Back in summer 1990 I met up with Dr Sharma, or also referred to as Manav Dayal a teacher of "Shabd Yoga" in the Faqir Chand tradition. I came across him via a contact who claimed that it might be best to meet him at Heathrow Airport which was not far from where I lived at the time (ie Slough). This I did, and went to the correct arrival point for passengers. I had a sign with his name on it. The only pic I had of him was as a younger man, and it was not a particularly good reproduction. Anyway, I waited awhile as the passengers left the plane, and then I saw an Asian go towards a portly elderly man from the crowd of onlookers. He put a garland around the new arrival to Britain. This I knew to be a traditional gesture of respect to someone of importance, and I rightly guessed that it was Dr. Sharma being honoured. The Asian devotee though seemed taken aback by this....

Anyway, I talked briefly to Dr. Sharma, and for whatever reasons he mentioned something about psychic odours. Personally, I found this an odd subject compared with the high brow thinking of "Shabd Yoga", and Sant Mat. Indeed, I have to confess that I found Sharma to be somehow eccentric in manner.

After that, I drove down to Hammersmith, London to a certain address to meet him again for an interview I was doing for the magazine Yoga and Healing Dr. Sharma was staying with some devotees, and I hardly got any questions out as he seemed to be intent in giving a long rambling intellectual discourse on Hindu mysticism. This was recorded ofcourse but unfortunately the tape was later lost.

Anyway, he referred to Sant Mat as Sat Mat ,or the Path of Truth, and regarded Beas Satsang as ".....being like an empire." He may well have got these two points from his own master Faqir Chand, and simply repeated them to me. He also gave the old traditional interpretation of the word Radha, and reversed by repeating it as "Dhara, Dhara, Dhara,"......meaning spiritual current! At some point during the interview (or should I say discourse from Dr Sharma!) I thought I heard him say the following......"I do know  not who is saying this. Some current flowing through me.." or words to that effect. Again, I must stress the word "thought" of him saying this as I do not fully recall whether this actually appeared on the tape, or not! Maybe a trick of the mind........

After all this, I had an informal chat with him. At one point, he left the room, and thereupon re-appeared, and said "I am your Satguru!" Later, we had a wonderful vegetarian lunch.

When I left to return to Slough in my car I had an extraordinary experience. I became aware of a power flowing through me. It was controlling me in the most NATURAL, and SPONTANEOUS manner. There was no fear of any sort involved. It was as if something truly wonderful had been re-discovered from ages past. This energy was incredibly subtle in a way that is difficult to describe. It was a  super-tactile experience. No sounds, or lights, or anything similiar was had. It was a PROCESS of AWAKENING from the dream-like creation of the physical universe. Though I used the word "natural" just now in capitals it was somehow more than "natural".

This experience went on for a long while. The following day after my encounter with Dr. Sharma I rang him about it. He commented to his suprise "......that it was happening already " (spontaneous initiation). However, I felt that this subtle energy seemed to be trying to "control" me too much, and I managed to break away from it. I would have loved the intensity of that experience to have continued but the problem was that I did not really take Dr. Sharma very seriously, and did not regard him as my real Satguru. Yet, as Jashan Vaswani  once informed me, and an audience that "THE REAL SATGURU IS YOUR SELF." Oddly enough, this was what Faqir Chand claimed...that the physical master only acts as a catalyst for psycho-spiritual expereinces. This was something I did not appreciate, or fully knew about at the time.

Sadly, Dr. Sharma passed on several years ago, but the teachings continue through various lines of "masters".

