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Enlightenment
A great pain arose in Sant Mani Singh in 1990 that so many years had passed yet
enlightenment had not arrived. He was crippled emotionally, tears were running down
his eyes, he was going crazy from dawn to dusk, the heartache was accelerating just as
the floods of the river in the rainy season flowing with such force. A great pain flooded
his heart with sorrow and agony. In the east they call this phenomenon ‘vairag’. Whilst
describing this moment he said “Sadness has its own qualities. It can give you gifts that
nothing else can; happiness never goes as deep as sadness because only sadness can
take you deeper than anything else. The inner me was screaming I just could not
tolerate it, it was getting to me. It was almost a state of madness.”
He went on to say “The craziness was I didn’t know if I believed. I didn’t know if I
believed The whole phenomenon gave birth to enlightenment. Unexpectedly the
phenomenon came into existence, something or some familiar energy arose that was
pulling me towards the canal, and here near the canal was an embankment of trees,
bushes and brambles. I tried to divert my mind to something else but I didn’t succeed.
The pull was like a magnet it became stronger and stronger. The whole situation was out
of my control, I couldn’t stay any longer and it became impossible! A gentle silence hung
over the bank of the trees, I was thrilled by the place! it was a perfect place. My head
was exploding with great force. I had never experienced this phenomenon before.
Suddenly I lost all consciousness and dropped to the ground.”
About enlightenment he said “Enlightenment has always been sudden, nothing can
really be said about enlightenment. There are no words to describe what is happening.
The experience is far deeper than the words. The word enlightenment comes close to
the experience but the closer comes blissfulness. Then even closer the word ecstasy.
But beyond that there are no words. The experience is far deeper than ecstasy itself.
Nothing can be said about enlightenment because all you know is from the outside.
Enlightenment is from within. Once you are enlightened it is impossible for your
enlightenment to fade. You wouldn’t have to put a veil over your face the way Moses did,
because enlightenment is not achieved and there is no technique that can bring
enlightenment in existence. This is a great opportunity for us to learn. Now we can
understand that Moses wasn’t enlightened. Whatever Moses did was an effort to achieve
and the essence to that is sadness. Paul describes his efforts in the Bible. He goes on
saying ‘Moses has spent forty days in the Mountain of Sinai, but what ever happened it
was temporary.’ For an example his face began to radiate, reflect light, but sadly it was
all temporary. Enlightenment isn’t temporary. Nor is it a dream the way Prophet Isaiah
described. Enlightenment is a stage of awareness. For an example dreams only come
into existence while you’re asleep. There is no possibility of dreams coming into
existence whilst your wide-awake. You can’t be hallucinated because there is an
experience. Dreaming is hallucinating, creating imaginations, and creating imaginations
is a stage of fiction. Enlightenment is beyond hallucination. You will not be hallucinated
the way the Bible records Elijah, the Prophet’s events that he heard still small of God but
saw nothing. Jesus said ‘God is like love’ Why has Jesus said this? Because nothing
can be said about love. The only way to know is to become a lover. But the lover has to
disappear, love can only be known when you love absolutely.”
“From this nightmare coming back into existence my body was so light, light as a
feather. I was loosing gravity. Some energy was elevating me. I can’t elaborate any
more. It was happening I could not prevent it. It was out of my control. I was trying to
avoid it. I had broken through the phenomenal. I was absolutely drunk on the divine, so
drowned, and so drunk, in the beatitude of realization. Divine was flourish. I was
intoxicated with divine. The ecstasy was uncontrollable; I was ruptured into eternal bliss.
Sant Mani Singh had an amazing naïve character and would say “I am a very simple
man. As a matter of fact, very ordinary, capable of making mistakes, don’t have any
qualities of any kind, I have something to be proud of, a ray of light penetrated upon me.”
His honorable beloved Mani Singh, had not just illuminated us on enlightenment but also
talked on various other subjects; which in the age of darkness have been misunderstood
because of our lack of intelligence. Some of these are elaborated upon briefly below.
