The Homegoing of the Master
Excerpts from a talk given by Arran Stephens on his return from India, September 1974. The author has been Master’s representative in Vancouver, British Columbia, for many years, and is now responsible for all of Western Canada.
For five or six days at the Ashram, I found myself incapable of eating, of sleeping, of even meditating. It was just like being on a bed which was an oven. I’m glad that you were spared the experience. What made it difficult also – with Master’s leaving, a great wound had been created; but to rub the salt into that wound, there were political troubles at the Ashram. …
There is a song of Mira Bai –
Without Thy Darshan, oh Satguru, the pain of my heart knows no bounds.
And Master commented on this,
The child has come out of the mother, but the soul has come out of God. If the Love of God becomes the ruling passion of your life, then that will affect the heart of God. We are the children of God, and He makes some arrangement to bring us in contact with Him. We have wept bitterly in remembrance of the world …
– we’ve all had this experience, when some loved one left us, or we felt unwanted, or unloved, and we wept bitterly.
The Master asks,
Have we ever wept bitterly in the remembrance of God or the God-in-man?
Guru Arjan has said that if one has not wept tears of Love for God, then that life is wasted. – And Master continued:
Always keep the remembrance of the Master. This is a very simple teaching.
There’s a saying that ‘Guru is angsang,’ which means that He is always with us. But to clean out the dross and the filth that lies ingrained in our mind, He creates two things, sanjog and vidjog – union and separation. He creates in us at times a union of Love for Him.
When there’s a True Yearning in our heart for Him, we take a step to Him and He comes down thousands of steps to receive us. It’s a sheer act of Grace. In the state of union we know no separation; we only know of the Love of our Beloved. And in vidjog or bireh, in separation, we have to become scrubbed, you might say, by the Guru; and only through this method of the pain of bireh – the intense pain of separation – can this dross of the mind be washed out, scrubbed out.
Guru is the washerman, the disciple is the cloth; and He applies the soup of God’s Naam.
So … it was written in the newspapers that Master’s physical son, Darshan Singh, was to be His Spiritual Successor. I could not believe this. In my heart of hearts everything said ‘No.’ He’s a good man, but not the One to sit in the Master’s place. When things got into this type of situation, I left the Ashram and swore I would never come back, unless Master changed everything.
So I went up to Rajpur, to His house, where He had lived, where Master had written His books, a very peaceful place. But my health got pretty bad, and I became very restless. … So I left that place after a few days.
When I arrived in Delhi I learned that one lady in Punjab, the wife of Dr Harbhajan Singh – this lady goes very high in her meditation – and Master told her that Darshan Singh was not His successor. And Master told her to have three questions put to Darshan Singh.
So, a large delegation of initiates from the Punjab, from Harayana, from Chandigarh, came to the Ashram at the time when there was supposed to be the coronation or whatever, the turban-tying ceremony.
And Dr Harbhajan Singh said to Darshan Singh,
I want to ask you one question. If you are a Master, if you are the Guru, can you give this experience to others?
Darshan Singh said that he was not capable of giving that experience, and he backed down.
So I began to pray to Master to guide me,
Either take the soul from my body, because life has lost all its attraction in this world, or come again. …
It’s well known that Master was not happy with the way things were going at Sawan Ashram, and that is why it is said that He left 14 years earlier than He intended to.
You see, when a Saint becomes very famous, all types of people attach themselves to Him. And often those people are not spiritual. As Master says,
The Master is like a cow who loves lo give milk to the calf which comes from the distant pasture, but the ticks that live on the udder do not taste that sweet milk. They only drink the blood.
I felt from my own meditations that Master definitely is coming, will be returning again. …
*****
Now, I have meditated a lot and I realise that my particular duty is to sit for more meditation and try to be an example, and also, to try to keep the Satsang going here. We have work to do on ourselves. We should continue, with all sincerity and Love and devotion to our Master Who has initiated us, to work for His cause: to continue our Spiritual Practices under His guidance. Master is within and He is giving us everything that we need.
Master Himself has said,
It is considered to be the height of disgrace to go to another Master and seek His initiation.
We who have been blessed with Naam from our gracious Satguru – we are most fortunate, most lucky in the world. We should not consider altering our affiliation or devotion.
If Master comes in a new form and it’s still the same Master, then we can get some guidance from that person. But in our meditations we should look to the form of our own Master Who has initiated us, and Him alone. That way we will earn His pleasure. …
So we have to continue, and everyone should continue coming to Satsang without fail. If you miss Satsang, you'll be set back in your Spiritual Progress. This is why we should attend.
Master gave out very clearly:
Sat means eternal, Sang means contact or company. So, Satsang is the company of the Eternal.
As far as new people are concerned, there is no harm to continuing to encourage people to study the teachings of the Master and attend Satsang, because their way can be prepared. If Master comes again within the next couple of years, fine, this will be their test. There’s no use of going to anyone else for initiation, it just won’t work. It’s better not to get initiated by anyone at all unless you’re fully convinced of that person’s perfection and purity, because if you devote yourself to an imperfect ideal, you’ll go to the dogs.
You know, people have used different types of propaganda and threats; they will tell you, ‘Oh, your Master is gone, you should come to our master, you should do this’ – don't pay any heed to that at all. This is not a necessary instruction for anyone who is going inside. But until that stage comes, we’re still a little bit wavering, a little wishy-washy; so if anybody says anything to us, don’t pay any attention. Just go on with your practices. If you go on with it, it’s a mathematical certainty that you will achieve the desired result. It’s Master’s promise: He will guide us to the Goal.
What is up to us to do now is, to really practise and shine; and do what we can in spite of our shortcomings and difficulties and problems. We must make more effort now, and be living testimonies of the Master. You are all Master. Master is diffused in the higher planes now, but He’s also diffusing Light to every one of us.
Oh Master, life is meaningless without You. We ask You a double blessing: give us Your presence within, comfort us with Your Eternal Love: and, if it be Your will, come to us in this world again, to give us guidance and comfort.
*****
At the time of Master’s passing – the evening of the 21st of August – one initiate was sitting in meditation in Delhi. This initiate saw the Master’s body in meditation lying down as though it were dead. And he said these powers began coming out of the Master, out of the top of His head, and they were in the form of Light. One after the other came out, great powers, each one with different intensity, different luminosity, a different shade – coming out of the Master. And he thought that these were the five elements that were leaving the Master’s body. But he said that a hundred and twenty powers came out of the Master, and finally He withdrew completely from the body. And on the higher Spiritual Planes this disciple saw the Master walking towards a great congregation of Saints; and Swami Ji Maharaj, the fourth Master back, came forward to greet the Master and put His hand on His head and said,
What You have done, no one else has accomplished so far. So much work has been achieved through You.
And Baba Sawan Singh came from above the Master, and this Great Light was shining out of Sawan Singh, from His feet, from His whole body, and streaming down on to His Beloved Son, Kirpal. Baba Jaimal Singh was there, Guru Nanak was there … all the Saints were there. They had come to greet the Master.
Baba Sawan Singh came to Master and He went and touched Master’s Iegs; He said,
You had pain here?
He touched His thighs:
You had pain here?
And He touched His chest and His back and His neck and head:
You had pain here? I gave you so much pain, but you bore it as a gift! You have freed multitudes of souls. So much Grace of the Sat Purush has been achieved through You, as was achieved through none other.
And there was a great chorus of acclamation from all the Saints to the Master. And throughout it all Master’s face was very serene and very sober. And all mingled together Their rays of Grace and Light in the Master. This was Master’s triumphant Homegoing.