In January 2007 I made contact  with Sant Harjit Singh. He is one of the recognized successors of Faqir Chand. Before actually visiting him in Southall I viewed his website, and on occassions listened to his music, or rather extracts of it to be more precise. It definitely carried a highly subtle energy, and helped to create a devotional "atmosphere" in me (ie. a heightening of conciousness).  What occured was a PROCESS largely identical to that experienced after visiting Dr. Sharma back in 1990. This could be suggestive that both teachers reached the same "highest", or "ultimate" level of superconciousness usually indicative of "God-Realization" though ofcourse there are an infinity of different planes.  The key features of the PROCESS OF AWAKENING is as follows.


i) An awareness that ones own inner lower self was being slowly transmuted into something else in the most NATURAL, and SPONTANEOUS manner. In other words, I was "dying" to gradually be reborn into a higher state of being......

ii) An awareness  of being surrounded by the unseen energies of higher conciousness especially in the evening.

iii) An awareness at times of being "possessed" in the most NATURAL, and SPONTANEOUS fashion  by these extremely subtle "forces" without any sense of fear at all. Yet, there was something akin to awe by the growing onset of these experiences, and at times an overwhelming sense of gratitude. This was ones feeble response to the awakening process.

iv) An ability to spontaneously control, and dissolve any improper thoughts entering the mind.

v) A greater ability as never before to actually calm the mind without any mental chatter . In other words, I often became one-pointed with the repetition of the Five Holy Names in a wonderfully NATURAL way. I suspect the unseen energies were stilling my mind oftentimes to perform "real" meditation.

The above is all GRACE without which any kind of spiritual practice is virtually impossible. Infact, I am coming to the conclusion that a true Master of any degree should be able to successfully transmit such experienes irrespective of the evolution of the disciple. However, I suspect that it depends on ones sincerity for it to happen rather upon the amount of purity an individual soul may, or may not have.

Anyway, I met Sant Harjit Singh at his Southall home. Just before that, and earlier on at home in Slough I was acutely aware of energies of higher coniousness. When I arrived at Harjits home positive vibrations were virtually palpable, and inspiring. As I entered the front room I shook hands with him. He was dressed in orange, and wore a homemade turban if I recall correctly.

I explained I had some experiences before meeting him. I claimed that the higher conciousness which was trying  to "posses" me in the most SUBTLE, NATURAL, AND SPONTANEOUS fashion was influening my behaviour for the good. Submission to it was proving beneficial. I also mentioned being suddenly awoken in the bed when I felt a transmission of energy shoot right though me. This caused my body to jerk. Harjit claimed that this was do with the (spiritual) heart though I did fully understand what he meant by this.. I also mentioned my contact with a certain Sound though this may well have been a trick of the mind.

Though I asked only few questions Harjit two, or three times asked "Can I go now?" as he was wanting to do some meditation upstairs.  Admitedly, he did have some doubt about the genuiness of my experiences. He also seemed to regard Dr. Sharma, the chief successor of Faqir Chand a little questionable too. This was evident in the way he spoke. Like many devotees of the latter Master the former was not liked particularly. However, Sharma did visit Harjit Singh on a certain occassion.

One thing that did clearly tanspire in the meeting was this. Harjit Singh clearly revealed that there was no set sequence of planes as indicated in the Radhaswami literature. Indeed, such things were merely mental projections nothing more, nothing less.

What I did not fully appreciate at the time was the fact that though Harjit Singh was billed as a master of surat shabd yoga he also taught other yogic type systems. In other words, it was not treated as being the highest, and most advanced form of meditation. Rather it was actually seen as one of many other systems of spiritual evolution. This contradicts the Radhaswami Teachings as presented notably by Shiv Dayal Singh.

Harjit Singh understandably wanted his exact address secret. The reason was that he wanted to make sure that whoever visited him was "genuine" in their desire for spiritual progress rather than someone who was merely interested in intellectual "games".


Apologies for bold lettering as this will be corrected shortly. However, the following is put in the bold..............

     WITHOUT GRACE FROM ABOVE, AND BEYOND, SPIRITUAL PROGRESS IS IMPOSSIBLE. CONCENTRATING ONES THOUGHTS ON A GENUINE TEACHER CAN WAKE UP THE SOUL. THE PROCESS OF AWAKENING IS SPONTANEOUS, AND NATURAL. IT BECOMES THE POWERFUL INFLUENCE IN TRYING TO CHANGE OUR BEHAVIOUR. YET, IF THIS IS TO BE A PERMANENT PHENOMENON REGULAR MEDITATION IS ABSOLUTELY VITAL..............