The Mystic Adept: Love Incarnate

by Dr George Arnsby Jones

The True Nature of the Mystic Adept is of the Supreme Lord Himself. The Mystic Adept has been born into the world as a man like any other man. But His soul is completely merged with God, and His birth into the world is as a result of a direct commission from the Supreme Lord Himself. That commission is simply to save souls from the wheel of recurring births and deaths. If we wish to love and be loved in the Highest Spiritual Sense, we must seek out a True Mystic Adept and offer our devotion at His feet.

Bhai Gurdas has said,

In the Guru lie hidden all the Vedas and the sacred scriptures. A contact with Him is enough to help one to cross safely over the ocean of life. We cannot know Truth without a Master of Truth. God Himself has to descend here for this purpose.

And Maulana Kumi has written,

Come under the overall influence of some Saint; thou cannot find the Path from a mere imitator.

The mystic adept quenches the Spiritual Thirst of the aspirant with the intoxicant of Love. This is a wine that flows from the heart of a True Lover. The elixir of Love gives a sublime flavor that transcends all worldly attractions, for it is the supreme ecstacy of the spirit. The bestower of the wine of Love is the Mystic Adept, a True Saint.

In St John 14:9 it is written,

He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.

The Mystic Adept in His physical body is visible to our physical eyes; and He is the embodiment of the Supreme Lord. We cannot see the Spiritual Grandeur of God with our mortal vision; how else, therefore, can we love the Supreme Lord except through His manifestation. But the True Form of the Mystic Adept only appears upon the Inner Realms, and it is when the soul has ascended into these realms that the soul beholds the luminous form of the Saint.

Oh Beloved!

cried Hafiz,

I have heard many a tale about Your wondrous beauty; but now that I have beheld You within, I see that You are really a thousand times more wonderful than the tales depict You.

To love the Mystic Adept as an embodiment of the Supreme Lord is to love the Supreme Lord Himself. Eventually, the Spiritual Aspirant loves the Mystic adept with such an intensity that his identity is completely merged with that of the Mystic Adept, and thereby with that of the Supreme Lord. This is the inmost secret of the Spiritual Master-Disciple Relationship, the Path to eventual perfection. Love of the Mystic Adept is not personality worship or man worship, as ignorant people generally believe, but it is truly Love of the Supreme Lord, Whose physical form is that of the Mystic Adept.

In the Master is lodged both God and the Mediator,

stated Maulana Rumi.

In fact, there is no distinction between the two. Drive all thought of duality from thy mind, or else thou shalt get lost in the wilderness, and so also be the fate of thy first lessons in Spirituality. He who considers the Two as separate entities has not yet learned anything from, or know of, the Master.

Love for the Supreme Lord is thus aided externally by keeping the company of a Mystic Adept; but the most important aspect of this Love is the inward one, when heart reaches to heart on the highway of devotion. When this Supreme Love is inculcated in the heart of the devotee, contemplation of the radiant form of the Beloved becomes a constant reality, for the Beloved resides omnipresent in the Lover’s heart.

The King of Kings is enthroned in us, behind a dense curtain,

said Shamas-i-Tabrez.

In the vile garb of flesh, He comes to grant us access to Himself.

The Greatest Gift of life is the bestowal of Grace upon the aspirant by the Mystic Adept; but few indeed are the recipients of this Divine Treasure, for to create Love for the Supreme Lord in his heart the aspirant must love a living incarnation of God’s Love. Few people are prepared to accept this prerequisite of Spiritual Grace. The pious man may well be versed in the ways of the world, and learned in theology and philosophy, he may express his intellectual learning in finely-wrought phrases and magnificent rhetoric; but a Lover of the Supreme Lord is a far rarer soul, and he expresses the poignancy of separation from God in sighs and tears. He is engaged in constant remembrance of the Lord; for, as the Koran states,

I remember those who remember Me.

The Supreme Lord is infinite, having no form and no name. He is called Anami – Nameless One – by the oriental Saints. He is free from limitations and attributes, but we give Him names and qualities in our striving to know Him. In His infinite Love and wisdom He sends a Mystic Adept, a living incarnation of Himself, into the lower regions of mind and matter, so that we know God with the Grace of such a Godman. The devotee sees the physical form of the Mystic Adept, but his Love for this incarnation of God is not physical, it is spiritual. We human beings know both kinds of love.

Physical love is focused into the outer world and upon people and objects; but Spiritual Love is that of a devotee of the Supreme Lord within, and he sees the outer manifestation of the Supreme Lord in the physical form of the Mystic Adept.

The experience of physical love is transitory by its very nature. Indeed, the man or woman who constantly seeks a widening of sensual experience ultimately discovers that the permanent satiation of such desires is impossible, unless the mind eventually turns away from them and renounces them. Thus the search for a complete fulfilment in the interplay of sensual delights is a snare and a delusion, although man may stay upon the wheel of birth and death for as long as he likes in order to seek this consumation of his sense-experience.

