What is a saint?

It is very important that each of us eventually becomes a saint, because sainthood is the station on the road that leads us to perfection; it is a station that we cannot bypass.

Now what is a saint? A saint is a man or a woman who has taken the Third Initiation. He or she is purified physically, emotionally, and mentally -- a spotless human being. Of course it is not easy to be spotless. You will be spotless mentally, emotionally, physically, with your expressions, with your words and actions, and reactions. You will be a man who is totally in balance under the principles and laws of the Universe.

The purity of physical, emotional, and mental bodies of saints brings into their system a tremendous amount of power. If you have been in the presence of a saint you can feel it. He is charged with psychic energy. He has power.

Sainthood makes you so beautiful. Some kind of beauty and charm comes in your face, in your body.

In each of us, in our heart, there is something that aspires in rare moments and says, "I wish I was so pure." All our endeavors, all our striving eventually must turn into striving toward holiness. It is not easy. The path of holiness is struggle, fight, sleepless nights, failures, and battles in your conscience, battles with yourself.

You cannot be a saint until you clean your karma. You are going to pay; you cannot be president until your taxes are paid. So do not increase your karma.

A saint is one who is always in contact with the Other Worlds, he lives in many worlds, not just two worlds. His sphere of contact is not limited to his personal life; it is beyond that.

A saint is one who has given himself to an exceptional service for humanity. You cannot be a saint sitting in your home and hallucinating that you are a great initiator; impossible.

When we are talking about saints we are not talking about pictures hanging on the walls of churches. They can also be saints. We are talking about men and women who are fighting in the battle of life, everyday life, in their family, in their community, in their nation, in the international fields, everywhere.

There is a great mistake in holy literature that a saint is a religious person. It is not so. Religious people have monopolized sainthood. Who said this is so? There are saints in politics, in education, in philosophy, communication, in science, in arts, in religion, too, and in economy. You cannot progress only through religion. You need seven fields, and in the seven fields saints exist.

A saint is one who has no personal will but acts by the will of the spirit. Whatever the Soul tells him, he does it. Not to have will does not mean you do not have direction and personality, but you always do the will of that Almighty Something; you exist for Him. That is very heavy.

So actually the development of sainthood within you is the decrease of the will of your ego, which is totally contradictory to what we learn in our schools and modern society. That is why modern society hates sainthood. Sainthood? Then how could we do all the things that we do to have fun?

A saint is a man or a woman who is totally harmless -- physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually harmless.

Sainthood is not the result of opening our centers. It is not anything that you can "buy" by gymnastics, yoga, breathing exercises, this or that trash. Centers do not open safely unless they are balanced with a holy life, an expanded consciousness that can handle the energy that will flow from the centers. Actually, opened centers are the result of sainthood. When you are a saint you bloom. Everything blooms. That is why you know, you have energy, you have power, you can heal, you can transform because you are a purified personality.

A saint is one whose heart is totally filled with compassion. I will tell you a little story that happened. One of our monks was very, very pure. This man went and brought some grains from two, three miles away. When we opened the grains, he found big, big ants in the bag. He said, "Oh beautiful, I brought you two miles away from your home." I said he's crazy and I was just ready to step on them. He said, "Torkom, put them back in that bag." I said "All right." He took the bag two miles back and freed them and he brought the grain back and he said, "Now I feel good." So for six months I said he is nut, nothing else. I made jokes about him and made his life so burdensome. 

One day he came and said, "You know, ants are life just as you are. What about if somebody takes you two miles away and leaves you there?"

One day I saw him sitting and crying. I said, "What is the matter?" He said, "Look what you did. To pick one apple you cut the whole branch." He was crying for what I did. Then I suddenly realized that this man is five thousand years ahead of me. I saw how backward I was sometimes.

Q: Does sainthood carry on in us from one life to another?

A: If he has duties to do, he comes back since he did not finish. He is a Third Degree initiate and he must finish the Fourth Degree, Fifth Degree and then the Sixth Degree. In the Sixth Degree he decides if he is going to come back or not. That is his business. But in the Third Degree he is going to come back because a Third Degree Initiate has finished his personal karma but did not finish his national karma and human karma and global karma. He is going to pay for you. A saint is one who writes checks to pay your debts.

Their life is a sacrifice. Saints are sacrificial people because when the will is not yours but God's, your life is a sacrifice. Actually, sacrifice means total dedication to an exceptional service.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Teachings of Great Ones