The Message of Christmas Day

Sant Kirpal Singh Ji

This darshan session took place on Christmas Day, 1971. It was first published (partially) in Sat Sandesh, December 1974 (pp. 6-11); it was republished in Sant Bani magazine, December 1994 (pp. 18-23). A longer version appears in The Light of Kirpal, under the title «Don't Forget Him» (chapter 87, pp. 437-446).

QUESTION: Which does the Master feel is the most important birthday, December 25 or February 6?

THE MASTER: Every day is a birthday, every day is the greatest birthday. You are blessed, you are seeing your Master in the physical body. I am not so blessed. There is a vast difference between the Physical Master in the physical body and the Master who has transcended into the Beyond. At the human level He is at the same level as you-it is all joy and ecstasy. The Master does not leave the initiate until the end of the world, but if we are on the same plane both together . . .

So happy we are of course when we are in the physical body with our Master; we can never forget it. When we remember those days, tears are shed, the heart bursts. He is not away from us. I know my Master is with me. Yet with all that, the physical presence cannot be underrated. That is why, I tell you, you are happy of course-I am not; it does not mean that my Master is not with me–He is never away from me even for a moment. But to be on the same plane together, that is blessedness.

So those who have a Master should enjoy every day as Christmas. It is only His Will to enjoy that. To enjoy only eating and drinking, that is no enjoyment. We should enjoy being on the Way; if we are progressing on the Way, we should enjoy Him inside as well as outside. When my Master left physically I used to tell people who asked me, "Look here, when an officer, that soul, withdraws inside his own room, he just engages a boy to run, to carry on his work." So somebody is carrying on His teachings, His work.

You are blessed, you see, but make the best use of it. May there never be a day when you forget your Master. Remain in contact with the Master-you have a great boon-in that case you don't fall away in lower pursuits. If you see your Master is seeing you every moment of life, how can you do anything wrong? So blessed you are, I would say, on this Happy Christmas.

The Christ Power is the same working at different poles whether it is in Jesus or one of the other Masters, that makes no difference; Christ never dies. We have to become conscious of that, you see. Truly to commemorate, to celebrate the birthday of one Master is to live up to it. But we should celebrate daily. This is the one thing you forget when you are sitting-if you remember Him daily with an anguished heart, how blessed you become! We should celebrate the Master's birth daily, at every moment of breath. Guru Amar Das said, "If I forget Him with one twinkling of an eye-so much time-it passes like a million years." So Master is the very life of the initiate: don't forget Him. Do nothing more, you'll become the mouthpiece of the Master. Sweet remembrance of the Master is the sum total of all practices. We do them only to show that He may not be forgotten in weal or woe. As you think so you become.

Celebrate your Master's birthday daily. He is not the physical body, He is working through the physical body, and those are very fortunate who see Him at that level. Every moment spent with Him is very precious because you have got the teachings both ways-one third by word of mouth, and two thirds by receptivity. I think that is what I would enjoin on you-become Masters yourselves. It is 1, not now 1, but Christ liveth in me. You follow me? After all, for what purpose do you do all these practices? To see Him inside, to see Him everywhere, wherever your attention has gone. He is not a son of man, He is God in man. Once He initiates you He can never leave you till the end of the world. The attitude of mind of the Masters cannot be appreciated by those who are groveling in the physical body. So Happy Christmas to you every moment of life! You people are more fortunate than me, you see. I'm talking of the physical plane, don't misunderstand me.

Yes? Any questions?

QUESTION: Why have You come for us? Why?

THE MASTER: I'm a friend.

QUESTION: Why don't you stay with your Master?

THE MASTER: I'm under orders. I was not prepared to live even one moment after Him. I prayed to Him all through life. I was initiated physically in 1924, but I was with Him seven years before I met Him, on the inner planes. In 1927 I had a vision, I saw Master was leaving us-twenty-one years before He really left the physical body. I never had a moment of joy afterwards in His lifetime because I always had that sting, I tell you. I knew that was the very thorn of separation which was awaiting me. So I always prayed, "Master, let me go before You." He said, "No-you are to continue." Why, why, why do I have to? Orders cannot be questioned.

