Reference: posted by: vejeestu on date: 7/1/00 to Kirpal Singh Satsang Club; Messages number 475-480
Bhadra Sena, an initiate of Hazur Baba Sawan Singh, was the chief literary aide to Sant Kirpal Singh. Specifically, under the direct guidance of Sant Kirpal Singh, he wrote or edited most of the literary output to which Kirpal Singh's name was attached. In this article, from the Ocean of Grace Divine, I would particularly draw attention to the paragraph in which he describes Kirpal Singh's attitude towards expressing the teachings.
"He always moved in accordance with the spirit of the time and the temper of the individual correspondent. He believed in gentle persuasion with a personal touch, to take each one from the line of least resistance and then leave him to decide for himself. "In a scientific age like the present," He would remark, "categorical assertions would not do. Everyone wants a rational explanation for everything and more so expounding abstruse truths. Precision and concision is all that is wanted. There is no need to thrust anything down one's throat. It is God's work and God alone knows how to fulfill His purposes."
I feel that a careful appreciation of this paragraph leads to some understanding to the tremendous liberality and humility in the relationship of the Masters to their surrounding environment in any given period. It helps us in understanding the evolution through the various guruships of the last several centuries. We see here expressed the spirit that has characterized their expansion from a lane in Agra, to an active relationship with religious and political leaders and common individuals in almost every part of the world. It is the antithessis of proselytism, but rather a willingness to meet each person on their own level.
The spirit of inquiry: where have I come from and where am I going? and the "Why" and "wherefore" of the world—all these questions haunted me from my very early age. In my quest I frequented temples, mosques, gurdwaras and churches, but never found satisfaction. It was in the fall of 1936 that I was picked up at last by Maharaj Kirpal Singh. From then on there grew up a personal bond which gradually developed into an indissoluble link.
Now began the period of intensive training as He took me into his hands; I started attending Maharaj Ji's Sunday discourses in Lahore given under Hazur's instructions. After several months I decided to go to Beas. At the Dera, Maharaj Ji took me to His brother's bungalow where His family was staying. At night we went to see Hazur who was relaxing on His roof, it being summer season. Introducing me to Him, He requested that I should be given initiation the next day. Hazur kindly remarked, "Very well, it will be done."
From then on the Dera became a place of pilgrimage for me. In one Satsang, Hazur remarked that by initiating a person the Master took over the responsibility not only for the initiate but for everyone in his family, including even the rats in his house! After Satsang I had my kerchief full of sugared puffed rice as parshad from Hazur before leaving for Lahore. At home after dinner we all partook of it, and tied the rest in the kerchief and suspended it from a wall tack. The next morning as we came down we were surprised to see the sugared rice scattered on the floor. Looking up we found that the kerchief had been bitten by the rats who had indeed come to partake of the parshad!
Once I persuaded my wife to visit the Dera for hearing the Great Master and having His darshan. It was in the hottest months of June and July. My wife had fear of heat. Anyhow, she agreed and we reached Beas. Maharaj Ji was there to greet us first. He placed us in a room next His. By evening my wife developed a high temperature with cramps in her legs and a severe headache. She was shivering in spite of the quilts which were placed over her. In the evening Maharaj Ji came and took some homeopathic pills out of His pocket, and turning to my wife said, "Take these pills. You will be all right. Don't worry. These will one day bring you to the Path as well." (She received her initiation some years later in early 1949). By morning she was all right and dressed for Satsang. After hearing the Great Master we returned to Lahore. On reaching home she explained why she had that bitter experience of cold and fever. She was quite reluctant to travel in the summer heat, and had inwardly prayed, if the Great Master was really a Godman she should not feel the impact of the summer sun. Hazur however, would not change the course of nature for her, but gave her a cold fever, and she not only escaped the heat, but had to be wrapped in quilts. Later when I told Maharaj Ji what had happened, He gave a hearty laugh and remarked, "We try to test Godmen, and we do not even know what to ask. This is why our prayers at times go amiss, and we have to repent afterwards."
After Hazur had passed away, I heard that Maharaj Ji was in Delhi and staying at Lodhi Colony. One day I went to see Him and sat at His Feet. With His characteristic warmth He pulled me up, made me sit alongside Him, remarking, "I am not an untouchable; even if I am, when you get home you can take a bath and clean yourself."
Countless are the benefits I derived from the company of the Beloved Master, as I began to address Him in my personal letters and in submitting draft replies to some of His foreign correspondence which He would so graciously entrust to me. The love between a Satguru and a devotee is an uncommon bond. He would teach me how to approach this work not only by His words, but through His eyes as well. He could make me fill in any weakness in my understanding of His wishes; and to my great delight they were always appropriate. He would graciously remark that the power within works with great precision and therefore it is this Power that brings forth the very word the Master wished to use.
