Kirpal Singh from "The Crown of Life"

"The spiritual Path is essentially a practical path. It is only the spirit – disencumbered and depersonalized – that can undertake the spiritual journey. The inner man, the soul in man, has to rise above body-consciousness before it can traverse into higher consciousness or the consciousness of the cosmos and of the beyond. All this and more becomes possible through the Surat Shabd Yoga or the union of “self” in man (Surat or consciousness) with the Shabd or Sound Principle, through the grace of the Master-soul."