud samadhi'; which of course is a very low state. I told Mary about it and she said, “Really, but did you remember to love the Master during Satsang?” I said, “No,” which put a

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wrench in the pride I felt over 'my withdrawal.' Then she said, “Master needs all the love He can get,” which she often would say.

Another thing Mary would preach was, “Take inventory every night before you go to bed.” Other Masters have advocated the same thing and said that it is very advantageous spiritually to keep a strict diary every night and put down all our failures of the day – in Thought, Word, and Deed. This helps us to learn where our weaknesses are and slowly start weeding them out. The diary or the inventory every night helps us to weed out these weaknesses and imperfections (lust, anger, greed, attachment, and pride). When we begin to see these clearly as they really are, and note them down every day as failures, we can begin to overcome them. Just as we would start seeing our weak spots in school classes by examining why we keep getting low grades, in the same way, the diary helps us to start seeing the connections between doing Simran during the

daytime, and our successes in meditation; between all our daily failures and the actual seeds that caused these. Of course, once we begin seeing these, the most important thing is to learn to pray for the Master's protection at every step. It is quite important to pray to the Master before beginning any new work: for we soon realize that 'we' cannot really do anything by 'ourself' – that it is only by Master and God's Grace that anything is accomplished, worldly or spiritual. Everything is God's Gift and practicing that

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Gratefulness in everything should be our way of life, of course, quietly and secretly. This slowly teaches us to live as Master so wills. We can do nothing ourselves; however, firstly we have to make our effort and try with all our heart to overcome our weaknesses. When we do everything in our power and please the Master, then He just may bless us. He is our Father, our Mother, and our Spouse. He is our only True Relation in this world who never leaves us. He wants to bless us. We only have to earn the right to what is held in trust for us.

Mikhail Naimy's great work, The Book of

Mirdad, was Maharaj Charan Singh's favorite book I have been told. In it, Mirdad says, in the chapter, Sparks on the Godward Path, “What the broom is to the house, self-searching is to the heart. Sweep well your hearts. A well-swept heart is a fortress unassailable.” We are all creatures, and as such, we have these weaknesses. They are built into the body itself as Baba Kehar Singh Ji explains. One of the biggest sins is speaking and thinking ill of others and impure thoughts. Our mind is occupied with thinking ill of others most of the time. Whatever is thought radiates out to the person you are thinking of and causes problems, not unlike radio waves. Mirdad also says, in the chapter, The way to Painless Life,

So think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.

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So speak as if the world entire were but a single ear intent on hearing what you say. And so, in truth, it is.So do as if your every deed were to recoil upon your heads. And so, in truth, it does.So wish as if you were the wish. And so, in truth, you are.So live as if your God Himself had need of you His life to live. And so, in truth, He does.

Mirdad also says:

Disdain no man. Better to be disdained by every man than to disdain a single man. To disdain a man is to disdain the Micro-God within him. To disdain the Micro-God in any man is to disdain Him in yourselves. How shall he ever reach his haven who scorns his only pilot to that haven?

Mirdad goes on, saying, “Anoint your hearts and minds with forgiveness that you may dream anointed dreams.”

Whatever evil we think, radiates to that person and causes him harm, even the smallest things. Whatever we say also spreads like wildfire. I know these things from my own continuous failures; therefore, we must be very careful. We are on the

great Path of Radha Soami and we must make efforts

to live this truly honorable way of life; there is nothing greater. The Masters say that it is easy to meet God, but that God is looking for a real man. It is hard

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to become a real Human Being. Such a being should be a true source of humanity and kindness. If we want to be able to find our way back to God, we have to become exactly as God is. Baba Kehar Singh Ji has said to me, “Many people claim they love me, yet they fight and spread dissension among themselves.” He then said, “If someone truly loved me, he would love those whom I love.” Baba Ji also says that the only real religion is Humanity.

Back to Dera Beas. There was a little fellow who was the Dera tailor. When I would go to him to have anything made, he was always in a state of bliss. It was not difficult to tell. When Mary wanted clothes made, he would have them done the next day. No one else seemed to be able to get anything done by him since he did not respond to money or anything (except love). He only worked for love and the small amount of money he got for making clothes did not amount to much. Another day I went to the bookstore – general store. There I met Maharaji's wife and daughter, who both were quite beautiful. I then proceeded to buy Coca Colas and incense for Mary – for after the evening Satsangs there would always be a bunch of us going to see Mary with our questions about the Path. One evening, when Stash, the Prince, was asking Mary questions, she renamed him 'Soul'. He wanted to know if there was ever a time that he should doubt and criticize himself. I added, “What if I throw my clothes on the floor one night, should I let my mind make me crazy?” She said, “Do not let the

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mind criticize the soul, even if you throw your clothes on the floor.” However, she said, “It is not good to be disorganized and messy, you should keep everything immaculate and clean the way God would have it.”

I felt it was my duty to take anyone I noticed having problems to Mary, as she stayed in her room recuperating most of the time, and it was her great joy to work with people and help them. One particular South African lady was weeping day and night and it was driving her husband crazy. I took her to Mary to help her. The problem that was so heavy on her heart was that Master would never smile at her; in fact he would never look at her. Mary told her that in her past life she had ignored and disobeyed the Master and now she was paying this karmic price but that she should “keep a good attitude and just continue to love the Master regardless, and soon this karmic debt would be paid.” She took Mary's advice and found her balance. In fact, she wound up writing the most beautiful love poems to the Master I had ever read that were published in RS Greetings,.

During the last evening session Maharaji looked very sad. I knew why. He was sad that Mary was leaving. During that session, I prayed to Master, “please let this session never end” and indeed it felt like it went on forever, strangely enough. Then we left and were driven to the train station. I remember vividly standing, waiting for the train with Mary. The moon was full and very large. I was very, very sad and

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upset. Mary said, “When leaving the Dera, it is a great shock.”

A Satsangi named Joseph Leeming, who wrote Yoga and the Bible, wrote a poem about Mary when she was at the Dera and she always treasured it. I would like to share it here. When Mary passed away on July 15, 1998, she left the entirety of her estate to her best friend and business partner, Doug Brookins. This included all of her letters over the course of forty years from Maharaj Charan Singh Ji, her revelations, and personal properties. Permission was granted to me to replicate this poem herein. I thank the Mary E. Blakemore Charitable Trust for the privilege to print this poem. I also have tried to find the heirs to the estate of Mr. Joseph Leeming for permission to include this, but unfortunately this effort proved unsuccessful.

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Brave Mary Blakemore's Race

with the Flying Mail

Oh, gather 'round, Satsangis, if you would like to hearA story about a true Satsangi, brave and dear; Mary Blakemore is that bold Satsangi's name,'Twas on the highway to Jalandhar that she won her greatest fame.

Mary left the Dera to catch the Flying Mail,But at Beas it passed by her on the high-speed rail. Our Mary was undaunted; she cried out so all could hear:“Step on the gas, O' Surja; Master told me not to fear!”

“He told me that the Flying Mail ran far faster than a hound,But that I was not to worry~~I would catch it safe and sound!”So she put her faith in Master, and along the road she spedWith the Flying Mail a-dashing on a dozen miles ahead.

Brave Mary felt quite desperate, despite her faith in Master.She cried out to the driver, “Please make the car go faster.I know that Master told me that there was no need to worry,But just the same I hope you'll do all that you can to hurry.”

Stout Surja bit his lip and stepped on the accelerator,The car leaped on, but see what happened just some minutes later~~

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A level crossing gate was down and barred their onward dash;Brave Mary sighed and all her hopes fell downward with a crash!

“Oh dear,” she cried, “O woe betide, now I will miss the plane,And all because the Flying Mail is such a speedy train! Oh now I think, I really do, I never will get home,My fate will be forever more around the earth to roam!”

But at that very moment, lo, the gate was raised apace,Although the signal said that it should still remain in place;Who makes the gateman break the law? What hidden power is here?No one can say, but one can guess, for Master said, “Don't fear!”

And now Jalandhar looms ahead, beyond the speeding train,And brave and desperate Dev Prakash puts pressure on his brain.“I have it,” Dev cries out in glee, “We'll bypass this big city,And make for the next station!” He burst into a ditty.

So happy and relieved he felt that he had made a planThat would outwit that dashing chap, the engine-driving man. So while the Mail stood still and puffed inside Jullundur station,Bold Mary and her friends dashed on, now brimming

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with elation.

The car speeds on, Jalandhar Cantt soon bursts upon the view; The Flying Mail is left behind; Mary's no longer blue. She looks upon the world with joy, and you should hear her shout. “When Master says you'll win the race, there's never any doubt!”

*By Joseph Leeming – November 19, 1965Poem courtesy of the Mary E. Blakemore Foundation & Charitable Trust.

*Note: I tried to find Mr. Leeming, but he passed away quite a while ago. I could not find his relatives either. He wrote this for Mary in 1965. I have included this as I do not think he would mind.

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Returning to the U.S.A.

When I returned to the U.S.A., I was a changed person. Mary managed an old but beautiful apartment building that looked like an Irish Castle in Hollywood, California, which we all fondly called '1343'. She rented out mainly to Satsangis; in fact, the entire apartment building was filled with Satsangis. She wanted me to move in as there was a vacant apartment but I really did not want to (the mind is always going in the wrong direction) but I was trapped since she had asked me; so I moved in.

Soon, I became aware of her system. Every day she would vacuum the halls of the building. She would clean the large trash cans (that everyone used) with Pine Sol and all the washing machines with Clorox as a daily routine. She did all the plumbing and electrical work herself. She cleaned and painted the apartments when people left, since they mostly left them in a bad state. I know this sounds unbelievable! Can you imagine an older lady of sixty years doing these things? Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not believe it either. It was not that she was an old lady. She was a Master. She looked at everything as a challenge to master and bring perfection to. Really, that is the way we as Satsangis should approach everything. She considered every opportunity as a “Gift from Master-God,” as she would say. Who ever heard of a lady who would clean

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an apartment building daily, sweep the walk, do all the gardening, mow the lawn herself, trim and mold the hedges as a Japanese gardener would do, do the plumbing, fix the electrical problems, paint the apartments, and clean filth? Have you ever heard of an old lady, or in fact, even a young man, doing this, or having the capacity to do such a thing? No! This world does not often give birth to people like this. Nowadays we people do the least we can do; however, she did the most she could do, which was everything that needed to be done! Never complaining, she walked around as some Angel from another planet. Of course I fell in love with her, but who wouldn't have?

Now I had a place to live but no income; so I went out looking for a job. After three days, I found a job working in an office but within two weeks I was in trouble (again). I spent most of my time in the bathroom and my boss was trying to figure out why. Of course I was practicing Bhajan, or trying to hear the Shabad with my fingers in my ears – on his time, and I figured that was a good use of time. Can you imagine? My boss did not agree and sent me home so now, my track record at keeping a job was a perfect ZERO. Mary was not very happy with me and gave me a good talking to. However, that led to one of the happiest periods of my life: I started serving Mary day and night. I started slowly taking on all the jobs I could that she did. I would vacuum the apartments, clean the trash, sweep the walk, and anything else I

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could find to help her.

I would think to myself, “She is the very form of my Master, who is the form of God Himself, as all Masters are One, so I must serve her!” It was a wonderful time of happiness for me. Maharaj Charan Singh wrote me two letters at that time. At the end of the letters, He thanked me for my effort and devotion and in one letter He thanked me for my love and devotion. I knew that these letters had only to do with one thing! Serving Mary - and Maharaji being happy about it; and He wanting me to know that He was happy about it. I knew that this is what the letters meant.

To make a bit of money, I started making resin earrings and jewelry to sell at a shop we affectionately called “The Sweetheart Tree” which my brother Satsangi Robert Cannon owned. This would pay my rent and groceries so that I could go on helping Mary. This is where I met Jennifer. She had heard about a Spiritual Master Lady and had been searching for her in Hollywood for two weeks. When she walked into the Sweetheart Tree, she saw a picture of Maharaj Charan Singh on the wall and asked me who he was. I told her sincerely, “Radha Soami.” Unfortunately, that reply did not make much sense to her and she said, “Is there anyone here who I can talk with who speaks English?” I brought Robert out. She asked about Mary, and was taken over to meet her and Jennifer instantly fell in love with her. That is of

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course another story, but Jennifer also stayed with Mary all her life. Now you may ask, “Why did you talk to Jennifer in riddles?” Actually it was not a riddle. It was the answer of a dumb youngster who did not ascertain the situation correctly. Radha Soami is the name of the Lord God – the Positive Power that everything has come from. In our teachings it is explained that a Perfect Master or Complete Guru is the incarnation of Radha Soami or Anami Purush.

Then one day I got a draft notice to go in the army. This was after six months of living at 1343. Everyone going into the army at that time would have to go to the war front in Vietnam. Although I was not thinking about death, I was preparing to register as a 'conscientious objector' which meant that I would not carry a gun. Instead, I would either be rejected by the Army or would wind up as a medic, caring for the wounded. My thinking was that war was against the principles of Sant Mat. Mary said, “No, serving your country is what it is. Many of the Masters joined the army and wound up in the midst of war. Do your duty to your country!” Then she added, “If Master asked me to stick my head in the toilet bowl, I would do it without question!” She did of course have a very clean toilet bowl. She would also often say that the bit of thread you see on the carpet may be the last bit of karma you have, and if you fail to clean it or pick it up, you may have to spend a long time till the opportunity comes around again. So, if you see something that needs to be done, as Mary would say, it means that

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God is seeing this through your eyes and 'telling' you to DO IT NOW. And if you fail to do it, it sits in your subconscious and clogs the clarity and meditation.