Gurmat Sidhant is a book written by me-through my hands I would say, not by me, by the Master within me. I used to write it down and take it to the Master to read it to Him, so that He may give the final yes. Once I wrote what happened to an initiate who is left behind after the Master has left the physical plane. That was a very practical statement, description given. There was a Master, Dadu by name, who had an initiate who was not at the place when His Master left the body; when he came to His tomb he lay down on the tomb and passed away. And he repeated this couplet: "Oh Master, without You I could not live for a moment. It is not bearable." So he passed away. The second Guru of the Sikhs, when his Master left the body, became a recluse never to show his face to anybody. To live without the Master is very difficult, unbearable. We know when the Master leaves He is never away from the initiate, but the initiate as a son of man has great suffering. Even now when I remember my Master I shed tears. But He left His orders. Why? There is no question why.

When I read out that part of the Gurmat Sidhant to Him He said, "That's all right; Kirpal Singh, read it again!" I had just quoted two or three sentences like that. Then again I read it to Him. Again He said, "Will you read it again?" Again I read it. Perhaps He was telling me, "You, poor fellow, will have the same fate awaiting you."

These are so many sweet remembrances of the Master, you see; this is everything. One poet says, "To live in paradise without the Master is a hell for me. And to live in hell with my Master is a paradise for me." But these words can be appreciated only by those who are really devoted to the Master.

If your son passes away, your mother passes away, how grieved you feel! I never felt any grief, thank God. That's a great suffering you usually feel for the physical relations. What about the relation which is spiritual? Anyhow, to be with the Master is a great joy. That God Power never leaves you. But make the best use of the time you have here on the physical plane.

Once it so happened that my Master was photographed for the first time; I was there. He moved from one station to another; I followed Him wherever He went. At one place a man who was a big landlord was just entering the room, standing by Him, and I was sitting by the door outside. He requested the Master, "Well, Master, will You give me a copy of Your photograph?" The Master's ways are very mysterious. He told him, "Look here, even Kirpal Singh wants it, but I won't give it to him." I was sitting outside, you see. Mysterious are His ways. Later I said, "Well, dear Master, I know Your love for Your Master is the richest. You cannot scale it, how much love You have for Him! But still with the little love You have given me, won't You give me a copy of Your photograph?" "No, no . . . Surely I will give you one." That was the first time He got Himself photographed. If you have love it is the panacea for everything. Love is God and God is Love. But if you want to have this marriage you are having now . . . So the Master always tries to quicken the love of the disciple for His Master. He knows what it was like with His own Master.

[...]

The Tenth Guru, whose birthday was celebrated yesterday, played the role of a Saint as well as an Avatar. Once he was found in sweet remembrance of God repeating, "It is You, it is You alone, it is You." Turn hai means it is You alone, nobody else but You, all the world is You personified. He was meditating, "Turn hai, turn hai: You are all, everything You are." He got intoxicated and went on repeating this for three days, day and night, "Turn hai, turn hai-it is all You, Thou Oh Lord, It is all God." How can you imagine, appreciate these words of those Masters? If you have love like that for the Master that will give you blessedness as if you had done penances for a hundred years.

If you take the Master as a son of man, what will you get? Sonship-physical relationship. If you take Him as a rich man, you'll have the same thing. If you take Him as God, then you become God. There are different angles from which hundreds come to Him–only very few really have that attitude. Guru Ramdas says go and gather together all the riches of the world, from the plains and the ocean, gold and precious stones, and put them all together at one place, then ask a devoted initiate of the Master, "Would you like the wealth of the whole world-or the Master?" Master is All-Wise-yet when we do things do we put the Master first, or the world first?

If you learn this message of Christmas Day I think you'll become Lords yourselves. [...] Why do you delay? He simply wants you to obey His Commandments. You obey the commandments of your mind as compared with the commandments of the Master. We give preference to the commandments of the world–there we lack badly. That is why we have got very little progress. Well, this is the message for today; take it to your heart and live up to it. If you die in that sweet remembrance of the Master you are not to return to the world. Even Yama cannot look at you-he will run away when you repeat the Names of God. What are the charged words? They are charged by the Master. The Master is not the physical body, mind that, but the presence of God. I have written this-but to hear it is more real. One is from the intellectual level, but this is from God direct.

Yesterday I went for the sweet remembrance of the Tenth Guru. When we went there we read from Sikh scriptures. I offered my heart to them. Who knows what I was and what He was there. The Guru was always the same one or two living there. They're all One, you see, all Masters are One. Masters never become two. One bulb is fused and another is put on, when that is fused a further third one is put on- that's all. The Light is One.