During one of those early days, I happened to be alone with the Master. Such like occasions He often provided to my ecstatic joy. He was, on this particular occasion, in a highly benevolent mood, and Tai Ji sitting close by, looked towards me, and said, "Maharaj Ji is in a mood to give whatever you wish. Ask for it!" I hesitated and kept quiet for a moment. Again she pressed me to speak out, adding, "Do you want earthly riches?" "No!" was the reply. "Then name and fame in the world?" she asked. Once again the reply was in the negative. "What else then?" she inquired. Thereupon I blurted forth, "I want just one thing, and that is Master's love, and that He should see that the flame of love He lit in me should never grow dim." The Master gave an enigmatic smile, and kept quiet.
The saga of love is one of smiles and of tears; it has no beginning and no end. I always felt that His Love was oceanic and came in tidal waves. As I think this over I feel it runs through ages past and will continue till eternity. Once, while on an evening walk with the Master, I remarked: "Master, You are so exalted, so pure and so godly that at times I wonder how You allow a sinful person like me to come near You. Is there any link between us from the past?" He simply replied,
"Without any such close relationship from the past, it would not be possible to be together now all of a sudden."
One day when the lawn was being laid in the Ashram, the Master and I were strolling in the dark. All of a sudden the Master stopped, turned on the flashlight in His hand and focused it where I was standing. "What is it Master?" I asked. "I wanted to make sure you had your shoes on, lest there be a snake," was His loving reply. I was really taken back by His deep concern for my safety.
As for the correspondence work, the Master took great pain to train me in His own inimitable way: "You are just an instrument. You have not to exert yourself. Read each letter carefully noting down the points on the margin. Then take the pen in your hand, and without any premeditated thought, start writing. The Power within will do the rest," Following this advice, I would read the correspondence before going to bed. Early in the morning I would sit at my desk and start the work with a brief prayer "Master You have to do it—I don't know how." Any reference Biblical or otherwise, would come handy by just opening the books at random, and to my surprise in the right place as if directly marked out for the purpose. It was all His love that did the work. I was just like a pen in His hand.
The Master was very particular about the use of words in His correspondence. He always moved in accordance with the spirit of the time and the temper of the individual correspondent. He believed in gentle persuasion with a personal touch, to take each one from the line of least resistance and then leave him to decide for himself. "In a scientific age like the present," He would remark, "categorical assertions would not do. Everyone wants a rational explanation for everything and more so expounding abstruse truths. Precision and concision is all that is wanted. There is no need to thrust anything down one's throat. It is God's work and God alone knows how to fulfill His purposes."
In the matter of drafting replies, He was once pleased remark, "Be very, very careful, for once I put my signature anything, it is as if God had put His signature to it." This is how He would at times give an inkling of the God Power that was working through Him.
The Master had in His library a wonderful collection of books on varied subjects, particularly on health: health of body, mind and soul. He was gracious to allow me free access to them which benefitted me so much. As soon as new books would arrive, He generally passed them on with instructions to make notes for comparative study of the various systems proposed and advocated therein. And then, in between the strenuous work on hand, He would still find time to point out the subtle distinctions between the various system—Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism, Seventh-Day Adventists, the "I Am" Movement, The White Brotherhood, Subud, Transcendental Meditation, Ultimate Enlightenment, Kundalini Yoga, Kriya Yoga, and lastly Nirankaris, and Brahmkumaris. At times He would provide me with His own copious notes on one or the other subject in hand. He was an indefatigable worker and I remember occasions when past midnight, He would not hesitate to call us in to solve our difficulties so as to enable us to proceed unhampered with the work.
The Master was master of all situations. Near the end of my office career (1960) I had serious differences with the management, with the result that I developed low fever which persisted for months on end. I felt such a strain that I resolved to resign two years ahead of my retirement. But before doing so I went to seek the Master's permission. He emphatically said, "No!" and then added, "For thirty years you have worked for yourself. For the remaining two, I order you to carry on. Henceforth you will be serving me, and not anyone else!" It was enough. In a few days I was transferred and taken out of this impasse.
At about this time when our home was completed in Kalkaji, the Master graced it, to give His blessings, and He gave it the name "Sawan Kutir." (Kutir is the Hindi for humblest abode.) Before leaving, He said, "Today I give you a piece of advice—never, for a moment, consider this house as your own." I humbly replied, "Master I have never thought of it as such. It is Hazur's, as You have named it so graciously."
