The Two Initiations, First Into Light, Then Into Sound, by James Bean
An e-book now online: The Prakash Mani Gita: On Surat Shabd Yoga Sadhana (Inner Sound Meditation), by Shri Huzur Prakash Mani Nam Saheb @ The Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/PrakashManiGita
It's a rare text about Surat Shabd Yoga coming, not from well-known recent or contemporary Sant Mat sources, but from the older tradition of the Dharam Das Kabir Panth.
One can make a few observations about this text.
It has some great insights about the meditation practice.
They have a much more intact tradition than some of the other older panths, such as meat-eating Sikhs who believe the sound current to just be the singing of hymns, and the book itself is guru, and other panths where the second initiation (surat shabd yoga) is no longer being done (dadu panth).
From the book: "Prakashmani (1945 - 1962) was a great scholar of spirituality and was the first acharya (head) in line of Guru Kabir who wrote several great literatures since the first disciple Sant Dharam Das."
Nobody wrote anything since the time of Sant Dharam Das? Hard to really believe this. Since clearly all of that vast Kabir Sagar literature authored prior to the time of Prakashmani is not the creation of one author (Kabir), I suspect that some of those earlier acharyas (or others in their sasangs) actually did write, but did so in the name of "Kabir" instead of using their own names.
Kabir verses in the Adi Granth are generally believed to be closest to the Kabir of history -- perhaps also the Bijak. The texts with widely differing styles and voices no doubt represent the works of others.
The Corpus Hermeticum is an example of this, where there is a whole corpus of literature spanning a few generations all attributed to "Hermes Trismegistus" but most likely authored by many. There are quite a few examples of this sort of anonymous writing of texts or community efforts at creating texts in the world of sacred texts, Books of Enoch, Hebrew scriptures, gospels, etc...
Sant Dariya Sahib's and Tulsi Sahib's dispute with the Kabir Panth includes a view that they didn't teach surat shabd yoga, and yet here's the example of a recent Kabir Panth Guru that passed only in 1962 who in fact did. What to make of this? While it is true there is some knowledge of surat shabd yoga in the Dharam Das Kabir Panth of today, it's "not a required course", if you will. Not very many in Kabir Panth actually are initiated into surat shabd yoga. For Dariya, Tulsi and others, surat shabd yoga remains a "required course" and quintessential sadhana or goal for all.
The traditional way-of-doing in Kabir Panth, Dariya Sahib and Tulsi Sahib related sangats is a format of two initiations. The first initiation covers the guru mantra (simran, charged names) and inner light meditation. And only after the practitioner is "established in the Light" do they then proceed to receive the initiation into surat shabd yoga, the sound current.
Now... in the older panths if people generally aren't able to contemplate the light, they also can't get to the second initiation: the sound. A bit of a crisis. The day the music died.
"I explain this to you, says Dariya:
As long as the discipline of the Sound Current
is preserved unadulterated,
The line of succession will truly continue.
But when it is mixed with outer rituals
and display of external garbs,
My Sound Current will part company.
My Divine essence will depart,
And the souls will go into the mouth of Kal.
I shall then come to this world,
And shall proclaim the teaching
of the Sound Current again.
Proclaiming the teaching,
I shall found the line of succession.
And emancipating the souls,
I shall take them to my Abode.
For aeons I have been coming,
And imparting the teaching
of the true Sound Current."
-- Bhajan of Sant Dariya Sahib of Bihar
There Sant Dariya is sounding a lot like Kabir echoing the tradition of Kabir incarnating in each of the yugas, as mentioned in the Bijak and Anurag Sagar. Indeed, some in that group believe him to have been the reincarnation of Kabir.
In any case, the rift between Dariya Sahib and Kabir Panth was over this issue of inner experience, external garbs & rituals (Hinduising), and having surat shabd yoga be an essential sadhana, not a meditation practice for an elite minority of sadhus or satsangis only.
