Radhaswami? What Are They? Are They Sikh?

Radha swami..???? what are they.. Sikh?

The sounds that RS hear in meditation are the sound created by their mind. These are not shabads of any realm. RS devotee sits in a squat way, place their hands on their eyes and ears and try to listen first to the sound of a Ghanta (bell). Before sitting in this Aalti Paalti Aasan (position) they repeat their Varnatmak Naam for sometime. Then they try to listen to these sounds. First of all when you place hands on the your ears, you can hear the sounds of your body. They get excited by this. Then when your mind wants to hear the sound of bell from the right corner of your brain, your mind will create that sound for you. What’s so great about this. This is not the celestial sound that Gurbani is talking about.

The real celestial sound is that sound that the true Devotee hears after his Dasam Duar opens. This sound is the sound from Sachkhand. It is the sound of mehima or sifat-salaah of Vaheguru going on in Sach Khand. It is bizarre that RS has placed Dasam Duar at the third level. First of all Dasam Duaar cannot be called a region. It is, as the name implies, a doorway from where you can access Sach Khand and hear and feel Sach Khand. How can it be merely third level as RS suggests.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/hard-talk/21155-radhaswami-what-are-they-they-sikh.html

(phorum - message board)
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155

What are views on the above, kindly share.
Dhoodh ka dhoodh, Aur Paani Ka Paani bhann jaye ga.

 
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Other debate and Discussions on RS beliefs and their differences from Sikhism :-

http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/sikh-sikhi-sik...a-soami-2.html
phorum - message board

Nam Jap

It is excellent that you started this thread. This is an area of almost complete ignorance for me. All I know is what I read on the Internet. And I can tell when an RS commentary is out of alignment with Sikhi and Gurbani. But that is not enough. To be knowledgeable I need to know more.

namjapji

In Sikhism there is no living man called Guru. A fabricated story( Historical facts suggest contrary to it) around Guru Gobind Singh ji's hidden life after 1708 AD is pretty good reason to believe that there is one's sect, set for a financial business. People can claim what they dream. IN Sikhism there are ten Masters and eternal Guru Granth Sahib Ji ONLY. At the time of 9 th Master, there were people who would call themselves real Gurus, those shop were closed eventually, new were opened and will keep opening due to financial and political reasons. As said" caravan goes on and the dogs bark on". Forgive me if any word I have used here and you don't like it. RS should not call them Sikhs because Radha Swami word itself says clearly who are they!!!!!!!!
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155

pk70

Money has a lot to do with the false baabaa, false guru syndrome. That and a almost psychotic need to control others body, mind and soul. Sikhi is not alone in the emergence of human gurus. Many religions that claim One Transcendent God have people like this.

Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155
I think in the thread though there is a search for the roots of this particular movement for historical reasons. Also understanding of both truth and falsehood is easier to achieve with information about the phenomenon under discovery. Hope I am getting Nam Jap's intent correctly.

Guruji has words to live by on this topoic,

pauVI ]
pourree ||
Pauree:

Awpy Awip vrqdw Awip qwVI lweIAnu ]
aapae aap varathadhaa aap thaarree laaeean ||
He Himself is all-pervading; He Himself is absorbed in the profound state of Samaadhi.

Awpy hI aupdysdw gurmuiK pqIAweIAnu ]
aapae hee oupadhaesadhaa guramukh patheeaaeean ||
He Himself instructs; the Gurmukh is satisfied and fulfilled.
ieik Awpy auJiV pwieAnu ieik BgqI lwieAnu ]
eik aapae oujharr paaeian eik bhagathee laaeian ||
Some, He causes to wander in the wilderness, while others are committed to His devotional worship.

ijsu Awip buJwey so buJsI Awpy nwie lweIAnu ]
jis aap bujhaaeae so bujhasee aapae naae laaeean ||
He alone understands, whom the Lord causes to understand; He Himself attaches mortals to His Name.

nwnk nwmu iDAweIAY scI vifAweI ]21]1] suDu ] naanak naam dhhiaaeeai sachee vaddiaaee ||21||1|| sudhh ||
O Nanak, meditating on the Naam, the Name of the Lord, true greatness is obtained. ||21||1|| Sudh||

More than He and Himself, and more than meditation on His Name is un-necessary. Sikhs do not need another Guru.

aad0002 Ji

You are absolutely right, I commented on the false fort they -RS- built over years. All their story shows not only it is untrue one but also the intent behind that. As you have cleared through Guru Vaak, it will continue and it is HIS ordinance, good or bad. I do not question namjap ji's intent at all.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155
I ignored RS since I learned what they cooked up. I myself expect to learn more about the sect through this thread. Thanks for making all aware of this.