He had His own inimitable way of reaching out to those who were unreceptive by an over-plus of love. After the birth of my granddaughter, I accompanied my son and daughter-in-law with the child to the Ashram. That evening the Beloved Master was exceptionally gracious to my daughter-in-law who was not an initiate. After blessing the baby He turned to the mother and said, "Why don't you come more often? It gives me so much pleasure to see you. Come again soon. No excuses. Whenever you have time, just give me a ring and I will send the car to pick you up." My daughter-in-law was rather overhelmed and felt embarrassed. Seeing this, He continued: "Yes, I really mean it; whenever you remember me, just phone—the car will pick you up and drop you back." My daughter-in-law stammered that that would be too much trouble. "Trouble!" laughed the Master. Then getting serious, He looked at her, then at the baby, and then at her again: "You yourself have a child. You know what a joy it is for parents to have their children with them. If you had to send your car to pick up your child, would it seem any trouble? That is the way I feel towards you and it would be my joy to have you over." Later, when it was time for us to depart, He made a point of having us dropped home.
Once, while I was in a nursing home, He graciously came to cheer me up and said, "What is this operation—just repairing a part of the dilapidated wall. There is nothing to worry about. You will soon be all right." Before leaving the room, He quietly placed a few hundred rupee bank notes under my pillow. My wife noticed it and told me of this. I pulled them out and humbly inquired what these were for? He simply said, "It is possible you may need them." With folded hands, I returned them with the words, "Master, I am yet having enough funds of Yours. Kindly keep these and I shall gladly ask for them if and when needed." Master often used to say that the so-called gurus were always getting things from their disciples. A Satguru, on the other hand, was always giving.
When in 1971 Bangladesh was passing through a holocaust of fire and sword I felt so worked up by this event that I went to the Master and said, "Master, what is all this butchering and gunning? Can't it be stopped?" With His characteristic tranquility He said, "You have come to plead for them? I think you hold no brief. It is all a question of action and reaction. If it is God's Will that the world should go up in smoke, who can stop it? Be at peace, and everything will be all right!"
In July 1974, the Beloved Master wrote to say that He was in Delhi and that I could come to visit Him. I met Him twice during that month; after that I did not have the blessedness to be with Him again.
On the first occasion, I found Him on His bed in the living room downstairs. He appeared so weak that I could not forbear pleading: "All this illness is vicarious. It is not Your own, Master, but on account of us all. I pray that there be no further initiations for the next six months at least." "I have already missed a couple," He answered and dropped the subject.
On the second and last such occasion, He was very ill and in His room on the first floor. As I was going upstairs I found Him coming down. When I sat at His Feet, He inquired after my health. With eyes full of tears, I unburdened myself with an Urdu couplet I had composed to the effect:
You know me too well for me to reveal the anguish,
the anguish of my heart.
Too feeble to meet you,
I gaze upon your image
and weep the weary hours away.When it was time for me to depart, He got up to see me down. That He should even think of such a thing in His condition was quite incredible and with much difflculty I prevailed on Him to stay. Little did I realize then that knowing it was to be our final meeting, it was a parting gesture of that Ineffable Love which He bore for each one of us.
During the 70's I had badgered the Beloved Master more than once to take me up within or to relieve me of life itself. As with age I grew less and less able to go to see Him, existence had come to be a burden. I was to repeat my plaint at one of my meetings during the last year. The Master looked at me and asked, "Have you finished your give and take that you want to go?" I submitted that I had nothing to take from anyone and was happily giving whatever I might be owing to others. There upon He said, "You still have something to take from Malik (God), and something that you still have to render to me."
Every word of Yours, Beloved Master, was pregnant with meaning and I still ponder over the possible significance of your remark. I wish I had had the temerity to ask You to amplify Your meaning that day. Whenever I had a question You always helped me find the answer and I know that one day this enigma too will be resolved. Meanwhile, I live with it, not forgetting to water with ceaseless remembrance the garden of our Love. I know that You are ever with me, looking after me and mine. If a Satguru forgets not even the rats in a devotee's home, why need I have any worry for myself! Only the other, day, when my housekeeper was ill and wondered if she should not give up work, You appeared to her in the early hours of the morning to exhort her to carry on. But to be cared for, O Heart's Beloved, is not enough. I yearn to have Your darshan, and since the eye of the flesh can no longer see You, open the eye of the Spirit that I may behold You once again and have my fill. It is with this last hope that I linger here a suppliant at Your door, and while I thus wait it is my solace to continue to render up to You what is Yours.
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