Love
In San Francisco, California he said “What is love? It is madness, where you loose
consciousness, the greatest drug even that exists on Earth. The only difference is it’s an
inner chemistry. Love is crucifixion. Only love is the light in which life becomes known,
what we call resurrection. Only in love are you truly transformed. In reality you will only
feel life when you are in love. Love opens windows towards the beyond. The love people
talk about is the phenomenon of the mind. The love of the mind is like a dream because
it is from the mind and only the mind can dream and the dream can’t be reality. This love
cannot be eternal. So what is eternal love? When love comes out of mediation, it’s
qualities are different from the ones of the mind. The love of the mind – thee essence of
it is foolishness. You fall in love, the love of meditation, thee essence is wisdom, you rise
in love. Wisdom can’t be attained. You can gather as much knowledge, learn the
scriptures by heart, still there will be no wisdom. Wisdom is that which liberates you. In
this love there is a quality, just as a light surrounds the flame. The quality of love
surrounds you. Whoever comes close, he/she will be enchanted, enriched, and this love
of quality will shower around you. This is the real longing of the heart. Remember, once
a person starts feigning, feigning is a stage of pseudo living. His whole life becomes
false because love is the centre of life. Love is the ultimate purpose of life – the destiny
of life.”
Then he said, “First you have to love yourself. Only then can you radiate and reach to
others. When you are in love, it is illogical. There is no logic, no reason. It’s irrational,
that is why liking has nothing to do with loving, Liking has logic, there are many reasons
as to why you like a person. Generations and generations have misunderstood the word
love. Automatically they start thinking about sex, without them even realizing that sex
has nothing to do with love.”
Then he goes on describing the phenomenon of love. “love is like a spring breeze. It
comes and when it comes it brings a tremendous fragrance, the Odor of Sanctify. It
gives you the feeling that it will remain forever. The feeling is so strong that you cannot
doubt it. This love is divine. Love has always been God expressing himself. Love is the
alchemy, where there is love, ego doesn’t exist. That’s what I always said, love is
spiritual and only love can change lives. Only in love is there reconciliation and a great
transformation. That is why a man of love faces more difficulties. That is the fundamental
fact of life. Where there is no love, life is about to move smoothly.
When asked if one can dissolve with another he replied, “When you burn two lamps in a
room, they meet. The light meets. You can’t divide the first light from the second light.
Still there is a difference. You can bring them close, even then their flames will remain
different. The light will dissolve into each other. You can’t melt into each other. Only your
light can melt in the other – your outer aura.”
God
When asked about God at Orange County, California, sympathetically he replied, “You
can’t say its reality. You certainly can’t say it’s a fiction because something exists. That
something needs to be experimented. Nothing can be said about God. You can study
about God but nothing has been known because all you know is from the outside, what
we would call external. Until you enter from within, the internal can’t be known. By
studying about God, you will miss the whole concept and the consequence to that is that
you are left with knowledge only. To know is to enter the kingdom, to become one with
eternity. Knowledge is from the outside and has nothing what so ever to do with God.
Because God is happening.”
“Nothing is hidden from God because God is the inside of everything. The inside knows
all. You can hide something from others, but you can’t hide it from yourself. And it is
there that God is hidden.”
He went on to say “Why have we invented so many names for God? There must be a
certain reason, because God cannot be named, a name can easily be changed, but God
remains the same. So why has God been addressed? Because there are moments
when you would like to scream out your inner feelings to God in sheer joy. Some name
is needed. Muslim Sufis invented ninety-nine names of God that are so beautiful, but
why not a hundred? Ninety-nine looks a bit incomplete. There is a certain reason the
hundredth name is kept silent and that is the true name of God, which of course can’t be
uttered. That is why Guru Nanak said ‘Satnam’. Your name is thee truth. But in reality
you can’t utter it because it will lose its’ beauty. It remains un-uttered at the deepest core
of the heart. What is God’s true name? Nobody knows that all the names are man’s
creation. The true name of God is the existence that surrounds you.”
How can one call Him by all His names? The wise give him names
according to His manifestations – Jap Sahib, Guru Gobind Singh Ji
He goes on saying. “those kind (the irreligious) of people haven’t known anything of
spiritual experience. They’ve never felt any presence of God. The only way to receive
God is to drop all your searching and seeking. The real question is recognition, not
search, and the only way to know God is to live God.”