Baba Faqir Chand was a remarkable Indian sage who spent a good part of his life practicing an ancient meditation technique, popularly known today as Surat Shabd Yoga, which attempts to induce a consciously controlled Near Death Experience (NDE). Mastery of this practice, according to adepts of the tradition, enables one to experience regions of light and sound beyond the normal waking state, providing glimpses into higher realms of consciousness.
Near the end of World War One, Faqir Chand was recognized by his own guru Shiv Brat Lal and Sawan Singh, a deeply admired master in the Surat Shabd Yoga tradition, for whom both Faqir Chand and his teacher Shiv Brat Lal had tremendous regard, to be an advanced Shabd Yoga mystic. According to Faqir's own account, he could almost daily leave his body at will and experience exalted states of awareness. Faqir recalls:
"After about three months, the fighting came to an end and the Jawans retired to their barracks. I returned to Bagdad, where there were many satsangis. When they learned of my arrival, they all came together to see me. They made me sit on a raised platform, offered flowers, and worshipped me. It was all very unexpected and a surprising scene for me. I asked them, 'Our Guru Maharaj is at Lahore. I am not your Guru. Why do you worship me?' They replied in unison, 'On the battlefield we were in danger. Death lurked over our heads. You appeared before us in those moments of danger and gave us directions for our safety. We followed your instructions and thus were saved.'"
Nevertheless, in a nearly Zen-like epiphany...
Faqir Chand was NOT satisfied with these attainments and sought for something higher and more permanent.
Eventually Faqir realized that no matter how subtle or blissful a meditation experience may be, it did not in and of itself constitute the ultimate in spiritual realization.
Rather, the ultimate truth was that no experience could capture or contain the transcendental mystery of Being. In the highest stages of development man does not develop a keen sense of omniscience, but a radical and irrevocable understanding of unknowingness.
In a similar vein, Tony Parsons, discussing his own Enlightenment experience in his book The Open Secret relates:
One of the things I came to see is that Enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted that it cannot be achieved. Doctrines, processes, and progressive paths (Surat Shabd Yoga?) which seek Enlightenment only exacerbate the problem they address by reinforcing the idea that the Self can find something that it presumes it has lost (SEE). It is that very effort, that investment in self-identity, that continuously recreates the illusion of separation from oneness. This is the veil that we believe exists. It is the dream of individuality.
In sum, one realizes that he or she is nothing but a mere bubble in a sea of existence which is infinite in all directions. As such, the bubble simply surrenders its entire being to that Power which is, in truth, living it.
Thus Faqir Chand became quite outspoken about how gurus, masters, prophets, and mystics, posing as all-knowing beings, have deceived millions of followers by duping them into believing that they have omnipresence and omnipotence when in fact they have neither.
What Enlightened sages possess, rather, is access experientially to a higher spectrum of awareness, which, in turn, reveals not final or absolute truth, but a growing awareness of how truly mysterious life really is. As Shiv Dayal Singh, the founder of Radhasoami, poetically put it: "Wonder, Wonder, Wonder; Wonder hath assumed a form."
Coupled with Faqir's tacit realization of unknowingness, he also exposed for the first time in the Sant tradition how visions of religious personages are the products of one's own inner development.
For instance, when one undergoes a Near Death Experience and beholds a Jesus or a Nanak or an Angel in the middle of the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, it is not the esteemed figure who is himself orchestrating the encounter. Rather it is the neophyte who is projecting the sacred personage on to the light from his/her own biological and cultural history.
The light may well indeed be a transcultural phenomenon, part and parcel of a higher order of awareness or merely a neurological event, but the interpretation of who resides in that light (Is it Jesus? Is it Nanak? Is it my uncle Joe?) is entirely a personal affair, shaded by the nuances of an individual's sojourn for tens of years on a planet we call Earth.
Faqir is perhaps best known for his frank admissions of ignorance surrounding his miraculous appearances to disciples during times of need. He unilaterally confessed that he was never aware of appearing to his devotees. Nor did Faqir Chand claim that he had understood the secret of Reality.
As he said on many occasions, echoing the words of such greats as Lao Tzu, Socrates, and Nicholas of Cusa: "How can I make any claims about attaining the Ultimate. The truth is that I know nothing." Hence, Faqir Chand raised the slogan of "Be-Man," arguing that to become a human being, endowed with discrimination and compassion, is a great thing in itself.
Again, very Zen-like, paralleling "the true man without rank" of Zen master Lin Chi of some ten centuries earlier, Faqir would assert: "To be spiritual necessitates that one become a true man (or woman) first."
