Charan Singh's view of Creation

Q. 363. What was in the beginning?
A. First, there was only the Lord, who is without beginning and without end. He has projected Himself everywhere . There was nothing besides Him. He was the only one. All that we see is just His own projection. Everything is projected from Him. If we admit that there was something besides Him, then the Lord is not one. He is the only One-always was, is and will be. He is everywhere, and everything is His own projection.

Q. 364. Maharaj Ji, does all human life start in lower forms and evolve upwards? I mean, in animal forms, or even lower?
A. He created the whole thing. The creation did not develop slowly from one thing. He simply projected Himself, through His Word, the Shabd, and the whole world and everything in it was created at once.

Q. 365. Man is a created man?
A. Some of the human beings were created as human beings; and some have transmigrated into the lower species also.

Q. To animals, and man evolved to higher forms?
A. To animals and lower. And from the lower species he has come up.

Q. 366. And do animals take on higher forms?
A. Oh, yes. Every soul is given a chance to come up to the status of a human being.
Q. Insects, too?
A. Yes, insects too. They will get a chance to become human beings at least once, whether they make use of that opportunity or not.
Q. 367. When we look upon an ant, a little object crawling, could we assume that soul was once a human form?
A. Yes.
Q. 368. Everything, except the form which is God, is actually unreal, because only that which is eternal is real, is that right?
A. That is right. How can we say anything is real when it is not permanent-here today and gone tomorrow?
Q. 369. And everything that we see out here is like a sunbeam, and at the most distant end of that sunbeam it looks out, and every­thing that we see, that is the way we become mesmerized in this
world? And only by looking back through the sunbeam you see reality, is that true?
A. That is right. All that we see with the physical eyes is made up of one or more of the five elements, namely, earth, water, fire, air and ether. And all these five elements are inimical to each other. But with the help of, or due to that ray of Shabd, the soul, which is also a ray of the Supreme Father, all of the five elements are contained and active in a human body, each one manifesting them according to his own karmas-in that proportion. But all the five elements are active, in a greater or lesser degree, in every human body. We are moving about, but the day that the Lord takes the soul away from the body, all these
salvation from the physical body when these five: elements merge back into their own origin. That is the physical death. And salvation from birth and death is attained when the soul reaches Trikuti, Brahm, and the mind merges back into the universal mind. Salvation for a soul is when it merges back into the Supreme Father, its own origin.
For the purpose of functioning in this world,
the soul has taken the association of the mind and senses; but, unfortunately the soul has not remained in control of the mind and senses. Mind is fond of pleasures, and so it has become a slave of the senses, dragging the soul down along with it to the extent that now the soul has become a slave of the senses also, through the agency of the mind. As a result, the mind as well as the soul has forgotten its origin and purpose.
We get a body according to our actions and reactions, whether it is in the human form or any­where else. But we can find the Path out of this mess, or out of this jail, only in the human form, and this grace is bestowed upon us by Him, just for this very purpose. So, while being in this body, we should always keep our destination in view and try to tread on that Path which leads to our destination. We should never forget it. We should perform our worldly duties and other responsibilities which we have to discharge, while being in this world, according o : our karma, so to say. But we should always keep our destination in view and try to tread on that Path which leads to our Home. The Path leading to our destination should always be our main road. We should not deviate to the left or the right, but keep our Goal always in mind while traveling straight on that Path.
CREATION-THE WHY OF CREATION
Q. 370. We know that God is Love; surely God does not create all this killing, suffering in the world; surely man did that by his own sin?
A. Well, sister, from where has the sin come?
Q. It is man's wrong doing, breaking the laws of God?
A. How does man happen to do wrong things when God has created all love?
Q. That is what I often wonder?
A. Everything has come from the Lord. All that you see is His creation. Even the mind has come from Him; the Negative Power has come from Him. He has put the whole creation under the charge of Kal, the Negative Power. And Kal takes care of the whole creation, so he has made his own rules to keep souls here. We have to abide by those rules while simul­taneously disentangling ourselves on our way back to the Lord. There is nothing which has not come from the Lord, and when God is all Love, from where has the evil come? Negation of Love becomes evil. When the sun is there, the shade is there. The sun has only light, but the sun also creates the shade.
Q. 371. I wonder if this world was not in the beginning a Garden of Eden and we people were just like children playing with our toys and having a happy time until we got jealous of each other, want­ing each other's toys, and so forth?
A. Maybe, but whatever seed of jealousy came in us, it also has come from the Lord. Nothing has come from outside.
Q. That is what seems so confusing, because it all seems so wrong?
We often feel that when God is all Love, from where did evil come? That is what we mean. The
five elements begin to decompose. The earth goes back to the earth, the water goes back to the water, and each element merges back into its own origin. So it is a 350
sun is always in the sky and it is always shining; then from where does the darkness come? It is only when that side of the earth that is facing the sun that there is sunshine; and even then, sometimes the clouds interfere, but we have daylight just the same. When there is negation of light, there is darkness, and the darkness is in proportion to the negation, the obstacle which prevents the light from shining through. Similarly, when we have no love for the Lord, when our face is turned away from Him, there is evil.

