The counting of up to 18 planes in this tradition comes only from the unusal way how these planes are counted here. The spiritual world is split into 6 planes here, as well the material worlds of KAL.
But a "loving , mercyful and graceful and protecting Radhasoami" as the omnipresent allmighty lord stands in contradiction to the sytem of divine hierarchies and of cosmic initiations - and to our present reality ! It is more a description of the divine creator of the second ray. Huzur admitted to me that Radhasoami interacts only very seldom in our worlds.
Supreme Being Radhasoami is limitless and endless. He has a form and is yet formless. He is inaccessible and is yet accessible. He is indescribable yet can be described. When He is formless, He is all pervading. When manifested He is the Master of the Highest Abode, having Love, Mercy and Grace as His chief attributes ever-ready to grant His protection to all who remember him. He is Bliss personified and embodiment of Eternal Peace. He is Personal and Impersonal both.
(Prof. Agam Prasad Mathur, "Concept and the Name of the Supreme Being in the Radhasoami Faith,")
Merciful Radhasoami himself looks after the Jiva and, through His grace, makes his/her spirit ascend upwards. The mind and Maya also continue to put obstructions in the way, but Merciful Radhasoami grants the strength of His Grace and Mercy, and helps the devotee in removing all such obstructions.
He gets everything done by the devotee, though in reality He Himself is the Doer.
-- Huzur Maharaj (Rai Saligram), "Prem Updesh Radhaswami" (The Lord of the Soul's Discourse of Love)
( My comment : ...he is a conformist, and thats why he says that... there is no mercy and no protection...soul-travel can be very dangerous...)
Swami Ji Maharaj, Sar Bachan Manglacharan
2. From there is visible the eternal terrace of the most marvelous mansion of the Supreme Father RADHASOAMI DAYAL.
3. Above that is Agam Lok which is unique. Only Sant Surats enjoy that bliss.
4. Sat Purush resides in the fourth Lok. Sants dwell in everlasting beatitude
5. Beyond is the darbar (sphere) of Alakh Purush, which can only be perceived by Surat (or spirit entity).
Huzur Maharaj:
Maya, which is really barren as it has no power to create on its own, becomes impregnated with soul energy and creates this world of colour and form. The soul, which is the real creator and sustainer of things, no longer creates because it has now withdrawn itself into Brahmand and the regions beyond, leaving Maya to shrink back to its infertile state.
( My comment : He is wrong : Maya has the quality of destruction and is the seat of the black masters. It is permanently created through activities in the divine ananda and within cosmic initiations. A.A. Bailey says that all material things will solve up when the sun-logos will stop his meditative activities)
The Higher Regions
One's passage into the astral plane is aided by the sound of a deeply resonant bell. A dazzle of colors immediately emerges, subsiding into a deep blue, like the blue of a late afternoon sky. Subsequently a light appears in the blue, intense but diffused, as if veiled by a gauze screen. The soul aims for the light, penetrates the gauze, and arrives at a brilliant flame surrounded by a dense blue-black sky. That area, a higher realm within the astral plane, is called shyam kunj (the thicket of darkness), and it is regarded as the divine headquarters for managing both the physical and astral realms. It is controlled, of course, by Kal; here he appears as Niranjan, the Lord of the astral realm. The soul should not be satisfied with attaining this realm, however, but focus on the flame, which replaces the blue- black sky with an intense bright white. This enables the soul to by- pass all the supernatural regions referred to in the literature of other religions: the Christians' heaven and hell, the Hindus' svarga and naraka, the Muslims' dozakh and bahisht. These all exist at the level of shyam kunj, but there is no ultimate advantage to being lodged in one rather than another. Heaven may be filled with "comfortable rooms" and hell with "painful cells," but in the last analysis all who live in either are trapped "in the same jail."67 The fortunate soul, however, has a way out. The Radhasoami master guides it to a dark spot in the light and a sound similar to that of a conch shell, which it hears at first only distantly from a tunnel high above. The tunnel is called banknal (the crooked path). Upon following the sound into the tunnel, the soul turns around and then enters the next plane.
