Reference: posted by: vejeestu on date: 6/21/00 to Kirpal Singh Satsang Club; Message number 393
My last trip to Delhi was in 1987. One day during a talk with the westerners (about a hundred twenty) a question came up about making donations to Greenpeace. Darshan Singh asked what Greenpeace was and someone across the room said it was a German political party, confusing Greenpeace with the Green party. I spoke up in pointing out the mistake mentioning that Greenpeace was a movement concerned with ecological issues.
Darshan asked me to come to the front of the room and define "ecology". I stumbled out some rough definition, after which he called for the dictionary which was brought by the ever ready Mr.Jain. With the huge volume resting on his lap, Darshan very slowly ran his finger down the page Jain had opened, starting at the very top left. It was as if he was studying each word rather then looking for the object of our search.
I quickly scanned the page and located "ecology" pointing it our to him. However, he gently brushed my hand from the page, saying in a slightly irritated tone, "I've read this book thousands of times". He was clearly relishing reading each word on the page and continued his exploration, finally asking me to read out the definition to the group of about a hundred western initiates. Then he gave a half hour talk on ecology from the perspective of the Masters, no turban on, hair down, looking directly at me for virtually the entire talk.
Then it was pointed out that a man in the room who had just then arrived was a professor of ecology at Delhi university. He had been invited for lunch by one of the westerners who lived in Delhi and knew him socially (the same guy who said greenpeace was a german political party). Darshan Singh stood up and said to me with a twinkle in his eye, "The Master works in mysterious ways." The Master invited him to give a talk on the science of ecology.
I was happy as a clam having just been given gobs of attention. A while later when the session was over, Darshan Singh, walked through the group greeting people. Suddenly he turned and looked at me from entirely across the room and proceeded to walk up to me through the crowd. Surrounded by those near, he made several remakes with great passion, while gazing hard into my eyes with voice raised. At first I heard and felt a stunning, vividly specific, and public indictment of some life choices I was suffering through in those days, something we had not discussed and he had no way of knowing. His last forceful sentence "And we abhor this thing in Sant Mat!" still rings in my ears.
Then he turned around and walked away.
I was so shocked that my jaw must have dropped. At first I thought he was humiliating me in front of the group after having just given me so much sweet attention. Then in the next moment as I was physically sinking to the floor, I realized that to everyone else he had made a very general, if impassioned comment about one of the topics that had been discussed. I will only say that his words were very specific in details and turned out several years later, also to be prophetic. I was reeling, stunned like a deer caught in the headlights. Gradually, I spooned myself off the floor and joined the others filing past him out the door.
As I staggered by him he smiled and invited me to stay for lunch, always a wonderful, family and friend experience whenever I had the privilege to sit at his table. He continued to treat me with tremendous warmth throughout that remarkable, final sojourn. However, I can never forget his dramatic rebuke, sandwiched with thick slabs of love. He was very kind to me, though I did nothing to deserve it. On the contrary I was handily breaking every rule in the book only to find his human warmth and love reaching me much deeper then ever. I truly came to realize that all the rules and regs are nothing. Opening in the heart is everything.
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