I / (iii)

Rediscovering lost Strands

The stream of life rolls on ceaselessly in the endless course of time; the power of the Timeless appears and disappears in the realm of relativity.

Before proceeding with the life sketch of Baba Jaimal Singh Ji, it would be worth our while to have a peep into the background that made Him what He was. It was indeed the power of Swami Ji that flowed through Him in whatever He did and wherever He worked, for He was wholly lost to Himself and given over to the Divine within Him.

In order to understand things in their proper perspective and to link up the history of our Spiritual Heritage, we will have to go back to Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708), the last of the ten Gurus in the line of succession to Guru Nanak.

The Rani (Queen) of one Ratan Rao Peshwa, accompanied by Bhai Nand Lal, came to the feet of Guru Gobind Singh for refuge.1

Guru Gobind Singh travelled widely, penetrating the Himalayas in the North and going to Deccan in the South. During His extensive travels, He met and lived with the ruling family of the Peshwas and initiated some of its members into the Inner Science. It is said that one Ratnagar Rao of the Peshwa family was initiated and authorized to carry on the work by Guru Gobind Singh.

Sham Rao Peshwa, the elder brother of Baji Rao Peshwa, the then ruling chief, who must have contacted Ratnagar Rao, showed a remarkable aptitude for the Spiritual Path and made rapid headway. In course of time, this young scion of the royal family settled in Hathras, a town thirty-three miles away from Agra in the Uttar Pradesh, and came to be known as Tulsi Sahib (1763–1843), the famous author of Ghat Ramayana, the science of the Inner Life-Principle pervading alike in man and nature. The vita lampada of Spirituality was passed on by Tulsi Sahib to Swami Shiv Dayal Singh Ji (1818–1878).

The link between Tulsi Sahib of Hathras and Swami Ji of Agra is likely to be overlooked, but there can be little doubt of it. From the manuscript account of Baba Surain Singh, the 'Jivan Charitar Swamiji Maharaj' by Chacha Partap Singh, and the book entitled 'Correspondence with Certain Americans' by Shri S. D. Maheshwari, we learn that Swami Ji’s parents were the disciples of the Hathras Saint and frequently visited Him at His home for darshan and attended His discourses whenever He visited Agra. It was He Who named the sons of Lala Dilwali Singh Seth, that is Shiv Dayal Singh, Brindaban and Partap Singh.

Before the birth of the eldest child, He prophesied that a Great Saint was about to manifest Himself in their home, and after His birth He told the parents that they need no longer come to Hathras for the Lord Almighty had come in their midst.2

The Hathras Saint took a keen and lively interest in casting the life of Swami Ji in His own mold. He initiated the young child at a very early age and Swami Ji, on the last day of His life, told His disciples that He had been practising the Inner Science from the age of six.3

Swami Ji’s veneration for the Hathras Saint becomes abundantly clear from His life. He held Tulsi Sahib’s disciples in great respect, honouring among them especially Sadhu Girdhari Das, whom He supported during his last years. Once when the Sadhu fell ill at Lucknow, Swami Ji hurried there from Agra and helped him to contact the Inner Sound Current before his demise, with which he had lost touch – owing presumably to some past karma.4

Again, Swami Ji very often gave to His followers instances from the life of His Great Predecessor, to teach them the importance of virtues like patience, forbearance, forgiveness and Godliness.5

Before His passing away in 1843, Tulsi Sahib bequeathed His Spiritual Heritage to Swami Ji. For six months Tulsi Sahib lay in a state of samadhi (Spiritual Trance) lost in Divine Consciousness. It was only after Swami Ji had paid Him a visit that Tulsi Sahib quitted His mortal frame.

Baba Garib Das, one of the earliest disciples of Tulsi Sahib, confirmed that the Spiritual Mantle had been entrusted by his Master to Munshi Ji (as Swami Ji was then known on account of His Great learning in Persian).6

Swami Ji was to spend fifteen years of His life in almost incessant abhyasa, Spiritual Practice, in a small closet. After the passing away of Tulsi Sahib, Swami Ji continued to visit Hathras to honour the memory of His Preceptor. On one such occasion, we are told, when Swami Ji went to Hathras, the heat was so great that His disciples Rai Saligram and Baba Jiwan Lal had to carry Him between themselves over the last lap of the journey where no transport was available and the ground was very uneven.7

The great respect that Swami Ji displayed for the Granth Sahib embodying the teachings of Guru Nanak and His successors seems ultimately to have been derived from family tradition.

The recitation of the Sikh scriptures was an article of faith in the family. His father, Lala Dilwali Singh – a Sahejdhari khatri Sikh, belonging to the order of Nanak panthis –, was devotedly attached to the Jap Ji, the Raho Ras and  the Sukhmani – Sikh scriptures –, which He read from day to day with great religious fervor and deep reverance. A copy of Sukhmani in the Persian script, in the hands of Swami Ji’s grandfather, Seth Maluk Chand, at one time Diwan of Dholpur State, is still preserved in the archives of Soamibagh.8

The essence of Sant Mat thus came to permeate the very being of Swami Ji. In later years, at least on one occasion, while discoursing on the Jap Ji at His home in Punni Gali, Swami Ji clearly acknowledged His Spiritual Debt to the Punjab, referring to Guru Nanak and His successors as the fountainhead of Spirituality and to Paltu Sahib and Tulsi Sahib as Great Subsequent Exponents of the Inner Science. – We will deal with this incident while tracing the life of Baba Jaimal Singh Ji in the succeeding chapter. –

