From jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca Sun May 24 05:45:09 1998
Newsgroups: alt.meditation.shabda
Subject: True Temple is the Man body
From: jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca (James Shannon)
Date: 24 May 1998 12:45:09 GMT


     



                         TRUE TEMPLE IS THE MAN BODY
                      
                                     by
                            
                            Sant Kirpal Singh Ji
                   
                                (1894 - 1974)

                  
                       This Q & A talk was given on Sept. 
                       13, 1970 at Sawan Ashram in Delhi, 
                       India, and was published in 
                             "The Light of Kirpal."
                       --------------------------------



[Question]:  Have any blind people broken through other than just 
seeing light? I mean have any blind people seen the Master within?
  
[Master]:  First time I went to America in 1955, in California, one blind 
doctor was there - blind - he got Light. This is so. He gives eyes to 
the blind man. It is very definite in the Bible that that Light is there. 
You see.  It is a matter of inversion; rising above body consciousness. 
That's all. I initiated more that three dozen blind men at one time. 
Light is already there. It is just a matter of withdrawing your attention 
from outside. It appears to be impossible to see light within. Who will 
believe? You are light. You are a spark of light. Some visualize light. 
But more people do see of themselves there is light, very definitely as 
two and two make four. Pity it is there are few who really know this. 
ln the past, too, there were few. Not hundreds. How many Saints can you 
count on your fingers: Christ, Buddha, Nanak, Kabir. Very few. Out of
thousands and millions and billions of people.
  
[Q]: Were all ten of the Sikh Saints genuine Saints?
  
[M]: They had Sikh Saints up to the tenth Guru. After that there are six
Gurus. (Ratnagar Rao, Tulsi Sahib, Swami Ji, Jaimal Singh, Sawan Singh, 
Kirpal Singh). I tell you that Gurudom continued, you see. And still there 
are few of course, not many.
  
[Q]: Who was the link between the tenth Sikh guru and the later Sikhs?
  
[M]: I tell you. The tenth guru was Guru Gobind Singh ... The times were 
very disturbed when he was there. He left the scene. He did not die. He 
left the scene and remained there in seclusion for about 17 years. He 
took some of the people with Him ... some state people. Then He initiated 
one of them and told him to initiate other people of his family. In that 
family Tulsi came up ... Tulsi Sahib. Tulsi was a great saint.
  
[Q]: Tulsi was not directly initiated by Gobind Singh then.
  
[M]: Through Him. There was one other person in between. 

[Q]: That person's name - Is it available?
                
[M]: At least I know; it is not in history.

[Q]: Well, where did the rumor ever get started that Gobind Singh was 
the last?
                
[M]: These are the stories that come up. The times were disturbed. 
Many people asked Him what to do. He had to leave, go away. He said, "All 
right, what the scriptures say, do it." That was a sort of criterion. The 
scriptures say, "Go to the Master." His ideal was to raise people who are 
fully effulgent with light within them. Khalsa means he who is fully
effulgent with light within. A Khalsa who has light within, only He can
give an experience of light to others.
               
[Q]: I would imagine that last year (1969) when You toured the Punjab
You explained these things that you're now telling me to the Sikhs up
there. How do they accept the idea that there has been a continuation?

[M]: They never object to my voicing that. I tell them "God is Light. The
physical body in which He manifests is the Guru. He resides in every heart. 
Where God fully manifests we call him Saint. That's all." They cannot 
refute it.
               
[Q]: But I mean are they happy about the idea that the line was continued?
               
[M]: The staunchest have been initiated. The staunchest Arya Samajis have 
been initiated. The staunchest Jains have been initiated. The staunchest 
Mohammedans have been initiated. Roman Catholics have been initiated.
                
[Q]: Is it making a big change in the basic Sikh church?
                
[M]: Most are stuck fast like other religions - isms. They're stuck fast in
"isms." That school is better where many students turn out successfully. 
What is the sign of success? They should see Light within.
                
[Q]: So you're not trying to change the Sikh church really.
                
[M]: Well, you see these things are made with a very noble purpose. All
"isms" are schools of thought. When men came to a Master Who had solved 
the mystery of life, knew themselves, knew God, those who came to Him 
also knew God. Later on when the Masters left the scene, these schools 
came into being. They are schools. So long as there are practical people, 
people were getting something. For want of practical people the same good  
old custom corrupts itself. Formations result in stagnation and stagnation 
results in deterioration. When a Master comes, He says, "Well, dear friend 
you have forgotten." He revives; no new things are given. Ever since this 
paid preaching has started in all religions, it has played havoc. They've 
not seen. Blind leads the blind. Both falling into the ditch.
 
[Q]: Could religions be kept going if a number of Saints were sent to the
world at the same time. Would that solve the problem?
 
[M]: Religions are stuck, congealed now.
 
[Q]: I mean a number of Saints could uncongeal them.
 
[M]: They'd awaken some of them; not all religions as a whole. They 
consider the performance of certain rites and rituals as the end-all. This 
is what they have come to see. I'll give you an example; who are you? You 
are soul, embodied soul. There is a Light within you. There is the right 
way to know yourself. Now you are identified with the body so much, so you 
cannot differentiate yourself. When you rise above, you know. When you 
know, you see the Light. This is a fact. This is the right way of 
progressing spiritually. But if you were lighting hundreds of candles 
outside and praying, "God is Light, God is Light," would it not appear 
very frivolous? Their chanting, their speakers, speaking in high voices, 
hands up, standing on their toes, "Oh God, help them." Excuse me, I am 
speaking very straight now. 

   The main thing is that you are soul. Have you analyzed yourself? Have 
you seen God? Compare the man who has done that with another man who for 
a hundred years has been lighting, putting candles in chapels, churches, 
mosques, or temples. So you compare that. In India there is a custom when 
the girls are about to be married. They learn all these rituals, etc., of 
the married people. But when they are married, they say all these things 
are forgotten.
 
