READ
Salutations at the lotus feet of Satgurudev
THINK
& KNOW
Yogiraj Param Sant Satgurudev
Shri Hans Ji Maharaj
DIVINE LIGHT MISSION
B-19/3, Shakti Nagar, Delhi-7
First Edition 11, 000] [November 1971
"Awake arise and stop not
till the goal is reached."
"Be with us I have chosen Thee
Stand steadfast and immovable
Let the people be for Thee
Let not thy Kingship fall away."
The knowledge of the Self is the only
true knowledge which one can bear at
the feet of Satgurudev of the time.
Published by
Shri Hans Pustak Bhandar
Prem Nagar Ashram
P. O. Jwalapur, Hardwar (U. P.)
Price 15 Paise
MEANING OF LIFE
"The world is too much with us: Late and soon,
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers."Read, Think & Know 1971
Says a poet. Are we perchance born in this world as human beings, live the life accidently and exist from it likewise, playing sometimes the role of an ignorant child, sometimes of a reckless youth and sometimes of a bewailing old man ? Or life has any meaning for us, a purpose to fulfil, a destination to reach, a goal which we should realize ?
Man is the crown of creation. He has the faculty of discrimination. He can think, reason out things and then can act too. He can drink deep from the ocean of the past heritage and can be benefitted by the savings and the writings of the wise and the seers of truth which awaken him from the slumber of ignorance and hearken him to free himself from the bondage of his senses.
Human life is not an end in itself. It is an opportunity which human beings get by the grace of God. It is left to him to make the best or the worst use of it. It is in this very human frame that one can degenerate oneself to the lower worlds by bad deeds or can ascend to the higher worlds by good deeds. Not only that, one can also achieve the highest object of human life, i.e. Self-realization. In this way, every man is the architect of his own future. What we are now is the result of our past actions and what shall we be in the future shall be determined by the sum total of our present deeds, as goes a saying. "Dust thou becometh if thou lovest dust and God thou becometh if thou lovest God."
Human life cannot, therefore, be meant for only the pursuits of worldly pleasures. The deeper meaning of the
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life is that it is a gateway to salvation and provides a golden opportunity to the person to make efforts for the discovery of the SELF. The best use of it can only be made by following the footprints of the great men and achieving what they achieved in their human lives.
The Right Path :
The wise and the seers of truth are great in the real sense. Some live for their families, others live for their race. Some work for their nation and others enlighten the whole of humanity. Saints of the past and the present are great and unbound by the wall of caste, creed, colour or nationality. Human they were and humanity they spread. Truth they realized and Truth they disseminated. Light they saw and light they showed. Therefore, it is the path of the saints and the prophets like, Jesus Christ and Mohammed Saheb, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna, Saint Kabir and Guru Nanak that is to be troden. But here the question arises what That Path is which they followed themselves and taught others to follow ? Unfortunately, after every great Prophet or Saint the vision of that path gets blurred and the substance of his teachings and the path of realization that he showed gets covered by the wrappings of the external ceremonial rules and soon it takes the form of a separate sect, creed or a so called a religion. It is because of this that we find a mass of religions in this world standing for altogether opposite and conflicting doctrines and principles. When we acclaim with one voice that the saints and the prophets stood for the unity of mankind, brotherhood of all and one God for all, then how the religions established after their names do the reverse of it ? They divide, make men fanatics and kill others in the name of God.
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Why Different Religions ?
In fact, no true Saint or Prophet wanted to set up any new sect or religion. He was a realized soul of his time and showed the same path of realization to others as did his earliers and later ones too. But with the passage of time the essence was forgotten and only the outer forms of religious ceremonies remained leading to the emergence of different sects and different religions. It is only out of ignorance, therefore, that we are divided into various rival camps inspite of the basic unity of the Mankind. The light of the Sun is one for all, water of the Ganges quenches the thirst of all and the laws of nature are one for all. How then can there be different religions, different gods and different ways of realization ? The religion which sustains all and upholds all must also be one and is one for all. On the other hand if the so called various religions are to be taken as real religions, then the question can be asked what was the religion of the fathers and grandfathers of these prophets and saints after whose names they have been established ? Were they without any religion ? Nay, the Religion exists from the times immemorial.