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Joining the Military

Well, I was soon in the army and not as a conscientious objector but as a switchboard operator in the 176th Aviation Company in Vietnam. Let me relate a few incidents in the army before Vietnam that show the Master's protection. I was young (20 years old) and very naive when I was drafted. Not understanding anything about how the world operates, I told the absolute truth regardless of the consequences; even when I was asked stupid leading questions. The first day of basic training roll call, the drill sergeant asked if there were any drug addicts, drunkards, or persons who had Gurus. I raised my hand. He came up to me and asked my religion and I said, “Radha Soami,” and I showed him my dog tag, which said Radha Soami. From then on, he started harassing me. The next day he started calling me Radha Soami. The poor fellow did not know who Radha Soami is.

“Radha Soami, get down and do 50 push-ups!” he would say to me. Well, that lasted about one more day before he was in trouble. He was the on-duty staff sergeant in the activity room and had the TVs and everything stolen from right under his nose. So he was busted down to corporal. I did not see him anymore. We have the great Master-Power protecting us. Nothing can hurt us when we remember our Simran and our Master. It is something that is good for us, to remind each other of this all the time, as we

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all too often forget under the stress of this world.

Many other incidents happened, pointing to Master's protection. When the drill sergeants would take everyone for their early morning run at 5:00 A.M. in the dark of night, fellow soldiers would try to knock me down and beat me up, all because I was a vegetarian who had a Guru. By God's Grace, I was doing my Simran at that time and I would see the same people who tried to throw me down, lying on the ground as if they had hit a brick wall, which of course, they had. This may sound fantastic but it is the absolute truth. Simran is a great Power that is charged with the Master's Life energy when you are initiated. It is the Supreme Lord's Gift to his children. A gift you could not buy with many millions of dollars. In Sant Mat, the Five Charged Names (given at Initiation) carry the Master's power in them, which the Mystics call thought transference. His protection is always there for us but we must learn not to forget Him in the so-called 'good' times or the so-called 'happy' times – as the great Saint, Kabir, explained in his verses. In other words, we must make the habit of Simran the best part of our life since it is the only anchor that gives us balance in this negative world. It slowly brings us to Remembrance or Contemplation of the Master and the Presence of God and Master. But the Presence is also a Gift, so who of us can say we have done anything?

People would try to mistreat me because I was

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a vegetarian so Mary wrote to the Officer in charge and explained the problem. He gave me a note for the cook that said I was to get extra shares of anything I wanted since I did not eat meat and eggs. Along with that, the Lieutenant in charge of the battalion gave me the key to his personal office so I could have privacy to meditate at night. These are very rare things to happen in basic training camps. Then when I got to my secondary training in Augusta, Georgia, at the radio-operator school, the chaplain there gave me the key to his chapel so I could have private time for meditation during the evenings and weekends. Everywhere I went, doors swung open since Master-God made sure everyone helped me. This was because I had helped Mary.

Mary would always say, “Do your Simran with Love. It works like magic.” I remember one day when she had come to the shop and six of us men were trying to move a large stone foundation that must have weighed 600 pounds. She was annoyed and looked at us and said, “Aren't any of you doing your Simran?” No, we weren't; how she guessed, I never knew. She shouted, “Do Your Simran!” and at once, the stone moved into place. This reminds me of a great truth. Whenever I have to move anything heavy, or anything I cannot move, or push, when I really do the Simran, and just repeat the great Word Radha

Soami, it moves like anything, as if God Himself is helping me, which of course He is. The truth of the matter is that God does it. He helps with everything if

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we do our Simran and look to Him for His help sincerely and constantly.

When I went to see Mary in New Jersey before I was shipped to Vietnam, it was quite a beautiful few days. She looked at me very lovingly and said, “Nothing can harm you. No bullet will touch you and you will not have to kill anyone.” Thereafter, I had no worries or fears. I spent the entire next week traveling day and night to Vietnam. They had a way of preparing you, keeping you up without sleep day and night for five days or so (so you didn't think about it). This was one of the rare times in my life that I was doing ceaseless Simran. Everything else but the thought of my Master and Simran left me. When I arrived in Vietnam I was so happy and I sat on the beach meditating. I was in the 176th Aviation Company in Chu Lai and I was the new switchboard operator. I was in a bunker underground and my hours were as follows: eight hours on, twenty-four hours off; which meant that every day I had different hours. It was a serious time but I had a lot of free time to meditate. The flying bugs there were as big as small birds and there were rats that I originally thought were dogs running under all our hootches (our bamboo barracks). We were on the ocean so I also spent time walking on the shore and watching the old Vietnamese fishermen. I became friends with the Master Sergeant who ran the Navy facility next door, and the food was much better there. He would send me with their helicopter missions, and since I knew I

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would not be hurt, it was a sightseeing trip just to enjoy the beautiful countryside and rivers.

When I pulled guard duty in Vietnam, it was just another opportunity to watch the stars and do my meditation. Never did the thought cross my mind that the enemy would attack us. During the daytime, when I was free, I would go off into the jungle to meditate. The only real problem I had was that the food was so very bad and I would get sick almost every night. The standing joke was that the food was actually very good until the cooks got a hold of it! The food was never made with love; that is why I would be so sick. It reminds me of an incident when one of the people who worked at the shop cooked some rice when he was angry. Everybody got sick which just shows how attitude affects the environment and everyone in it.

Mary would always say, “Do your Simran and remember the Master when you cook.” Baba Kehar Singh Ji says that “When you do your Simran when you cook, it will be Parshad.” Mary was a living example of this. Another thing that some of the Masters say is that you should not only cook in remembrance of the Master, but you should also eat that way. In other words, they say it is best to eat quietly, in an attitude of gratitude and remembrance of God and your Master, similar to how we eat in the Dera Langar. Baba Kehar Singh Ji says to do your Simran when you eat so you do not choke on your food. When we are really meditating, or really

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making efforts to meditate, the smallest things are felt and become disturbances in our meditation. We become extremely sensitive to vibrations. So, when cooking, if we put Sweet Remembrance and Simran into the meal, it will help those who eat it to also do their meditation as they will feel that happiness-Simran.

When Mary cooked, her focus was so profound that anyone eating her food (and she always shared and gave it away) would feel blissful and happy. So many times at the shop we (the eight or nine of us) did not have enough money to buy food. Each and every time, without being informed that we were without means to buy food, without exception, she would send beautiful meals for all of us – for everyone. She hid her kindness. Now, after so many years, it has become clear to me how faithfully she lived the Path. So many of her simple sayings went in one ear and out the other at the time; however, now, they are like huge oak trees. She also taught us gardening. She made a very large garden outside our business, which we fondly called 'The Shop,' and then proceeded to teach us how to plant, how to weed, how to water: how to garden. Her constant teaching was to put Simran and love into everything so everything in our life would slowly become spiritual and blessed. We grew so many things since we didn't have much money to buy anything.

After I had spent four months or so in Vietnam,

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I went on “vacation from war” for a week (called R&R to the soldiers, or “Rest and Recuperation”). I chose to go to Hong Kong since I was dying for any kind of decent food and hopeful to see Satsangis and talk about the Master; so when I got to Kowloon I searched the yellow pages for Radha Soami. I stayed my first night at the YMCA. Then I found Radha Soami Satsang in the phone directory and visited Mr. and Mrs. Kirpalani. They were very kind to me and I visited them the second day I was in Hong Kong. They told me that Ken and Cami Moss lived at the Hilton Hotel and they were Satsangis. I contacted them and wanted to visit with them also. I went to book a room there and they would not hear of it since they considered it their seva to take care of wandering Satsangis. Mr. Moss was the President of Hilton Hotels in Asia and he gave me a beautiful suite. Every day they would send up beautiful silver platters of cheese and fruit and delicious food. When I left there, I realized that this was a gift from my Master simply illustrating the way He tries to take care of us. In fact, this was just a small example. As the Masters explain, the Lord's love for us, His children, is hundreds of thousands of times greater than a mother's love for her child. Or put in another way, the Lord is our True Parent, and watches over us like a mother watches over her child.

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Business in U.S.A.

Left to Right: Standing: Doug, Tee, Sitting: Mike, Becky, Sis, Jennifer, John. Floor: Ken

After Vietnam, I came to New Jersey along with many others because of Mary. There, I slowly learned to be a silversmith. Mary started a leather business with Doug Brookins and a number of us young men worked with them. Each person would do his own particular craft, since Mary wanted us to experience the responsibility of having our own business. I made silver and gold jewelry, Warren made pottery, Stan made stained glass windows, Jack made ties, Mike Martin made costume jewelry. Everyone learned a trade since Mary would say, “It is better to be your own boss.” She had a vision of Satsangis working together and Maharaj Charan

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Singh blessed this vision. She would often say of us, “As Satsangis, we can do things doubly better.” And this she said often and it was 100% true. When I first came out to New Jersey, before Mary and Doug started the business, Mary got me an apartment right above her apartment that I shared with Mike Martin. He was in the Air Force at the time, so he only came home on holidays. It was a great blessing for me, as I couldn't afford an apartment by myself and Mike has always been generous with everything. He later resigned from the military and came to work for Mary at the business. He is one of the few Satsangis that stayed the entire time. His sense of duty and never being late has been an example. The picture above was 35 years later. Doug came in 1971 and then Mary and Doug renovated an old chicken coop and made it into a nice place to work, with bathrooms, offices, shower, and so on. Then later on, maybe 1982 or so, Doug built a large building that we all loved. The downstairs was manufacturing (leather goods) and the upstairs was offices along with living quarters for guests. It was built with a lot of love, so that is why we all enjoyed it so much. We say that every nail was put in with Simran, or God's remembrance, and love – thus we all thoroughly enjoyed working and being there. The most interesting thing was that since we couldn't afford any down time, Doug built the new building right over the old building – in other words, honestly, the I-Beam that held the new structure together just cleared the old building by one-half inch. We then took sledge hammers and tore the old

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building down and dragged it out piece by piece. This proved to be almost impossible! We had thought that since it was such an old building it would just crumble when hit with sledge hammers; but since God's Love and the squirrels who lived in the walls, held it together, it was a herculean task to knock it down – can you imagine, an old chicken coop that just wouldn't come down? Anyway, we did not even lose one day's production. Doug and Tee Tasker designed the building and Doug was the general contractor. We did not have a lot of money, so we found many bargains to separate the upstairs into offices and make it just right. Tee came in about 1978 and he also never left after that. He is a gentle soul who enjoys taking care of any stray animals, dogs, cats, etc., that need help.

Now back to Mary's saying that “Satsangis can do things doubly better than anyone else.” Having the gift of Simran and Remembrance of Master brings what the Masters call Thought-transference – it helps give one Master or perfect thought. She would say, “We have to turn our intellect into God-Intelligence.” Worldly people do not have access to the well of God-Intelligence as we Satsangis have, since we have been tuned back to the Shabd. The intellect is a very low instrument to solve our problems. It is kind of like using a crowbar to unscrew something. Better it is to think only a little about the problem and then turn it over to Master or be quiet and pray to Master-God and try to make the connection with Him. He can

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solve the problem better than we can. The key to prayer is to speak to Master-God from the heart. We should just open up and let our truthful words flow out of the heart naturally. God loves that. After all, we are all His children.

Soon a salesperson was needed at Mary and Doug's business and I was elected the new Sales Manager; so I went out selling. I would go out on foot, by bicycle, by bus, and by train. I did not have any money to buy a car at the time or at least, in my negative thinking I was looking at the glass as half empty rather than half full. My sales abilities, or should I say, business abilities were very limited, thus, sales were sparse. I would go out in an oversized Camel Hair Coat that Jack gave me, a Philadelphia Flyers knit cap, a nice pair of hand-me-down slacks Doug gave me, and my Vietnam combat boots. Doug and Mary sometimes would see me on a sales trip, pedaling my bicycle, looking like something out of a Wizard of Oz movie and laugh. I would come back to the shop with sales totaling maybe one or two dollars. Mary would praise me and say, “Dollar amount doesn't matter. All that matters is that you do it with Master's Love, and you fill it on time.” This was how she taught me sales. It was God's way. She would teach all the workers like this. “Do your Simran with love while making every item. Do your Simran and not only will it sell, but whoever gets it will get a Blessing. Put Master's love into everything you do,” she would teach like this. One of

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her other favorite sayings was, “To God, a nickel is like a million dollars, and a million dollars is like a nickel.“

Many a time Mary would come to the shop, stop all work because the place would be a little dusty or dirty, (as it was mainly a leather shop) and begin cleaning from floor to ceiling. Of course everyone stopped whatever they were doing and began cleaning until everything was immaculate. Then she would leave and the manufacturing would begin again.

One morning, sometime after the first year, I was cleaning the duck's cage outside. Mary had a male and a female duck who we called King and Queen. The ducks quickly multiplied and turned into sixteen ducks so the cage had to be cleaned twice a day. This was my job, which I hated. Anyway, one morning, as I watched a beautiful sunrise and was cleaning the ducks cage, a great realization came upon me. "The world doesn't revolve around you,

Kenny.” Obviously God was whispering in my ear. No, the world does not revolve around us and the sooner we know it, the sooner we can begin to grow.

As time went on, the business began to grow and I kept praying to Maharaji, Please, teach me how

business works as I did not understand how to become a real businessman since I had no formal education. We learned business from the ground up,

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not by going to school, but by the school of 'hard knocks' or hard experience. I think that is the best way to learn since school teaches mainly theories of business and does not prepare us to deal with the realities of business which are the daily problems and the daily mistakes from every corner. We learn that only by being thrown into the water. Like one Master has said, “You don't learn swimming on dry land, you can only learn it in the water.” So that is how we learned: by Mary's focused and loving lessons and by God teaching us inside ourselves. Another saying that I think of quite often is Maharaj Charan Singh Ji's quote, “There are no problems, only Solutions.” I remember this especially when things get tough.

