| Singapore | 11 Feb 2017 | Asia Samachar |
Punjab-based Radha Soami sect chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon was flown yesterday to Singapore for medical check-up on the advice of doctors.
An official at Beas headquarters of the sect said Gurinder was flown to Singapore for complete medical check-up on the advice of a team of doctors at Fortis Escort hospital, according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report.
Gurinder replaced Charan Singh in 1990 as the ‘spiritual teacher’ of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a movement also known as Dera Baba Jaimal Singh with a large following across India.
The Radha Soami practice of having a living Guru goes against the tenets of the Sikh faith which accepts the Guru Granth Sahib as its Guru, with the Gurus in the physical form having ended with Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru.
The 54 year-old sect leader was suffering gastritis problems but could not take any medicine without consulting the doctors at a hospital in Singapore from where he was receiving regular treatment after being diagnosed with throat cancer two years ago, the report quoted an unnamed official.
His condition is said to be serious, according to a Tribune India report.
The Beas group had set up in 2005 the Satguru Partap Singh Healthcare in collaboration with the SPS Hospitals Group. The hospital in Ludhiana, Punjab, is badged as the best hospital in Punjab.
The Beas movement does not associate itself with the other contemporary movements that use the name Radha Soami.
On its living Guru, referred to as Master, the movement’s official website says: “Central to the RSSB philosophy is a spiritual teacher who explains the purpose of life and guides and instructs members in a method of spirituality based on a daily meditation practice.”
It adds that the master’s primary role is to ‘initiate’ disciple into a practice of meditation through which he ‘connects the disciple to the Shabad or Sound Current, thus guiding the soul back to its origin’.
It adds that ‘only a living Master can awaken the divine truth within us’ and that he ‘guides us through the spiritual process which cleanses our karmas, but he does not erase our karmas.’
The movement encourages vegetarianism, avoidance of the use of leather products and discourages participation in social networking and group chat sites on the Radha Soami teachings termed as Sant Mat teachings.
New members are told they need not give up their cultural identity or religious preference to follow this path.
The Radha Soami faith was started in the city of Agra by a man named Shiv Dayal, who was the husband of a woman named Radha. After death of Shiv Dyal his prominent followers formed individual satsang groups in different parts of India, according to an article at Quora.com.
Jaimal Singh, a member of a Sikh regiment was one such follower and started the shrine of the Radha Soami faith at Beas. At present there are many branches of this faith that are in opposition to each other. The Beas-based movement is said to be the most powerful Radha Saomi group and is the one which mostly comes in interaction with Sikhs, the same article added.
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