(Radha Swami Beas philosophy, based on the teachings of mystics from all religions, has had its main centre near the river Beas since 1891. Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), with centres located worldwide, is a registered non-profit, charitable society, independent of any political or commercial affiliations. 'Radha Swami' means 'lord of the soul’, and ‘satsang’ describes a group that seeks truth)
It was my second visit to the place. Previously I had a brief trip; even then I attended the satsang as I wanted to experience it. This time we had good time but as we reached the place late night at around 3:30AM so it was almost impossible to wake-up early; but our dear friend and host has different plan. So, we were up at 8:00 O’clock and ready for the Satsang.
First of all I will give all praises to the administration staff of the dera. The infrastructure- roads, flats, play-grounds and above all the discipline; everything was just great. I wonder if the people roaming around were the same Indians who use to litter around, spitting all over, who seldom obeys road rules, who likes honking like if they are competing in a rock show. But here in dera you will feel like you are in some other part of the world but definitely not in India
On normal Sunday’s thousands of people come to listen audio records of the satsang, but on the day of our visit the crowd was huge, in hundred thousands. Then I got to know the reason behind this massive gathering; Baba Gurinder Singh the present head of the dera was there that day. People came there from miles just for a glance of their spiritual guru. We also reached the Satsang venue after going through needless, over hyped security checks. Huge crowd in that gigantic ‘pandal’ but still pin drop silence. Again and again I was forced to pinch sure my-self ‘yes, I am in India
As Baba Gurinder Singh entered the pandal and took his seat on the extra high stage, every one bowed their head to the spiritual guru, most of them bowed to the projector screen. As the pandal was vast so there were so many projector screens installed for the people to have a close look at their mentor. I didn’t bow to him, you can call it my stubbornness but honestly speaking I didn’t find that divine or spiritual look in him. That radiance, that peace was not present at his face. He didn’t seem to be from that league.
Baba ji started from ‘Mann jeete jag jeet – conquer your mind & conquer the world’ and elaborated few more gurmukhi stanzas. One thing which I heard from almost every baba but none of them follow was, repeated here also. ‘Don’t bow to me to my photographs or sculptures, don’t compare us with god. But the ideologies and the work of the dear baba don’t go well with his words. People do the same things and no body stops them as if those words are not meant to be followed. In a dera which is so well organized and disciplined, these small wordings are not at all followed, this doesn’t go smooth in my mind. Infact, in every nook and corner of the dera, whether its langar hall or flats or other buildings almost every wall is crowned with the pictures of the Baba and his successors. You will not find even a single picture or wordings of any religious books in the dera.
I don’t think that an hour lecture can change anybody in particular. There were thousands of people in the satsang and I can say only few of them follow the right path taught by the Baba. Let aside common public even the baba’s are not following their high wordings.
The Dera vicinity is increasing at a rapid rate; even the boundary walls are made mobile, so that it can easily be moved to the new position whenever the area expands. The strange thing is, the dera authorities regularly announce to the followers that don’t buy any property in 5-6 KMs reach of dera, because as the Dera expands it will cause inconvenience to them. My question is what about the inconvenience caused by the dera expansion to the other people who live in near by villages? Or the dera does not care about the non-followers, or is it not inconvenient to those people to relocate. And why the dera needs expansion when it already has so much of land? And what about the words ‘non-profit & charitable’ which they use for their society?
There are number of property disputes going on between the dera and the common people. Few of them I know personally, and you can find many others on the internet. And it’s not only in Beas , but in other cities and countries also. One such case which floated on newspapers few years back is of Mohali Industrial Area satsang land which Amrinder Singh (then Chief Minister of Punjab ) wants to acquire for developing Industrial corriodor and he offered another land to RSSB which obviously was rejected. Why? RSSB can’t relocate for the development of the country but yes, it can relocate people just for the expansion of the Dera.
Some RSSB devotees might feel that it's wrong to post such criticism, but it’s just what I felt and it’s my view only.
Consider it; ignore it. Your choice……!!!!!
PS: No need to acquire acres of land, just conquer your mind – “Mann jeete jag jeet”
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