Now the casinos wanted to come to New Jersey. Mary said, “Vote against them since they bring a load of sin with them and you don't want to be responsible for any part of that karma.” However, she smiled and added, “The people will vote for gaming and the Casino industry will be our biggest customers! Let the devil serve you.” And so it went. They became our largest customers, and remain our largest customers even today.

As time went on, I began having severe headaches, which were in fact, migraines. I would have them for two or sometimes three days weekly every other week. Since I had no idea of health, nutrition, or natural medicine, I was in fact contributing 95% to these headaches by my diet and

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way of life. I would eat a lot of junk food, drink sodas, eat fried food, do little or no exercise, drink very little water, and last but not least, I would get angry and upset at small things that would perpetuate negative states of mind.

I had no idea how to cure these migraines. Mostly the doctors in America, who practice allopathic medicine, do not know since they depend too much on drugs and do not study the causes; so I let them continue for over fourteen long years. I would turn off all the lights in my office, turn my phones off, close my office door, and try to meditate. The only relief from the pain was meditation, by Lord's Grace. He will always support us in sickness. So honestly, we should remember that sickness holds great blessings attached to it. The sicker we are, the more we have to focus on the God inside ourself. So we should look at sickness as a blessed time we may take some needed soul-rest and take to meditation and Bhajan. I am not saying not to find a cure but we should use whatever time is given to us in illness for our own Spiritual Benefit. Another interesting point is that if we get angry or upset, if we can quickly sit for meditation, turn our attention upwards towards the eye-focus, and direct the negative energy upward remembering our Master, that helps greatly. What we are doing is transmuting negative energy and changing it into positive energy by focusing it upwards. We are using the power of the energy itself and practicing redirecting it. In martial arts they say

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that when an opponent comes at you with great force, instead of matching energies against him, you should simply redirect his own force back at him; it wins the day. Baba Kehar Singh Ji says that if you feel that anger, quickly drink a glass of cold water. He tells many deep secrets of Spirituality in His Questions

and Answers Books (1 & 2).

One day, after twelve years of these headaches, I said to myself, (or really God said inside of me) Today is the day I will cure these migraines! So, I went to my library of unread books and started searching for a cure. I noticed a book I had bought years before but had never even looked at about Ayurvedic cooking. I opened it up and, lo and behold, there was a business card peeping out at me. It was for Dr. John Brighton, Ayurvedic Doctor. This 'Ayurvedic Medicine' sounded strange to me. However, I said to myself, allopathic medicine has been around for one hundred years and Ayurvedic medicine has been around over 5,000 years so they must know something. I immediately called and told him I had to see him that day. He said that I could come in the evening. When I had my appointment that evening, he first explained my body type – pitta, which means fire is the predominant element of my body. The other two body types, or Doshas, in Ayurvedic teachings are kapha and vata, where water and air are the predominant elements of the body (respectively). Learning to keep them balanced is very important since each body type has its strengths

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and weaknesses. And he explained everything I was doing wrong from my eating of junk food, lack of water, lack of exercise, negative emotions, fried food, etcetera. All those and more were triggering my migraines. This grand epiphany began my hobby of natural medicine and put me on the road to health.

Here are a few of the things I have learned about health since then, and avoiding migraine headaches, which can help everyone. We should always keep in mind that it is much easier to meditate if we keep our body healthy. Meditation takes a warrior. A healthy body is something that comes from a little work and a little care every day. With a little discipline, it is not that hard to achieve.

1) Sodas, sugar drinks (coca cola, etc.), cookies, junk food, white (bleached) flour foods, white rice, white bread: these turn to sugar almost immediately and cause sugar levels in the body to go haywire. Also, any of those on an empty stomach can cause an immediate headache for someone prone to them.

2) Exercise should be done every day in order to

keep the body fit. It moves the waste out of the cells on a cellular level and gives fresh air. I use a rebounder and bounce every day, which is excellent to move the waste matter out of the cells.

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3) Air is of course the first requirement of good health. Some deep breathing or walking in early morning is very helpful.

4) Fried foods are very bad because the hot oil

melts the food and so the oil and food stick together, similar to welding something together. The liver has a very difficult time separating this and it causes the liver to have problems. This I learned from Dr. Randolph Stone's book, Health Building. He ran the Holistic Clinic at Dera Beas for many years.

After following Dr. Brighton's regimen, by God's Grace, I finally started getting control of the headaches. I also found out that an acidic diet causes these problems and many more health problems; and that lemons and limes are the most alkaline foods, so lemon or limes in water is quite good. Just an interesting side-note here: if necessary, chewing and swallowing a quarter or half a lemon will stop a migraine or headache. However, remember, it is hard on the enamel of your teeth. Also, a hot cup of milk with a heaping teaspoon of Ghee, or clarified butter, right before bed at night will pull the bile out of the gall bladder and liver; so in the morning it will rid you of headaches and that feeling of dullness.

Every morning for the next four years I began a cleansing regimen from Dr. Stone: A glass of hot water with a half to a whole lemon or a lime in it first

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thing every morning (also a tablespoon or two of honey to make it drinkable). This should be done before breakfast or anything else. This great information came from a kind and elderly naturopathic nurse who had been Dr. Stone's assistant at the Holistic Clinic at Dera. One other thing that is beneficial is to drink more fresh water. All the information above I found most helpful for curing headaches and overall dullness of brain and constipation; and, in fact, it helps in all types of health problems.

“Hope for nothing, expect nothing, be prepared for everything.” This was one of Mary's favorite sayings. Mary also would say, “Don't desire anything, for once you get it, it may take you 20 years to get rid of it.” “Be prepared for everything,” is full of deep meaning. Being Master's children, we should be prepared for everything. We should complete everything, never leaving loose ends, and then Master-God will let us know what we have to do the next day, in a natural way. Also, if everything we have to do is up to date and done immediately, never

procrastinating, we will automatically get prepared for the next day. Mary would say, “Master will find the busiest person around if He needs something done.” That again is pregnant with meaning. A busy person will always be working, never idle, and that is the watchword of this Path. So, whatever has to be done, he will always find time, as he never leaves things half-done; and if we are honest with ourselves,

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we will find we waste and idle away many hours every day that could be utilized productively, for our spiritual work. This of course says we should slowly change the minds habits, towards the spiritual.

Regarding putting things off, one Master explains it this way: that if we do not finish our work, it is like holding interviews with ten people yet not finishing any of the interviews, but telling each person interviewed to wait outside for a while. The clatter going on outside and inside our head because of this can only be imagined. There will be so many things pulling on our subconscious mind that it will be impossible to meditate. Unless we finish everything we start, daily, and make it a habit, meditation becomes almost impossible.

Another one of Mary's favorite sayings was “Far better to suffer and wait, than to force and destroy.” That is quite profound and has much to do with living in Master-God's Will. There is so much suffering we as Satsangis and human beings go through but if we get frustrated and force our way, doing what we want to do instead of trying to live in God's Will, in the long run, the suffering becomes much worse, as it continues into more and more lives. Another one of her profound sayings was, “When in doubt, do nothing.” In The Book of Mirdad, Mirdad says, “When in doubt about the next step, stand still.” These so-called simple sayings are really a book of life. We should be careful since our job as Satsangis is

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to try and keep the mind out of our spiritual way of life. The spirit can function beautifully on its own, or put in another way, when we are naturally moving in the spirit or in the flow of the Master, it has its own rhythm. Of course, this means a happy attitude and Remembrance, or Simran, and getting out of the way and letting God work through us. The battle is to train the mind to cooperate rather than us being its slave. As the Masters say, “Mind is a good servant, but a very bad master.” Mary would say, “Do everything with love,” because then it will not boomerang back on us, since God did it. In other words, we have taken ourself out as the 'active agent,' but have worked only as a representative or agent of the Master. When we are 'moved' and positive, God the Positive Power can work through us and talk to us. When we are happy, the Creative Energy (God), can flow through us and do things, solve things, and overall make our life good. However, if we are in a negative state, depressed, sad, angry, etcetera, or having any self-pity, then the creative (God) cannot work through us as we have put a crimp in the telegraph lines. We break the flow and we lose our attunement to the Great River of God that is constantly flowing. Intuition is a natural thing that comes simply from loving the Master or God. The Gift of loving the Master, or that great Gateway to God, is that love or obedience opens us up to that Intuition, or thought transference. Slowly, God's Will becomes more apparent to us and we move in it without thinking. This is what the Masters say.

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Now going back to Mary's business. As time went on, I was selling very large custom orders to the tobacco companies. This came about from having an unlimited sales attitude taught to me by Mary. Her teaching, that the size of the order did not matter, and being so proud of me when I came in with an order for five dollars, or even twenty-five cents, taught me the key principle in business and in life. Never think of yourself or your personal profit when making a business deal; think only of the good of the company. And I always looked at it as Master-God's business. In other words, remove self-interest from the equation. Self interest will sour our business – not to mention a Godly life. So, when the company put together large million dollar orders, this was all due to Lord's Grace and Mary's Godly approach to business. In addition, when other large deals were being put together, what was actually happening was something like this: As sales manager I would be asked for something, usually in very big quantities; and when searching for the product, factories, and components to put the items together, I felt like I was on a treasure hunt and the Master was leaving crumbs or clues everywhere to follow. As strange as that sounds, it happened exactly like that.

Now, moving ahead six months, again I took the wrong road. I started getting very upset and anxious about my responsibilities for work and I became miserable. One day Doug said to me, “Ken,

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why are you so unhappy?” I said, “I am so afraid if I make one mistake with these million dollar orders, I will bankrupt the company!” He looked at me very kindly and said, “Ken, don't worry. You will not make a mistake. What's more, Master didn't give us this big business to break our backs. You just relax and He will watch over us as He always has.” After that talk, which went to the heart as it was said from the heart with such kindness, I stopped worrying and even with big problems in manufacturing every day, I never thought negatively or worried unnecessarily again. Master-God took care of us as always, and never did any disaster occur that couldn't be handled properly with God's love and protection.

Nevertheless three years later, we lost all our business. It happened this way. The executives in some of the big companies we were dealing with wanted us to offer kickbacks, or pay bribes to the executives. We would not and, of course, neither Doug nor Mary would ever sanction this. I wanted to write an anonymous letter to the president of the corporation telling him what was actually going on, who wanted to be bribed, etcetera. “No,” Doug told me. “If you don't have the courage to put your name on your writing, then you shouldn't write anything!” On this Path, truth and ethics is our very life. If we go against this and take bribes or give bribes, we have lost a big battle and it will be a very difficult uphill struggle to get our integrity and honor back, making it almost impossible to meditate. So, there it was. One

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day we were doing $5,000,000 in sales yearly and getting wealthy, and the next day we had lost everything and were doing zero sales a year. We had to figure out again 'where to find customers and how to pay our bills.' But as the Masters say, if you take or give bribes, that will sit in your subconscious when you sit for meditation, spoiling it. Baba Kehar Singh Ji many times explains that a wife should not press her husband unnecessarily to make so much money if she knows it will force him to cheat or take bribes. God must be number one in our life. If we displease the Lord and the Master, we have no life. There is nothing left. One Saint has said, “If you lose money, you have lost but little; if you lose your health, you have lost a lot; but if you lose your ethics or principles and your honorable self, you have lost everything.”

Now, in about 1991 or so, we had the good fortune of meeting Papa Luks, who was a great devotee of Maharaj Charan Singh. The way he met Maharaji is quite interesting. He lived in Venezuela and was extremely wealthy since he owned the water purification plant, which treated the drinking water for the entire country. That is, until the government decided to take it away from him. When that had happened, along with his wife leaving him, not being able to pay his bills, and many other problems, it was all too much for him and he decided the answer was to commit suicide. Right when he was preparing to throw himself in the river, he was sitting, doing a type of yoga-meditation and Maharaj Charan Singh

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started appearing inside his head and talking to him. Of course this was a profound experience, to see a Holy Celestial Being appear inside you while meditating. Then Maharaji said to him, “Come and see me.” Papa Luks, upon seeing this Being of Light, wondered who He might be but when he saw the turban and Punjabi outfit, he figured he must be from India. He stopped his idea of suicide, which, as the Masters say, is the biggest sin. Baba Kehar Singh Ji explains that if you commit this great sin, you are reborn just to finish the remaining portion of your life, even if it is only one day. Then as soon as it is completed, whether you want to live or not, you have to die. Now Papa Luks had no money so the idea of world traveling to find someone was out of the question. Soon after this, however, he got a call from an attorney saying that he should sue the government to get his company back and that he would work on a simple percentage (50%), rather than demand up front monies. So Papa Luks went ahead with the lawsuit. He did not see Maharaji inside again for some time but after six months, he got a call from his attorney that he had won his lawsuit against the Venezuelan government and he had gotten his company and all his wealth back. That evening when he sat down to meditate, Maharaji again appeared inside him and said, “You have money now. You can come and see me.”

Papa Luks realized this Being knew everything so he decided he had better go and find him. He didn't

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know where to begin, so he just started off to New Delhi, India. When he got there, the weather was quite hot, so he found his way to a tailor shop to have a few custom, lightweight shirts made. To his surprise, when he got home, there was a button missing. He cursed the tailor for cheating him and stormed back to the tailor shop. When he walked into the fellow's office to yell at him, what did he find? There was Maharaji's picture hanging on the wall. He looked at the gentleman and kindly asked who the picture was of. He said, “That is our Spiritual Teacher, Maharaji Charan Singh, from Radha Soami Dera Beas.” Papa Luks immediately wanted to know where he could find him. The next morning he got a taxi and was off to Beas to meet the Master.

