What is Satsang?





 


A Beezone Study

(all quotes are of
Adi Da Samraj)

Satsang

(Sanskrit sat = true, sanga =
company)


is
a Sanskrit adjective meaning “the ideal; pure and true
essence (nature) of an entity or existence. It can thus be
concluded as “the self-existent or Universal
Spirit”.

There is a common understanding that
spending time in the company of a Guru is Satsang,
something like going to church. Going to church or spending
time in the company of a Guru is not necessarily
Satsang. Satsang is the communication of
Truth. To paraphrase Adi Da Samraj, Satsang
is a paradox in the dream and it is the principal condition
of sadhana or spiritual practice wherein Truth appears. And
in that appearance of
Satsang or Truth,
all limitations are magnified, outshined and ultimately
dissolved in Light.


“Divine Communion” is the English equivalent for “Satsang.”

Adi Da Samraj


Satsang
is Eternal.

Satsang is the subjective nature of
The Cosmic Mandala.

Satsang is the nature of the Atman
(soul).

Satsang is the nature of the
creation of the manifest world.

Satsang is the nature of the
Spiritual Master.

Satsang is the nature of the whole
body.

Satsang is the nature of the entire
play that is our humanity and our resistance to
it.

Satsang is the nature of the
mechanism through which you “know” Truth and My
Total Divine Manifestation.

Satsang is the nature of the Current
of the body-mind.

Satsang is the nature of the
subject, of “me,” prior to world, prior to the body, prior
to the life and the life-force, prior to the mind in its
lower or higher forms, prior to the “me.”


“Guru comes to manifest that
Satsang that existed prior to his physical birth.
People don’t relate to that. After the Guru’s death they try
to relate to that Satsang that he apparently
generated during his lifetime. So they go around trying to
remember what he looked like and carrying that whole cult of
his personality, instead of truly living the Divine
Satsang that he was here to communicate while he was
alive.”

Trip
to India


“Great Principle of Spiritual
practice is Satsang and Guru-Function is associated
with the Great Principle of Satsang. The Essence of
the practice of Satsang is to focus attention on the
Realized Condition of a true Adept.

Exactly how this mechanism of
Satsang works is not clear at the outset. Prior to
its perfect realization, it cannot be grasped. It is
elusive. So, as you say, you are trying to get down to it.
But if you try to discover or perform it yourself, your
blood vessels will burst. It won’t happen. If you don’t
already live the point of view of the heart, vital, subtle
or causal, how are you going to move into it? Your point of
view is in your head, or your legs, wherever.
Satsang, the company and condition of Truth, is your
true resort, and in Satsang you will find yourself
falling spontaneously into the “Heart,” the Heart of Truth,
which transcends the manifest realizations.”

Method
of the Siddhas


“The cult is a reenactment of the
ego. The ultimate fate of every cult is the same as that of
the ego, the separate and separative self. It is the
sacrificial destruction of the center, the death of the one
in the middle. But true Satsang is an anti cultic or
non cultic process. It is not inward directed. It doesn’t
tend to become a cult in the sense I have described. It is
inclusive, but the “center” is not its motive. In
Satsang the center is always already undermined as a
center, as a separate and separative entity. The “center” of
Satsang is consciousness itself. It is the light, the
very force of unqualified consciousness. It is communicated
directly to a man’s life, in relationship, so that he no
longer needs to turn inward, to create survival for the
center. Instead, he turns toward function, freely, the light
already assumed. So Satsang, the company of Truth,
tends to serve life, to move into life, to contact life in
relationship, not to acquire life.”

Method
of the Siddhas


“He must be purified of all
experience, high and low, in the face of them all, beatific
and demonic. And the realization of such sadhana is a
responsibility of the individual in the midst of his
conventional life. It is not magic. He must live it. That
demand always pertains. So the conventional dilemma of the
body is not permanently taken away by the dramas of
experience in Satsang. Eventually, the individual
must realize the Divine through the intuitive process of
real intelligence, even while alive in “the
body.”

Beezone edit and
adaptation
White
and Orange Project


“Fundamentally as I say, sadhana is
a matter of self-purification. It’s about then the
outshining of all the forms of limitations by the force of
consciousness itself by magnifying the force of
consciousness itself, the force of love bliss itself. This
purifies. This releases. That virtue is what you are coming
into contact with in Satsang with me and as you
mature you become more and more a responsible participant in
that process of self-purification or ultimately outshining,
recognition without shining.”

Purification
of Karma


” The Siddhi active in
Satsang is the fundamental instrument of this work,
and not any secondary method or technical affair given to
you to perform. In this Satsang, by virtue of this
Siddhi, the process of understanding begins. The force of
Satsang, which yields self-observation, insight, and
real meditation, arises on the basis of hearing the Guru,
living as the devotee of the Guru, responsibly maintaining
the conditions communicated by the Guru.”

Three
Dharnas


Satsang is the real
condition. Satsang is the activity and communication
of truth.”

Satsang


Satsang with Me begins as an
essentially homely affair, in which, having already
heart-recognized Me, you begin to respond to Me by
heart-responding to My Avataric Divine Wisdom-Instruction.
You begin to deal with your life in the practical ways I
require, until you can truly turn to Me.”

