The Bombay Tour

Kate Tillis reports on Master’s December travels

Our Master took us travelling; we were to be privileged to be at the opening of the new Manav Kendra near Baroda and to continue on to Bombay, visiting various centres on the way. We travelled by special bus, following the Master’s car. The bus was filled with both Indian and Western Satsangis. To be taken on tour by the Master is to have a crash course in man-making – and to be given Great Spiritual Sustenance.

Before we started, Master warned us the going would be rough; He also said,

If you are going to be receptive you will benefit, but if you are going to be pulled out and want to see the scenery and go shopping it would be better to stay here and meditate.

The bus arrived at the Ashram at 11 one morning and we were supposed to leave at midday, but owing to various technicalities we did not in fact start until three in the afternoon – and then we only went as far as the nearest garage and had all the tires changed. This took one hour. When we eventually started out it was obvious that we should not reach the place where Master was staying until the small hours of the morning; it was also obvious that our driver was very slow and lacked confidence. 

We arrived at Ajmeer, where Master was staying in the house of three Satsangi brothers, at 4 in the morning; we were shown straight into a room where many lndians were sitting on the floor singing bhajans while awaiting the Master’s darshan. The Master came from His room and gave us loving darshan; at the end He told us breakfast was ready for us. Then we were served a delicious meal with Great Love and attention by the three brothers; afterwards they showed us the many beds they had prepared for our rest. We were able to lie down for half an hour before we took the road again – Master had already left. 

We had only been on the road for an hour or so when we went lurching over a bad hole – and broke a spring. We crawled for miles at a snail’s pace to the nearest town, and there the repair of the spring took three hours.

It was during this enforced wait that one traveller asked one of our Indian brothers,

When do you think we shall reach our destination tonight?

He replied,

Kal is time and time is Kal (the same word in Hindi) and we are all in the lap of the Guru.

He smiled serenely. So we sat down in a friendly field and meditated. To worry or speculate or anticipate was shown to be utterly useless. So many of Master’s words came back to us:

Don’t think of the past or the future, just live in the present;

and

Be desireless.

Because we were helpless we did become desireless and He uplifted us and held us with His peace. All through the tour we were suspended within His mercy; everything which was given to us was a wonderful present from Him: sleep, water, food, a pause by the roadside to ease cramped limbs, relieve nature and drink cups of sustaining Indian tea. Usually one takes for granted that there will always be food, a bed to sleep in, water to wash in. On tour it was not so – nothing could be taken for granted.

That second night found us still travelling; near midnight we were ascending what seemed an endless pass in the hills over roads under repair whose uncertain surface made the driver – doubtless thinking of his springs – slower than ever. At last we reached the top of the pass where there was a Jain monastery where, we were told, facilities for travelers were very good; hot water was even hinted at. However, two buses had gotten there before us and their passengers were perhaps enjoying the good facilities; for us a row of empty cells was opened, and we very thankfully lay down on the stone floor. The lavatory was a hole in the floor and washing was under a couple of taps in the courtyard. We were told we should start off again at eight in the morning; but we were called at three-thirty and were on the road by four. 

We reached Baroda, where Master was staying, about 12 hours later. We were taken straight to His house for His darshan. It was here that this traveller suddenly gave way to desire: why could we not first go to our quarters so that we need not appear before our Master dirty, sweaty and dishevelled? The desire was simply for some water to wash in. The desire utterly shattered the purity and peace in which the Master had hitherto held us - the traveller became cross and tired and started snapping at people. What a fall from grace! What a lesson learned. If you are without desire, nothing can touch you, you are held in perfect equipoise; it is all His Grace. 

At darshan Master said to us,

I am always tossing about, it is my fate. But you did not have to come, it was your choice.

One vividly remembered the saying of Christ,

The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.

On another occasion Master told us we didn’t complain because Love knows no burden, and added that for Him there was no rest. When He was touring in Europe and both the Americas, people marvelled at His ability to cope with the exigencies of His grueling program – but the fact is that Master always lives like this. For Him there is no rest. There is no moment in which He is not giving Himself for us. 

In Baroda we were given excellent accommodation in a modern hotel. Food was served at the langar, or free kitchen, where we sat on the floor and ate delicious meals off leaf plates with our fingers. Here we again experienced that wonderful Love and service lavished upon us by Satsangis wherever we went; as one traveller said,

We are treated like princes.

It made us very humble – but we knew it was all a tribute to our Master. 

The new Manav Kendra is 11 miles from Baroda at the village of Kandari. The village agreed to give 70 acres of land after the Satsangis who came to ask for it had only spoken with them for a quarter of an hour! On 14^th December in brilliant sunshine, amid happy crowds of people, speeches were made, the new Mansarovar was filled with water, and the new Manav Kendra declared open. The hospital is already built; there will be a school and intensive cultivation of the land: man service and land service. So the great work of the Master for humanity takes another step forward. 

We saw very little of our Master while on tour, and usually only at public Satsang; but the whole bus was filled by His presence and often the Indian ladies would break out into bhajans in praise of our Satguru, while those from the Ashram, such as Dr Mool Raj, would delight in telling stories of the Master. 

Our driver was not a Satsangi and had shown no confidence in handling the bus. One morning he was caught off-guard by an oncoming truck and swerved suddenly to avoid it. In that second it felt as if the top-heavy bus must crash over on its side – in that second the Master appeared to the driver and, as he said, gave him the strength to hold the bus on the road. From then on he drove with great dash and confidence! He knew he was under Divine Protection. In spite of this we were always late for Satsang, coming in when Master was already on the platform. 

In Bombay Master gave two Satsangs and initiation on the last morning. On one day while we were there, there was a strike of buses and we were told not to go out in case of riots – so we meditated all day in the clinic where we were housed; in the evening we walked to Master’s house for darshan through trafficless streets. Later on the strike was declared over and we were able to get to Satsang. 

On the return journey Master stopped in the charming town of Kalyan. We went straight into Satsang – late as usual – to see our Master on a white platform with white curtains behind Him looking absolutely radiantly beautiful. Next day He gave initiation and while it was going on we had four hours for meditation in a very highly charged atmosphere. That evening His talk was of Love, and Love just poured out of Him, drenching us all. It was later that night that He gave a conference to the press. When He arrived a golden throne had been placed for Him, but He refused to sit in it and waited until an ordinary chair was brought.

He spoke of Manav Kendra and said,

It is better to grow a blade of grass than to do a patriot’s work.

He told of His youthful search for the Truth, and how He had joined a medical college but could not continue, then an agricultural college and again could not continue – in both cases due to lack of funds – finally He found the Truth at the feet of His Master:

And now the work is growing like wildfire,

and He listed centres all over the world. Then He said,

There is one Energy and one Consciousness,

and,

All types of knowledge without the knowledge of the soul takes you nowhere. 

In Kalyan we stayed in rooms over a Sindhi Temple; they were very gay in colours of pink and blue. 

Driving all that day and on through the night – with a brief pause at the house of a Satsangi for rest and refreshment – we arrived back at the Ashram at five the next evening. Most of us had been ill with minor upsets such as stomach disorders, heavy colds, headaches, dysentery and so on. No one would have missed that tour for anything! During that tour all those nagging worries which normally beset the Western mind: Where are we going? When shall we arrive? What shall we find there? Will we be given food, water, beds? – were suddenly cut off short because there were no answers. We simply had to accept what was given at the moment in which it was given. For a time the Master lifted off our back those twin tyrants: time and space. We had no worries. We were free. If from now on we could only live all our days suspended entirely within His will then the journey of our lives through time and space would in reality not be movement but rest in Him.