The Birthday of a Saint
by Rusel Jaque, Russell Perkins, Ron Polacsek
The Master has said as part of His Birthday Message for last year,
It is my wish that the birthday of a Master is celebrated as befits the occasion, which is by living up to my word.
Elsewhere He has said:
Does celebrating a birthday mean merely to pay once respect to a person? Or to light candles or to eat and drink? No brothers it is not any of these […] If you want to celebrate a Spiritual Master’s birthday, there is only one way, and that is to take up whatever He has learned. That would be a True Celebration […]
But the devotees, especially those who have seen His Inner Greatness with their own eyes, cannot be contained: their joy and thankfulness on the day of the birth of Him Who has shown them a way out of absurdity and hopelessness of earth life are irresistible; it is like celebrating Christmas in the physical presence of Christ.
On the pages that follow, two eyewitness accounts of two birthday celebrations separated by six years – 1959 and 1965 –, are combined with pictures – mostly by Ron Polacsek – taken during the 1968 celebration:
1959
Birthday Eve Satsang
5th February, 1959, 7 p.m. This evening I had the rare privilege of attending the Birthday Eve Satsang of the Blessed One under the great canopy. About twelve thousand were present. Guru Dev ascended the dais and composed Himself serenely before the microphone. He gazed out compassionately; lovingly over His happy occasion, the Master spoke in such an animated, overflowing manner. He called our attention to the awe-inspiring subject of these fateful days of worldly vanity and nuclear threat of racia1 extinction. Sometimes the Blessed One had fits of coughing from the much speaking He gives Himself to. Believe me, truly, never before did I ever see a speaker before a large gathering so happily laughing, speaking and coughing all at the same time! How large, how full and how wonderful throbs His heart for those who see His face – to the called according to His purpose!
After Satsang the Precious One had Gorkha. His radiantly smiling cook, bring me a vase of roses and a basket of oranges, bananas and cookies. Sweet-meats for the bride of my unworthy visage!
Oh friend of my heart, did loving Emperor of limitless domains such as our Living One ever bless the earth before with such benign presence? Oh that I may become a brighter, sweeter and more fragrant rose in His garden of the Primal Sound!
You have filled my head with singing and my breast with heavenly music! You have engraved Your lotus-form upon my heart of hearts for aye!
Master’s Birthday Party
6th February, 1959, at 5:30 a.m. Several ashram brothers came to my door most insistently. The Pundit was adamant:
Come, come! You must put on your turban and blanket to see the Master’s adoring family. Due to the particularly Birthday Party. Come barefoot, at once!
When I stepped outside, it looked us though the sky had fallen on us and that the stars were twinkling in a thousand lighted candles on the walls surrounding the Master’s yard and along the edges of the sidewalks.
The Master greeted each of us sweetly. As a loving Father He reminded us:
Our True Birthday occurs when we invert our attention and go above the body consciousness. Do not waste this present, precious opportunity!
What has passed, has passed, but we still have the present instant in which to improve our behaviour.
We should fulfil our pledge and responsibility to the Master Who has opened our Inner Eye and contacted us with the Soundless Sound of Shabd, the immaculate Word of His Presence.
Why do we try to give the Master the whole task for our advancement? If we will take one step ahead, in obedience to His commandments, He will take many steps. We should do our part and He will help us in many unseen ways. The Master dwells within us already, but we must arise above body consciousness and go within to meet Him in His radiant Light Body!
Master’s Birthday Theme
From 8 to 9 a.m. we sat in meditation under the great canopy, with Guru Dev on the dais. From 9 to 12:30 p.m. about fifteen thousand listened to the matchless words of the Master’s Birthday Discourse. Many of the satsangis, pundits and sadhus, read, sang or chanted songs of loving tribute to the Living Master – the Lord of Salvation for a sinful and forgetful world of needy ones. He amplified and carried forward His admonitions given us at His early morning birthday party.
“During your waking hours, you follow the evolution of the outward – continually exercising your minds and expanding your consciousness.
You have been put on the Way and given the Five Names for control of the mind. Now you must concentrate and turn your attention from the outer to the Inner Awareness by inversion practice.”
“There are five sorts of consciousness: subconsciousness, consciousness, self-consciousness, cosmic consciousness, super-consciousness. Remember the conditions for ethical living. Observe chastity, go with your wife only when you want a child. Practise generosity, give freely to the hungry, the needy and render selfless service. Why talk about Love, realise it, and then you will know its Reality!”
“Avoid neglect of finding your own True Self. If we make mistakes, they can be corrected, but when we do nothing, what can we expect? Learn how to die daily, invert and see the Master within – only then can you call yourself a True Man!”