This second region is called the causal plane, for it is from here that the phenomenal world is ultimately generated. At one spot, for example, is a four-petaled lotus from which emerge utterances that eventually issue as the four Vedic scriptures of Hinduism. The world was created in this region as a subtle, invisible form, and here karmic burdens are dispatched and reclaimed. Thus cause and effect, both material and moral, begin and end here. Brahm, the creator, sustainer and dissolver of the universe, is considered the Lord of this region, but he too is an agent of Kal, so this world, like the astral, holds its perils for the wary Radhasoami soul.
The soul, forewarned, enters the causal plane with care, listening again for the guardian sound, which in this region reverberates like the sound of large drums or rolling thunder, and which may also sound like the rumbling chant of the Hindus' om, om, or the Muslims' HU, HU. The light that the soul looks for to guide it takes on a brilliant reddish color in this realm, like that of the sun in a summer sunrise. The soul fixes on these aural and visual guides, and passes by locations where the things of our physical world were created. Within the landscape are also vistas that are well known from Hindu mythology-Mount Kailasa, for example, where Lord Shiva is thought to dwell, or the forests and gardens said to have been inhabited by Krishna. The light that the soul has followed, already brighter than many suns, becomes ever brighter as the wayfarer proceeds upward, bursting through the pyramidically shaped causal realm.
At that point the soul moves beyond the arena in which causation has meaning and transcends the last shreds of materiality. It leaves behind realms referred to by Hindus as "the three worlds" (trilok), i.e., the known universe, and moves into what Radhasoami calculates as the third spiritual plane: Daswan Dwar (the tenth door), also known as Sunn (emptiness). This transition is more decisive than any other, and is second in importance only to the initial shift from the physical to the spiritual plane, for it marks the point beyond which the soul no longer inhabits form, whether physical, astral, or causal. From here onward, the soul exists purely in spirit. It passes beyond the karmic cycle, breaking free of the bondage that forced it to shuttle from one physical life to another. The soul has now achieved moksha (release), in the Hindu reckoning, and is "rid of all covers of matter and mind, and shines forth in its naked glory with the radiance of twelve suns."68 It has a new name, too. It is called hamsa, the high-flying goose that in Indian mythology is invested with almost magical properties; in Radhasoami writings it is usually described as a swan and is sometimes identified with the phoenix. Having passed beyond the realms governed by Kal, the soul is free to revel in divine bliss and enjoy an ambiance suffused by a pleasant light and a divine sound. The light resembles that of the full moon in a clear sky, shimmering in all directions, and the sound is like that of a guitar, lute, or harp. ("Radhasoami Reality," Mark Juergensmeyer, Princeton University Press, ISBN
(My comment : Since Lord Shiva and Sri Krishna are positioned here into the worlds of KAL... - this is quite a new interpretation of Hinduism. Sri Aurobindo says that Sri Krishna is the cosmic divine Ananda,the highest attractive divine force, and what would the Gita be with this interpretation.
In Sant Mat the Vedas have their origin in a lotus-flower the Causal-Plane : They should all better read the book of Sri Aurobindo about the Rig-Veda ),but since Radhasoami is the hidden doer here...
The Adi Granth says, “ Omkar Ved nirmaye.” (Omkar(God) revealed Vedas") - not the causal plane !
Further HAMSA ist not the white swan of hinduism ( SOHAM ) but der perishabel swan !
It is characteristic for this Radhasoimi-view of creation, that it tries to press hinduism into the lower planes, whereas the Radhasoami-Master has united with the ONE and only ONE lord. He passes all kown barriers - Agama is no problem for him - and the he gets not only divine energy but even the highest divine energy ! He finally unites with the supreme lord of the highest divine plane ...