March 22, 2006

More skepticism about Sant Mat

Periodically I get email messages from dissatisfied initiates of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. They’ve come to regard the RSSB (or Sant Mat) philosophy with considerable skepticism.
Because I believe in the potential of a genuine spiritual science, which requires that the results of spiritual “experiments” be openly discussed, I’m pleased to share these messages when the author gives me permission. Bob did, so you’ll find his story below. It’s well written and provocative.
I’m still a vegetarian and feel that I always will be. The idea of eating animal flesh after thirty-seven years of meatlessness turns my stomach. But Bob’s reentry into meat-eating was a positive experience for him. Vive le difference.
He makes some good points about the relative karmic nastiness of liquor, steak, and doughnuts, arguing that doughnuts take the cake (so to speak). Here’s what Bob had to say:
---------------------------
I was initiated by Charan Singh back in 1970. Went to the Dera in 1974 and 1984. Stuck to the diet and went to many satsangs until shortly after he died in 1990. Gurinder Singh turned me off and I began to see RSSB for what it really is...a cult/religion that expects blind faith and delivers nothing in return except a false sense of security that one has when they believe by some stroke of unfathomable Grace that they, out of billions of people, have somehow found the one true path to ultimate spiritual bliss and liberation under the protective wing of an almighty Master...not. It's like Jesus with vegetables, meditation, and banwar gupha thrown in.

I never was much of a meditator. Oh, there were periods where I managed to crank out 2.5 hr. sessions (I went four hours once), but usually I lasted less than an hour, and much of that time was spent nodding off. I felt a little guilty about not putting in my time and somewhat inferior to all the highly evolved satsangis who I imagined were hearing peals of celestial thunder and learning many "inner" secrets which, of course, were not to be shared with anyone.
I would look around the room wondering who was experiencing inner regions. If someone seemed particularly focused and calm, or to have some intangible quality (imagined or real), I suspected they were among the chosen ones. But not to worry, Master will reveal the inner splendor when by his grace your time has come. In the meantime you just have more karma to work out. He knows best. You may be almost finished boring through the darkness of the mountain to the sudden burst of light on the other side. By the time Charan died, I wasn't meditating at all.

The alarms went off one day in '81 when we were invited to a beautiful beach by some acquaintances. They knew we were vegetarians and went to the trouble to make us avocado sandwiches instead of the meat sandwiches they were having. Unfortunately they used regular mayonnaise and we had to refuse them, spending the day crunching carrots. This made me very uncomfortable, refusing their hospitality to avoid maybe 1/20 of an unfertilized egg.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155
It seemed highly irrational to me unless I was truly allergic to eggs. Was I really going to be condemned to rebirth if I ate a bit of this offending substance? Would my vibration become coarsened in such a way that meditation was going to become even more difficult? I never did really get the egg thing, but I still figured Master knew best....eating unfertilized eggs could lead to eating fertilized eggs. Sort of like marijuana leading to heroin use. And the rennet thing. Gurinder has even ruled that out now. Reminds me of the Jains who tiptoe around insects and wear masks to avoid breathing and killing microbes.

Looking back on all this, I realize I was very naive to buy into Sant Mat, but it wasn't entirely a waste of time. The moral structure of the path did help me to live a pretty clean, honest life which kept me out of many of the troubles others have. But at the same time I avoided a lot of opportunities (too worldly) that could have enriched my life. It gave me an excuse to be a slacker as far as being ambitious and reaching my potential in certain ways.

These days, I enjoy reading non-dual, advaita vedanta, zen, ch'an, taoist philosophy. I am sort of nowhere in particular as far as spirituality is concerned which I think is a step in the right direction on the path of no path.

It was interesting going back to eating meat. About eight/nine years ago the heavy grain/starch vegetarian diet was causing me to show some pre-diabetic tendencies. I was putting on weight and getting some arthritis. I read a couple of books that pretty much convinced me I was on the wrong diet for my physiological type. My first non-veg meal in 28 years was salmon cooked by my wife, also vegetarian, who by this time was ready for a change. No problem.
It felt weird to find myself eating meat after so many years, but physically, no problem. I gradually introduced more meat into my diet over a period of several weeks. My first red meat, easily digested, made me feel satisfied, strong, calm, centered, and I was under the impression that so-called "rajasic " food was supposed to agitate me. On the new diet my cholesterol/triglyceride profile improved, I lost 20 lbs., blood sugar swings stabilized and the arthritis went away just by cutting back on grains and replacing them with animal protein.

