39. Laws regulating the exercise of Higher Spiritual Powers

DISCOURSES ON

RADHASOAMI FAITH

BY

MAHARAJ SAHAB

Pandit Brahm Sankar Misra, M.A.

39. LAWS REGULATING THE EXERCISE OF HIGHER SPIRITUAL POWERS

            67. We have previously shown that the spirit-force is distinguished from other forces, in consequence of its being endowed with intelligence, bliss, and prime energy. We have also stated that the source and origin of the spirit-force, the Supreme Creator, is an unbounded and infinite ocean of supreme bliss, supreme intelligence, and supreme energy. Having thus noted His main attributes, it is a truism to say that whatever He has done, is doing, or will do, is equipped with supreme intelligence, which can have no other object in view than to confer benefit on all. His laws, too, which embrace the past, the present, and the future, and from the scope of which nothing can be left out in consequence of the Omniscience of the Supreme Creator, are all perfect and are not susceptible of any change or modification like mundane laws. An adept, who becomes acquainted with these laws or exercises them to some extent, must necessarily be a conformer to, and not a breaker of, these laws. Now, if we turn to the action of the spirit-force as it is observable on the physical plane, we find that it is always hidden, so much so, that even human intelligence of the highest degree is not aware of the working of the spirit-force within it. When spiritual currents flow from the focus of the spirit-force to different planes in animate beings, the functions assigned by nature to those planes come into play, and a limited amount of experience and knowledge is gained which is helpful in carrying on the ordinary avocations of life. The spiritual power, as revealed on the planes referred to, is also endowed with the faculty of diving, to some extent, into the secrets of the non-intelligent forces of nature, which enable it to make discoveries and inventions, which add to the comfort and convenience of mankind and which possess great educational value. This is the field assigned to ordinary spirituality. The spiritual currents, however, act unperceived in the performance of all these functions, and the inward course assigned to them remains undisturbed. There are extraordinary conditions, e.g. those of trance, hypnotism etc. during which inner light and some extraordinary functions of the spirit-force are at times manifested. But the subjects in those conditions are unconscious and have no control over their identity. Their actions are either regulated by the operator's will, or they work at random. Furthermore, man statements made by subjects in such conditions turn out to be inaccurate, and it appears as if the extraordinary powers wielded at those times cannot, to any appreciable degree, be utilized for the furtherance of worldly objects. From what we have stated above, it would appear that the law is that internal spiritual powers are not intended for the performance of physical work, which can be done by physical forces, and that they have other functions assigned to them in the economy of nature. Another law is that the hidden spiritual forces can be possessed and wielded in those conditions only in which complete cessation of activity of the physical, and to some extent, of the mental energy takes place, and the will of the possessor of the powers becomes subservient to that of another. Applying these laws to adepts, it would appear that an indispensable condition for access to higher regions, and for the acquisition of higher spiritual powers, is complete subservience of the adept to the will of the presiding deity. The corollary to the proposition is almost self-evident, viz, that the adept must entirely conform to the laws in accordance with which the presiding deity acts in his sphere; and whatever he does for the revelation of the functions of the deity must be with the deity's command. The adept cannot at will and pleasure break those laws and use them for the purposes of this world.