The pursuit of Truth is a universal phenomenon. Religious faiths all across the world proclaim to preach it, and amongst them they agree that there is no greater Truth than the Supreme Being, the Creator of the Universe, the Almighty Formless One – Nirankar. The many and varied names for God all represent an omnipresent, all-pervasive, omniscient, and Supreme Entity.
All the sages, seers, saints, gurus and prophets from across time have, therefore, preached the same Ultimate Truth; God. The approach, however, might have been different. The various Holy Scriptures are the milestones representing the flow of Divine Thought. These writings and teachings were meant to reveal the Ultimate Truth. History, however, shows that rituals and dogmas overwhelmed the essential Truth behind these teachings, creating confusion and division between religions, sects, and communities.
Baba Buta Singh Ji, the founder and first Satguru of the Sant Nirankari Mission, recognized that adhering to rites and rituals does not enable humans to realize God. That can happen only with the grace of a God-realized soul. In 1929 Baba Buta Singh Ji began to show the path of uniting with God. This is how the Sant Nirankari Mission and Satguru tradition began.
The Satguru tradition states that God-realization is possible only through the Satguru, the teacher of God Knowledge. The mission of the Satguru is eternal, for there is always another candle to light, another life to transform.
Five Noble Pledges:
- Submission: it states that one is required to accept wholeheartedly that one’s mind and wealth, belong to God, and indeed are Gifts from God. In order to Guard against these things becoming a source of greed or false pride, one should accept them as a mere trustee and to vow to use these gifts for the betterment of mankind.
- Broad-mindedness: to live above the worldly divisions of nationality, race, color, and creed, a devotee is required to accept all things without prejudice, as members of one global family, created by the one divine Maker. Condemnation, criticism and hatred of any person is not acceptable.
- Responsible Living: one is to rise above the petty discriminations of lifestyle, diet and dress, for these factors are often geographically, historically and culturally determined. These factors all too often become a source of conflict in the world. A committed devotee learns to live and let live, observing broadness of mind inspired by Formless Nirankar for tolerance and diversity.
- Community Responsibility: to live a life of integrity and to fulfil one’s responsibilities towards the family and the wider community. There is no need to renounce the world or to indulge in penances in order to be able to come closer to God. Rather pledge to live in the world as a Good citizen, sharing the burdens of others by working to create cohesion in the community.
- Discipline: to honor the sanctity of the Braham Gyan as a divine blessing. In order to avoid misinterpretation and confusion, the knowledge should not be divulged without permission of the living spiritual Guide. The knowledge, in its essence, is greater than words can contain and often expressed by subtle intent. When a satguru or enlightened authority speaks, it is a conversation of the inner self , which transcends all physical boundaries. When the satguru perceives that an individual has fully grasped the essence of the knowledge, he bestows that individual with the authority for that individual to share this knowledge with other.