When he got there, he was questioned by Dev Prakash as to who he was, and that sort of thing, and Dev could not figure out how he had been invited since he was not on the guesthouse list! Papa Luks, of course, would not be slowed down by this minor point. He told him that Maharaji had invited him to the Dera and wanted to see him, now! When he went to see Maharaji, who was sitting outside watching seva on a very windy day, Papa Luks ran up to him and almost knocked him down since Papa Luks was a big man and almost fell on Maharaji. Maharaji looked at him and asked why he had wasted 245 rupees on a taxi when he could have taken the train. By this time, Papa Luks realized that Maharaji was no ordinary man and was not surprised that he knew how

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much the taxi had cost him, so he asked if he could stay there. Maharaji, of course, gave him a room, and Papa Luks was now happy. When he started learning about the path, he would ask Maharaji every day to be initiated. Maharaji told him he must first read some books and know what it was he was asking for. Later that month he was initiated.

We met Papa Luks during Baba Gurinder Singh Ji's Satsangs in Baltimore. Mary took us all with her and introduced us to Papa Luks, who was a good friend of hers. When Papa Luks was at Dera later that year, he asked Baba Gurinder Singh if he could invite all of Mary's group to Venezuela when He was coming that year. He also mentioned how close he felt to the two fellows with beards, who drove him round. He was speaking of myself and Adam Hoffman. The Master told Papa Luks that he felt close to us because we three had been brothers in a past life. So, Baba Ji Gurinder Singh consented and Papa Luks invited all of us, and we sat in the front row. This was the first time I had seen Baba Gurinder Singh up close and it was quite an experience. The lady next to me whispered that his left eye was a big beam searchlight and that is why the Masters are called Lighthouses! This of course was her spiritual experience, and she should not have told me.

When I got back to my hotel, I did something very dumb! The water in my room (at the Hilton Hotel) was brown, and I asked the front desk if it was

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okay to drink. The front desk attendant said that of course it was, all the local people drank it. I should have paid more attention to his word, local, but I did not. The next two days, I became good friends with the hotel doctor and dared not leave my room. I became extremely sick with Montezuma's revenge, and could not attend the last day of Satsang, nor go to Papa Luk's home to see Maharaji.

Skipping ahead to 1993, Mary's health had been on the decline since Maharaj Charan Singh had passed away in 1990. Doug looked after her day and night. He truly was her devoted and most loving caregiver. Mike Martin, Tee Tasker, and I took care of most things in the management of the business since Doug was unable to continue in his position as President and CEO. It was impossible for him to care for Mary and look after the business both at the same time. Doug's first interest was in caring for Mary. Nothing else occupied his time.

After seven plus years of this constant care and company, Mary passed away in 1998. I was happy for her to go, because she had been suffering so much for so long.

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Meeting Baba Kehar Singh Ji

Now we come to 2004 when we met Baba Kehar Singh Ji, our True Friend and Benefactor. I had been searching on and off for many years for a good version of Anurag Sagar, perhaps the most famous book in the world next to the Vedas, and perhaps the oldest book, written by a great Saint named Kabir. One day in January 2004, the thought struck me to search on the Internet because Baba Sawan Singh Ji had said to Seth Vasdev, who was His driver, that “…without studying the Anurag Sagar, one cannot fully understand the difference between Kal … and Dayal Mat, … nor can one fully grasp the teachings of

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Sant Mat.”

So I happened to find Radha Soami Satsang

Tarn Taran and Baba Ji's version of Anurag Sagar. I called and got three copies of all three volumes and every morning Doug would read from it for our daily morning Satsang at the shop. That is how we start our mornings at Specialty House. After a month or so I thought, I wonder if Baba Ji ever comes to this

country. I called Vipin Sian, who has been close to Baba Ji's family, and asked him. He was very kind to me and told me, “Yes, in fact He will be coming next month. If you want to see Him, I will arrange it.” I immediately made an appointment for all of us! Then I started wondering if He spoke English. Anyway, we went there and we all sat in front of Baba Ji at Prem Singh's house. Baba Ji was very beautiful and kind beyond any words. He was so happy that we had been initiated by Maharaj Charan Singh Ji, and He said, “You don't have to have the least worry... you are going Home... Maharaj Charan Singh Ji was a Great and Complete Saint of the Highest Region.” Then He invited us to His Satsang that night at the Fire Hall in Burlington. We all went there. He actually looked very much like Maharaj Charan Singh to me, which He does quite often. We enjoyed the Satsang tremendously, even though there were fire alarms, continuous loudspeakers, and every kind of noise going on. But Baba Ji's focus and attention was so fixed, it did not even make a drop in His ocean. From that day on, we wanted Him to come and stay with us

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in Pittsgrove, New Jersey, and give Satsang there the next year, since the fire hall seemed very distracting, at least to us. Baba Ji sent Vipin Sian, his mother, Nirmal, and their family over to meet with us. They were very happy to come over and the next year, Baba Ji stayed with us overnight and part of the next day.

What actually took place turned out to be very interesting. Right before visiting, He had decided not to come because He was taken to the hospital with heart pains two days before; but He did not let us know this. We found out later that He had initiated someone who had heart problems. However, when He was in the hospital and deciding to change His plans on coming to see us, Mary and Maharaj Charan Singh came to Him in a vision. Maharaji asked Him to take care of Mary's group. Baba Ji also had a vision of the first time He met Mary at Dera Tarn Taran. The story goes like this.

When Maharaj Charan Singh had visited Tarn Taran for the first time when Baba Partap Singh Ji was Master, He brought two ladies with Him. Mata from Jammu, who stayed at Dera Beas, and was well known as being a very spiritual lady, and Mary. While Baba Kehar Singh Ji was giving the introduction speech to the Sangat before the Satsang, Mary asked Mata who the gentleman giving the speech was? She said, “He is the son of Baba Partap Singh Ji.” So after the Satsang, Mary motioned for Baba Kehar Singh to come over to them. Both ladies put their hands on

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Baba Ji's head in blessing, and told Him that one day He would be the head of the Dera. This was the first time He had been told this. I am including a small part of a letter that Baba Kehar Singh wrote to us in this regard.

My visit to this place is due to the foresight wish of Madam Mary and by the Order of Maharaj Charan Singh Ji. Now it is my wish that you should fix a day and celebrate the same day every year in memory of the Saintly Lady Madam Mary to awaken the people from the slumber of the mortal world.

Now back to our first day in Pittsgrove with Baba Ji. A very funny incident happened in the afternoon when I was at the cabana with Nirmal as she was cooking Baba Ji's lunch. A sister Satsangi ran in, quite upset. She had taken Feather, Mary's little poodle, and showed her to Baba Ji and said, “This is my little girl.” Baba Ji had said, “Yes, you will come back to be her mother again.” Now, not understanding Baba Ji's humor, she was beside herself in a panic and ran into the cabana to get an interpretation from Nirmal. Nirmal explained that the Masters never curse you like that; He was just having a little fun with her. She said that they are a Positive Power and being this, will never say anything that will hurt you. But we, of course, have a fear because whatever they say comes true. But we also have to know that the Saints love humor. Now try to keep these two things in mind at the same time.

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First Personal Interview with Baba Kehar Singh Ji

My first personal interview with Baba Kehar Singh Ji was quite profound. I did not intend to have a personal interview since He had just gotten out of the hospital and we were told that everyone should leave Him alone and let Him rest. However, when I came to the cabana to bring ketchup over, my good friends, Nirmal and Govind Sian, pressed me to have a personal interview. Govind said, “All Masters are One, thus He is your True Father also, so there should be no fear or hesitation.” So, I decided to go and sit in His presence. Even though He claims not to speak English, He can speak very well when He wants to. To prove this, Nirmal came in with me to interpret, but He did not let her say much more than two words.

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I sat down and He was sitting on the bed looking at me. The first thing He said to me was this: “Stop meditating on Mary.” Mary was my true Mother, and being so attached to her after she had passed away in 1998, I had started thinking of her and then began meditating on her. I found that when I meditated thinking of her, I would have many visions and beautiful things. However, no one in this world but God and me knew that I was doing this. Then Baba Ji said, “No. You only meditate on your own Master, Maharaj Charan Singh! It is against the principles of the Sant Mat.” You see, I had not seen Maharaji Charan Singh since 1971 and as Baba Kehar Singh Ji quotes Kabir on this subject, “You should see the Master every day; if not every day, every second day; if not every second day, then once a week; if not once a week, then once every two weeks; if not every two weeks, then at least once a month; if not once a month, then for sure once every six months; if not that, then once a year.” Then Baba Ji adds, “If you cannot see your Master at least once a year, you break the connection with Him.” Unless, that is, you already travel on the inner regions with Him.

The Master is our life and our breath. He is our Protector and only Friend in this world. If we do not see Him a minimum of once a year, then it is very difficult to keep up that Sweet Remembrance. The Shabad Practice and Simran, with Sweet Remembrance of our Master, is our Soul's food.

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Without giving the Soul her food, she will become sick. Neither air nor food is so precious. Without our Meditation every day, whether successful or not, we will suffer terribly the agony of being away from the Great Conscious Presence, and consequently be miserable down deep. Lord is All Consciousness and we are a Drop of that Consciousness and when we hear the Shabad and actually listen, we expand and slowly get to know His Will for us, and what the Great Lord-Master wants. Without that, pleasing the Master and God is difficult. Mary would often say, “When you are dealing with the Master, you are not dealing with organized religion but all the Power in the Universe. You're dealing with dynamite.”

Still sitting in front of Baba Ji, He told me the story of Arjuna, and seeing and aiming at a bird. Finally after so much work, Arjuna only saw the eye of the bird and aimed at that. So during meditation, if we do not keep the deep-seated Remembrance of our Master, it is very hard to stay on track and focused, as the mind will bring in a million and one thoughts, pictures, things we are in the middle of at work, and memories of the day and of our life. Sometimes we Satsangis may say that we have had no experiences or visions. The truth of the matter is that if we do our Simran sincerely, even for one day, the Master will give us Blessings. Lord will show us some miracle, something beautiful, or we will hear the Shabad. The Master and Lord does not hold back these gifts and wants only to give to us, but if we do not really make

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an effort, a sincere effort, how can He give to us? It is similar to going to school. We have to do our homework and really focus on the subject if we want to learn it. So, even doing Simran for a day or making sincere efforts at it for a day, Master will give us Grace and we will see some beautiful miracle. The skies may not open, however, something beautiful will happen. I think it was Dev Prakash from Beas who used to say that the Master, is our Father. He asks us to run around the house ten times so he has some excuse to give us something. That is what our meditation is. It is simply running around the house with faith.

When the interview was over, Baba Ji was giving me Parshad and I asked for Nectar. Baba Ji looked at Govind and asked him in Punjabi, “How does he know about this?” I had read the sweet book, Before and After Initiation. Of course, I was quiet and did not volunteer information so Baba Ji gave a concession. He gave me Parshad Rice and said, “When you have only four grains of rice left, fill the bag up again with a large amount of rice and it, too, will be Parshad.” My friend in Canada had told me that every time he went to sit in meditation, he would take four or five grains of Parshad from Baba Ji and he would hear the Shabad ring. It is amazing how the Parshad helps your meditation, for that is what it is really gifted to us for.

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That reminds me of what Mary would always say: “Always carry a letter from the Master on your person, in your pocket. This will raise your vibrations.” In other words, carry something that the Master has blessed, or something He has given you, some article of clothing, et cetera. Carry it with you at all times because it will help you and will bring you happiness.

She would also say, “When you go to the supermarket, don't let anyone touch you when giving you money. Don't touch anyone, and don't look in their eyes.” Remembering that eyes are the windows of the soul, when we look at people, in a way, we merge with them and the more we meditate, the more we will feel every little thing, negative or positive. Thus, everything has its price. So we should be careful who we focus our eyes on as everything affects us when we are following the Path of Sant Mat.

When Baba Ji left America, I was very sad. However, He had given me three Apples (Parshad) and I found three more that were left in the Parshad bin. I would eat one every day, and it gave me solace and so much happiness inside.

The Masters say, “You must live your life by Guru's Commands and make His Orders your life.” It is said that it is like walking on the sharp edge of a razor, which actually means we will be cut to pieces.

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In that context Mary used to say, “If the Master is pleased with me, everyone else is going to have to be.” What this meant, of course, is that she looked at pleasing Master-God as priority number one, and in fact, life itself. And if people did not like it, which they never do, it is unfortunate but it is too bad. That is the way she passed her life. She was a grand spiritual Warrior and that is what is needed from all of us. We are all afraid of the mind but if we serve Guru and God first, sooner or later, He will bless our small efforts. By being consistent and making this the habit of our life, Guru blesses us. This is extremely important since the foundation of Meditation and Simran is built upon pleasing Guru and God first. We live by habits and that is one of the secrets, the Masters say, of controlling the mind. Change its habits, slowly changing them to what is beneficial for our Spiritual Life. Rather than 'matching' energy with it and forever fighting with the mind, slowly change its bad habits to good habits. That is what is meant by making the mind your friend. As Baba Kehar Singh Ji says, use the Stick of Simran with love to control it. Speaking of Blessings of God, Baba Ji also says that if we help some poor person who is in the hospital, and nurse him back to health, when he comes back to life, in a sense, and opens his eyes and looks at us with gratefulness, it is really God looking through his eyes giving us a great Blessing. These kinds of Blessings or Merits are very beneficial. This goes for all creatures.

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The other day I was driving over a bridge and there were two turtles trying to get across the bridge, about 40 feet from one another. I could see they were very distressed since cars were zooming by, so I stopped the car and rescued the small turtle, but when I went back to get the larger one, he was already crushed. Then I went on my way. A few minutes later, I felt a very strange feeling of blessedness or love come over me. It was the turtle's gratefulness: God blessing me through the turtle. When I got home, I found a turtle on my doorstep! Never in my life have I had a turtle on my doorstep. Another one of God's miracles. He works and talks through everyone, every animal, and everything. This is a Love game and we have just to re-open our ears and our eyes and our hearts to Him. It only needs our commitment to make God and Master the first priority in our life. We, being attention, should try to absorb ourselves into the Great Attention which is GOD. And Master is the Gateway to God or the secret doorway to God.

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Arriving in New Delhi

In 2009 I decided to go to Dera Baba Bagga Singh in Tarn Taran. We had seen Baba Kehar Singh Ji every time He came to America, but I had never been to India to see Him. There were very small crowds in each city He went to in America and I did not have any idea of the large following He had in India. I left Philadelphia after two and a half weeks of staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 A.M. every night in my office – so everything would be in order while I was gone. I caught the British Air plane at 10:00 P.M. and after about twenty-three hours, I arrived at Indira Gandhi Airport. My back had gone out and I was very stressed out by now. Ashok Pabbi, the Secretary of the New Delhi Sangat, and Rajiv Lochen, one of the sevadars, picked me up at the airport, but it was very late, probably 2:00 A.M., so they were probably a little tired, having waited at the airport for two hours. When I was in the car with them, Rajiv was very kind and he speaks very good English; but when Ashok dropped him off, I realized that Ashok did not speak much English, and I did not know him very well; so I now felt even more out of sorts, like a stranger in a strange land. On top of that, New Delhi did not look very nice at night because people were sleeping on the street and there was dirt piled up everywhere.

When we got to Ashok's residence, I just went up to bed, distressed. I was asking myself why I had left America. Was my pet bird, Melvin well taken care

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of? I worried that I had not left very good instructions for his care. I felt like I was trapped in a strange prison. However, the vibrations of the room were so beautiful that neither could I sleep a wink, literally, nor could I stop doing Simran (I did not know at the time that they put me in Baba Ji's room). Morning came and I was still very upset; I had wound up sleeping perhaps a grand total of fifteen minutes. Again, I was afraid that no one in the house spoke English so I could not say what I wanted. Suddenly, a miracle took place. A beautiful Angel walked into my room with Ashok. She looked at me and speaking perfect English, she said, “Hello! My name is Ashima. Please tell me what you want and I will see to all your needs. Nirmal has already told me what you can and cannot eat.” This was Ashok's daughter. I began calming down now, but I had upset Ashok so much by my vibrations (since he knew I was very upset). He must have thought that either Baba Ji had sent him some crazy man to look after or I had some serious illness, so then and there, he got Baba Ji on the phone to calm me down. Baba Ji was very kind, as He always is, and told me to take care of my business of printing in New Delhi and then come to see Him.

I had come to Delhi to stay a few days so that I could meet with printers and Baba Ji wanted me to get the work done. Soon I started meeting the Delhi Sangat and it was quite an experience. Kindness and Service: everyone helped with everything! After a day of this, I now felt like I had been dropped in some

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Heavenly, spiritual world. In fact, everyone in Ashok's family cared only for serving the Master, which meant taking care of any guests in a most beautiful way. To be honest, it should be a lesson for everyone in the art of entertaining guests! Mary used to say, “When a guest comes to stay with you, you should look at it as if God Himself had come to your house, and treat him that way.” Ashok's wife had just undergone a serious operation and even though she spoke no English and I am perfectly illiterate in Punjabi, she was very, very sweet and I sat with her and talked with her, as best I could. Ashok asked another preacher who spoke English, Ashok Kumar, to come and give me Satsang, which made me very happy. In fact, the spirit of True Brotherhood is seen so clearly here, it is very touching and it is a great example for those following a Spiritual Path. Then, that night, Ashok's brother Ramesh wanted to take me out to dinner. He spoke excellent English. He first took me to his beautiful home, and his wife had made the most wonderful food. We sat and talked and enjoyed dinner for an hour and a half or more. Then he looked at me and said, “Are you ready to go for dinner?” “I thought we had just finished dinner!” I said. It is similar to when you travel with Baba Ji, or just go to devotees' homes; everywhere you go, you eat wonderful Indian food, again and again. Finally it was 10:00 P.M. and time for dinner.

By now, it was hard for me to say goodbye. I enjoyed everyone's company too much, as they say in

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India. The next day, they put me on a train to Chandigarh to be with Nirmal Sian for two days before going to Dera Tarn Taran. Three sevadars, along with Ashok, took me to the train station, carried the bags, (they would not let me do anything or pay for anything) and made sure I was on the right train and knew what to do. The train ride was most interesting. India is a magnificent country, much like going back in time maybe a hundred or two hundred years in the villages, compared to America. There are buffalos, farms, and farmers everywhere. When I arrived in Chandigarh, again: another shock! I thought I had arrived back in America. It is a beautiful city, laid out the way a beautiful town in the U.S.A. would be. Actually, it is much nicer than the U.S.A. Clean, sidewalks, plants and flowers everywhere. This was a big treat for me as I had started to think that all of India was just like New Delhi, which is beautiful in its own way, but there is unfinished road work everywhere, trash strewn about, driving anywhere is like going on a suicide mission, and so many poor and homeless people sleeping all over, that it breaks your heart.

Nirmal has always been a Spiritual Mother to me so I felt a great peace when she met me at the train station with her son, Vineet. During my entire stay and return, Vineet took off from work and would always help with anything needed in a true spirit and a happy heart. It is very rare to find this in people. Nirmal and I spent the next day and a half talking

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about the Path and Baba Ji, and then she hired a car to take us to the Dera. The trip was uneventful, which is to say, we did not get killed on the road, for everyone drives as if they will die if they do not reach their destination five minutes earlier. After four hours of traveling, we reached the city of Tarn Taran. I knew we were in Tarn Taran because when we came into the city, a very strange thing happened. This city radiated love and peace. I had never been in any city before where I had felt anything like this phenomenon upon driving into the city limits. I concluded to myself that this was because Baba Ji's radiation of Peace and Love is so powerful, it blesses the entire city.

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Dera Tarn Taran

When we arrived in Dera, there were many sadhus waiting for us and we were ushered into Baba Ji's quarters. He told us that he was worried about us since we were supposed to have arrived many hours earlier and we should have called Him. It was a great treat to see Him again. Soon, we went to rest. When I first got to my room, I was so surprised. Baba Ji had knocked out part of a wall that week to put an air conditioner in for me because it was mid-October and very hot. The room was filled with fresh flowers, beautiful rugs, most beautiful! How can you thank someone for heart kindness? I felt as if I had come Home after oh so long a time. Then Promela, the lady running the kitchen, brought Nirmal and I a

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wonderful lunch which we sat and ate in my room.

After that, I took a small nap and then we went to the evening Satsang. There was Darshan, where the Master sits and you have the opportunity to enjoy His Presence, and the children were singing and dancing in front of Baba Ji. The little girls were play acting and performing little skits, which Baba Ji later explained was to teach them how to act in family situations when they get married, to help them learn real Sant Mat etiquette, and thus save them from doing something that could cause them serious problems in their new families, possibly for a lifetime. He had us sit right in front with Him and it was great fun. There was one little girl who I kept looking at because she was so bright. I later found out that she knew her past life with the Masters and would point to many things in the Dera and explain what they were (when she had first learned to talk). That “this was Baba Bagga Singh's well,” and that He would bathe there every day. That “this was Baba Pratap Singh's Touring Automobile,” and so on.

On to the following morning. The first day went like this: meditation at 3:30 or 4:00 A.M., breakfast at 7:00 A.M., then shower and get ready for the day, Satsang at 9:00 A.M., and then Baba Ji's Darshan at 10:00 A.M. and Baba Ji ends this by giving out Parshad. He would come down from His room at 10:00 A.M.; and it was so kind of Him – I could see Him looking around for me. Of course, I was the only

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Westerner and I guess everyone found it novel. When you go to Satsang, you should always only look at and into the Master's eyes. Forgetting everything else, you will get the Radiation of his Love. This is the language we have to learn. Then after Darshan and Parshad, Baba Ji would walk over to a gazebo-type area with trees and a raised platform that is very beautiful and calming. There He sits for two hours or more every day and people from all over India come with their families for His kind blessings and holy utterances. Of course, He solves all their problems in the most wise and profound way and treats everyone who comes as His own family. He then distributes Parshad and sweets as the people leave. Nirmal and I would enjoy sitting with Him as he went through his correspondence with Poonam, the secretary who reads the letters to Baba Ji and writes down His replies. When his lunch of fruit would come, He would always give us some. We also enjoyed asking Him questions.

This time was such a happy time for me, like being in a spiritual land. I remember when an ant was crawling up His beard, I grabbed it and threw it off, onto the ground. He looked at me and said, “How would you like it if someone did that to you?” He was kidding of course (I think)... He has a sense of humor that no one can match. You see, in Baba Ji's latest book, Shanke Ashanke, He explains that we should not kill any living creatures, which includes insects. I had been used to killing spiders and in America, it is

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part of life to spray chemicals to keep insects out of your house. However, after reading this, I stopped killing spiders, stopped spraying chemicals, and even let the wasps build a nest next to my door, since I figured they also need a place to live. At first everyone thought I was losing my mind at the business, but I stuck to this. After a while, a very strange thing happened to me. Firstly, my fear of spiders and insects vanished. I no longer feel spiders are my enemy and, in fact, they do know it. The spiders are no longer afraid of me and just watch me, but without fear. None of the insects are afraid of me. You see, they really know that now I will not harm them. I found a great invention called a 'Spider Catcher' which is like a broom that traps bugs inside of it without hurting them. It catches any spiders or insects in the house that you want to remove. You open the door and open it up and this lets them out. So, this nonviolent attitude erased the fear I had always had of spiders and some other insects. It is a very real transformation inside oneself that happens, and it feels good not to squash and kill these beings.

Back to sitting outside with Baba Ji. This turned out to be a few days of great happiness for me. Baba Ji sits outside in the gazebo every day after Satsang, and as I just mentioned, people come from all over the world to see Him. He does not have anyone there as secretary to make appointments. He sees anyone who comes to see Him, anyone who needs advice or help with problems. Families keep

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coming bringing their problems and questions to His doorstep. He laughs and happily answers everyone so kindly, and solves everyone's problems in a way only God could. I know this personally since when I have problems, He answers in such depth and wisdom that only God Himself could answer like that. He also knows everything about the real problem, and if we approach Him in this respectful attitude, we will get the true and Godly answer, directly from God.

The next day was another great treat. After morning Satsang, we again went and sat with Baba Ji under the tree. I was having a hard time keeping my mind quiet, and to boot, I was very tired from the time difference and the weeks of preparing for the visit. I said, “Baba Ji, I am having a really difficult time with my mind. Please help me.” After that confession, things became easier. If we have problems, or have done something we are ashamed of, Mary used to say, “There is more room out than in.” This means that even if we confide and tell a friend this, or better still, if we confess and ask forgiveness from our Master, the problem slowly dissipates. We have literally let it out. Slowly the problem, or evil, is dispelled because it is not confined anymore to a closed in room (in our head), so to say. This is a very deep truth and is something we should ponder. There were many times after that experience in the gazebo when I would come to Baba Ji and I would be weeping inside. He would always divine this and say something comforting and kind, reading my problems. Anyway,

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after He had met with many people that day, he said, “Today is the day that I eat with the entire Langar. Let's go!” He took me to the Langar where everyone was sitting in long lines and sat me next to Him. As we waited for the food, He said to me, “I see everyone directly. I do not have anyone in between myself and the Sangat. Anyone can come to me with their problem or complaints when I sit here. This keeps everyone straight, and politics out.“

The next day I wanted a tour of the Dera, but I did not know who to ask as I was walking around. Suddenly, Manjit, the sevadar who takes care of Baba Ji's clothes and also oversees the buffalos' fresh milk and fresh yogurt daily, walked by. He does not speak English, but like many there, he would move by Baba

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Ji's wishes. He looked at me and signaled for me to follow him and he would show me around. Every day he would give me a tour of something. That day he took me across the way to see the buffalos. They were very big and when I got too near a calf, one of the mothers got very upset and tried to break her chain. Manjit, a very small man, ran up to her. She had evidently known him since she was a calf herself, since she cowered when he reprimanded her. That evening, when Nirmal and I went up to Baba Ji's room where everyone sits and enjoys listening to him, He said to me, “Did you see the Buffalos today?” I said, “Yes, Baba Ji, thank you!” You see, they say when you sit in the presence of a Realized or Complete Master, if you remain silent and know that He knows everything, He may tell you something most interesting. In other words, since He knows us, He also knows our problems and understands our heart. It is something which cannot be described or explained, just experienced. Just know that the radiation or conversation from His eyes is the best way to learn. That is where love is learned. We Americans think we can learn these things from books. But in reality everything is a gift.

At breakfast and lunch, the ladies who work in the kitchen would bring the leftovers from Baba Ji's meals as Parshad. I have read in Swami Ji's biography by Chacha Ji, Swami Ji's younger brother who became the Master, that anytime we can have milk, or Parshad off the Master's plate, that is especially

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blessed.

One evening, Nirmal and I had the blessing of being alone with Baba Ji on his verandah. I had a strangely beautiful feeling that I was sitting with Sat Purush in His Court. I happened to say something a little dumb, which unfortunately, is a habit of mine. I was explaining something and I said, “Yes, Baba Ji, I know manufacturing.” He just smiled and said, “And I know you.” Of course from then on, whenever Baba Ji had an opportunity, he would send me to tour one of His devotees' factories.

