Guru Bhakti: A Lesson in Love

IX

Today we are celebrating the birth anniversary of Hazur (Sawan Singh Ji Maharaj). It would therefore be a fitting tribute to His memory if you resolve to make your life a continuous saga of Love and service – Love of the Lord and service of His creation. As you have not yet come face to face with the God, then for the time being try to develop Love for One in Whom the Power of God is working for the good of humanity. The first step in this direction is to do what He directs you to do:

There is no difference between the Satguru and His words.

We must learn to believe and have faith in what He says. Now that we are sitting in the sweet remembrances of Hazur, it will be a great day for us, if we resolve to turn over a new leaf in our lives. For this purpose we must maintain a Spiritual Diary. It will enable us to introspect. At present we are unable to see the foibles lying hidden in the depths of our minds. But when you try to plumb the unconscious you will gradually be able to see them on the surface, at first in trickles and then in torrents.

Oh mind, learn to love the Lord and love Him yet more.

This is what Kabir has said. In the same vein we have the words of Jesus:

Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul and with all thy strength.

And again:

Love thy neighbour as thyself.

Asked as to what should be the Christian attitude towards wrongdoers, He declared:

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father in Heaven.

St Matthew 5:44-45
St Luke 6:27,35

Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father Which is in Heaven is perfect.

St Matthew 5:48

This then constitutes the Love in the teachings of all the Great Sages from time immemorial and it shall eternally remain the same. They all exhort us to mould our life on these lines. Courtesy does not cost you anything. All the time we are malevolently concerned with what others say and do. The world would be much better if we could stop involving ourselves in the saying and doings of others. Again, we do not confine our mistakes to ourselves, but all the time busily sprinkle folly among our neighbours with the result that we get from them a hundred-fold in return. What good does it bring after all?

On a day like this, I repeat with all the emphasis at my command that Hazur was a veritable Ocean of Love; and we should and must, if we love Him, learn afresh our lesson in Love, by following in His footsteps by diligently working at the Spiritual Practices that He gave out for our uplift. By withdrawing Himself from the physical plane He has not forsaken us for His godly Power in its full radiance still sustains within and He is, more keenly than ever before, waiting at the focus of our being to help and guide us.

God is not sitting on some throne in Heaven. He is enthroned in the heart of each one of us. We must, therefore, learn to love and serve our fellow beings in distress and suffering.

God Himself has declared:

I love him who loves My created beings.

This is the great lesson that Hazur taught us in the first instance and if we put it into practice in our every day life, His Grace shall most surely descend and help us in our Spiritual Progress.

Let us see what Kabir says:

Poor Kabir, from his life-long experience cannot help reflecting again and again, self-effacement is the only way that will take you to God and to your Eternal Home in Heaven.

Kabir says that the only way to salvation lies through Love. It is by Love that you rise above self and become selfless. Without transcendence of the self – the ego – in us, the Light of God does not dawn. When you are charged with the Love, Love of God in man, you cross over from stage of duality to oneness. How can we go to the fount of Divine Love? Love can be imbibed from the love-laden heart of some God-inspired soul.

In a few words, Kabir has provided us with the Master-key that unlocks the doors of Heaven: Find out a Godman and learn from Him the secret of Love. Try to understand what He says and then diligently practise His teachings. He commands you to be chaste and clean in thought, word and deed and to cultivate Love for all that exists by that Love of God. As God is not separate from His creation, you will see the spirit of God enlivening the entire universe. You will not then feel isolated from the world. Your little self, now cramped within the human mind, will expand, become universalised and embrace the totality of all beings.

This is the secret of success on God’s Path. There is no other short-cut to it. Try to be true to your own self and then you will not be untrue to anyone. Alongside do Bhajan and Simran – sit in sweet remembrance of the Lord with rapt attention –, make it a point to give daily nourishment to the soul as you do to the body. This is the Love of which Kabir has given us a description in a few words. Mere lip-service and acrobatic feats will not do.

I would explain my point by means of a parable of two gardeners.

A king had a fine orchard which was entrusted to the care of two gardeners. One of them was hard-working and would silently go about his job tending to the trees and flowers with due care and attention, keeping them in proper trim. The other was lazy but had a glib tongue and strong lungs. Whenever the king would visit the garden, the former would just pick up a few flowers and humbly present them to his royal Master, while the other who did nothing would jump about and dance before the Master and sing of the Master’s virtues, deportment and clothes.

Now whom would the king like? You can give the answer yourself. Certainly, the one who applied himself to his work diligently and honestly without making any fuss. Similarly, the all-knowing Master looks to your inner most intentions, the sincerity of purpose in you and honesty of efforts you make in following His commandments and bestows on you the gift of His Spiritual Wealth according to your merits.

Kabir concludes His hymn with teaching following memorable words:

He who gives precedence to the Guru over everything else and religiously follows His teachings, oh Kabir, such a person has nothing to fear in all the three regions.

There are three mind zones or mental regions in which the embodied soul moves up and down in the giant wheel of life propelled by the compulsive karmic force: the physical, the subtle and the causal, with no easy way of escape therefrom.

Kabir tells us of a way-out through the kindly Grace of some Master-Soul that can lead a Jiva unscathed from these into the beyond, the purely Spiritual Realm – Sach Khand or Muqam-i-Haq of the Muslim or the Garden of Eden – New Jerusalem – of the Christians. The Master is the Greatest Gift of God to mankind.

Hazur used to tell us that we refrain from any evil act in the presence of a child of even five years. But, strange as it may seem, we have not even as much regard for the King of Kings – the all-knowing Master Who knows even the innermost latencies of our mind. We shamelessly indulge in things which no sane person would do in the false belief that no one is looking at us. We must at all times remember that the Master in His subtle form is ever with us and watching all our deeds. Be careful to avoid misdeeds and misdemeanours at all costs. And last but not the least we should in no wise transgress the limitations imposed by Him and pledge on this blessed day positively to follow His instructions with a rededicated zeal. Please make a careful not of all these things so that you may live in peace and be really blessed.