Religion in the real sense is the realization. It is the communion of the Jiva (the individual Self) with God (the cosmic Self). God is neither Hindu nor Muslim. He is neither Christian nor Parsi. "God is Light" says Jesus Christ. "He is the Light of all lights" says Gita. He is termed as Bhargo in the Vedas. That very Light is called Chandana in Granth Saheb and Noor-e-Ilahi in the holy Quran. It is all permeating. It is this very Light which was visualised by every realized soul. Therefore they trod the path of Light, concentrated their minds
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on the Self-effulgent Divine Light within themselves and identified their individual self with the Cosmic-self. They showed that very path of Light to others who approached them with inquisitive minds.
Need of Satguru :
The Divine Light within oneself cannot be visualised by these outer eyes,nor can it be seen by anyone by merely reading Vedas or religious scriptures or performing different types of penances. It is seen with the inner eye or the Divine Eye which opens by the grace of a living realized soul, or Guru. Spirituality can only be transmitted from an enlightened soul to another one, the aspirant, just as a burning lamp only can kindle other lamps. It becomes evident, therefore, that the goal of self-realization or visualising the light within oneself can only be achieved by the grace and the guidance of a Guru. Thus Guru becomes a must in achieving the mission of Life. The most learned men like Vivekanand got realization only by the grace of a Guru.
The necessity of the Guru is well emphasised in the different scriptures as Lord Krishna in Gita says. "Seek the shelter of Tatwadarshi who has visualised God. He will show you the way to realize Him." Jesus Christ says, "Come on to me and I shall relieve you from all trouble." Buddha says, "Seek the shelter of the enlightened". 
Guru Nanak emphatically says. "Let
no one remain under any misconception ; there is no salvation without a Guru."
Meaning of the Guru :
Literally Guru means one who dispels the darkness of ignorance and shows the light of knowledge. Guru is
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essentially a Tatwadarshi. He is competent to conduct the disciple in the path of Self-realization by giving him the practical knowledge of the Divine Light and the Holy Name and thus bestowing the man with the Divine Vision instantaneously. One who cannot do so cannot be a Satguru howsoever great he may be in other aspects of life.
Holy Name :
The world abounds mainly with two types of persons, (1) atheists who are stark materialists and have no faith in any God, and (2) theists who believe in God and remember Him too in some form or the other by various names conditioned by their family and racial ties. A person born in Hindu family remembers Him as Ram or Krishna while another born in a Sikh family utters his name as Wahe Guru-Wahe Guru. The third one born in Muslim family calls Him Rahim, Allah or Khuda, while the Christains remember Him in their own way. As a matter of fact the real name of God is one for all which permeates all the living creatures. The innumerable names associated with God such as Ram, Rahim, Om, Krishna, etc. which are utterable by tongue are merely the attributes or adjectives of His real Name. The real Name is unmanifest, inexpressible and beyond the scope of alphabets, it is most secret and holy, it is an imperceptible sound going on within man all the time. This Name is rememebered and meditated upon by every human being whilst in the mother's womb, but is forgotten by him after being born. This very Name has been termed as Akhand Nam, Amrit Nam, Mahamantra, Golden Name, Gaibi Awaz, Ram Nam, Krishna Nam, etc. The knowledge of this name removes all types of differences and one starts perceiving the
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oneness of the mankind. Its very rememberace dries up the ocean of the world of senses says the Ramayana.
Knowing of this Holy Name and the Divine Light constitutes spiritualism in the real sense. The only testimony of the spiritual guide is that it should be within his competence to impart instantaneously the practical knowledge. This is the religion for every human being and this is one for all. It is the first and the foremost duty of every human being to visualise the light within himself and know the real Name and meditate upon it while performing multifarious duties of the world. It was the knowledge of this real Name which Lord Krishna imparted to Arjuna and asked him to remember Him all the time and fight. But for the knowledge of the Holy Name and the Divine Light human life goes waste and according to Hindu Philosophy one has to revolve in the viscious circle of life and death again and again.