As time passed Faqir Chand became disgruntled with "the pure light and sound which was beyond form," in the process turning to no-thing, as in the line from the Diamond Sutra said to have, after being overheard by Hui-neng, igniting his Enlightenment: "Depending upon no-thing, you must find your own mind." In doing so Faqir Chand broke with Surat Shabd Yoga and eventually came to be regarded as a "heretic" to the movement. Near the end of his life, he grew closer to the philosophical principles of Buddhism, particularly Mahayana and Zen. (source)
The American author Julian P. Johnson studied many years under Baba Faqir Chand's guru Sawan Singh and wrote extensively about his master and his experiences. In 1939 Johnson's most famous work, The Path of the Masters, was published. The book, in English, was the first its kind, describing in detail the history and practice of what came to be called Surat Shabd Yoga or Sant Mat.
For other individuals that have had and discuss Enlightenment experiences and the relationship to actual Near Death Experiences rather than meditative ones, pro or con, please see John Wren-Lewis and Valerie Verner.
AWAKENED TEACHERS FORUM
SEE ALSO:
THE UNKNOWING SAGE: The Life and Works of Baba Faqir ChandFAQIR CHAND MEETS THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD THE AWAKENING EXPERIENCE IN THE MODERN ERA
THIS SITE LISTED ON
THE GATE KEEPER'S
LIST OF SPIRITUAL TEACHERS
Bio contents excerpted in part from:
THE UNKNOWING SAGE: The Life and Works of Baba Faqir Chand
David Christopher Lane, Ph.D
Lane offers at the bottom of his page Neural Surfer: Copyright 1994 & 1995 & 1996 & 1997 & 1998 & 1999 ("Just cite what you see.... Everything is Free")
SURAT SHABD YOGA
The great Masters of Sant Mat found a "way to God" ("way to God" being synonymous with the Ultimate Truth, Awakening to the Absolute, Enlightenment, etc.) that did not involve the physical torture of penance and austerities that marked many of the yogas and spiritual paths of the time or throughout the ages. A Path of the Masters so that those that followed could find their way. They pioneered Surat Shabd Yoga, a way of reuniting with God that did not involve stopping the breathing, sitting in fires, or extreme fasting in the cold mountains or the heated deserts. They discovered that one could find God through connecting one’s soul or attention, called Surat with the inner Current of Light and Sound of God, the Shabd, through the union of meditation, Yoga. They found that by sitting still, closing one’s eyes, concentrating one’s attention at the single or third eye, located between and behind the two eyebrows, and by repeating
THE FIVE CHARGED NAMES OF GOD GIVEN BY A
PERFECT MASTER AT THE TIME OF INITIATION
one could transcend physical body consciousness. Through this process they could journey into the inner realms: the astral, causal, and supra-causal regions until finally merging the soul into God (i.e., the Self with the Absolute, etc.)
(see)Emanating from the twin doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, the Masters taught that once souls are released from the Cycle of Rebirth they become one with God. Guru Nanak taught five successive levels of Attainment or Enlightenment, ending in Sach Khand or the Realm of Truth, the mystical union of the soul with eternal bliss and serenity. These five levels enable a person to pass from the state of being a manmukh (an “evil-doer”) to gurmukh (“absorption into God”). The main hindrance is something called Maya. In Hinduism Maya is delusion, God’s ability to make himself ‘appear’ as the world; in Sikhism the word means simply the error of placing too much emphasis on the material world and too little emphasis on spiritual values; in Buddhism it is similar to a combination of "both," with both Maya and delusion, but sidestepping the "God" issue.
The five ascending levels on the spiritual path are (1) Dharam Khand -- Living by God’s law; (2) Saram Khand -- Living a self-disciplined life; (3) Karam Khand -- Living in God’s grace; (4) Gian Khand -- Living in the revelation of the knowledge of God; (5) Sach Khand -- attaining Ultimate Truth. Those who achieve this absolute state arrive at the final objective of every Sikh: sahaj, the rapturous peace of totally blending in the divine, final liberation from the painful sequence of death and rebirth. See: Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.
The teacher-gurus of the Surat Shabd Yoga method attempt to keep their techniques secret. The techniques are called by various names, such as Nam (name) and Updesh (knowledge), to deliberately mislead noninitiates. The “name” and “knowledge” actually refer to techniques of physiological manipulation of the senses and meditation on one’s breathing.
Those that teach the "path of sound and light" do not initiate everyone who asks for it. One has to be spiritually “ready” for initiation. There is no definite criterion for judging whether or not a person is ready; it depends on the arbitrary feelings of the initiator. Some teachers stipulate a few objective conditions such as giving up liquor, eating only vegetarian food, giving up or no drugs, etc.
After one has been chosen for initiation, he is taken into a closed room, where the initiator explains the importance of the “knowledge,” Satsang (the weekly gathering for fellowship and teaching), and the Satguru (the True Teacher). The would-be initiate takes a vow of secrecy and to follow no other guru except his own. Then he bows, kneels, or generally prostrates before the guru or his photo, and worships him/it. The initiator teaches him the techniques of meditation.
See also: IN THE WAY OF ENLIGHTENMENT: The Ten Fetters of Buddhism, as well as The Five Varieties of Zen.
