Thakar Singh (26 March 1929 – 6 March 2005) was a spiritual teacher in the

contemporary Sant Mat Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

lineage of

Sant Mat Sant Mat was a spiritual movement on the Indian subcontinent during the 13th–17th centuries CE. The name literally means "teachings of sants", i.e. mystic Hindu saints. Through association and seeking truth by following '' sants'' and their tea ...

Radha Soami Rādhā Soāmī Mat or Sant Mat is a sampradaya, spiritual tradition or faith founded by Shiv Dayal Singh in January 1861 on Basant Panchami Day in Agra, India. p. 90 note 5, Quote: "The date of Seth Shiv Dayal's first public discourse is Ba ...

spiritual tradition. Initiated by

Kirpal Singh Kirpal Singh (6 February 1894 – 21 August 1974) was a spiritual master ('' satguru'') in the tradition of Radha Soami. Kirpal Singh was born in Sayyad Kasran, Punjab, in what is now Pakistan. He lived in Lahore during the period of his dis ...

in 1965, he began work as a

Satguru ''Satguru'' (), or ''sadguru'' (), means a "true guru" in Sanskrit. The term is distinguished from other forms of gurus, such as musical instructors, scriptural teachers, parents, and so on. A ''satguru'' has some special characteristics that ...

himself in 1976, following the death of Kirpal Singh. Thakar Singh distributed what he paraphrased from Kirpal Singh as, "a practical form of spirituality which is not connected to any particular religion, sect, or thought." While he was born into

Sikhism Sikhism is an Indian religion and Indian philosophy, philosophy that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent around the end of the 15th century CE. It is one of the most recently founded major religious groups, major religio ...

, and wore the traditional Sikh garb all his life, he gave up its traditional outer practices soon after initiation and devoted himself wholly to the

spiritual practices known as

Surat Shabd Yoga Surat Shabd Simran is a type of spiritual meditation in the Sant Mat tradition. Etymology ''Surat'' is "attention" or "face", that is, an outward expression of the soul; '' Shabd'' or ''Shabda'' has multiple meanings including ‘sacred song’, ...

and Naam. Continuing Kirpal Singh's emphasis on the unity of all religions, Thakar Singh frequently referred to the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

when addressing Westerners, the

Adi Granth The Guru Granth Sahib (, ) is the central holy religious scripture of Sikhism, regarded by Sikhs as the final, sovereign and eternal Guru following the lineage of the ten human gurus of the religion. The Adi Granth (), its first rendition, w ...

Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

and other Indian scriptures in India, and the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

when addressing Muslim people. He gave thousands of talks in his 30 years as a Master, his message being one of transcendence of the material and devotion to God, the "unchangeable permanence behind all things".

Biography

The documentation on Thakar Singh's life is mainly limited to the few details he communicated about himself during his talks and public appearances. A biography composed of stories about the Master was collected by Wendy Heid in 1994, and it touches the central points from the perspective of the inner, spiritual aspirations. It has few points of contact with concrete people, places, or times. Thakar Singh corrected and edited this work. There are also some biographical materials made available by his organisation Know Thyself As Soul, International, although they have few details or specifics and again focus in the main on the inner life.

Guruship

Kirpal Singh did not publicly name a successor, and after his death in 1974, a number of proposed successors appeared including Darshan Singh (Kirpal Singh's physical son), Ajaib Singh, Soami Divyanand, and others. Thakar Singh began work in the role of Guru at Sawan Asham in Delhi on 7 February 1976. Within four months he travelled to Germany and then later that year to Mexico. In 1979 he visited the United States for the first time. His first American representative was named Bernadine Chard. In 1987 he visited Canada. Thakar Singh was the first Sant Mat Master to visit Africa; he made a five-month tour through the continent from October to February 1989, visiting twelve countries. He also visited the Far East for the first time that year, going to South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan during a three-month tour. He visited New Zealand on the same tour. He moved his national headquarters to Nawan Nagar, near the foothills of Himalayas. In April 1992, Thakar Singh went into seclusion about 25 kilometres away in Sai. He did not travel for some years except for brief visits, maintaining an intensive meditation schedule and very simple lifestyle. He visited the United States for the last time in the summer of 2003.

Illness and death

Thakar Singh died on 6 March 2005 in Nawan Nagar, India, at the age of 76; however, he had been ill for the entire previous year when he underwent open heart surgery in February 2004.

References

External links

Thakar Singh Online Audio/Video/Text Library at www.thakar-singh.com

Thakar Singh's Teachings in his own words at www.thakar-singh.org

About Thakar Singh, by people who knew him personally at www.thakar-singh.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Thakar 1929 births 2005 deaths Indian Hindu spiritual teachers Radha Soami Sant Mat gurus 20th-century Hindu religious leaders