His younger brother, Rai Brindaban Singh, a postmaster in Ajodhia, was a close disciple of Baba Madhodas of Mahant Dera Rano Pali in Ajodhia. He, like his elder brother, Shiv Dayal Singh, had a firm faith in and a great regard for the Gurbani. He was continually engaged in the sweet remembrance of the Lord, Bishambar, whose praises he chanted with a beautiful refrain, as is evident from his compositions under the caption 'Wah-e-Guru-Nama' in his Urdu book 'Bahar-i-Brindaban'.9

Oh Brindaban, leave aside all else and do the Japa of the great name Wah-e-Guru. It shall not only purify your body, mind and soul, but give you salvation, peace and happiness besides.

Again, we learn that when the end of Lala Dilwali Singh drew nigh, his son Shiv Dayal Singh, Swami Ji, sitting near his bedstead, began reciting the Gurbani, so as to keep his father’s attention steadily fixed therein at that crucial time.

Giani Partap Singh, basing himself on Baba Bhola Singh’s Radhasoami Mat Darpan, tells us in his study of world religions10 how Swami Ji, in course of time, became a frequent visitor to the holy Sikh shrine of Mai Than at Agra, commemorating the visit of the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur; where Sant Mauj Parkash, originally known as Didar Singh of the Nirmala order and a great Sanskrit scholar, used to give lucid expositions of the Gurbani or Sikh scriptures. It was because of his close association with Sant Mauj Parkash that Swami Ji learned Gurbani and its significance in Surat Shabd Yoga, and He began using this very shrine for His discourses on Gurbani

Chacha Partap Singh, in his life sketch, has given in rapturous terms a graphic description of one of such discourses:

It was about eight in the morning that the Maharaj one day went to the Gurdawara in Mai Than. After reciting a Shabd or two from the Granth Sahib, He began expounding the subject. In a rich and sonorous voice, the sublime thoughts seemed to flow from Him like endless waves from an inexhaustible reservoir within. I was so overwhelmed by the sweep of His words that all at once I felt lifted above the body and bodily environments, lost to all that was of the world. From that very day I was a changed man altogether, with an intense longing for the Divine, fully convinced of the greatness of Swami Ji and of His Holy Mission.11

After some time, Swami Ji shifted the venue of His teachings to His private apartments in Punni Gali and continued His discourses from the Granth Sahib – the copy He used was brought by Hazur Sawan Singh from Agra and is still treasured in the archives of Dera Baba Jaimal Singh at Beas in the Punjab. This system of addressing private gatherings at His home continued for quite a long time; but on Basant Panchmi Day in the year 1861, the floodgates of Surat Shabd Yoga as revived in this age by Kabir and His contemporary Guru Nanak, and firmly entrenched by His successors in the Gurbani, were now thrown open by Swami Ji to the general public.

*Lest there still be any doubt lingering in the minds of the sceptics, Swami Ji Who, till the last, continued initiating people into the secret of the traditional five-melodied Melody – Panch Shabd Dhunkar Dhun –, significantly enough on the last day of His departure from the earth-plane, cleared His position beyond the least shadow of doubt by declaring:

My Path was the Path of Sat Naam and Anami Naam. The Radhasoami faith is of Saligram’s making, but let it also continue. And let the Satsang continue as before; and the same shall flourish and prosper.

* (This section is adjusted to the Fourth Edition of 1987, USA;
Editor’s Note 2011.)

Among Swami Ji’s trusted and devoted disciples was Rai Saligram Sahib Bahadur – popularly known in later times as Hazur Maharaj, after He came to occupy the Spiritual Headship.

While Hazur Maharaj, after the passing away of Swami Ji, continued His discourses at Pipal Mandi in the heart of Agra city, Partap Singh, the younger brother of Swami Ji, generally called Chacha Sahib (respected uncle), carried on the work in Radhasoami Garden, three miles away from Agra city.

Another disciple, Baba Jaimal Singh Ji, one of the earliest and most spiritually advanced disciples of Swami Ji, as directed by the Great Master Himself, settled down at Beas in the Punjab to revitalize the work of Spirituality and to repay in some measure the debt that the world owed to Guru Nanak.

We will now examine in some detail the life and work of this distinguished Spiritual Son of Swami Ji.

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Sources: 1) Cf. Shri Des Raj, Hindu Sikh Ithras. 2) Chacha Partap Singh, Jivan Charitar Swamiji Maharaj, p. 6; S.D. Maheshwari, Correspondence with Certain Americans, p. 221. 3) Chacha Partap Singh, op. cit., p. 109. 4) Ibid., pp. 33-34. 5) Ibid., pp. 93-96. 6) Jivan Charitar Babuji Maharaj, Vol. III, p. 29. 7) Ajodhya Parshad, Jivan Charitar Hazur Maharaj, p. 36. 8) Chacha Partap Singh, op. cit., p. 5. 9) Lucknow: Nawalkishore Printing Press. 10) Sansar Ka Dharmic Ithas. 11) Chacha Partap Singh, op. cit., p. 52.