Sound, a Signifier

Well, Kirpal Singh's parents were Sikhs, common people, religious and honest. Kirpal Singh's school career was normal; later on he worked for the government as an administrative clerk. As many Indians did, he searched for spiritual experience during his youth and experimental years and met different Sadhus and Yogis.

In the West, it is hard to understand how difficult it is to find a 'true' guru without intellectual or scientific guidance.

There are thousands of Hansas and Pandits, Yogis and Sadhus, Sants and Param Sants. Too many people in the West Yoga appears to be 'cosmic hypochondria', since it is often in the search of immortality. However, this mostly refers to the more physical forms of Yoga that are in the vicinity of Hatha Yoga, since they often tend to stress physical intactness and durability. Surat Shabd Yoga offers a higher, more passive form of Yoga.

The story of such a search for the true guru and of a meeting on a riverside, of which Kirpal Singh often spoke, could well have happened to him. That yogi taught those in search the essence of 'sound'. He happened to be one of the quite raving type of teachers. Many pupils who asked him: „can you give me the ‚sound'? were acquitted without an answer at all.

Sometimes he would even throw a smoldering stick of wood from the fire burning in front of him at the inquirer. But, Kirpal Singh had waited patiently until experiencing what the substance of 'sound' was. And after a few days of waiting, he got it! However, how did this transference work? The 'sound' is actually one of the two basic signifiers, something primal-real, but which takes a great part in symbolism, or in the realm of what we lastly call language. „And God spoke ..." is found in the Holy Bible - and there is our first signifier! Now, how then should He speak, without a vocal mechanism and without a voice? Is it not simply fair to call it a first SPEAKS (dabar), or to speak of a 'sound', Naam or Shabd, no matter what, and then to integrate it in a system of signifiers?