XII

Guru is Superman or Godman

As a man, Guru is an ideal man: in Him shines the very Sun of Spirituality. He is the fountainhead of Life. He is an epitome of the entire creation, visible and invisible, right from Sat Lok down to the physical plane. No one can know him fully, even as it is impossible to swim across an ocean. For a dip in the water one does not go into mid-ocean, but is content with the water at the beach or the bathing ghat. Through the Perfect Man one can enjoy the Love, Light and Life of God.

If one were to enguire of His greatness, of His native place and how He has come down, and what His mission is in life, it would suffice to say that He has come directly from the Kingdom of God or Sat Lok, and having crossed the various intermediary planes (Tap Lok, Jan Lok, Swar Lok, Bhanwar Lok, etc.) has reached the physical world or Bhu Lok just to manifest the Godhead that is His to the world-weary.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

St Matthew 11:28

The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

St Luke 19:10

Murshid-i-Kamil (Perfect Master) is a veritable abode of God's attributes in fullness and in abundance. The kindly Light of heaven shines in Him and He diffuses it among mankind. The Love of God is surging in Him like heaving sea-waters.

[…] The moving waters at their priest-like task of pure ablution, round earth's human shores […].

John Keats

And, above all, He is the Life of Life, and His greatest mission is to impart the Life Impulse to the stark cold Jivas all immersed in worldly pursuits, dead to higher instincts. God may well be perceived in Godman. It is said that God made man after His own image and asked the angels to bow before him.

Maulana Rumi says:

He has placed the veritable sun in man.

When a person rises in cosmic awareness, he finds that the Master is the hub of the entire universe. He is Truth personified, possessing the very essence of God and fit to be worshipped by all.

He is the leader and guide of mankind; the greatest, the highest and the perfect One among them. He is the genuine abode of all that is good and noble. He is the prototype of God, working as His viceroy and administering His laws on all planes (physical and spiritual). He is gifted with forensic acuteness, discriminative acumen and sound judgement. He may be unlettered, but still He is the most learned. Even as a man, He is the holiest of the holy, most pious and most loving; with love that far transcends societies, countries, and nations. His self is coeval with mankind. He is the citizen of the world, and His appeal is one of universal interest. He is, in short, the deputy of God, come into the world to share His Love, Light, and Life with erring humanity.

In this world, He lives just like any other individual. Although in the world, He is not of the world. He loves all people much more than parents love their children. He knows but looks beyond our shortcomings and smilingly helps us to overcome them. Full of compassion, Christ-like, with sore and bruised feet, the Son of Man ceaselessly goes about with insatiable hunger in His soul, passionately seeking to recover and retrieve that which is lost: lost man, his brother, lost soul.

He may look like a man, but in reality He is more than a man, more than a Superman, indeed. He is perfect in every respect: physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and as a manifestation of God. With all His greatness, He works as the lowliest of the low and humblest of the humble. He combines in Himself power and poverty, intellect and love, greatness and humility.

Master of Truth as He is, He far excels even a Superman. His sway extends to purely spiritual regions, which lie beyond human limitations of time, space, and causation. He can at will leave the physical body, tread the sun and moon, traverse subtle and causal planes, and transcend Par Brahm and beyond.

Science with its material accomplishments is groping in the dark. All scientific research is still in the material world where the scientists are relentlessly working with all the mental and moral force at their command. They have no idea of the various planes to which the Master of Truth has access at His free will and sweet pleasure.

Those who accept the Master's teachings and work under His direction can see for themselves. All the Saints are at one in Their conclusion:

The Kingdom of God lies within.

Christ tells us:

The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.

St Luke 17:20-21

Again, in Gurbani, we have:

Everything is within you and nothing is outside you. Quest without is fruitless, when the crest jewel, Oh brethren, is lodged within you. He who searches without is yet in the wilderness.

*The human body is the Temple of God. It is the real church, the synagogue, and the mosque made by God, and what a pity we try to seek Him in man-made houses. (* This section is adjusted to the First Edition of 1967; Editor’s Note 2011.) One who knows how to cut deep in the cavern of the mind and experiment in the laboratory of the soul can successfully see the wonder of sublime sights and hear the celestial strains of the harmony divine.

In the body lies everything: Khand, Mandal and Patal (inner planes, high and low, including the nether world). In it is lodged the crest jewel of spirituality, and a devotee can have this in abundance. The entire macrocosm is in the microcosm. In this body one can find Naam (Word) if one were to follow the instructions of the Master.

Sannai, the great philosopher, tells us:

In the kingdom of the human body there are innumerable firmaments and powers that work in order. The spirit has to traverse many a high and low region, mountain and river valley. There are many plains, oceans, wildernesses and bewildering heights of which one can hardly conceive. In this mighty maze the physical world is just like a tiny speck on a big ocean.

The human body, being the Temple of God, is just a model of the grand creation and whoever delves into it is able to know the secret of the creation.

Brahmand and Pind have been fashioned alike. The investigations of the one automatically reveal the mystery of the other, like an open book.

Great indeed is man, gifted as he is with untold possibilities. The very macrocosm is lodged in the microcosm of the body. We, however, look to outer raiment and are concerned with it constantly, little knowing what is behind the folds of this garment. We nourish and pamper the body but allow the roots to run dry. The roots of the entire creation originate in the subtle region, which we can reach by a process of inversion.

Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

St Luke 18:17
St Mark 10:15

But, unfortunately, we never have a peep within, because we are averse to becoming as a little child. Emerson, a great philosopher, also exhorts us to tap inside. Bergson advises us to take a mortal leap within to land at the source of all knowledge.

The lessons of the process of inversion, tapping inside, the mortal leap within, or becoming as a little child, as Jesus puts it, are given in detail by the Master of Truth, both by word of mouth and by instructions on the various planes as the spirit travels onward under His personal guidance and care.

Saints are scientists of the spiritual world and Masters of Para Vidya – Knowledge of the Beyond; i.e., knowledge of that which lies beyond reason and intellect and can be learned or known through the sense of perception.

It is a subject of extra sensory perception (ESP) as it is called by the modern psychic science researchers and parapsychologists, who, as Dr J.D. Rhine tells us in his book 'Mind and the New World', have discovered through their investigations that there is something operative in the human being which transcends the laws of matter. 

The Master of Truth is fully conversant with that something, and is competent to grant the full extra-sensory perception, as an eye-surgeon can restore sight to the physical eyes. The Master, like Buddha, tells us that physical life is all misery, but that beyond it there are countless subtle planes where one experiences nothing but bliss and light. Every day, He goes to these Planes and tells us of His experiences. Those who follow His instructions and experiment in the laboratory of the mind under His guidance, see subtle worlds just as we see the physical, and the results are as sure, certain and definite as two and two make four.