Skip to main content

The Path of the Masters


The following passage is extracted from the book, The Path of the Masters, by Julian Johnson who was a disciple of Sawan Singh, one of the Radha Soami Masters.  Johnson was a doctor by profession.  He was also a Christian pastor.  He came to India with the intention of converting Indians to Christianity but ended up converting himself into a Satsangi.  He wrote five books about his Master and the Satsang.  He died under mysterious circumstances in 1939.

The extract:

I can almost hear some Western critics say: “Why don’t Masters take measures to prevent the downward drift of mankind?”  The answer is that the Masters do not interfere with the natural order.  It has been on the program from the beginning of time.  These ages must come, as they are ordained by the Creator.  It is no part of the duty of the Masters to interfere in world processes.  Their duty is to help individuals to escape this melee of troubles.  And one thing we should always keep in mind – the Supreme is in command in this world and he will manage affairs to the best advantage.  We need not doubt it.  Just as certainly as the planets move in their orbits, so surely will this world go on as the Creator wishes it to.  No man or group of men can wreck the world. ... And in all this confusion and strife, the Masters are doing all they can for the world, while their chief attention is centred upon the relief of individuals who are ready to make their way up and out of the world of conflict. 

A personal reflection

I read this book a couple of years ago when circumstances conspired to bring me into contact with the troupe that follows the present successor of Julian Johnson’s Master.  I went through it again recently because of my present personal circumstances.  The above passage, particularly the last sentence, stared at me like a phantom.  The Master helps the individuals who are ready to make their way up!  I understood a lot of things. 

My review of the book: The Path of the Masters

Comments

  1. Exactly, solution or happiness couldn't be forced. A help is useless if someone is not ready to accept it. I'm gonna read it soon. Thanks. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Circumstances put me too in front of Radha Soami Satsang, Dayalbagh Agra, I saw many things and was, well cynical about some of them. Will read the book just to see what it says

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The book was published almost a century back. Today the cult is a mere shadow of what it was in those days.

      Delete
  3. Great to know about this book...shall try to read it too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I had introduced to Radasoami when I was in school and had attended many of the satsangs. That was ages ago, but some of their teachings have remained with me. Good to be reminded again though now I am not much into reading. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Reading is not encouraged by RSSB masters, I believe.

      Delete
  5. I didn't know of this book. Will try to read it.. my 'to be read' list is getting longer and longer... :-) Life seems so short...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unless you are spiritually oriented, you can delete this book from the list.

      Delete
  6. Very interesting! Hadn't heard of this time... hope to make time to read it soon... my husband would love to read it too infact! Thanks for sharing...

    ReplyDelete
  7. An all together new experience. Never knew such inspirational story. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sending lot of good wishes your way, Sir :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Certainly a good path cannot reach out to millions in today's world. They (Masters who are clandestinely referred by Johnson as a group of men who can wreck the world) can pull wool over the eyes of only those who have no clear purpose of their own lives or those who are illiterate or poor or abandoned by their kins. That makes a big proportion of the entire population of the world. So it is easy to conquer many lands. Alexander was not at all great compared to these people in the big game, I mean, man hunters or head hunters that our boss used to call... ha... ha!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand

Cats and Love

No less a psychologist than Freud said that the “time spent with cats is never wasted.” I find time to spend with cats precisely for that reason. They are not easy to love, particularly if they are the country variety which are not quite tameable, and mine are those. What makes my love affair with my cats special is precisely their unwillingness to befriend me. They’d rather be in their own company. “In ancient time, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this,” Terry Pratchett says. My cats haven’t, I’m sure. Pratchett knew what he was speaking about because he loved cats which appear frequently in his works. Pratchett’s cats love independence, very unlike dogs. Dogs come when you call them; cats take a message and get back to you as and when they please. I don’t have dogs. But my brother’s dogs visit us – Maggie and me – every evening. We give them something to eat and they love that. They spend time with us after eating. My cats just go away without even a look af

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation