Guru Bhakti: A Lesson in Love

IV

Now you will understand the basic need of Gurubhakti. It does not mean dancing around the Guru or shouting this way or that. If you do not care to listen to what the Guru says or to understand and follow His behests, it is not Gurubhakti at all. Such persons cannot get any Spiritual Benefit even if they live with the Master for ages upon ages. On the contrary, those who turn their back upon the world and are wholly engrossed in the Love of the Master and make loving devotion as their ruling passion, they easily and quickly get transformed into the likeness of the Master. Just take a worldly example of a person full of lust and see how he lovingly dotes upon the form of his beloved and in her presence feels inebriated.

Guru Ram Das says:

I feel highly elated with joy by looking at the physical form of my beloved Satguru.

If one could, from afar, just get a glimpse of the glorious turban of Hazur while standing in the midst of thousands of persons, a thrill of joy would run through the head to toe. 

Maulana Rumi says:

Even if I were to behold the face of my Beloved, hundreds of times with hundreds of eyes, I would still like to see him again and again for each time one gets a novel experience from such blessed sight.

He goes on to say:

Just as a drunkard feels restlessly agitated by looking at a vintage splashing in a goblet of wine, similarly by looking into the cups of the deeply set eyes of the Master, the souls of the devotee soar high in Ecstasy Divine.

Those who have attained the climax of Love like this for the Master, they feel Divinity surging in the fibres of their being. It was a matter of common experience to see people standing statue like for hours on end with their eyes intently fixed on the radiant face of the Hazur. The sweet and loving remembrance of the Master, the contemplation of His form and careful attention to His discourses are some of the tried methods for the purification of the mind. If the Master is full of piety, you will automatically become pious. After all what is there in Him, which attract us so much? He is charged with the Spiritual Glow and Divine Glory which attracts one and all alike.

An Urdu poet says:

Where there is no beauty, Love cannot evolve and a nightingale finds no delights in flowers painted on the walls.

It is the Glory of the Living God in Him which attracts them. The radioactive race emanating from His person sinks deep into the hearts of the devotees. So long as there is no Inner Charm no one can charm the people around him. 

Swami Ji warns:

A soul entombed in the body cannot possibly do Gurubhakti; when even the God themselves are ignorant of His greatness, how can the Incomprehensible Satguru be comprehended? He may be known as much as He may in His Grace reveal Himself.

Guru Nanak was considered as a worldly people, as one who perverted the intellect of others. He was not allowed to enter the town of Qasur – now in Pakistan – lest He should misguide people. But there were others who recognised in Him a Living God in the garb of man. So it all depends on how much He may choose to reveal Himself to each individual. Similarly, Hazur was looked upon by many as a very pious old man, whereas those who had good fortune to go near Him would see something higher in Him. And still fewer who had developed some Inner Receptivity and devotion found Him a veritable Godman.

Hazur used to explain the matter:

A highly qualified teacher attending to boys in a primary class would reveal as much of his knowledge as it may be possible for the novices to grasp. But the same teacher when teaching middle classes would impart higher knowledge to his students befitting their capacity to learn and when he will go to the higher secondary, he will show more of his learning, till in a college he will be at his best.

In other words, as a student advances from class to class and his understanding ripens with the passage of time and experience, he imbibes more and more of his teachers learning and the teacher too tries to impart greater knowledge which may be commensurate with the capacity to understand and to assimilate. The time factor then is important in any type of development.