From ‘Guru Dev: The Lord of Compassion,’
by Rusel Jacque
1965
For several days Satsangis had been arriving from all over India, many from great distances, with blanket rolls, sleeping on the ground and eating chapattis from the langar. A huge tent was erected, under which the devotees slept, lived, meditated, and heard Master’s discourses. Many of them are well-to-do; many more are incredibly poor; they all sleep on the ground together, under the great canopy.
The Birthday Bhandara really begun at about 10 p.m. on the 24th, the birthday eve. Before a congregation of several thousand in the tent, a dozen or so devotees sang devotional hymns and prayers, one after another, many of their own composition. Nana-kow, Stanley and Edna Shinerock, and Judith and I found seats against the wall on one side and almost immediately a brilliantly-smiling young man named Sharma appeared to join us and translate for us, which he did so poetically and beautifully, and with such ease and facility, that it almost seemed as if Master were speaking in English.
While the devotees were singing, Master came and took His seat on the dais. He always sits cross-legged to deliver His discourses. With such Great Love did He look at the assembled dear ones! Slowly and compassionately He looks at each one present, and they for their part never take their eyes of Him. After the singing has gone on for half an hour or so, Master begins to speak. The words seem to flow out of Him like a gentle woodland brook, with no strain or effort of any hind; softly, musically, gently, into a silence so profound that no other sound is heard save the voice of the Blessed One. Thanks to Sharma’s beautiful translation, I am able to present some highlights. The theme was ‘obedience’:
“Just saying ‘Yes! Yes!’ is not enough. You have to do what you are told.”
“If a father has three sons, he will love them all and give them bread; but for the one who is obedient he will himself search for him and seek him out in order to give him the bread.”
“If you cannot please God-in-man, you cannot please God.”
“You must obey and keep your diaries. I tell you to send them in blank if necessary. Why do you not send?”
After the Satsang was over, the devotees continued to sing, on and on into the night. I don’t think they ever went to sleep. (We did.) As I lay on my bed that blessed Eve, listening to the incredibly beautiful singing, punctuated by an occasional firecracker, I thought,
What dream is this? Who am I, that I should be here in this fairy-land in the company of God Himself? Surely, surely God is good, and His ways are unbelievably strange, since there is no one under the sun who is less deserving than I, or has received more!
I was lulled to sleep by the singing.
Someone woke us at ten minutes to four, and we went out into a literal fairy-land this time. Hundreds of candles were lit, all around Master’s house; balloons, fruit, and large posters in Urdu were hung and tied to the doors and walls. Firecrackers were being exploded and the whole Sangat was gathered in front of Master’s porch, singing hymns and eagerly waiting for His Darshan.
At last – about 4:30 a.m. – the Beloved One appeared and spoke for a few minutes; there was no translation this time, so I don’t know what He said. On His way back into the house, we were thrilled beyond words to hear Him speak to us:
Yes? You have come?
while those unbelievable eyes gazed full at us …
Later, about 7:15 a.m., we went to Master’s parlour to be present for the presentation and cutting of the birthday cake. Master was very funny, as He really does not like all the fuss and celebration over His birthday; He puts up with it, like so many (how many?) other things, for the sake of those who love Him. – We were told that the year before there had been three times as much celebration, but He had insisted that it be cut down this year. – For a long time, He pretended the cake was not there and refused to look at it; at last, He oh! so graciously cut and served it with His own blessed hands.
About 10:30 a.m. the Beloved One held Satsang … Master has great difficulty moving about sometimes, due to the press of the crowd; this morning, as He left the platform, the crowd closed in on Him, and very patiently but firmly He kept asking them to move aside. Many of them try to touch His feet; but He does not like this, and allows only a few to do so. – It is one of the most characteristic and oft-repeated sights to observe a devotee come up to Master and with great deliberation and seriousness bend down to touch His feet; and the agility, adroitness, gentleness, and humorous affection with which Master catches them about half-way down and brings them up again, usually with a ‘What is this?’
The whole crowd moved back to the Ashram for lunch; and the sight of thousands of people squatting on the ground, waiting to be fed a simple meal from the langar, rich and poor alike, no distinction of caste or anything else, is surely one to live in the memory forever …
… Master presided at two meetings in Delhi later that day, at the Awake Oh! Man Centre and the Jain Temple, where we ate dinner. After dinner, we rode back to the Ashram in the same car with Him and He even, in His Infinite Grace, gave me the unbelievable honour of sitting next to Him in the front seat! It was like a dream – as indeed the whole trip was.
Back at the Ashram, thousands of devotees were waiting for Darshan and Satsang. Master obligingly came out and, despite His incredibly full day, went over to the tent about 11 p.m. and gave mother discourse to the singing, chanting multitude. For our parts, we fell into bed, utterly exhausted.
From ‘In the Presence of God,’
by Russell Perkins