True Master and His Mission

VII

It may be taken as gospel truth that none can know in fullness the greatness of a Saint. With all our learning and worldly wisdom, we cannot rise to His level, much less know of Him. Godman is vastly different from a mere human being.

Nanak has met the Guru Who manifested the Glory of the God beyond.

Guru Arjan declared that He searched the entire universe, Brahmand, but could find none who could come up to the level of His Master, Guru Ram Das. Guru Arjan saw in His Master, God Himself clothed in human form. We, living on the plane of the senses, cannot understand the significance of a Master-Soul. But those whose Inner Vision is opened know and see what in reality a Guru-Power is.

Maulana Rumi says:

The hand of the Pir (Guru) is no less than the hand of God; His hand is not apart from the Power of God. His gracious hand is outstretched beyond seven heavens.

As the sway of the Master extends to the Highest Heaven, so do follow the sincere seekers after Truth when in company of the Master.

The Great Maulana beautifully describes this by means of a parable.

A small mouse was running on the ground when a pigeon flying in the air happened to see him. The pigeon inquired of the mouse as to where he was running so fast. The mouse replied that he was on his way to Mecca for a pilgrimage. The pigeon pitied the little creature and swooping down instantly carried the mouse in his claws and flew with him to Mecca and put him down in the sacred precincts.

Entangled in the clutches of mind and matter, our spirit cannot by itself escape from the prison house and reach the purely Spiritual Region – beyond Pind, And, and Brahmand: physical, astral, and causal – which is our True Home. As I have just said that a donkey overloaded with burden cannot be extricated from a marshy swamp unless he is first relieved of the load and then pulled out. Similarly, when a seeker comes to the Master, the latter, by His words of encouragement and attention, momentarily lightens the load off his mind and makes him see things clearly in their True Perspective. The Master then directs him to enter into the laboratory of his body for an actual experiment. By doing so, the disciple gets some Inner Experience that he is asked to develop by daily practice. His basic instruction to the disciple is to rise above body consciousness. He tells him how to do it and helps him. This is how He gives him a way up and pulls him out of the mire of sensuous life, in which he has been stuck for endless ages ever since he wandered away from his native home, the Garden of Eden, and went into self exile on the plane of mind and matter. He comes to heal the spiritually sick and suffering humanity. 

Mohammad Iqbal, a great Urdu poet of Punjab, says:

Oh Power invisible, manifest Thyself but for once, that I may offer myriads of salutations to Thee.

When such a piteous cry spontaneously escapes from the heart, the Power of God, which is All-Pervasive, reveals itself in some human form.

When is the Word, or the Power of God, put on the covering of flesh? It does so when children of God restlessly yearn for Him. If a child begins to cry, the mother gives him a toy; and, if in spite of it he persists in crying, she brings still another and yet another; but when nothing satisfies him, the mother leaves off everything, lifts the child into her lap, and hugs him tenderly.

If we have a genuine yearning for Him in our hearts, He shall reveal Himself, for like a loving father He is keenly waiting and watching for the moment when we turn our eyes towards Him. This is how He appears in the form of a Great Living Soul to meet His children and to shepherd them back to His Eternal Mansion, Sach Khand – the perennial Abode of Truth.

It is well nigh impossible to comprehend a Godman and His greatness, much less to describe His powers, limitless and ineffable as they are. He is just a conduit for the Power of God to work in the world in a manifest form and serves as a prefatory note to the Book of God. To come in close and living touch with Him is to come near God. Without Him we cannot possibly know of God and much less come in direct contact with the Power of God working within each individual and sustaining the entire creation – hence the paramount need to search for and contact a Living Embodiment of the Godly Power. To know something of Him is to know something of God. If He is God Personified, or Word made flesh, He will surely attract our soul, as it is of the same essence as of God. The more we think of Him, the more we will begin to love Him and become like Him. 

As you think so shall you become

is a well-known adage.