I am among the majority of humans who do best with some kind of meat in the diet. Maybe a veg diet is adequate if you are sedentary with your hair tied to a bar over your head so that you don't nod off while doing bhajan for seventeen years in a back room. But I wasn't up to that kind of asceticism. I was athletic, a runner, and the body requires plenty of high quality protein to recover from hard workouts. You don't get that from tofu and rice. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have performed better had I been eating steak and rice.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155

There is suffering and cruelty in the commercial meat industry that is improving but will always be there. But people forget that the cows are going to die one way or another anyway and it ain't gonna be fun for them. Would their fate be better in nature with wolves gnawing on their entrails while still conscious? Or starving through a hard winter or drought? Life feeds on life and since that's the way things are set up, I doubt it's a sin to participate in an honest way.
I've seen cattle raised where I used to live. They hang out in green pastures munching grass all day with their buddies. They mate and live a pretty decent cow's life. If they're sick or injured, they get treated or quickly put down. One day the truck comes to take them to the feedlot where they get to stuff themselves with grain. Finally, they are herded into the slaughterhouse for what is usually a quick kill. Sometimes something goes wrong and an animal has a rough time of it and somebody gets a tough steak. Generally, it's not so bad, relatively speaking, in this dog eat dog world.

About the Sant Mat prohibition against intoxicants: Why does a satsangi have to vow to never allow wine to pass his/her lips as if we all were going to become alcoholics as a result and do foolish stuff which will increase the karmic load? Come on. We're adults here. How about a vow to never get mad, to never cuss, to never eat too many doughnuts?
A gut load of doughnuts will do more to ruin your meditation than a piece of steak any day. And if you keep eating doughnuts, eventually you will get fat with diabetes and heart disease which will make it hard to meditate. Then your health becomes a financial burden on the family. Finally you have a heart attack while driving and mangle some people who sue you and wipe out your family's financial security. All this because of doughnuts. I say doughnuts are worse than booze. There are more fat, sick people than there are alcoholics.
If they were really wise, the masters would ban doughnuts instead of liquor or at least add them to the list.

Anyway, enough said.
Bob

Church of the Churchless: More skepticism about Sant Mat

July 06, 2007

Religions aren’t alike. I think I know why.

It's (churchless) confession time. I'm getting down on my bloggish knees and admitting to a mea culpa. Not a very juicy one, though. It's philosophical rather than salacious.
For a long time I've been an advocate of the notion that under their dogmatic skins religions share a common skeleton. Aldous Huxley called this the Perennial Philosophy and wrote a book by that name.
But now I've come to agree with Stephen Prothero, chair of Boston University's Department of Religion, who said in Newsweek recently that the proposition "The Major Religions are Essentially Alike" is false.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155
Religious people do agree that there is something wrong with this world. But they disagree as soon as they start to diagnose the problem, and diverge even more when it comes to prescriptions for the cure. Christians see sin as the human problem and salvation from sin as the religious goal. Buddhists see suffering (which, in this tradition, is not ennobling) as the problem and liberation from suffering (nirvana) as the goal. If practitioners of the world's religions are all climbing a mountain, then they are ascending very different peaks and using very different tools.
On the other hand, I've quoted this passage by Huxley many times. It used to make sense to me. Now it doesn't.
The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being – the thing is immemorial and universal.
Well, those words sound warm and fuzzy. I can almost picture the founders of the world religions sitting around a campfire and singing Kum-Bai-Ya.
But the reality is that once you get beyond the broadest generalizations of which Huxley speaks – there's something more than physical reality, and we can know it – religious beliefs have precious little in common. Prothero urges us to recognize this, rather than paper over the differences.
Coming at the problem of religion from the angle of difference rather than similarity is scary. But the world is what it is. And both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually understand whatever it is we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting.
I have no problem respecting someone's belief, so long as they admit that this is all it is: a belief, not truth. Where I went wrong in my Perennial Philosophy phase was not recognizing this: accepting that some people have been able to actually know the truth about divine reality and go beyond belief is itself a belief.
Huxley simply takes this as a given. He says that most people who spout off about spirituality and religion are merely echoing what others have written (who in turn probably have done the same thing). Yet he claims that there have been first hand exponents of the Perennial Philosophy who have been given the name of saint, prophet, sage, or enlightened one.
That's true enough – that they've been given those names. But what proof is there that these supposed first-handers aren't also passing on secondhand inspiration that may never have been grounded in any direct perception of a higher reality?
A present day guru, Gurinder Singh, is fond of saying, "How do you know I'm not a fraud? How do you know I just don't have the gift of gab?"
Indeed. How? There's no answer to that question, not in any scientifically demonstrable sense at least. If there was any solid proof that one religion knew the really real truth about divine reality, it would have risen to the top of the religious pyramid – just as scientific theories do.
Instead, what we have, after 10,000 years or more of intense human striving to understand what, if anything, lies beyond the physical, is a confusing mess of conflicting religious claims.
So like I said in my previous post, science turns out to be more spiritual than religion. Science continually converges on a consensus about the nature of reality, while religion never does.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155
Why is this? The two most likely possibilities are (1) there's no metaphysical reality to be discovered, or (2) there is indeed a non-material side to existence, but it is absolutely ineffable – incapable of being described.
Since I want to live on after I die, naturally I hope the latter is true. But I'd put my bet on (1) as being more likely. Unfortunately, there's no way to win that bet and get a payoff. If I'm right, I won't be around to know it.