And unbridled sensual appetites are never satiated, even in the astral realms beyond the physical plane. Very rarely can a person attain Spiritual Love, which is eternal, through physical love, which is transient.

Love begins in the flesh and ends in the spirit,

affirmed St Bernard.

And Maulana Rumi, a Persian poet mystic, has recorded,

Physical love is like a bridge, and a bridge is meant only to cross the river and not to live on. Those who stay on the bridge do not achieve any progress in their endeavour to meet the Lord.

Physical love, then, should never be considered as any more than a primary step towards that ultimate Spiritual Love.

If love is solely devoted to the gratification of the senses, there can be little room left for the Supreme Lord in the thoughts of the devotee. Love for the world and its objects is an attachment which stirs the emotions, producing selfishness and other narrow qualities.

Lecturers and writers – even if they are clothed in theological raiment – who instruct us to use the loving power of the Supreme Lord for our limited personal ends are leading us and themselves into ultimate pain and misery. Theirs is not the Path of the humble Saints and Mystic Adepts. The Mystic Adepts teach us to eschew worldly attachments, using our material possessions wisely as trustees for the Supreme Lord and directing our loving devotion to the Godman Himself. To love with such an abundance of the heart is to know the sacrifice of the little self. In True Love, the greater Self takes the place of the lesser, and the lover becomes a mouthpiece for God.

In the oriental scriptures, a mouthpiece of God is called a Gurumukh. By the very sight of such a Gurumukh, the devotee becomes transfixed with Love and is bathed in loving remembrance of God.

Bhai Gurdas has said,

It is only after the spirit faithfully and conscientiously accepts the Heavenly Word as Master that she becomes a Gurumukh, and knows that the Word and the Master are in fact one.

The devotee thus establishes an Eternal Condition of Love within himself, and his heart is joined to that of the Mystic Adept by a profound cord of Love. Such lovers of the Supreme Lord inculcate continual remembrance of God within themselves by the practise of Simran, the repetition of the Charged Holy Names of God, and by the Inner Contemplation of the radiant form of the Mystic Adept. The very being of the Mystic Adept is infused with all the vibrant currents of Love that flow outwards from the True Home of the soul. To love the Mystic Adept is to develop a wondrous Love for God Himself.

The Mystic Adepts teach the Path of Love, because God and Love are One, and the reflection of God is that Love which infuses all creation. A Mystic Adept is Love incarnate; He loves evil people as well as good people. It is in the high degree of His Love that a Mystic Adept is distinguished from an ordinary human being, and this is the only distinction. The Highest Form of religious practise is the creation of Spiritual Love within the heart. When the living flames of Love have been removed from religious movements and sects, these become empty shells and miserable shams.

Lasting Love can only be attained at the Lotus Feet of a Mystic Adept, a Living Godman. The teachings of such a Saint will not ensnare the aspirant in a web of sites and ceremonies. He teaches only the practical evocation of the power of Love that dwells within the soul.

Spiritual Love is awakened and vivified by devotion to the Mystic Adept and by conscious contact with the Inner Light and Sound Principle, which is the creative expression of God’s love. This audible life stream is the food of the soul, and it kindles a fiery Love within the heart of the disciple. Once these flames of Love Ieap into life, the disciple becomes a lord of life itself. Free from egotism and outward attachments, he receives everything that he requires for his everyday life. His every need is supplied without any prerequisite of mental visualisation or prayer for personal benefits. Nevertheless, although the Mystic Adept condemns worldly materialism, He does not counsel the devotee to harmful austerities and mortifications of the flesh. He instead shows that the only True Austerity is Love itself. Love bestows humility and obedience upon the disciple and enables him to focus his Inner Attention on the Spiritual Heights.

It is unnecessary for the devotee on the Path of Love to retire into the wilderness. God resides in every human heart, and He is indifferent to geographical location. Whether a disciple lives in a city or a hamlet, on the plains or the mountains, or wherever, is of no concern to the Supreme Lord. The fullness of Love for the Mystic Adept may blossom in any situation, and in its fiery intensity outer attachments are dissolved without the necessity for harsh denials of bodily necessities and comforts.

Guru Arjan has said,

Repetitions, austerities, penances, comforts, arrogance, fame – all of these should be sacrificed at the altar of Love, if onIy for a second.

But such sacrifice is natural and of little consequence to the devotee; for the Love of the Mystic Adept is a luminous flame which consumes all external blandishments and temptations. A Mystic Adept is One Who has fully sacrificed His own ego at the alter of Love, and Who has surrendered Himself to that state of Love which is higher than any religion. He is intoxicated by the nectar of Love, and one glance from Him can pass on this Divine Intoxication to the devotee.

A person whose heart is devoid of Love can never understand the Love of a Mystic Adept until his own life has been transformed by Love.