So we'll have a feast today in sweet remembrance of Christ.

QUESTION: Will we have a Satsang during the day also?

THE MASTER: This is more than hundreds and thousands of Satsangs what you have got now. Is it not? It is the very gist, the very soul of all preachings of all scriptures. What I have told you would you like anything more once you get That?

QUESTION: Someday maybe You'll give us a feast of Satsang all day long? Just for one day?

THE MASTER: Pity it is, the feast is given every day by radiation, you people don't enjoy it. His very moving on earth is a regular feast. An actor acts in whatever he's doing-even when he's eating, he is acting. The Master is radiating Love. Even if He is harsh, still that Love is radiating. Once it happened that a lady came up to my Master when He was very busy. He does not become angry, but . . . This lady came up and bowed down to His feet. He said, "Get away! What is it? I'm busy! Wait!" And this lady said, "That's all I want, Your radiation." You see? His whole attention was there: "Wait! Wait! Get away!" Is it not the whole attention? "That's all I wanted. Thank you." So He radiates Love who has got Life in Him. Very few people really appreciate this because they have no love for the Master.

Hafiz, a great Saint of Persia, referred to the Master as a lady with red lips. He said, "The very harsh words coming out through those red lips are the sweetest in the world." The blessed Fifth Guru says, "Even when You chastise us it becomes very soothing to me, on account of love." Why is it sometimes He is strict like that? He wants to give you a lesson in love; He wishes you to become like Himself. And you delay because you have no love for Him. So take this to your heart-don't forget it or Him–then you'll progress like anything.

QUESTION: How come, Master, we're so privileged to be with You when thousands of initiates would like to be with You?

THE MASTER: This is the Grace of God, not me as son of man. It is all His Grace-He affords the opportunity. You have come from a foreign land, spent thousands of money with love and anguish to come here and stay a month or two. The people living here don't appreciate it like that-there are some who do, but many do not. Some may say the Power of God is there. So this appreciation arises out of a grateful heart. It is His Grace of course.

Manbody is the highest in all creation. Every moment is worth millions, trillions, I would say, billions of trillions of money. Direct every moment to Him, if we are to make the best use of every moment of life. Kabir said, "The time taken in taking one breath is worth more than the three worlds, physical, astral, and causal." You see? This appreciation arises only out of a grateful heart. But how many are there who really go to the Master for Master's sake? Very few.

QUESTION: What is Master's sake?

THE MASTER: The reason you come to Him is to meet God. This is a room, it has four corners. There is a man in one corner who has millions of dollars; whoever goes there, he gives him money. The second corner is only for diseases; those who come sick to him, he heals them. The third is for supernatural powers. And in the fourth corner God is sitting Himself. How many will go to God? Very few. People come only for worldly things, here and hereafter, or for healing, or for supernatural powers. How many are there who come to God for God's sake? Very few. People come to the Master only for these three things -most of them! The man who comes to Him for His sake gets put on the right Way. So you're blessed, you see. God has directed you from within to meet you somewhere where you can have your true chance of Life, which is never, like the world's relations, frittered away, never ruined, never lost.

Those who have got the manbody have the hereditary right to meet God. Those who think of the Master, who come in contact with All Consciousness, will become more conscious. If you think of the material things where there is less consciousness, your consciousness will be decreased-after death you will go to the lower level of creation. So that is why it is most important to think of God -All Consciousness-so that you may not come back in the lower forms of life. If at all you are sent back, that's another thing.

So those who are celebrating today do not appreciate what Christ did. Did not Christ say, "Whoever loves Me will love My commandments, and my Father who has sent Me will love him. When he will love Him, I and my Father both will manifest to him in his vision." Do you remember? Read your scriptures and see what they say. All Masters say the same thing: Those who keep My commandments are loved by Me and My Father Who has sent Me. When My Father loves him, I and My Father both manifest to him an experience. You see? I'm not telling you anything new, only quoting from Christ.

QUESTION: Could you explain to me what the meaning of Kirpal Singh is?

THE MASTER: Names are names.

QUESTION: But does it not have a meaning? Singh means something and Kirpal means . . .?

THE MASTER: Kirpal means Merciful.

QUESTION: And Singh?

THE MASTER: Singh means lion. When the two are put together: Lion of Mercy. So His ways are full of mercy. He's very strict, mind that. He has got an iron hand-but His gloves are very smoothlike.