   The real spirituality is to know yourself. What did your Guru say?
...you're Jyoti. You are Light ... are you not? With your repetition of 
the names all these three lokas are within you; ... you transcend these 
three planes, lokas. Then you feel you and God are one. I and my Father 
are one; then you rise in it and transcend. These things are not explained 
fully, that's the pity.... You are Jyoti,  you are light, but you are 
entangled in the worldly things. To really rise up above it and then say, 
that is something else. To simply say, "God is Light. I am not body. I am 
not this" - what will that do? And those who are stuck only in the 
performance of rituals on certain days consider that to be the be-all and 
end-all. Of course, that is the preparatory ground for preparation. But 
your ego is there. If you sow good, you'll reap good. So good and bad 
actions will result in good or bad because you are the doer. You'll come 
and go, come and go. You cannot get out of this wheel of life. But if you 
see that He is the doer, not you, then there is no coming and going. And 
that comes only when you sit at the feet of a Master and you see the 
Light within and hear the Sound.
  
   When Kennedy died, I saw the funeral on television. What was the 
Archbishop doing? He was throwing wine. That intoxication is not the true 
intoxication, you see. Excuse me, I am just putting before you things in 
the right perspective. They think it is the end-all. Do you know that 
many bishops have been initiated?
  
[Q]: Catholic bishops?
 
[M]: Yes, I went to London on my first tour. I said in my talk, "God does
not reside in temples made with stone." One Reverend stood up: "You
have thrown an atom bomb on all our Churchianity." The fact remains. God 
resides in the house which He Himself made, in this body: Who is this 
body? It was made in the womb. Is there any machinery there? God lives in 
the temple He has made. Not in the temple made with stone by the hand of 
man. Now where does all this Churchianity and all the isms go? Excuse me, 
if you're going, all right, go on, then rise above it. It's a polite way 
of telling, when you rise above, these things will leave you sure. They go. 
Masters come to fulfill, not to destroy. All right, go on. 

   There are 700 or more religions. How can you change them? All have got 
their own ways of living brought about by climatic influences, their own 
customs, their own temperaments. But this is something clear to everybody. 
The same speech, the same lesson is given to everybody whether you are made 
in this form or that form, that makes no difference. But Masters say what 
they See and let others See too. Where do all these "isms" stand, with due 
deference? The basic teachings are the same. It is no new thing I'm telling 
you. Christ says, "I and my Father are one" ... "Word was made flesh and 
dwelt amongst us" ... "I am the Bread of Life." Didn't he say that? But
now the teachings say Christ is the light of the whole world past and
future. 

   One Christian came up to me and said, "Those who will believe in Christ 
will be saved, others will not." And then I put him a question, "Dear 
friend, that's right. Those who believe in Christ - Christ is a Power - 
all right, but of those who came before Him, what will be their fate?" The 
Christ name is there. That's all right. They may believe him but those who 
came before Him, what will be their fate? Well, they are stuck fast like 
anything. So this is the fate too of the people in all religions. 

   I think the Sikh Gurus made a very universal thing. First of all they 
put all the sayings of as many Masters as they could lay hands on in one 
book. Kabir is there, Namdev is there, Ravi Das is there. There are 72 
Saints; spiritual sayings are there. No other religion has done that. They 
started a very universal thing, and yet they are also stuck fast. They have 
forgotten.
 
   The golden temple at Amritsar is the Sikh home. The stone was laid down 
by a Mohammedan, Mian Mir, at the request of Guru Arjan. They were all 
God-realized people. When you rise above all these isms and bodies you are 
one. To show that and the people worshiping those very scriptures are one, 
Guru Arjan chose as many Saints' sayings that He could lay hands on in the 
world. He united, put them all together (in the "Guru Granth Sahib").
Their gurus made mosques for the Mohammedans, temples for the Hindus - 
they are places of worship of God, that's all. Because the Truth is one. 
As time passes on, I tell you, people remain stuck to the casing at the 
cost of the kernel, that's all. This is Truth. And I think quite convincing 
to any awakened man - awakened man I would say. 

   Truly speaking, body is the temple of God. We reside in it and God 
also resides there. You see? The true temple is the body. Where God is 
manifest, Light is there. Outer temples, churches, mosques, were made out 
of the model of man. Now in all models there are similar symbols of Light 
and Sound. They are in the church, in the Sikh temples, in the Hindu 
temples and in the Mohammedan mosques, too. Now, if, God forbid, an atom 
bomb fell on the church - and all people said, "All Hindus are at fault." 
They would be ready to kill each other, other people. Well, if temples 
made by the hand of man are destroyed, we also destroy hundreds of "true" 
temples. Where's the wisdom in it? Tell me? 

   So we respect the outer temples because they have symbols of God; 
there people sit together, pray to God. That's all right. But which is 
better: all of the temples, the churches, the mosques or the man temple 
where those symbols are manifest? Won't you say that? You'll say that, 
of course, won't you?
  
[Q]:Yes.
  
[M]: The body is more valuable. The Saint is in him. He is manifest. The
others are only kept as symbols for remembrance. This is the Truth. Will
any Christian or Hindu or Sikh follow it? Let there not be any 
misapprehension, misunderstanding, we have respect for all places of 
worship which were made after the model of man body. And therein we have
symbols of Light and Sound. People sit together, pray to God. We have
love for them. But truth is that churches are made after the model of
man, the true temple of God. And he who has realized it here - in the
man-body - he does not break the heart of others, you see, he does not
molest, does not in any way do something which may hurt others' feelings. 
He says, "All right. Temples are good, but the true temple is here."

(Master points to his body.)

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