(Church of the Churchless:)

Sunday 27th of November 2005

(KP) -

Radha Soami Mat Darshan

When people of India were resting the sleep of illiteracy and diffidence, Guru Nanak saved these people from the fire of ritualistic beliefs and joined them in the remembrance of One God. Through his Ten Incarnations, Guru Nanak blessed the coward and the meek with kingdoms. With the Tenth incarnation, Guru Nanak carried out the most sensational marvel of gracing the disregarded and meager people by embracing and manifesting them as the "Panth Khalsa" and these people were also given the title of "Panj Pyare". Guru Sahib announced:
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155

ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ ਮੇਰੋ ਰੂਪ ਹੈ ਖ਼ਾਸ ॥
Khalsa maero roop hai khas ||
Khalsa is my very own personal self.

ਖ਼ਾਲਸੇ ਮਹਿ ਹੌ ਕਰੌ ਨਿਵਾਸ ॥
Khalsae mehi ha kara nivas ||
Within the Khalsa, my soul dwells.

From the moment Guru Nanak Dev Ji started to alter the "Jagat Jalanda" (burning world) by preaching "Sach Ki Bela" (Word of Truth), from that time the Brahmanvadi nation of falsehood started foreseeing its eradication. The drama of these people of pretending to be the living image of God was getting revealed because of Guru Nanak's teachings. Guru Nanak preached:

ਤਿਨ੍* ਸੰਗਿ ਸੰਗੁ ਨ ਕੀਚਈ ਨਾਨਕ ਜਿਨਾ ਆਪਣਾ ਸੁਆਉ ॥2॥
thinu sung sung n keechee naanuk jinaa aapunaa suaao
Do not associate with those, O Nanak, who look out only for their own interests. ||2||

Even though the Sikh religion has always been against the ritualistic belief of worshiping idols and graves, some so-called 'Sikhs' still indulge in the above mentioned religious misconduct.

Even today, some Sikhs are going astray from the teachings of the "Shabad Guru" and becoming victims of the false practice of idol and human worship. It is a big grief that the Sikhs who once lived on the edge of the sword and thanked the Almighty God even after having their bodies chopped into little pieces, had their whole families martyred, faced death bravely while being tied to the Catherine wheels, the same Sikh nation is now being misled by teachings of these 'Gurus'.

Where some people are plotting themselves as the incarnation of the Gurus for their personal gains, many of our Sikh brothers and sisters are also becoming prey because of their own shortcomings. What is miserable is that many of our Sikh brothers are also adopting these teachings and beliefs which the Sikh Gurus openly rejected.

With the message of - "ਬਿਨ ਕਰਤਾਰ ਨ ਕਿਰਤਮ ਮਾਨੋ ॥" (Do not accept anyone else except God as the Creator of the Universe) the Gurus have done the great deed of joining the Sikhs to One Creator God. But still many immoral 'ways of life' are locking people in the mesh of the perplexity. The Radha Soami dogma is one such prominently known way of life. The Sikh Gurus have conferred the gift of Gur Mantar and Mool Mantar to their Sikhs and have clearly ruled the following command:

ਆਪਿ ਜਪਹੁ ਅਵਰਹ ਨਾਮੁ ਜਪਾਵਹੁ ॥
aap jupuhu avureh naam jupaavuhu
Chant the Naam yourself, and inspire others to chant it.

