From the Editor’s Desk

Gurubhakti or Loving Devotion to the Master is the first and the last step on the Spiritual Path. With Gurubhakti completed, nothing remains to be done. Its importance, therefore, cannot be over-emphasised.

Love is the key-note in Gurubhakti. But do we really love the Guru or render only a lip service unto Him? Love means unstinted and selfless service and sacrifice of all one has – body, mind and intellect – so much so that one becomes an empty vessel, ready to receive the Divine Grace to the fullest. Again, it is said, that where there is Love there is fear also, fear of the Loved One. Fear of the Guru is the beginning of wisdom.

Guru is long suffering usward. He gives a long rope to hang ourselves with it if we so wish. But with all that He does not allow us to perish unto the last. Such is His Love for the disciples and truly He stands by His troth. We may leave Him if we will, but He does not forsake us till the end of the world, nay He stands by us even before the judgement seat of the Dispensing Power of God.

Guru does not demand of us any great sacrifice nor any hard labour. All that He wishes of us is to spare sometime for devotion – devotion not to Him but to the Self within us. His yardstick to measure our Love is very simple:

If ye love me, follow my commandments,

is what He says.

With all our loud professions of love and protestations to the contrary, we are yet far from Love. This lack of Love for the Guru is a big road-block in our way Godwards.

And what does He after all desire? He wishes us to be true to our own selves. And what for and to what end? Does He stand to gain anything from us? No, not in the least. But He does so purely out of compassion for our benefit alone. If we fail Him, we fail to our Self and the fault is ours and not His.

As mortals, we are bound to err. He knows this inherent weakness in us. He wants us to keep a daily note, in the form of a diary, of all our lapses from a life of rectitude, so that we may know our failings and then try to overcome them one by one. There is nothing to be ashamed of in this. Who on earth does not fall? And failures are the stepping stones to success. To fall in sin is manly but to persistently fall, over and over again, is deplorable. The evil has got to be nipped in the bud or else it will, in no time, grow like a mushroom. How many of us go to the Master with a general complaint that we are not getting anything out of the disciplines enjoined.

Are you maintaining any diary?

is His first query and we hang down our heads in shame. What is He to do if we fail Him?

There is no wrong without a remedy, provided we are aware of the wrongs afflicting us and are prepared to confess them, to repent sincere and to atone for them. This is just one out of the so many pitfalls on the physical plane of existence. Apparently it seems something trivial but it is one of great consequence if we mean to do business on the Godpath.

The subject of Gurubhakti is too vast to be dealt with in a limited space like this, for it extends to and ends with the manifesting of the luminous form of the Master within. Until this stage is reached, we are not Gurubhakts in the real sense of the word. It has aptly been said by Swami Ji Maharaj that in this Yuga – time-cycle – nothing can avail except devotion to a True Master and the practice of Naam. And this is the great lesson we learn from the life of Hazur Baba Sawan Singh Ji Maharaj.