Radha Soami

Modern Hindu religious community
founded in 1861 in the city of Agra by
Shiv Dayal Singh, more commonly
referred to as Soamiji Maharaj. Soamiji’s
family had been influenced by Tulsi
Saheb, a devotional (bhakti) saint who
lived in that region, and Soamiji’s teachings reflect the importance of that
contact. The two pillars of Radha Soami
doctrine are the importance of the
spiritual teacher (guru) and the practice
of a spiritual discipline called suratshabd-yoga.
According to Radha Soami teachings,
contact with a guru is the single most
important factor in a person’s spiritual
development, and this spiritual progress
hinges on complete surrender to the
guru’s grace. It is essential for the devotee (bhakta) to be associated with a
“true guru” (satguru), since not only
does such an individual have access to
the divine, he is considered a manifestation of the divine itself. Surat-shabdyoga stresses joining (yoga) the
devotee’s spirit (surat) with the Divine
Sound (shabd). The Divine Sound
emanates from the Supreme Being and
is always present. Most people cannot
hear it, due to their preoccupation with
worldly things, but with proper training
and devotion to a true guru, anyone can
eventually become attuned to the
Divine Sound and resonate in harmony
with it.
In the era since Soamiji Maharaj, the
Radha Soami Satsang has split numerous times, usually based on disagreements over spiritual authority. Given the
Radha Soami emphasis on the satguru
as the Supreme Being, disagreements
over spiritual succession—in effect, disagreements over the identity of the
Supreme Being—made schisms virtually
inevitable. It also seems clear that the
underlying forces in many of these
schisms were disagreements over
far more mundane things, such as
power, status, and property. Various
branches of the Radha Soamis
have made successful missionary
efforts and established centers in
Europe and the United States. For
further information see Sudhir Kakar,
Shamans, Mystics, and Doctors, 1991;
544
Radhashtami
Lawrence Babb, Redemptive Encounters,
1987; and Mark Juergensmeyer, Radhasoami Reality, 1991.