But yet many so-called 'Sikhs' can be seen begging for the 'Gupt-Mantar' at the door of Human 'Gurus'. The Radha Soami faith was started in the city of Agra by a man named Shiv Dayal, who was the husband of a woman named Radha. During the year 1891, Jaimal Singh, a member of a Sikh regiment came in contact of Shiv Dayal and started the shrine of the Radha Soami faith at Beas. At present there are many branches of this faith that are in opposition to each other. These branches of the Radha Soami faith include their centers at Allahabad, Agra, Beas, Saidpur (Dist. Amritsar Sahib). Missionary work of this belief was first started at Saidpur by a person named Baba Teja Singh. Another person named 'Baba Rasila Ram' is the present leader of this cult.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=21155


Soami Shiv Diyal, founder of the Radha Soami faith. This person is falsely given the last name 'Singh' many times to associate him with the Sikh religion.Teja Singh, founder of the Radha Soami 'dera' at Saidpur. Former Punjab CM Parkash Badal visits this dera numerious times in a year, but especially before the elections.Rasila Ram, a non-Sikh from Jammu who merely carries the Sikh idenity is the current leader of the 'dera' at Saidpur.

In their attempt to copy the Sikh history, these people have published the biography of Baba Teja Singh under the title of 'Janam Sakhi'. While many doctrines enlisted in this book are against the principals of Gurmat, the author has also published many statements in favor of the Radha Soami faith which are comparable to a Punjabi idiom that translates in English: "To throw an axe at your own foot". This faith promotes the Jain belief of adhering to total peace; but the Sikh Gurus rejected such tenets because they were not in line with their proposed life full of morale and esteem. About the Jain belief, Guru Nanak Dev Ji has stated that the Jain followers take precautions under the false notion of not wanting to kill any living beings such as drinking water without purification in order to not kill the bacteria. About their practices Guru Sahib has stated:

ਸਿਰੁ ਖੋਹਾਇ ਪੀਅਹਿ ਮਲਵਾਣੀ ਜੂਠਾ ਮੰਗਿ ਮੰਗਿ ਖਾਹੀ ॥
sir khohaae peeahi muluvaanee joothaa mung mung khaahee
They pluck the hair out of their heads, and drink in filthy water; they beg endlessly and eat the garbage which others have thrown away.

ਫੋਲਿ ਫਦੀਹਤਿ ਮੁਹਿ ਲੈਨਿ ਭੜਾਸਾ ਪਾਣੀ ਦੇਖਿ ਸਗਾਹੀ ॥
fol fudheehath muhi lain bhurraasaa paanee dhaekh sugaahee
They spread manure, they suck in rotting smells, and they are afraid of clean water.

The Janam Sakhi published by the Radha Soami faith also favors another belief of the Jainism which Guru Sahib opposed. The Janis spread excreta in fear of killing a living being, and the Radha Soamis go through the deed of smelling manure to identify their Guru.

On page 62 of the Janam Sakhi published by 'Baba Teja Singh Radha Soami Trust', meanings of Gurbani are presented in a wrongful manner to prtray falseness. The page states that 'Hazoor Satguru' Teja Singh preached to Sangat that one can identify a person living in accordance with Gurbani if he eats and sleeps less, but and the biggest sign comes from that a person's excreta, instead of having a fecal odor woul have a fragrance! For the stool and urine to be free of odor is the biggest sign of an enlightened person.

This teaching is further confirmed in Teja Singh's 'Janam Sakhi' through this passage: "… after that Bhagat Chanan Singh and Gyanni Ji secretly smelled Baba Teja Singh Ji's excreta (page 61-62). The bodily waste of Baba Teja Singh Ji had fragrance instead of odor and they accepted Baba Teja Singh as Puran Guru."

This story plotted by the missionaries of the Radha Soami faith is worth nothing more than laughter. It is distressing to see Sikhs of Guru Nanak Dev Ji's "Nirmal Panth" following the fake human gurus. Such Sikhs who merely carry the image of the Sikh identity and use Singhs and Kaurs as their last name and turn their backs on Guru Sahib by joining faiths as the Radha Soami, are not worthy of being labeled as Sikhs of the Gurus. They are forgetting that Guru Sahib taught:

ਜਾਗਿਤ ਜੋਤਿ ਜਪੈ ਨਿਸ ਬਾਸੁਰ ਏਕ ਬਿਨਾ ਮਨ ਨੈਕ ਨ ਆਨੈ ॥
jaagith joth japai nis baasur eaek binaa man naik n aanai ||
He the Khalsa meditates on the Ever-radiant Light, day and night, and rejects all else but the one Lord from the mind.

ਪੂਰਨ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਪ੍ਰਤੀਤ ਸਜੈ ਬ੍ਰਤ ਗੋਰ ਮੜ੍ਹੀ ਮਟ ਭੂਲ ਨ ਮਾਨੈ ॥
pooran praem pratheeth sajai brath gor marrhee matt bhool n maanai ||
He decorates himself with perfect love and faith, and believed not in fasts, tombs, crematoriums and hermit cells, even by mistake.

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