Two and a Half Hours of Daily Meditation the Invention of Sawan Singh? By James Bean
Have read some posts at a blog site proclaiming that the practice of long hours of meditation is solely the invention of Sawan Singh. This is not true. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". It's a bad idea to develop broad sweeping conclusions about a spiritual tradition based on one's limited reading if historic accuracy is the goal.
I can say as someone directly, personally acquainted with the meditation practices of the Tulsi Sahib group, that long periods of daily meditation practice are recommended and that this approach of a praxis of long hours of meditation predates the establishment of the Radhasoami Satsang by many decades. This is not written down in English somewhere, just something which is communicated at the time of one's initiation (deeksha).
Of course, anyone familiar with Surat Shabd Yoga already knows, it may take time to reach the meditative states described by various masters and in the literature such as the Sar Bachan of Soami Ji Maharaj and other mystics of the east (Tulsi Sahib, Sant Dariya Sahib, Dharam Das, Kabir, Nanak, etc...).
At the same time, it is also true that much of the earlier Sant Mat literature remains only in Hindi, untranslated into English, thus someone can say that they personally haven't happened to have read anything about long hours of meditation practice (or countless other topics) prior to Sawan Singh literature, since with the advent of Sawan Singh and the modern period of the 20th Century is when we get in the English language a vast amount of writings with much greater detail about Sant Mat practices and teachings.
It would be accurate to say that during the time of Hazur Baba Sawan Singh and since then an effort has been made to communicate the teachings of the Radhasoami Faith to westerners by sometimes making use of Biblical language and references. To characterize long hours of daily meditation practice as "tithing one's time" was indeed a new development, but that's quite a different matter than proclaiming that Sawan Singh was the inventor of Surat Shabd Yoga meditation practice in the current form, as Sawan was passing along to the next generation the same meditation practices as articulated by his guru Baba Jaimal Singh.
Spiritual Letters of Baba Jaimal Singh (third edition, 1967)
"Listen to the Dhun [the Sound Current] lovingly for two hours every day. Use this remedy every day. Then, with the Grace of Huzur Radha Swami, the mind will begin to enjoy Shabd Dhun." (page 73)
"I am very gratified to learn that you hold Satsang on Sundays and also sit on your feet for two or three hours in Bhajan." (page 66)
"The mind and the surat have been impure since this material creation began. Never, since then, has the surat been fixed in the Shabd Dhun with concentrated attention for two 'pahars' or three 'pahars' at a time, over a period often or twenty years. (A 'pahar' equals three hours.)" (page 55)
"It is now desirable that whenever you are free from your official work, you take at least two hours daily out of your worldly activities for Bhajan [inner Sound meditation practice], so that undesirable thoughts and actions which come as hindrances in Bhajan may start fading out." (page 142 of Spiritual Letters, an edition which also includes "extracts from the letters from Seth Partap Singh, Swami Ji's younger brother addressed to Babu Sawan Singh Ji")
The Book of Anmol Vachan
"Question: Swami Ji [Sant Garib Das], what is the best time for Bhajan Simran (meditation and remembrance)? Answer: The best time for Bhajan Simran is from 2 AM to 8 AM in the morning, and the second best time is from 7 PM to 11 PM at night. During these times, the inner experience and essence are more profoundly felt, as these are times dominated by Sattva Guna (quality of goodness and purity)." (Sant Garib Das, one of the successors of Swami Ji Maharaj, Anmol Vachan)
Some Passages In Writing, in English, from Huzur Maharaj Rai Saligram of the Radhasoami Faith, Another Successor of Swami Ji Maharaj
"Then, how can success in this important affair of Parmarth [spirituality], to which hardly two, three or four hours a day are devoted with difficulty, and the rest of the time is spent on the affairs of the world, and in association with worldly people, be achieved all at once? It should be considered a great mercy on the part of Radhasoami Dayal [the Merciful Lord of the Soul] that, in spite of so little an effort on the part of the devotee, He shows His Grace and renders internal help to him so early." (Saligram, Jugat Prakash, verse 33)
"A devotee, who receives joy and bliss during Bhajan and Dhyan in proportion to his desire, and in an increasing degree from day to day, should before commencing his devotional practices, make up his mind that he would then perform his Abhyas [meditation practices] for one, two or three hours, as the case may be, and would thereafter do such and such work. In this way his mind and spirit would, of themselves, come lower down at the appointed time, and the devotional practice would also be completed." (Saligram, Jugat Prakash, verse 91)
"'Rasa-swada' means to feel happy and satiated on getting some bliss and consequently to have no more inclination for further devotional practices or to become a little listless.
"Whenever such a state comes upon a devotee, the remedy for removing this obstacle is that he should suspend Bhajan for about five minutes and should sit with stretched arms and legs or should get up and walk ten or twenty paces. If he does so, the obstacle will gradually be removed. And if, on account of excessive bliss, he becomes too enraptured and inebriated to perform Abhyas [the meditation practices] for three or four hours or more, he should apply himself to the recitation from the holy books." (Saligram, Jugat Prakash, verse 87)
