Reference: posted by: vejeestu on date: 6/21/00 to Kirpal Singh Satsang Club; Message number 392
Helping with Gurmat Sidhant 6/21/00 From: vejeestu
An account from the autobiography of Darshan Singh, pertaining to Gurmat Sidhant. As far as master Darshans love of the dictionary, I had an amusing first hand experience of this that I previously published on RSStudies and will republish here.
My study of Persian and Urdu enabled me to help my father in his compilation of Gurmat Sidhant (a two thousand word compendium of spirituality). Every night around twelve or one in the morning, my father would come into my room and give me certain subjects on which to collect quotations from various sources. Every second or third day, he would give me a new subject. Some of these were: love, separation from God, Word or Naam, simran, remembrance of God, dying while living, and the like. He would ask me to collect quotations on these subjects from the mystics, from Persian and Urdu poets, and from the Bible.
I went to my professors, who often directed me to the works where I could find suitable quotations. I would go to one of my professors, Dr. Eric Dickenson, who was head of the English Department and had three anthologies to his credit. He used to say, "Unless you go through the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology, you can not understand Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and the rest of English poetry and prose." So we all ran with our matriculation certificates to the Bible Society. They gave us free copies of a beautifully bound Bible with golden letters on it. When I first read the Bible I could not follow much of it. So I approached my father and spoke of my difficulties. He discussed the Bible with me, had me take the help of a dictionary, and explained the significance of the words I did not understand. That is how I developed the habit of consulting the dictionary and finding the etymology of the words I did not know. Even now, I consult the dictionary.
Besides the Bible, I studied Greek and Roman mythology. They were wonderful to read. One could get so engrossed in them that even an attractive novel would not hold you as much as these interconnected stories. We were also encouraged to read Reader's Digest to expand our knowledge of colloquial English.
Because I had to collect quotations from Urdu and Persian mystic poets, I had to run to various libraries and scan many volumes. It was at that time that I became a member of all the leading libraries in Lahore. This is how I made my first study of Persian and Urdu mystic literature, and it was very helpful to me later when I started writing poetry on the saints of all religions.
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