Discipleship

A beautiful gem is the story of Amar Das’s discipleship at the feet of Guru Angad. It is the sublime story of his transformation into the Gurumukh-son of his Master.

Guru Amar Das obtained the same mark, the same throne, and the same court. The grandson was acceptable as the father (Guru Angad) and the grandfather (Guru Nanak). Guru Amar Das by the force of Love threw into the churn the rope of the snake (mind), and churned the ocean of the Word with the churning staff of Meru.

Balwand and Satta

Guru Amar Das served his Master night and day. At His feet he learned the secret of Naam, a story which no book has ever told. He made his worship at the living altar of Guru Angad.

Having met such a Master all the outer practices lost their savour, for he had found that for which all outer practices were meant. His old friends, though, would still come by and press him to come with them again on pilgrimage. Amar Das declined, but he gave them instead a tumbi fruit, that is sweet on the outside and bitter within. He told them to bathe that fruit in the holy rivers and bring it back. When they brought the fruit back after their long pilgrimage, Amar Das cut it open, filled it with water and gave each some to drink. When they remarked on the bitterness, Amar Das asked them how it could still be so bitter after so many holy dips.

Then he said to them,

This mind which is so full of filth, how can it be washed clean by merely bathing the physical form?

After he had been with the Guru for some time there came a great drought in the land. There was one ascetic who was very jealous of Guru Angad and he told the people that it was because of Guru Angad that they were having a drought. If they expelled Guru Angad and worshipped Him, he said, then He would bring rain by His supernatural powers. Soon the people began to believe him and they went to Guru Angad.

He humbly told them,

Rest satisfied in God’s Will. God has no partner in His designs and no one can influence Him.

But the people would not listen and so He said that would gladly leave if that would gain their object. In this way seven villages in succession refused to receive Guru Angad, and He took refuge in a forest. So when Amar Das came to see his Master the next day, he found the place deserted. He was shocked when he found out what happened. He asked the people if they had taken leave of their senses or if they were plain stark fools – how could a lamp substitute for the Sun? But the people went to the Sadhu and asked him now to produce some rain. For all his incantations and supernatural powers nothing came. Amar Das told them that no one but God had the power to send rain. How foolish they had been to send away One Who had the power to manifest Naam in their hearts! The people quickly repented. They punished the monk and went to ask the Guru’s forgiveness.

Guru Angad was far from happy when He heard of the ascetic’s punishment and He turned to Amar Das and said,

You have not obtained the fruits of companionship with me which are peace, endurance and forgiveness. –You did this only to please the rabble.

Amar Das was completely abashed at hearing this and he fell at his Master’s feet, begging for His pardon.

Guru Angad then gave Amar Das the following advice:

You should have endurance like the earth, steadfastness in weal or woe like a mountain; you should bear pardon in your heart and do good to everyone irrespective of their acts. You should deem gold and dross as the same and practise humility, for the humble shall be exalted.

These words Amar Das placed on his heart and he became a living embodiment of those virtues.

True Saints are perfect in every respect yet sometimes out of sympathy for their disciples, in order to teach lessons or for other reasons unknown to us, they take on physical ailments or defects. Guru Angad had a sore foot, and occasionally it would appear to pain Him greatly. One night matter was issuing from it and the Guru told Amar Das that He could not sleep because of the pain. Amar Das immediately applied his mouth to the sore and sucked it. By Amar Das’s loving devotion the Guru was relieved. He told Amar Das to ask for a boon. All he asked was that his Master should heal Himself; but Guru Angad quoted Guru Nanak’s verse which begins:

Pain is medicine, worldly pleasure is a disease; where there is such pleasure, there is no desire for God.

Guru Angad saw that His two sons were not fit to succeed Him and He also saw that Amar Das had grown into His own image. As the time drew near for His final departure from the body, one incident occurred for Him to show the true worth of all three. On a moonless night a great storm came. The cold winds blew furiously, lightning flashed and the world seemed flooded with rain. In the middle of the night, Guru Angad woke one son and then the other, asking them to fetch water at the Beas River which was a great distance away.

When neither would obey their father, Amar Das, who was also there, stepped forward and said:

Great King, Thy slave will fetch the water!

Guru Angad objected saying that Amar Das was too old for such service, but Amar Das replied that he had grown young on hearing the Guru’s order. So he put a pitcher on his head and started towards the river. The night was so dark that he had to feel his way along but at last he made it to the river and filled the vessel. Full of the intoxication of devotion he headed through the darkness. On the way was a colony of weavers who had dug holes in the ground to put their feet while working at their looms. Amar Das fell into one of these and struck his foot on a peg. Nevertheless he saved the water. The weavers, hearing the commotion, thought perhaps some thief was about, but on peeking out they heard Amar Das singing the Jap Ji.

Because of his uncompromising and seemingly superhuman devotion to his Master, Amar Das had acquired the reputation of a madman among the worldly people. So when they saw it was only Amar. Das, the weavers began to taunt him. Amar Das never minded a bit, but when one lady began to insult his Master too he could not bear it and told them that they themselves must be mad or how could they say such things about the Guru? Then he continued on his way to Guru Angad.

It is stated that the lady who insulted Guru Angad did indeed become mad, and it was only by taking her to His feet that she was cured. Then Guru Angad spoke to them of Amar Das, telling them:

You describe him us homeless and lowly, but he shall become the home of the homeless, the honour of the unhonoured, the strength of the strengthless, the support of the unsupported, the shelter of the unsheltered, the protector of the unprotected, the restorer of that which is lost, the emancipator of the captive.

After saying that, the Guru had Amar Das placed in His own seat and said that he it was who would be His successor. Significant are these words that Guru Angad gave out to His disciples before His leaving:

The Saints of the Satguru are of the nature of clouds. They assume a body for the benefit of the world and confer benefits on men. The body, which is merely a storehouse of corn, shall perish. As a rich man casts aside his old clothes and puts on new ones, so do the Saints of the Satguru put away their crumbling bodies and take a new vesture for their souls. A man in his own house may remain naked or clothed, may wear new or old raiment – that is the condition of the Saints – They are bound by no rules.

It must be said that millions of histories can hardly begin to do justice to the Great Souls for Their story takes place on planes unknowable. Yet sometimes in Their own words we may get little hints of the great unrevealed story. Guru Amar Das, Whose own life included those many years of hard and bitter searching, tells us Himself, by way of autobiography, of His disillusionment with outer rituals and of His Inner Unfoldment at the feet of His Guru:

I got exhausted in my search, in performing outer rituals, etc. We who are without understanding, foolish, stupid and blind, have been put on the Way by the Satguru. I wandered through the whole world calling out for my Beloved yet my thirst departed not; but on meeting the Satguru, oh Nanak, my thirst departed and I found my Beloved in my own home. I have been led astray through so many births, but now that I have found Thee I am as if I never strayed.

Elsewhere Guru Amar Das added this description of His experience at the Guru’s feet:

I have completely altered since I met the Guru; I have obtained the nine treasures to spend and eat. The eighteen perfections follow in my train; my mind ceases to wander outside. The Unstruck Shabd ever plays for me, and I direct my attention to absorption in God. Oh Nanak! Devotion to God abideth in whose forehead such fate was written in the beginning.