Q. 372. Master, in the four cycles of time, like the golden age, the silver age, the copper age and the iron age, did the souls in the golden age have physical bodies at that time? Was it on earth?
A. Sister, this is just our classification. You can classify this into four ages, or you can classify it into twenty ages. This is, after all, just our own classi­fication. Body is there in every age.

Q. 373. Will you please tell us what is meant by dissolution, and the grand or major dissolution?
A. I think that all this is mentioned in our books. By dissolution is meant the end of the physical universe. Grand dissolution is the absorption of everything, even beyond the astral plane, back into its origin. The final dissolution, when He is finished with this `play', when and if the whole creation ceases, will be when every­thing is merged back into Him, the source of every­thing. Saints have tried to explain this to us through the medium of language, but the intellect cannot comprehend all this, so we should not get confused. The saints do not want us to get entangled by thinking about these things. We should concern ourselves only about this physical universe and make use of the
CREATION-THE WHY OF CREATION means which the Lord has provided for our escape from it and our ultimate return to Him.
Q. 374. After merging back into the Lord, does man maintain a separate consciousness?
A. In merging, it is still separate. Being in it, you are separate from it. But you are not conscious of your consciousness. There you just merge yourself. Even in worldly love, when you are with your beloved, you forget yourself completely and want to please only the beloved. You are so absorbed in the beloved that you do not even think about where you are or what you are, even in these physical or worldly emotions. The spiritual is much more fascinating, absorbing; it is much sublimer and nobler. The bliss of merging into the Supreme Being cannot be expressed in mortal language. There is no thought of indivi­duality, consciousness, or anything else. It is all Love, all Bliss, for, in merging, we become the Supreme Being and He is All, He is everything
Q. 375. Then there is just one consciousness?
A. The Lord is one. When we merge back into Him we become the Lord. We become a part of Him. A drop has its own identity when it is in the mud. When it leaves the ground by means of evaporation, it still has its own identity, separate from the ground and separate from the cloud. But when it merges back into the cloud, it becomes the cloud. That minute part of the cloud becomes the cloud by merging into it. When we love the Lord, we do not like to remain away from the Beloved. We lose our identity by merging back into That, and yet we remain separate from That. For instance, if you merge the flame of a lighted candle into the flame of a fire, can you differentiate whether it is the flame of the fire or the flame of the candle? When you take the candle away from the fire, you have an independent, individual flame. But when you take it back into the fire, it merges into the fire and is no longer a mere candle light. Similarly, the soul merges into the Lord.
Q. 376. Actually, it is the mind and not the soul that does not want to give up its identity'?
A. That is right. Mind is the stumbling block. This ego does not like to lose its identity. We always want to observe that I am so-and-so, I am so-and-so, and it is the `I'-ness that we do not want to lose. We perhaps think that we have developed it in this modern world, and that it is something quite unique; but the fact remains that the ego is a great stumbling block in our way. This is what we have to lose.
Q. 377. Can the conscious personality be projected to God-Realiza­tion, leaving the body at will and returning after gaining this desired goal of God-Realization, and know of it?
A. That is what the spiritual practice is for. We are trying to withdraw ourselves at will, to be there, and to come back at our will, and be here. That is the whole object of meditation.
Q. 378. 1 have heard that some schools say there are seven bodies, and some schools say there are three bodies-physical, astral and causal. Can you comment on that, please?
A. Brother, I only know that according to Sant Mat literature there are three. I have not heard or read about the seven.
Q. 379. What is the final goal? Is it where God and I are one? What does this mean, exactly? Is there a sense of individuality?
A. The idea is, "I and God are one", "I and the Father are one". The soul is the essence of the Lord. It has come from the Lord and it will merge back into the Lord and again become one. (Maharaj Ji explained at length about the drop of water merging back into the ocean, the drop of water in the mud merging back into the cloud, and so forth, as has already been explained elsewhere, so is not repeated here). All of us and the Father are one. There was nothing besides the Father when He created the universe. Everything was one and that One was, is and always will be the Father, the Supreme Being. The creation is His projection, and when He again with­draws everything into Himself, it again becomes one.

