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

Labels:

Comments

  1. Ravish ManiJune 11, 2015 at 11:09 AM

    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. Datta GhoshJune 11, 2015 at 11:34 AM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalJune 11, 2015 at 12:05 PM

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

      Delete
  3. Amit AgarwalJune 11, 2015 at 11:52 AM

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

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJune 11, 2015 at 1:28 PM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalJune 11, 2015 at 2:14 PM

      Reading is not encouraged by RSSB masters, I believe.

      Delete
  5. ManiparnaJune 11, 2015 at 3:06 PM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalJune 11, 2015 at 3:33 PM

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

      Delete
  6. AnonymousJune 11, 2015 at 7:04 PM

    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. UnknownJune 14, 2015 at 3:48 AM

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

    ReplyDelete
  8. Roohi BhatnagarJune 15, 2015 at 6:42 PM

    Sending lot of good wishes your way, Sir :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. wingsJuly 7, 2015 at 4:12 PM

    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
47 comments
Read more

Don Bosco

Don Bosco (16 Aug 1815 - 31 Jan 1888) In Catholic parlance, which flows through my veins in spite of myself, today is the Feast of Don Bosco. My life was both made and unmade by Don Bosco institutions. Any great person can make or break people because of his followers. Religious institutions are the best examples. I’m presenting below an extract from my forthcoming book titled Autumn Shadows to celebrate the Feast of Don Bosco in my own way which is obviously very different from how it is celebrated in his institutions today. Do I feel nostalgic about the Feast? Not at all. I feel relieved. That’s why this celebration. The extract follows. Don Bosco, as Saint John Bosco was popularly known, had a remarkably good system for the education of youth.   He called it ‘preventive system’.   The educators should be ever vigilant so that wrong actions are prevented before they can be committed.   Reason, religion and loving kindness are the three pillars of that syste...
2 comments
Read more

Relatives and Antidepressants

One of the scenes that remain indelibly etched in my memory is from a novel of Malayalam writer O V Vijayan. Father and little son are on a walk. Father tells son, “Walk carefully, son, otherwise you may fall down.” Son: “What will happen if I fall?” Father: "Relatives will laugh.” I seldom feel comfortable with my relatives. In fact, I don’t feel comfortable in any society, but relatives make it more uneasy. The reason, as I’ve understood, is that your relatives are the last people to see any goodness in you. On the other hand, they are the first ones to discover all your faults. Whenever certain relatives visit, my knees buckle and the blood pressure shoots up. I behave quite awkwardly. They often describe my behaviour as arising from my ego, which used to be a oversized in yesteryear. I had a few such visitors the other day. The problem was particularly compounded by their informing me that they would be arriving by about 3.30 pm and actually reaching at about 7.30 pm. ...
16 comments
Read more

Coffee can be bitter

The dawns of my childhood were redolent of filtered black coffee. We were woken up before the birds started singing in the lush green village landscape outside home. The sun would split the darkness of the eastern sky with its splinter of white radiance much after we children had our filtered coffee with a small lump of jaggery. Take a bite of the jaggery and then a sip of the coffee. Coffee was a ritual in our home back then. Perhaps our parents believed it would jolt our neurons awake and help us absorb our lessons before we set out on the 4-kilometre walk to school after all the morning rituals at home. After high school, when I left home for further studies at a distant place, the ritual of the morning coffee stopped. It resumed a whole decade later when I completed my graduation and took up a teaching job in Shillong. But I had lost my taste for filtered coffee by then; tea took its place. Plain tea without milk – what is known as red tea in most parts of India. Coffee ret...
18 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more