The next day Baba Ji wanted me to see the new farm He was purchasing. It was around forty acres and Baba Ji wants to build a free hospital, free school, and other things to take care of the poor. Paramjit, Baba Ji's nephew, took Jasbir and I in his jeep. When we first left the Dera, I breathed a sigh of relief, figuring that finally I would be able to relax and not worry about being killed on the road. Well, Paramjit looked at me and I guess it was easy to see what I was thinking. He said, “You're in my country now! We all drive like this!” When we got to the farm, we drove through it and then after negotiating with the gentleman to purchase the land, Paramjit took us for a walking tour around the property. The path we took followed a raised mound that surrounded the area and sank down into streams and would continually sink into the muddy areas. I was the last in line, walking, and I am sure Paramjit heard me laughing behind him

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as I was trying to figure out how I kept sinking down into the mud and he did not. Then when we finally got back to the one house on the property, Paramjit looked at me kindly and said, “Would you like some tea?” I said, “No.” He looked at me in a sort of shock, as if I had breached some unspoken spiritual etiquette, and said, “No?” I realized what I had done and grabbed the shovel I carry with me for just such an occasion and quickly said “Yes,” as if I had never really said “no.” No one was really convinced, but everyone laughed.

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Next, we were going to the monthly Satsang in Ludhiana. Nirmal and I were lucky and wound up traveling with Baba Ji. Baba Ji had told Nirmal and I to pack and be ready to travel at noon and we would go with another driver. However, at 11:00 AM Baba Ji's gunman was late so He looked at me and said, “Come on, get your bags and you and Nirmal can go with me.” (All V.I.P.s in India are given a military man with a machine gun to travel with them, for their own safety.) I ran to my room and quickly threw everything I needed in my suitcase. Jasbir, who I owed money to for some books I had bought, demanded his money, not caring about my predicament. I threw him my wallet and said, “Take

Going to Ludhiana

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whatever you want!” Of course Jasbir never really cares about money; he only cares for a good laugh, which is like cash to him. Master keeps him around because he makes everyone laugh. He looks like some very, very old Chinese man until he opens his mouth. Then of course you also will laugh.

Anyway, so here we were, running to the car to go with Baba Ji. He smiled because he was very happy we did not waste time but just got it done, and came running. He once told me that when He asks for something, He expects it to be done "yesterday." This is how it is with these realized Souls. Procrastination is a big sin to them. Once in the car, Nirmal and I sat in the back. When I started to talk to Nirmal about mundane things, I could see Baba Ji raise his hand, which meant, Be quiet and you may learn. So, from then on, I was very quiet.

Everywhere on the road, Satsangis were waiting for Baba Ji. He would stop, give Blessings and Parshad, and a loving kind word to everyone. It was like something out of the Bible. Everyone knew His itinerary, and everyone shared with each other. Then we got to a beautiful home where we all got out for a little while. Again, the family had cooked lunch and everyone was waiting for Baba Ji's blessings. Nirmal and I left because I had wanted to shop for shawls to give to everyone back home. Baba Ji had said to me at the Dera, “I think you will find the best shawls in Ludhiana.” Then He said to me, “If you

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want you can look in Amritsar, though, as they have a many shops with shawls there.” I replied, “No Baba Ji, you said Ludhiana, so Ludhiana is where I will go.” He looked happy after I said this. (Ah, a rare moment of a perfect attitude.) So, we were off to purchase shawls. It took quite a while since I had to have the money converted to rupees and bankers spend a long, long time making sure the transaction is legitimate and the money you give them is neither counterfeit nor illegal. Things go very slowly in India because no one is in a hurry to get anything done; except of course when on the road, where life and limb is not as valuable as saving two minutes. Every transaction in India is done over tea, and life takes on a more relaxing atmosphere, as opposed to America where, when out doing business or some transactions, no one cares about each other for everyone is busy worshiping the Golden Idol, the God of Money. In fact, most of the time, no one even knows their neighbors in America, whether they are hungry, or dying.

After having the money converted we came to the shop and I purchased some shawls as gifts for friends in the states and then we were off to the Ludhiana Satsang Center. Baba Ji was already there, sitting on the dais while a line of about 150 people were waiting to see Him, one by one, some offering sweets, and everyone getting Parshad of one type or another. This went on for at least three or four hours. The entire time I was there, the line was continuous

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and at least 700 people or more talked to Baba Ji personally. Nirmal explained that while getting all the shawls blessed by Baba Ji, it was proper etiquette for me to offer Him one since He continually blesses everyone He sees with Parshad of some type, and whatever gifts He is given, He re-distributes as Parshad. Many people bring boxes of sweets and other things. In turn, Baba Ji blesses it and gives it to someone else. Each person would come up and talk for a few moments or minutes, tell Baba Ji his individual or family problems, and Baba Ji would give a solution, His Blessings, and Parshad, which consisted of apples, bananas, rice, or one of the gifts He was given. This was a most beautiful thing to watch. He was so happy and buoyant. I also wanted to ask a question and finally he signaled for me to come up. I wanted his blessing to get married, but He looked at me and would not let me talk. Later that year, he sent me a message when I asked for his blessings to get married. The message was simply that he would of course bless me if I wanted to get married, but I should only get married when I have found someone who really loves me. I found this message so kind and beautiful; it went right to the heart and reverberated in my brain so much that I came to the conclusion that no one really loves me but God, and so I forgot about marriage. Baba Ji was of course saving me, as is His habit, if we but listen to Him.

The next day at Satsang, there were about 8000

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people. The place was beautiful and Baba Ji sat very high up on a stage. When he saw me in the front row, he signaled for someone to bring me a cushion to sit on. This was just an outward sign of the great kindness he showed to me and to everyone. After Satsang, which was about an hour and a half, everyone sang a few of the Shabads that Baba Ji wrote. He writes beautiful Shabads that are poetry. I have included four of His poems at the end of this chapter, but it is truly unfortunate that English is such a hard language, and that the great devotional words found in the Punjabi language are missing completely in English. This makes it difficult to convey the true and sweet meanings of these Shabads, which are really devotional hymns to teach the people all the deepest lessons of Spirituality, and teach us all about the Teachings of the Saints, which is a science of the heart. Many of the stories sound a little far fetched to us Westerners. However, the Path, having its foundation in Truth, explains that these stories are actually how we must 'learn' or 'practice' living if we really want to progress into the Spiritual Regions, which is not, as the masters say, like having pudding at your Aunty's house. It is a very difficult process that involves learning to die while living. Baba Ji discourses a lot on this subject, to be dead while yet alive. Here is an excerpt from Baba Ji's book Anurag

Sagar Part 1 (by Kabir). It is actually Baba Kehar Singh Ji's discourses on Anurag Sagar that were turned into a book. It is full of Jewels and Secrets of spirituality:

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This shows that the disciples went through many difficult trials and tests before they got Nam; but you have received initiation so easily – that is why you don't do any practice. Tell me, how then can God be realized? Remaining in a death-like condition and obeying one's Guru. Only then can God be realized. The death-like state is like a sieve. It preserves the useful while allowing dust and sand to fall through.

The Saints also isolate their selected disciples like the sieve. Earth is neither elated when you grow sandalwood trees, nor annoyed when you throw dirt over it. Even if you plough it up or dig a well, the Earth does not complain.

The Earth regards the virtues and vices of people in the same light. If any harm is done to it, the Earth does not mind, but accepts it as a source of happiness. Satsangis should be like the earth. They should look upon a person who abuses them or a person who praises them in the same light – treating them both with the same regard. Don't take anything ill, nor should you mistreat a person who speaks to you in harsh or abusive language.

After the afternoon Satsang, Baba Ji went to the Sangat Satsang room, where again, there must have been 600 people or more standing in line to get His Blessings and Parshad. He would speak to everyone individually and answer their questions and problems. I found this almost unbelievable. What

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human being has the capacity to do this, I asked myself? You see, Baba Ji is a down-to-earth Master. He was the General Manager of the big Railway Workshop and so he knows how to take things apart and put them back together. His approach to the Path is the most simple, yet the most effective, of any of the Masters I have studied; and I have studied many of the Radha Soami Masters, and other Saints, from many different centers since initiation. The teachings are of course based upon love, but He explains the most difficult art of meditation in the most simple, yet profound, way. I have found His approach, by far, the simplest and the most effective; not to say that I have succeeded, as I am struggling every night and every day. However, He gives the basics and 'how to do it' better than anyone, I think. If his disciples have problems remembering their Master, Baba Ji says look at (and focus on) His photograph for a few minutes before meditation. This is not to visualize the photograph inside, but to bring to the consciousness the deeper, subconscious Remembrance of the Master. This helps one in keeping the focus in Simran directed upwards toward the God Presence, or our own Master's Presence, while meditating. He states so many deep secrets in His Satsangs and they are found in His books, which, if one actually studies these, rather than reading them casually, it can only help with meditation.

Now Nirmal and I were waiting outside until Baba Ji finished seeing all the people waiting in line

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after Satsang. I figured we would be allowed to follow Him to the next place in one of the other cars, but to my surprise, He kindly looked at Nirmal and I and said, “Come on, get in!” So we sat in the back seat. This became the most profound thing I had ever had the honor of witnessing in my lifetime. The entire Sangat was standing single file; hundreds of people, waiting as His car went by. He went very slowly and touched many of the people on the head, or said

Radha Soami, and smiled, but He Blessed everyone.

The ladies were in tears, and everyone had their hands together and were saying the beautiful words “Radha

Soami.” This was so touching that no words could

describe the picture. More like something from another world, another time, another age; truly something straight out of the Holy Bible.

Then we went to Hira Singh's house for lunch. Hira Singh is the president of the society that takes care of the Dera. He also is a very loving devotee and has very large factories on his premises (which Baba Ji had me tour). There was a big, beautiful room where Baba Ji sat on a small dais. There were very large pictures of all the Tarn Taran Masters, along with all the Beas Masters, on the walls. Baba Ji then told us that lunch was waiting, and to “go and enjoy.” I went in to a beautifully set table with Hira Singh and Baba Ji's Satsangis, numbering about twelve of us, once seated. Hira Singh's wife and girls served the food. Mr. Hira Singh's house was more like a huge palace, and the feeling I had was very strange. I felt

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like I was eating at a Kings table. In fact, it was a feast for kings. But you see, one feels that after being in Baba Ji's Presence, being in a real King's court would be no big deal and it would not impress you at all. This is the real truth.

This is where Nirmal and I left Baba Ji and

went to Chandigarh. I said “Radha Soami,” and

thanked Him for everything. He wanted me to tour one of Hira Singh's son's factories on the way to Chandigarh. We arrived there at about 10:30 P.M. The factory did the largest casting I had ever seen. I understood casting from the point of view of small, little jewelry parts, but his factory had casting machines the size of buildings, which casted parts that weighed tons, and put streets together.

Arriving back in New Delhi, again, Ashok and Rajiv picked me up at the train station and took me back to Ashok's residence. I had one day to spend, since I had to catch a plane for Shanghai the next day. That evening was a most beautiful gift for me. It was the Diwali festival, which means the Festival of Lights. The actual meaning is the victory of Light over darkness, or the entering into the great spiritual regions of Light and leaving the three worlds, run by the negative power. I got to celebrate this holiday with Ashok's family. They had one room with all the Masters' pictures, and they had a tree, and certain ceremonies, which were quite beautiful. It is kind of like our Christmas. Many different kinds of food and

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sweets were passed around, and it was truly a great honor to be allowed to enjoy this with Ashok's family. The fireworks in Delhi were beautiful. Ashok, Ashima, and I sat up on the roof and enjoyed watching the fireworks display until well past midnight. This was like manna from heaven for me. It was the culmination of the most beautiful heart trip that God had seen fit to gift me.

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Four poems by

Baba Kehar Singh Ji (Chandi) Translated from original Punjabi by Mohan Verma*

Where have you disappeared?

My dear Master, where have you disappeared?And where have you hidden?I looked for you everywhere but couldn't find you.You didn't even think what would happen to this world in your absence?

My dear Master, dear Baba Bagga Singh Ji, where have you disappeared? And where have you hidden? I looked for you everywhere.

You were the Embodiment of simplicity and serenity. You lived a virtuous saintly life. Your gaze was so intoxicating. Why did you entangle us in your love when you were to depart from this world? Tell me but one thing, dear Chuslevaria. What will happen to this world in your absence?

My dear Master, dear Baba Deva Singh Ji, Where have you disappeared? And where have you hidden? I looked for you everywhere but couldn't find you.Without you there is none to care about us. None to embrace us. To whom should we bow our head now?

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Tell me one thing dear Manochahlia. What will happen to this world in your absence?'

My dear Master, Baba Partap Singh Ji, Where have you disappeared? And where have you hidden yourself? I looked for you everywhere but couldn't find you.I know not how we got separated, dear Master. All my heart's desires remained unfulfilled. You didn't even share your secrets with me. Tell me one thing, dear Nagawalia, What will happen to this world in your absence?'

My dear Master, where have you disappeared?Neither have the tears dried from my eyes, nor has my sobbing ceased. Like an orphan, no one cares about me and everyone mistreats me. I am being dragged in the turbulant sea of 'Eighty-Four' With no shore in sight. Master, please come to my aid and take me Ashore and have mercy on me.

My dear Master, Baba Charan Singh Ji, Where have you disappeared? And where have you hidden yourself? I looked for you everywhere but couldn't find you.Your devotees are in tears and wail in grief. There is none to console them. Come, my Master, where have you hidden yourself So that I cannot find you anywhere?