Q. 380. Ultimately there will be no difference between the drop and God?
A. Ultimately there will be no difference. As yet there is a great difference between the drop and the ocean. But when the drop merges into the ocean there is absolutely no difference.

Q. 381. Can one reach perfection in this life, or does one have to die to go back to the Lord?
A. Sister, we have to die daily to go back to Him.
Q. What do you mean, I do not understand?
A. When death takes place, what do we feel? First our feet become numb, then our legs become numb, then our thighs and the lower portion of the body become numb. Still the soul is in us, still we are conscious, we are still living, life is still within us. When we withdraw the current up to the eye center, the soul leaves the body, and we say the person is dead. In our spiritual practice, we do the same while living, the only difference being that the connection is not severed and we come back into the body after meditation. It is a method of dying daily. Some Christian saint said, "I die daily". That means that he daily practices the withdrawal of the consciousness right from his feet up to the eye center, in order to follow the spiritual Path within.
We are not to die physically to meet Him, but we have to die daily in our spiritual practice to meet Him. We have to withdraw our consciousness up to the eye center. This is dying while living. Then only we will be on the real Path. We are not to leave the physical body permanently in order to go back to Him. If we are not able to achieve our destination in this life but are on the Path, it is possible that we may achieve it in the next life or in still another life; but we need not wait until after death in order to meet Him. We have to be on the Path while living in a human body, and the aim is also to meet Him during our lifetime.
Q. 382. If one fails to reach God-Realization in this life, will he have another chance?
A. The Lord does not find excuses to send us back again and again. He gives us quite a fair chance to make progress on the Path. In fact, it is our attach­ments that are pulling us down every time. Generally, if we are not much attached to the world, even though we may not make much headway towards Home, we are given another chance to loosen those attach­ments. But we have to do that by means of spiritual practice while we are in the human form. However, if we have not found a living Master and refuse to travel that Path, refuse to think about the Lord, have absolutely no devotion for Him, have no desire whatsoever to go Home, we will not continue to get a human body; we have to go down into a lower species. We then get that form in which we can satisfy all the unfulfilled desires and cravings that come in our mind every day.
It is our karmas and desires coupled together that bring us every time into birth and death. Whatever seeds we sow, we have to come back to reap. What­ever we desire, we crave, and we do not get or subli­mate while in this world, we have to take birth to satisfy those unfulfilled desires and cravings. So, unless we clear our karmas, unless we clear ourselves from all these desires and cravings, we cannot escape from birth and death. We do get a chance. The Lord is more merciful. He always helps us and gives us chance after chance to make the best use of our life. But if we refuse to make use of that chance, naturally we have to go down into the lower species.
Q. 383. If a person were to be cut off from life before he makes progress in Nam, what happens?
A. Sister, it depends upon many things but mostly on our desires, our cravings, our longings, our karmas, our attachments and the grace of the Master. Even if we have not made much progress during our life­span but we have not many unfulfilled desires, we have not much attachment with people, places or things-if we have no strong attachment, nothing can bring us back here. We are then taken to certain stages inside, and from there we can work and make our way up.