The book of Juergensmeyer is really a big fairy-tale, but even many leading people in Radhasoami beleive in such an extreme story and think that they are deeply initiated ! Radhasoami Beas has lost the majority of the disciples in the past, and so the question is unanswered, where the protection and the leadership by the guru and by Radhasoami were in those cases...!
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GRANT MERCIFUL RADHASOAMI , THY GRACE AND PROTECTION
This is a rough part of a hymn of bani of Huzur Maharaj from Prem Bani Radhasoami, Volume Four.
Story of Genesis (Creation/Evolution) in Sant Mat, Part One
A current issued forth from the feet of SOAMI. It is the Prime Current and the Creator of the entire creation.
The Name of that ADI DHARA. (Prime Current) is RADHA. THAT alone is the doer and dispenser of every activity.
The Source or Origin or Fountain-head from whom the Prime Current emanated, is ADI SOAMl (Absolute Lord) of all.
Where that current halted in its descent, the creation of Agam Lok was brought into being.
Agam Lok is a vast sphere. It encompasses all the creation.
The entire creation below is being cradled just in a small nook of Agam Lok.
On completion of the creation of Agam Lok, a current issued forth from there.
It descended and halted, and evolved the creation of Alakh Lok.
When the sphere of Alakh Lok was formed in the above manner, the current descended, and created Sat Lok.
Sat Lok is the Dham (Abode) of Sat Purush, and is inhabited by Hansas.
Each of the Hansas has a dweep (island) to himself. They are absorbed in the Darshan of Sat Purush.
Up to here is the creation of Sat (Truth) or pure spirit. Neither Maya nor cruel Kal exists here.
There is neither any desire nor any work. All are absorbed in the Darshan of Sat Purush and feed on Ami (ambrosia).
All live in perfect harmony and enjoy rapturous bliss. There is no trace of pain and anguish due to Kal and there is no burden of Karam.
For a considerable period of time the creation remained like this - a region of Truth and pure bliss.
The allegedly self-inflicted fall of Niranjan
Then, from the lower portion of Sat Pur (Sat Lok) emanated a Shyam (blue) current. It came down and underwent considerable expansion and ramification.
It remained constantly engaged in the Sewa (service) of Purush but, inwardly, it was cherishing some other desire.
It disclosed its mind thus, "0 Sat Purush! 0 Merciful One and Giver of all things! Grant me the sovereignty of a separate region, and furnish me with the seed of Surat. Life here is not suited to me. Your region is not agreeable to me."
Hearing this, Purush replied, "Get out from this place. You are a nuisance here. Go and evolve a creation for yourself in the lower part of the pre-creational neutral zone. Take your seat there and rule over that dominion."
The name of that current is Niranjan. It has all the characteristics of Kal.
Purush evolved another current with a yellow hue. Its name is Adya.
By the order of Purush, this other current was sent down. It associated with Niranjan.
In Sunn, they came to be known as Purush and Prakriti, and in Trikuti, as Maya and Brahm.
They halted in Sahas-dal- kanwal, from where the three Gunas (qualities) came into being.
Here, Adya assumed the form of Jyoti, and Niranjan assumed a dark blue complexion.
They first brought into being Brahm-srishti. Then, the creation of Triloki (three worlds) was evolved.
Niranjan then engaged himself in Dhyan (contemplation) of Purush (Sat Purush). Jyoti took upon herself the burden of looking after the creation.
The three Gunas or gods became her assistants. They evolved the rest of the creation. ///
Satpurush creates after Huzur a yellow Adya-Stream and unites Adya with Niranjan, and creates from that Brahm and Maya, Purusha and Prakriti
These teachings is against all logic . Why should the cosmic Niranjan want his own region as he was alone with the creator...
In contrary Kirpal Singh said in his book 'Naam - or the word : If you do not succeed, God has not given you the strengt(force). So everything happens after gods will.
s.a. >> Surat worlds
Conclusion : Never trust in what these teachers (and many other masters) say !