My dear Master, where have you disappeared?

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Your beloved Kehar Singh is very sad and grief-stricken. He is athirst for a glimpse of his Father. How can a fish survive out of water?What is to happen to the fire of your separation that is burning inside me? When my inner eye opened, I realized the glory and greatness of my Master within myself. The Light of Baba Partap Singh had manifested inside Chandi. Both had merged into each other and become One.

Show me your lovely face.

Come, my Master, come and show me your lovely face. Without you I see nothing but emptiness all around me. Everything in the house is exactly the same; but your lovely face is not to be seen anywhere. The tree of my life is drying up; please come and water it.Come, my Master, come and show me your lovely face.How can a devotee be at peace without the darshan of his Master? I have been roaming in the cycle of eighty-four for millions of births; and there is no end in sight. I don't see any boatman or even a boat around. How shall I cross the sea and reach the farther shore?

Come, my Master, come and show me your lovely face.You promised me at the time of initiation you would take me across the sea (of 8,400,000 species).But you have sent your daughter to her in-laws and never paid a visit. You know that a girl is respected by her in-laws only if the

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father visits her from time to time. How, my Master, can the garden remain green and blooming if the Gardener doesn't tend it regularly?

Come, my Master, come and show me your lovely face.The Master came in my dream one night. I was extremely elated. I embraced him and told my woes to him; but when I woke up, I realized the purpose of his visit. Whosoever practices Radhasoami Nam (Shabad) according to the instructions of his Master goes inside and becomes one with him and the Lord.

In the Court of the Divine Accountant

There is none in this world as Merciful as Guru. One such as I am totally lost in lust, anger and greed. Nor do I pay any heed to Guru's advice.I don't hesitate to deceive the Guru and have no fear of talking ill of others, Not realizing that Guru is Omnipresent and watches my every action.

At the time of death the messengers of death came and took me into the Court of the Divine Accountant, Dharam Raj. There I saw a strange sight. My Guru was standing beside me. Then only did I realize how merciful my Guru is. A curious thing happened there. My Guru took the account sheet of my karmas (deeds) and tore it to pieces.

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Guru held my hand and took me away. He whom I thought to be an ordinary man, the Divine Accountant bowed his head before. When my eyes opened, I had some idea of the greatness of Guru.

A Banjara

A Banjara* was going from street to street Calling out to the people.

Give me your sorrows and I'll give you Joy in return.That is my deal. Make haste and take advantage of this offer.

He was carrying a pot full of colored water over his head And going from street to street, calling: "Get your Chunaria* dyed with a fast Red color which will last forever." .” What a bargain. Giving out diamonds for mere pennies. But alas, no one was interested in this offer.

Come and make use of this opportunity. You won't get a chance like this again and again.Your Chunaria has become soiled with lust, anger and greed.Take advantage of this opportunity. Lest your Chunaria remain dirty and impure forever.Neither can a visit to Mecca, nor the water of the Ganges Purify your soul. Just reading the Holy Scriptures won't liberate your soul.

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Find a Perfect Living Master and Get the secret of the Divine Word from Him. Meditate on it according to His instructions.Then only will there be a purpose for reading.After receiving the secret of the Divine Word From the Master. Meditate and open the Tenth Door (third eye) where the Master is waiting to help. Where he is waiting to take you to your True Home. There, the drop will merge into the Divine Ocean and Become one with the Lord.

*Chunaria means cloth that covers the head, but here it refers to the soul.*Banjara means a person who sells his goods by going from door to door; but here it refers to the Master.

*Mohan Verma is from Canada and has beautifully translated these poems into English.

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I am adding this, though it did not take place during the previous trip, but it was a most beautiful occasion I would like to share. You see, Baba Ji was invited to a Radha Soami Conference at Dayalbagh. This was an effort to unite all Radha Soamis in spirit by the Master at Dayalbagh. Baba Ji accepted this invitation joyously. Paramjit then inquired as to how many persons would be allowed to accompany Baba Ji. He was told that Baba Ji could bring as many people as he liked; only to please let them know how many were coming so proper arrangements could be made. Baba Ji brought fifty people with Him and I was one of the lucky ones.

After the first part of the trip to Delhi, we were on our way to Agra. Maharaj Prem Ji from Dayalbagh had made arrangements for us to stop in a hotel; many sevadars were there with food and tea. It was such a kind expression of love. Then we followed two cars of sevadars that brought us to Dayalbagh. When, after a long trip of fifteen hours of driving, we entered Agra, they had the roads blocked off and sevadars met us and accompanied us to Dayalbagh. When we entered the gate of Dayalbagh, so many people were standing there with folded hands to greet us with Radha Soami. They had such beautiful arrangements that one bungalow was given separately to Baba Ji and four more houses for everyone else. When we entered our houses, there

Trip to Dayalbagh, Agra in 2010

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were more sevadars there to welcome us with folded hands, greeting us with tea and sweets.

We were told that there was a meditation program in the morning if Baba Ji would like to visit; however, Baba Ji said that firstly He wanted to pay His respects to Maharaj Prem Ji, and then he would be happy to see anything. Later that afternoon, Maharaj Kanwar Singh visited Baba Ji with forty followers. Pathi Babu Ram sang Shabads composed by Baba Ji Kehar Singh, then Maharaj Kanwar Singh's devotees sang Shabads, and two of His disciples sang a Shabad composed by Maharaj Ji. The atmosphere was full of love and it was a great joy to watch.

The last day, all three of the Saints had a meeting in one of the conference rooms. After they all came out, each Master signed a white paper uniting

all the Radha Soami Deras in Spirit, while still

maintaining control of their individual Deras. Next, Prem Ji Maharaj gave a small greeting speech and requested Baba Ji Kehar Singh to give the first speech. The other two Saints also each gave a small speech. I thought it would be appropriate here to add Baba Ji's speech since it is simple but profound. This was all being telecast live on TV.

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Baba Kehar Singh Ji's speech given

November 14, 2010 at Dayalbagh, Agra.

Respected Dear Satsangis,

I had never thought before, that in this place of Swami Ji Maharaj I would be addressing you. It had come to my mind some time back but couldn't be fulfilled at that time. We at Tarn Taran had also started the

mission of bringing all the Radha Soami Deras

together for a conference, but did not receive positive TH

encouragement. We wanted to celebrate the 100 Year Anniversary of when Baba Bagga Singh Ji began initiating people by Baba Jaimal Singh's order.

I am very happy today, as I have come to my Great Grandfather's Home. My Guru is Baba Bagga Singh who had taken initiation from Baba Jaimal Singh Ji, who in turn had taken initiation from Swami Ji Maharaj. In this respect, Swami Ji is my Great Grandfather.

You have given me such respect and asked that I give this small speech. There is no need to belabor this point, but I must say one thing: the number of Spiritual Institutions is growing day by day, but they are forgetting the basic principles of Santmat. Everybody wants his own Dera to be the most popular and successful and have the largest Sangat; and whether Satsangis visit other Deras is not important to them, but I would like to make this point: we had

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never expected that Soami Ji Maharaj, by sitting in His son Prem Ji's heart, would invite all of us to this conference. What we have seen today is not the thinking of a common man. This is the thinking of Soami Ji Maharaj Himself, and what can be stated about that?

I'm sorry to say that we are forgetting our character and losing the fundamentals of Santmat. We are even avoiding using our greeting of Radha Soami. By doing so we are avoiding the roots from which we have been nurtured, which is a truly unfortunate thing. The world is already against the Radha Soami Mission. Radha Soami is spreading rapidly, but instead of growing together, we are trying to grow separately, so we are grateful to Prem Ji for inspiring and bringing us together on one platform. I think that these types of conferences should be held on a more regular basis and we would also like to invite Maharaji to our Dera when the time suits him. What is the difficulty in us all uniting under one banner regardless of 'status', etcetera?

Maharaji had sent me an invitation for this conference and when his messenger came, I had said to him, “When ten alcoholics can drink together out of a single glass, why can't ten saints sit together on a single stage?” Do we need separate stages? No, no. It is a bad thing. I don't have any worse word than 'bad' in this context or I would use it. I do not want to take more of your time, because other respected

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people have to speak also, however, I would like to point out one thing that you will have to admit: Baba Jaimal Singh Ji had come to this Dera and was initiated by Swami Ji Maharaj. Later on He had ordered Baba Jaimal Singh Ji to spread Santmat in the Punjab. The teachings of Guru Nanak and Swami Ji are exactly the same; this should be remembered. As it has been stated, “By listening to the cries of the souls, the Almighty sent Guru Nanak Dev Ji to this world.” He didn't come to this world by his own volition. When the cries of the souls reached the Almighty, Guru Nanak Dev Ji listened. Swami Ji Maharaj listened. Then they each left their Abode of Peace and Harmony to come to this place of misery and suffering and bring a message of Love and Humanity in an effort to give us Namdaan and free us from this world. Unfortunately as we are moving forward we are getting more stuck in the mud of Maya (illusion) and are forgetting our roots.

I only want to add one more thing. My Guru is Baba Bagga Singh. When I grew up, I wondered from whom He had taken initiation. Then I came to know about Baba Jaimal Singh, who is the founder of Beas Dera. Then my Mecca became Beas. When I made more progress, I started thinking from whom Baba Jaimal Singh took initiation. Then I realized that Swami Ji Maharaj was His Guru who had lived in Agra. From then on, my Mecca has become Dayalbagh. We are from different fathers, but our Great Grandfather is the same; we cannot divide

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Him up. I will only say this, “I am very thankful to Maharaj Ji who gave us an opportunity to unite on a single platform, and has taught us the way to love.” I will lastly say that Prem Ji has the great blessings of Swami Ji Maharaj on Him.

Yesterday a discourse of mine was being broadcast on TV and a disciple from Etah, U.P. had called me up saying that he had watched it. I asked him what he got out of it and he said, “In your discourse you had mentioned, 'My Mecca is Dayalbagh,' which impressed me very much.”

Today I have also said the same thing while sitting on this platform, but I had given this discourse long before, and it was just being televised yesterday. It is a very easy thing to forget the name of your Grandfather or Great Grandfather, but I must say that this is a big mistake.

All the disciples and Deras having roots from Swami Ji Maharaj can operate on their own; we are not concerned about that. Our main concern is how to concentrate the mind and retrace the soul from the tip of the toes to the eye center. We had a discussion today about how to teach people the basic principles of

Radha Soami. By teaching these principles people

will benefit.

In closing I must state that Maharaji has been so kind to us by giving us this opportunity to sit on a

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single platform and have discussions. He has given a positive message to the disciples and to the Gurus of how to live together in peace and harmony. I will be very fortunate if you can understand the true meaning of what I am trying to say.

RADHA SOAMI

Kehar Singh

I am also adding Baba Kehar Singh Ji's New Year's Message of 2009 just to show a tiny glimpse of the measure of the man he is. When people want to give Baba Ji birthday gifts, He always says, “If you want to please me, arrange blood donation camps in your Sangat; also leave a will donating body parts when you die.” That will please him most as it is sorely needed in India and really everywhere in the world. It will save someone's life or give them sight back, and you will also get a great blessing from this and please the Lord. I also had been giving blood in the U.S.A. every three months, after I had originally read his message, but it is a much different atmosphere than Baba Ji's camps. Baba Ji's camps are full of love, and the kindness and sweetness of the sevadars is most beautiful. Because of His Blessings in the Blood Donation Camps, there is no pain and no difficulties giving blood – just great Blessings.

On a health note, in Ayurvedic medicine, blood giving is a very beneficial procedure, which Ayurvedic doctors highly recommend. They say that

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as you remove the old blood, it also removes the toxins and tensions that were sitting like sludge in the old blood, and is replaced by pure new blood, so it is highly beneficial for health. It actually feels like a spiritual regeneration. Baba Ji has four Bhandaras yearly at Dera that have free blood camps, dental camps and other free health facilities. He also has arranged blood camps at many of His centers in India.

2009 New Year's message from Baba Ji.

01-01-2009My Dears,

Radha Soami,

By the grace of God, I am hale and hearty here; and wish you to be so also!

I have received very beautiful and thoughtful New Year's cards. I am also sending you my Greetings, Best Wishes, and sharing my views on the eve of the New Year.

Year 2008 has ended and year 2009 has started. Have you ever thought what you have accomplished in the year 2008? Sit alone and think it over. You may have had a chance to visit a hospital, where you might have come across a patient in need of blood. Have you tried to fill his need? If you ever come across a patient near death, and there is no one to look after him, then you should console and look

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after him, taking it to be your duty. Such a kind perspective should be kept in mind and endeavor to act upon it.

We should be thankful to the person who has accepted our donation happily. A donation of body parts is the best donation, and when we really want to donate something, we should donate our body parts. After death, body parts are destroyed when the body is cremated. For example, if a person donates his eyes, and after his death the eyes are transplanted to the body of a blind person, that blind person will be able to see. I have composed a new stanza as follows:

O! Crow, eat my flesh, but do not touch my eyes;because I have preserved these as an offering (donation).

We should always keep it in mind.If you want to donate, donate blood; because

our blood can help a man to survive. If you want to give advice to someone, advise them not to have an abortion, or destroy a fetus. Try to make the person understand that it is a sin against God.

True Masters bring and preach God's message; we should lay ourselves at their feet. Saints and holy books tell us that God's Grace appears in the form of a True Master – and we must make full use of their presence. In their teachings, saints tell us

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repeatedly that we should die before death. Saints like Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Saint Kabir have advised us that we can become one with God only if we practice dying daily. We can achieve this only through practice. People usually ask me when they should do Bhajan and Simran. Saints tell us that early morning time, from 3.00 A.M. onward is the best time to do Bhajan and Simran. This is the only time when nature is calm and everyone is sleeping because no activity by men, birds or animals has started; and at that time it is easier to feel God's Presence. Otherwise, whenever we find time, we should make full use of Bhajan and Simran.

