Guru Bhakti: A Lesson in Love

V

The more a person attends upon his Guru and diligently follows His instruction, the more he develops his receptivity and in the same proportion, the Guru reveals to him more and more Spiritual Experience. It all depends on Upasna which means proximity to the Spiritual Preceptor. If you sit near the Master with heart and soul attuned, you are sure to be benefited a lot by His Divine Radiation and that in turn will develop your Inner Receptivity or power of assimilation. The easiest, the shortest and the simplest way to get greater benefits to loose yourself completely in the Holy Presence of Sant Satguru.

Swami Ji says:

Oh soul, be fully absorbed in Satsang at least this day.

What then is full or complete absorption, is the question. It means that while in the company of the Saints listening to Him one should forget not only the place where He is sitting but become wholly oblivious of the very surrounding in which He is and dissolve His very being, losing all consciousness except of the Holy Presence of the Master. This blanking of one’s self is called absorption. The more one empties himself of the worldliness and pettiness, the more he will be filled by the Divine Grace emanating from the Divine Presence before him. This is the secret of a successful Satsang.

Excuse me, when I say that it is seldom that we get a Satsang or company of a truly Perfect Master for such highly advanced souls – souls One with the Lord – are very rare indeed. They are not easily available and recognisable and if by some mighty good luck we do come across a Godman, we do not know to derive the fullest benefit from His company or Satsang. The way to make the most of such a rare opportunity and derive the maximum benefit is that one should try to come to the place of Satsang as early as possible and sit silently in a prayerful mood, blanking the mind of all the worldly thoughts in the august presence of the Master, inwardly absorbing His words of wisdom. If by sitting close to fire we feel warmth and the proximity of a glacier gives a cold shiver, there is no reason why one should not be affected by the Divine Aura of a Master-Saint Whose radiation has an unimaginably long range.

The devotion to and the Love of the Master are synonymous terms. Love is all-comprehensive and it knows only service and sacrifice.

Guru Gobind Singh while speaking of His own descent on the earth plane says:

Having merged in the Lord, I did not like to come down again into this mundane world, but was prevailed upon by God to do so – for the Spiritual Welfare of humanity.

When loving devotion is at its highest, nothing remains of the individual self for it becomes universalised and all pervading.

Hafiz says:

My heart is so filled with the Love of the Lord, that I cannot think of myself apart from Him.

We have, therefore, to rid ourselves of the personal ego for it stands between us and God. 

Gurbani says:

The Lord is attained by Gurubhakti.

This is the way that He comes to dwell in us, absorbing the mind in Him. The main object of all Spiritual Practices and Disciplines is that we should develop Gurubhakti or devotion to the Guru which, of course, grows out of Love. This is why all Saints and Sages laid great stress on cultivating Love.

Guru Gobind Singh says:

What does it profit to close the eyes and sit stork-like with folded wings and to take dips in the seas of the world, gaining nothing here and hereafter, and while travelling in a sense pleasures waste time in useless disputation. Verily, I tell thee, listen all if ye may, they alone get to the Lord who know how to love.

Similarly, John in His first Epistle says: 

He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is Love.

1 St John 4:8

Again, in the Holy Koran we have:

A loving man cannot do without a beloved.

It is in fact the beloved that teaches the lover the art of Love and enables him to progress steadily on the Path of Love. As God is Love so is the human soul a particle of Divine Love. The essence of Love is at the core of all creations and more so in man. Man is he who has in him feelings of Love and sympathy. What is it that characterises a Sage or a Saint?

He is a cup bubbling over with the Love of God, His proximity quickens in us the life of Love.

As Light comes from Light and life from life, so does Love come from Love. Love does not grow in fields nor can it be had from a shop but we may catch its infection from the Love laden eyes of a lover of God. There are some people who are fondly in love with the pleasure of the world and care not for the next. Then there are others who are carried away by hopes of a paradisal bliss. But those who love the Lord share the things that in reality really matter far better than either of them. Love ignites in us the flame of the Living Light or the Light of Life.

That type of Love is:

Meeting the God intoxicated soul I enquired about the nature of Divine Love, the only reply was that in its fullness it could not be described. The flaming Love of the Lord cannot be kept under a bushel, one may not open one’s mouth but tearful eyes belie and shed tears involuntarily. A heart devoid of Love is a charnel-house, an iron monger’s bellows which breathes without the breath of life.

Kabir says:

Humility, simplicity, devotion and courtesy are great virtues, but he alone is great who observes decorum with all.

Decorum or propriety is the core of the True Living which ranks almost as high as Truth itself. We must love all, respect all and be courteous to all, which we seldom do. We generally play double-faced like Janus and apply double standards in all our dealings. Our head and heart do not work in unison nor do our acts and words exhibit the same pattern.

Guru Nanak says: 

Humility tinged with sweetness is the essence of all virtues.

It is from the abundance of hearth that tongue speaks and unless there is a sweetness in the folds of our minds, we cannot speak sweetly. All the sages therefore, speak of Love as the only way of salvation.

Guru Nanak pointedly tells us:

Beauty, lineage, prowess, learning and riches are of no avail, endowed with all these but devoid of Love of the Lord, one is as good as dead.

How can we get the wealth of Love? It comes to the elect of the Lord and He showers it in abundance on whomsoever He pleases. The worldly wise entombed in mind and matter can hardly aspire to it and do not get it.

Once princes Zaibul-Nisa went to Sarmad and requested him for the rare boon of God’s Love.

Sarmad said:

Oh Sarmad, the burning passion of Love is not granted to avaricious, nor the moth’s Love for the flame, to flies that hover round filth. It takes ages to get revelation of the Lord in one’s mind, oh Sarmad, this wealth is not doled out to all and sundry.