Questioner:
I read on your website you offer monthly online Satsang for anyone who would like to participate. What is “Satsang” exactly?
Swami Premodaya:
Satsang means meeting in Truth. It feels normal to sit in a room and sit in a chair and have a meeting, but it is actually a tremendously ancient tradition. No matter who you are, you go to many meetings in your lifetime, but meetings in Truth is a timeless tradition. We are being very traditional. This is no different from a meeting held exactly like this five thousand years ago and ten thousand years ago, all over the world, particularly in the East but certainly also in the West. You are participating in an ancient format, an ancient way of going deeper, going more directly to that which matters most—but millions upon millions came before you, millions will come after—and this isn’t an accident.
There have to be meetings in Truth; it makes sense because we can’t get there on our own. One by oneself can’t do it—it is too hard; there are too many obstacles.
One by oneself doesn’t know all the ins and outs. There have to be compatriots along the way, colleagues in Truth, so that something more is possible than is possible by oneself, so that a bigger energy gets evoked. It’s not an accident that this is a timeless and ancient tradition that spans across cultures and across eras. It’s not the main way—it is the only way.
The format for satsang is a bunch of smart people sit over there thinking they don’t know, one dummy sits up here, and the ones over there thinks he knows. Usually, the dummy up here used to sit over there, and it goes on and on. I am absolutely the proof that you never know when you will be the dummy sitting up here. [laughter from the participants]
But it doesn’t matter where you are sitting—what matters is you are interested in the Truth; you are interested in the Ultimate.
The format from time immemorial is questions and answers. The questions have been the same for tens of thousands of years and the answers have been the same for tens of thousands of years, but you have to go through the process of it. You have to fit into it your way, so that your questions get dealt with, even though they are the same question or questions of millions of others.