It needs thus no further stress that the goal of self-realization, the experience of eternal bliss or knowledge of absolute truth are attainable only through the grace and guidance of a living Satguru, who works as a pivot and accelerator for the spiritual life of a seeker of truth. Great were the Rishis and the saints in the past, but now they cannot initiate any one into the spiritual life. Their sayings and writings and biographies are undoubtedly even now the source of inspiration, but what is important is the practical knowledge of divinity flowing within which is not possible without a living Guru. It is a well-known saying that a physician, a ruler and a Satguru only of the time can help the needy and desirous. The Satguru is a must, but how to get one in this kaliyug ? Most of the people are sceptical about the
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existence of such a Guru these days and just to brush off the whole thing lightly they would say even if one exists, he might be meditating somewhere in the lonely corner of a dense forest or in the caves of the Himalyas. But the matter of fact is that all great realized souls lived in the society and preached to the people of their own times the fundamentals of a good life. There was never a time and there shall never be a time when a realized soul, a Satguru did not or would not live in human form on this earth. The very world would topple down when there would be no true saint on this earth.
One such saint who lived in India, moved from place to place, village to village and town to city, disseminating the knowledge of Holy Name and Divine Light, was Param Sant Satgurudev Shri Hans Ji Maharaj. He was in the line of succession of those true saints who have been desceding on earth to lighten its burden and enlighten its people. He lived in the world but was not of the world. He initiated millions of all castes, colour and creed and showed them the abode of the infinite which outshines the splendour of thousand suns.
He was peace personified, light incarnate, living religion, man purified and elevated, saint dedicated and devoted, Yogi enlightened and equipoised. He knew the Only Truth and preached the Absolute Truth. He stood for unity of mankind and manifested it by uniting all in the silken thread of love and devotion. Selfless He was and He made people selfless, He stood for the unity of the religions and wanted to establish it by showing that the basis of all religions is one. To manifest it practically he planned to erect a temple of all religions named Satya Lok Ashram at Murad Nagar (Meerut).
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Great was He, greater were his teachings and the greatest are those who not only live up to them but disseminate them to others. To facilitate the spread of this knowledge to high and low, rich and poor, His band of selfless disciples organised themselves under his kind guidance and direction into a mission called the Divine Light Mission. It is a registered all India Organisation having its branches in the different parts of the country. This Mission wants to establish the Religion in its pristine purity by pinpointing the oneness of all religions. The Mission wants to carry out this tremendous task with the spirit of selfless devotion and God bound duty. It was day of gloom and despair, tears and sobbings for millions of members of Divine Light Mission and others too. It was the tragic day of 19th July, 1966 when Shree Hans Ji Maharaj cast off his human frame, old and weak, He is no more visible in that form now. But the Guru lives always in the present. He can change his form and frame. It is only the body which dies, never the spirit which is immortal. The spirituality manifests itself now in the new saint Bal Yogeshwar Param Hans Satgurudev Shri Sant Ji Maharaj. He professes to complete the incompete work of uniting all the religions started by late Shri Hans Ji Maharj with same zeal and devotion. He is a marvellous young Yogi possessed with marvellous spiritual powers, who enlightens human beings with the knowledge of Truth, i.e. Holy Name and Divine Light.
Balyogeshwar Param Hans Satgurudev
Shri Sant Ji Maharaj
For the practical knowledge of Truth and Spiritualism contact the branch office of Divine Light Mission nearby List is given below :
1. Delhi (H. O.) B-19/3, Shakti Nagar, Delhi-7 (India) Ph.22 2452
2. Dehradun 13, Municipal Road Dehradun (U. P.) [India] Pn. 3114
3. Hardwar Prem Nagar Ashram P. O. Jwalapur Hardwar (India) Ph. 345
4. Meerut Satlok Ashram (Near Ganges canal bridge) Murad Nagar (Meerut) [India] Ph. 41
5. Patna Prem Bhawan, Mithapur Patna (Bihar) [India] Ph. 21583
6. London 4 Alba Gardens, London N.W. 11, (England) Tel. 01-458-5570
7. Canada 50 Forest Hill Drive Tronto, Ontario Canada Tel. 416-962-9380
8. U. S. A. 695 South Harvard Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, U S A 90005 Tel. 213 385 9982
517, 6th Avenue, New York, N. Y. C. U.S.A. Tel. 212-741-1680
9. Africa C/o Shri V. V. Gokal P. O. Box No. 42-483 Fordsburg, Johannesburg (South Africa)
Read 'Hansadesh' Hindi monthly magazine, for detail attend annual celebrations held on 12, 13 & 14 April at Satlok Ashram, Murad Nagar, Distt. Meerut (U.P.) [India]
Shri Hans Printing Press Prem Nagar Ashram Hardwar (India)