And a life without Love is as nothing, as Kabir has confirmed:

A person in whose heart there is no Love, and who does not have the Name of God on his tongue, is no better than a beast; and he dies without having received any of the benefits of his human birth. … Devotion without Love is a sham. Ignorant people lose all benefits of the valuable human form, with which they have been endowed, by simply filling their stomachs like beasts.

And Shamas-i-Tabrez echoed the same sentiments,

Love is attained only through great good fortune. Without it, life is fruitless. Only a few extremely fortunate persons are blessed with the gift of Love. The part of life that is wasted without Love for God should not be counted, for it is useless. If life is passed without Love, one will be shamed before the altar of God.

It is Love for the Mystic Adept that generates such a blissful awareness of the Supreme Lord, as well as such sweet sadness in the deep sense of any separation from Him, as Maulana Rurni has affirmed:

That eye is fortunate which shed pearls of tears in the remembrance of its Beloved. That heart is fortunate which is burning in separation from its Lord, because every spell of remorse is accompanied by a unique happiness. A person whose only aim is towards this and is the most fortunate one.

– Whoever has loved has found God,

said Tulsi Das.

Nobody has succeeded in achieving this end without Love. … A holy person, a thief, a robber – all try to remember God; but He cannot be pleased without the spark of Love.

Love is the motivating power and spirit of the highest transports of the soul, and the praises of Love have been sung in all the Holy Scriptures.

Laotze wrote of Love in his ‘Tao Teh Ching’ or ‘Simple Way’; Buddha gave an exemplary view of selfless Love in the ‘Eightfold Noble Path’; Jesus spoke of higher Love in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’; Mohammed set forth precepts of Love in the ‘Holy Koran’; Tulsi Das evoked the Highest Spirit of Love in His ‘Ramayana’; Zarathustra propounded a gospel of Love in the ‘Zend Avestas’; Lord Krishna bestowed ideals of Love in the ‘Bhagavad Gita.’ All the Great Mystic Adepts: Kabir, Nanak, Tulsi Sahib, Shamas-i-Tabrez, Swami Ji, Jaimal Singh, Sawan Singh, and other incarnations of the Supreme Lord, were totally imbued with the Divine Fire of Love. Love is the Highest Path leading to communion with the Lord.

A yogi, a celibate, an ascetic, a philosopher, none amongst them is able to realise God without Love,

said Kabir.

And Shamas-i-Tabrez stated:

If the road is long, you should fly on the wings of Love. When you unfold the wings of Love, you need not climb the long stairway.

If a human being remains absorbed in the outward pleasures of the world he can never develop Love for the Mystic Adept and Love for God. History is full of examples of those who have acted and posed in the guises and garbs of piety, but who have had no Love within their hearts. Only by loving devotion to the Mystic Adept can the devotee develop Love for the Supreme Lord in his heart; the way of the paid preacher, who prances and preens before his congregation, is a way of illusion, for True Love cannot be engendered by rites and rituals, pomp and circumstance. Only he whose entire being – body, mind and soul – is immersed in the Ocean of Love may know the condition of Love.

Bulleh Shah, a Muslim mystic of the Punjab, has expounded upon this state of Divine Love: 

I have loved my Beloved, and people taunt me. Nobody understands the condition of my heart, because I feel that I am in a strange atmosphere. Only he who has a longing for the indestructible Lord can comprehend Him.

It is difficult to ascend the summit of Love. He alone knows who has done so. The fire of Your Love has consumed me in a moment, and this Love has made me announce to the world:

Whoever is consumed by the fire of Love is the only one who can comprehend it. No one else knows.

The two souls of the Mystic Adept and the disciple fuse as one in fires of Love; and in this way the Divine Consummation or Union with the Beloved is attained.

The Mystic Adept leads the disciple into the Inner Realms, where Love is manifested as the supernal Light and Sound Principle. Initially, the Light is seen as bright transient flashes, but soon stars and moons are seen. Then the stars appear to explode into an expansion of radiance and the devotee beholds greater moons and suns. At a higher stage of awareness, the disciple is confronted by the luminous form of the Mystic Adept, Who then escorts him to loftier realms of the astral and causal universes. The Mystic Adept reminds the disciple that he must not reveal the nature of his Inner Transports to others, because it is against the law of the Supreme Lord to do so, unless the Mystic Adept gives His permission for some specific reason.

Through the Grace of the Mystic Adept, the disciple’s Inner Experiences increase in intensity from day to day. His Love for the Mystic Adept becomes intensified and his yearning for union with the Supreme Lord becomes even stronger. His joy and happiness undergo a transmutation into a glorious bliss, for he now feels no separation from the Mystic Adept, even though he may be separated from the Saint’s physical form by many thousands of miles.

The rapturous state of Love is achieved only by those who have dissolved their petty egos, and who have merged themselves into the luminous being of the Mystic Adept.

Such a fortunate soul may well echo the words of Kabir:

My mind bas become a bird and has flown into the sky above. It found heaven empty because it is ever in the hearts of the Saints.