People often ask me how one can overcome the cycle of death and birth. Mind is a negative power and it can only be satisfied by practicing 'Nam' and laying ourselves at the feet of our Master. Without the satisfaction of mind, we cannot become one with God. Shri Guru Ram Das Ji has advised us:

Nam can unite our souls with God.Without Nam, our life is aimless.

To get Nam, we require a perfect Master who can advise and help us to go inside our body. The disciple should avoid the company of bad people because they will take him away from his Master. There is a common saying that a man is known by the company he keeps.

When we have a chance to meet Saints, we

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should sit before them silently. Automatically they help us to ignite love for them within ourselves. God is not bound within the words of Urdu, Persian, English, Punjabi, Hindi, etcetera. We can see Him within us only by the grace of a perfect Master; so try to keep yourself in the company of a perfect Master.

Life is God's gift to us, yet we waste it because we cannot estimate its worth. Only the true Masters can help us to understand this.

I have received greeting cards, letters, and phone calls on the eve of my birthday. I am thankful to the Sangat and pray to God to keep you all happy. However, if you want to please me, organize blood donation camps in your Satsang Centers to serve humankind. Contribute towards worldly and spiritual service. Create a good perspective within yourself so that people benefit by hearing those views.

Yours sincerely,Kehar Singh

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Canadian Tour

The next year, I got a letter from Dera saying that someone was needed to video tape Baba Ji's tour of Canada. I had never taken photos before since it never interested me, but how hard could it be? I always keep in mind what Mary had taught us. “You Satsangis can do things doubly better.” So, I said of course, I would be honored to do this, however, I would have to stay with Baba Ji the entire tour; would this be okay with Him? I was told He was very happy that I would do this. Now to be close to Baba Ji for thirteen days or so was not so easy since ninety percent of what was going on, I could not follow as I do not speak Punjabi and did not understand many of the Sikh ways. When we understand the language, we can tune up, so to say. Or in other words, it engages our mind so we truly can enjoy what is going on and it is easier to put our attention up and just lock onto the Master's eyes. Understanding of the language makes it much easier to do that.

I was allowed to stay with Neelam and Surinder in Ontario, which was where Baba Ji stayed for much of the time. They are both real devotees of Baba Ji. Neelam is a strong woman who always says what she thinks, and that appeals to me. You always know where you stand with her since she does not mince her words to please anyone but the Master. I think that is why Baba Ji loves her so much. And Surinder is the same, except that he is always joking

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and laughing because humor is more important than life itself to him. So at first when I stayed there, Neelam gave me a room next to Baba Ji. I wanted to stay busy doing something productive, so I went down to the kitchen to help – at least cleaning the pots and pans and dishes, while the ladies cooked. Neelam and the ladies did not want a man in the kitchen helping but I would not take no for an answer. I continued washing dishes and finally, when they told me to go and relax, explaining to me that 'I was a man,' in frustration, I blurted out, “No, I am not a man, I am a woman.” After all, we are all God's souls: soul is considered feminine, and God is the only man. After that, they let me help. Poonam and Neelam are very much Baba Ji's daughters, and every day, He would have them sing His Shabads and He would help them with the lyrics and the musical arrangement. In my opinion, even without speaking the language, it is so good, I would like to see the music recorded and distributed.

At one of the Satsangs in Canada, I met a kindly gentleman. He was telling us a wonderful story that I would like to relate. He was initiated by Maharaj Charan Singh Ji right before He had passed away.

A few years later someone had told him that a

Radha Soami Master was giving a talk. He was

drawn there and sat in the back. When Baba Kehar Singh Ji came on stage, he was shocked, as it was

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Maharaj Charan Singh. During the entire Satsang he saw only Maharaj Charan Singh. Finally, when he went home, he prayed to the Master in his heart and said, “If you really are Maharaj Charan Singh, then

please come to my house!” You see, he had left without even talking to Baba Ji, but Baba Ji kept asking Neelam about the man in the back row after Satsang. He pressed Neelam to call the Beas Sangat people and find out who he was. Later that week, the gentleman got a call from Neelam. She said, “Baba Ji would like to come and visit you and wants your address and the address of your business.”

First Baba Ji went to his business and sat in his office for five minutes and closed his eyes; then he asked him to show the actual manufacturing part to him. While showing Him, Baba Ji said, “Why don't you expand the business? There's a lot of opportunity.” The gentleman answered him, “There are some problems financially.” Baba Ji then said, “The money you lost was a very large amount, but you didn't really lose that. That went into Maharaji's hand, and it will bring you more. Don't worry.” By that time they were walking back to the office, and Baba Ji said, “Within two to three years a buyer is going to come to you to buy your business, and you will sell it.” The gentleman then said to Baba Ji, “How is that going to be? First I'm going to expand it, then I'm going to sell it? Baba Ji said, “What I'm seeing, I'm telling you. This is what is going to happen. But, during that period of time you are selling, your wife is

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going to have a serious problem with her health, because she will be concerned about selling the business, and she will wind up in the hospital.” Now what actually happened was exactly like that. A buyer came to him and he sold the business exactly as Baba Ji predicted.

After touring the business, Baba Ji said, “Let's go to your house.” Then they went to the gentleman's residence and Baba Ji sat for half an hour and had a soda, then Baba Ji asked permission to leave. As Baba Ji was leaving, He put his hand on the man's shoulder and said, “Are you happy now that I have come?” As he told me this story, I could see tears running down his cheeks. He now regularly visits him and Satsang is also held there.

Another story of when I was in Canada: a fellow had traveled inside, but had let some 'positive' powers help him with things. They then started to try and control him, and he finally realized that it had created an intoxication that was very bad. He moved away from them but they did not want to let him leave them so they would do things to disturb him. Baba Ji told him “Anytime they come to disturb you, call me on the phone.” So, when he called Baba Ji, these powers would immediately run away and leave him alone. It is strangely beautiful, almost like a fairy tale, how the Masters protect us. But reality is more strange than fairy tales. A Complete or Perfect Master's Hands reach across the ocean, and whatever They say, comes true. They protect you even when

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God will not. That is the gift and greatness of being initiated by a Perfect Master. We slowly learn that there is no other door to knock at.

While in Canada, another interesting question. Someone had asked Baba Ji what they should do because they had been initiated by a representative of one of the Masters in the U.S.A. Baba Ji said that he should go to India and sit in on an actual initiation because then the Master would be imprinted in his eyes and he would be imprinted in the Master's eyes. I do not know if I have explained this perfectly. The way I understand it, the Master or Satguru is firstly the Gateway to God. He is The Link, and He Links us with the Shabad or the Holy Sound Current of Life. If we do not sit in an actual Initiation with Him, how can we do our Remembrance – or as some of the Masters call it: Sweet Remembrance – properly... And this is just as important as Sound and Light Practice. In fact, Baba Jaimal Singh says that a true longing for the Master's Darshan is more beneficial than a hundred years of Bhajan. That Sweet Remembrance also helps focus us to do meditation properly. There is no (real) meditation without love. It is most necessary to go and see our own Master and sit in one of His Initiations if we want to make real progress on the path. If we have been initiated, even if only by the Master's representative, no doubt we have been re-linked with the Holy Word or Nam, so our cycle of birth and death has been snapped and we are going Home. (In that context there is nothing to worry about

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as our coming and going has ended).

Another thing Mary would always say was, “You must face yourself,” which meant that we must face our own mind, which has the habit of bullying us. Just as we would face a bully in school as kids, we have to use this great gift of Simran to become our Divine Self and seat truth where untruth has been sitting. The Masters say that doing Simran is planting seeds of the Spiritual and clearing the path of all the old worldly seeds we have planted. Masters says that it is easy to meet God, but that God is searching for a Real man. It is hard to become a man, a real man. Human really stands for Humanity. Baba Kehar Singh Ji says that that is the religion we should follow: the Religion of Humanity. If we want to go back to God, we have to become exactly like God, or exactly like the Master. I think you will find that Baba Kehar Singh Ji's books are full of these inner secrets, which He throws out like a farmer throwing seeds on a big plantation. Another thing to remember, as I had mentioned before, is that He managed the railway workshop, so He is good at taking things apart and putting them back together. He explains all the components of Spirituality, taking them apart and putting them back together, in such a simple way that makes absolute sense, and helps one on the Path. He explains the finer points and secrets of Spirituality so one can actually grasp and make practical use of them. In a very simple way these most difficult points of meditation are addressed by Him, these very subtle

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points of real devotion that make us or break us!

While Baba Ji was in Canada, He decided to go to the U.S.A. for just a few days. I had intended on staying in the U.S.A., even though Baba Ji was going back to Canada for five more days. because I have to oversee the business here. However, the day after He arrived in Canada, I got a call on my cell phone as I came out of the grocery store that evening. Neelam called me. She said, “Baba Ji wants you to catch the morning plane to Canada. He wants you here with Him.” I said, “I thought He would be very happy to get rid of me for a while.” She put Baba Ji on the phone and I said, “I will be honored to come.” I went back to the office and arranged my plane transportation to Toronto. The plane left at 7:00 A.M. so I had to be at the airport at 5:00 A.M. I had to finish all my duties in our business, so I took care of that, went back to my place and packed; and finished up around 1:00 A.M. Then I got up at 3:30 A.M. and meditated for a little while and then got ready and left.

I had decided to drive myself to the airport so I could leave my car there, since it would only be a few days. However, when I left the house at 4:00 A.M., there was flooding everywhere. It had been raining all night and there was water everywhere. I had never left my car at the airport, so I did not know where I was going, and all the buses and shuttles had stopped because the airport was almost closed down due to

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flooding. By God's Grace, I found my way to the automatic parking lot and started walking back to the airport. I was soaking wet and my bag was soaked. I found out the next day that I would not have been able to go any later than I had because there was severe flooding everywhere, and they had closed the bridges and the airport. Anyway, I got on the plane, arrived in Toronto, and went to see Baba Ji. He was so happy so see me; obviously because of the difficulty getting there on such short notice. So, I got a great Blessing by just showing up.

We should remember that we are all Children of the Light who are returning to our Old Home that we have been cast out of oh so many ages ago. As Baba Kehar Singh Ji says, “It is our Old Sound, the Sound we already know so well. The Regions we are going back to are our regions, they are our home, which we left eons ago.” We are God's Children and He has called us Home through His great Benefactors, called Living Masters or Satgurus. Let us go together.

Now this story would not be complete without telling about Baba Ji's visit to the U.S.A. and seeing Sis, Doug's mom, so I am adding it below.

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Visit to U.S.A.

Baba Ji with Sis at 101, the day before she passed away.

When Baba Ji came to the U.S.A. from Canada, something quite beautiful happened. Baba Ji only came here for a few days, and He had had no plans for coming this year at all. However, He had to go for Doug's mother.

Let me start from the beginning of the story. One day, shortly after Baba Ji had left America in 2007, Jennifer sent Baba Ji a very kind request. She begged Baba Ji to initiate 'Sis', our nickname for Doug's mother, Elizabeth Brookins. This turned out to be the greatest gift Sis could have ever received. Anyway, Baba Ji, like the great Hafiz, is not a body, but He is just a big Heart, nothing else. Anything

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requested lovingly and unselfishly is always blessed by Him in some great way, so He conceded and blessed Sis with Initiation, however, she never knew it.

You see, it was Mary's wish that Doug's parents come here to live in their final years. So, after Mary passed Sis came here to live and had Mary's quarters. She lived at Doug's home, which we called the Big House, for seven years, and at the business for another four years. Jennifer lived with her at the big house, and looked after her personal needs. Sadly the time came when it became too dangerous for Sis to spend any time alone there... so Doug brought her to live in an unused room with a separate bath at the business, which he converted into living quarters. The big house and the business are all on the same property, and Sis liked it. She was happy because there were always people walking around, and she loved the pets. When Doug sold the business to me and moved to the ranch, Sis wanted to remain as she was very comfortable here. Doug was preparing living quarters for Sis at the ranch, but it was an unfinished basement and there was at least two years of work to be done. She was very independent and wouldn't have it any other way; so of course she paid rent to the company and grocery money. Sis always

1paid her own way. Tee stayed in a small adjoining room in the event Sis needed assistance in the middle of the night.

1Everyone including Sis contributed the same amount. This was for three

meals a day and Michael prepared all of her meals under Doug's instruction.

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Sis had one very special quality: she found humor in most everything. Even when she was upset, still, she could laugh at herself. She could find the funny side of things and never let a laugh go by. She would complain to Doug every few days that she had to have her ears checked because she kept hearing Bells ringing in her right ear. I was always jealous when I heard this. Doug would advise his mother to listen to those bells. He would say, “Those bells are from God and will bring you much happiness.”

Now on to last month. To finish the story of Sis, she was 101 years old in June, 2011, and Baba Ji came to stay with Doug and Jennifer in September this year. After a few photos were taken with Baba Ji, Sis became very, very happy since she loves Baba Ji very much. In fact, she would read and re-read His books day and night: Guru Dispeller of Darkness and Questions & Answers. After the photos were taken of Sis, Baba Ji looked at us and said, “This is the last picture, this is the end of the roll.” We did not know what He meant and did not notice the content of that statement, but Sis died early the next morning. When I arrived that morning, I found the two Satsangis who had taken care of her for the last four years, Tee Tasker and Mike Martin, looking at her. Tee had found Sis right before she had passed away and with her last words she kindly whispered to him, “I found the Path.”

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