He
She Is Me


Satsang with Me is not
simply a common relationship between a Teacher and a
disciple. Satsang with Me includes all of the
practicalities and ordinariness and homeliness of a human
relationship and a Teaching relationship – but,
fundamentally, even from the beginning, Satsang with
Me (based on right, true, and full devotional
recognition-response to Me) is (by Means of My Avataric ally
Self-Transmitted Divine Grace) the Enjoyment of My
“Bright” Divine Spiritual Body in the specific
manner I am Describing.”

He
She Is Me


“But Reality tends to include all
things in its own form.” This is the law of Satsang.
Those who live Satsang with the Guru tend to become
the Guru, in other words, tend to become those qualities
that are also the Guru. They tend to become like that, they
tend to become absorbed into the true form, the true nature.
Because this is the quality of Reality, over against all of
the karmic natures that may exist, all of the karmic trends
that may exist. It’s the quality of Reality to make
everything like itself. Everything that attaches itself to
the Truth, to the Guru, is absorbed in the Truth, and in the
Guru. This is a law that works everywhere as well. For every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Whenever we
get resistance’s of various kinds, karmic tendencies, when
you attach yourself to some karmic quality or nature, you
tend also to become like it or become opposite to it. But
the law works toward perfection, works in Truth, in
Satsang. And, truly, there’s nothing worth becoming
like except the Guru, God, Truth, the Self, Reality.
Everything else that you’re becoming like is taking you to
zero. Everything else is a form of the separative movement,
the drama of Narcissus.”

Life
of Understanding


“But the communication of the Heart
is essentially a process in silence, whereby what arises
gets no response, no reinforcement.” Again, the activity of
the man of understanding is mere presence, that is what he
does. His mere existence, his mere presence in relation to
his disciple, mere Satsang – this is the method of
the Siddhas. And it is prior to all forms of action so it is
prior to speech as well, it’s prior to all outward
activities. Satsang with the Guru is essentially an
affair of silence without peculiar activities. So that form
of our meeting together that we generally call
Satsang is a time when you all sit in a room and do
essentially nothing, and I seem to do essentially nothing.
There’s no action, no words spoken, because the Siddhi, the
true activity to which the disciple becomes sensitive has
nothing whatever to do with either his ordinary games or
anything that could be communicated indirectly, from
without.”

Life
of Understanding


“But in the ‘Satsang‘ or
conscious company of the Heart, what arises is confronted by
silence without and the Heart within.”

Life
of Understanding


“So this Satsang causes the
individual to be simply aware of what arises, without the
possibility of indulging or avoiding it. The very condition
of Satsang eliminates, undermines the seeking
activity, the ordinary methodical activity of the disciple,
because it puts that utterly in doubt. So it eliminates from
his quality in Satsang, in his meditation, the
possibility of indulging the qualities that are arising in
himself, or the possibility of avoiding them. In other
words, the mere condition of Satsang tends to put him
in the turiya state of witnessing the qualities that arise.
Sitting or living in the mere presence of the Guru tends to
awaken the turiya state, the fourth state beyond waking,
sleeping, and dreaming, and awakens this function of witness
in the face of the qualities that arise. And whenever this
mere witnessing, this turiya state, this quality is awakened
in consciousness, the possibility of real understanding has
awakened.

So he is allowed to see what arises,
rather than to become further identified with the stream
through the unconsciousness of ordinary conversation and
action. The process of Satsang, the meditation of
Satsang precedes all strategies, all methods, all
philosophies, all verbalizations, all conceptualizations of
Truth, all egoic preferences, all Narcissistic
approaches.”

Life
of Understanding


“Understanding is the fruit of
Satsang. The first form of Satsang is simply
coming to the Man of Understanding, coming to the Guru and
listening to him, being attentive to him. And that’s the
first form of Satsang. understanding then was simply
a matter of observing oneself in a relationship, action, and
life. And this, of course, is the beginning of
Satsang. he’s forced in the situation of
relationship, he has to see his own turning, because he’s
always trying not to be in relationship but he is always
being reminded of it, and this is the secret of the sadhana,
the practical sadhana of Satsang, because
Satsang is the condition of relationship by grace and
seemingly arbitrarily put upon you and required of you, and
it has many forms, it has the form of the teaching, the form
of the relationship to the Guru himself, the sitting with
him, the sitting at home in Satsang with him with a
picture or whatever. In all of these situations you tend to
see yourself turning away, because the thing that you’re
always being reminded of is the turning toward, the being in
relationship. So the secret of sadhana, the secret of
understanding, is the condition of Satsang. Without
it there is no understanding because the whole process of
self-observation is lost, never comes about because the
turning is constant. So men can easily be turned to
self-observation (and the true) and the way of doing that is
not to tell them to observe themselves, but simply to enter
into relationship with them. Whenever you enter into
relationship with someone and require relational activity in
them, the acknowledgment of relationship, and the living of
that as a condition in them, the more upset they tend to
become, the more resistive they begin to become. And this
always occurs in Satsang, this always will occur in
our work, we will always have difficulties with people
because of what Satsang is, because of what the
principle of Truth is. But the more a person is able to pass
through the process of Satsang, or self-observation,
of understanding, the quicker he becomes within, the more he
is able to take on the conditions of appropriate activity in
life, and also the more the internal process of conductivity
will begin to show itself in him and as these phenomena
begin to demonstrate themselves in a person, then we
intensify the form of Satsang, which is to increase
the conditions that are given to him, to increase the
responsibilities that are given to him, increase his
contact.”

The
Life of Understanding