Reference: posted by: vejeestu on 7/4/000 to Kirpal Singh Satsang Club; Messages number 485-490
A CHANCE MEETING with an official at Bombay Airport in 1958 as I was returning to England after spending three years in the Nilgiri Hills was the tenuous link that was to have totally unforeseen, and indeed, unimagined consequences for me eight years later.
The autumn of 1966 found me in the Mediterranean island of Malta, following a severe bereavement, trying to adjust to new conditions, and failing. I was miserable, off-balance, and quite unable to call upon the moral and spiritual power I thought I had acquired over many years of study and effort. I little thought then that the greatest event in my life was fast approaching.
There seemed to be little or nothing for me to do in Malta and I felt restless and dissatisfied. One day it occurred to me to pay another visit to India. I had no very clear purpose in mind, but the pleasant memories of my previous visit, coupled with a close acquaintance with much of India's wonderful religious literature, gave me an urge to return. In this vague and uncertain frame of mind I wrote to my Bombay friend with whom I had in the interim maintained contact by the occasional exchange of letters, to say that I was thinking of re-visiting India. He replied with an enthusiastic welcome, and ended by saying that I must meet his spiritual Master who would be in Bombay over the Christmas period. He did not mention his Master's name, nor what he taught, but referred to him in glowing and eulogistic terms that left me quite cold.
The Indian predilection for Masters, or Gurus, was, of course, not unknown to me. I had over the years made a study of world religions, not as a scholar (which was beyond my competence), but as an ordinary man searching for the meaning of life, to answers to so many riddles, and the ultimate questions: Is there a God, Creator, or Supreme Being? Is there life after death?
I had found convincing scriptural and other evidence for affirmative answers to both these last crucial questions, in theory; but Indian scriptures, notably the Vedas and the Vedanta Philosophy, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the various forms of Yoga, seemed to carry me a great deal further. I had a special reverence and love for the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, the great Bengali Saint of the nineteenth century, and for his principal disciple, the amazing Swami Vivekananda; but naturally, as a Christian, the life and teachings of Christ had first place.
I had come to the reluctant conclusion, however, that whatever truth there was in the various sacred scriptures of the world, both they and the personalities associated with them seemed to be of the past and it was doubtful if they had any relevance to the present. There seemed to be an unbridgeable gap between theory and practice. Incontrovertible personal experience of the truths of religion was confined to books and was apparently unobtainable today. Past Masters there had been, for was not Christ one? But were there any, even one, now upon the earth? I doubted it.
Anyhow, I was not in the mood for Masters. I knew nothing about my friend's Master, neither his name nor what he taught, and I was not even sufficiently curious to find out. Such was my mood, but nevertheless I went ahead with my nebulous plans to go again to India. For three weeks I tried to get a passage by sea and failed. Suddenly the whole idea seemed foolish and pointless and in a fit of irritation and frustration I decided to abandon it and cancelled all arrangements.
A few days later, gazing abstractedly at the sea, I was suddenly conscious of a gentle, unseen presence, and distinctly heard a voice say: "Go to India!" Imagination perhaps, but I immediately rushed to a travel agent and bought an air ticket for Bombay, where I arrived on December I9 to a heartwarming reception at the airport.
A few days later, not very willingly, I accompanied my friend to the house where his Master was staying. The compound was full of an excited crowd milling around, for where a holy man is to be found, Indians will flock even from great distances to see him.
I was still in a critical and unresponsive mood. At the top of the stairs I discarded my shoes as custom demanded, and stood rather self-consciously in my socks, apathetically watching people going to and from a room at the end of a corridor. I felt rather foolish, very English, an outsider and an intruder, the only European present on that occasion, with no clear idea of what it was all about. I wondered if the Master was one of those half-naked fakirs I had heard about, and if there would be an interpreter if he deigned to see me, which I thought by no means certain. I had forgotten the words of the Master Jesus: "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."
Suddenly my reverie was broken by a voice at my side saying: "The Master will see you now." I turned to see a smiling, handsome young Sikh in a blue turban, and involuntarily exclaimed: "See me!" "Yes," he replied, "come this way," and in a turmoil of conflicting thoughts I followed him down the corridor to the Master's room.
As I passed through the doorway, I hesitated in momentary confusion. Here was no emaciated, half-naked ascetic, no saffron-robed pundit with begging bowl. A tall, strongly-built immensely impressive white-bearded figure rose from a low couch and came forward to greet me. Taking both my hands in his, he said "Hello!" as if we had met before. I was completely taken aback for I had expected some sort of Oriental greeting, some pious words perhaps; some indication of religiosity, or some kind of protocol; but there was nothing of the sort. This almost affectionate and informal reception astonished and then heartened me. There was nothing unusual in the Master's dress—spotless linen, white turban, black threequarters coat over a tunic and trousers of white cotton, and slippers. He wore no religious emblem; there were no prayers, no incense and no music, just a simplicity and naturalness which of themselves were far more impressive than any pomp or splendor could be. Over and above all was his fine physique, distinguished bearing, and spiritual serenity and strength, presenting a picture of a holy man utterly different from anything I had imagined.
With gentle courtesy he himself brought forward an armchair and placed me in it, a gesture which was much appreciated by his elderly Western visitor who would have found the traditional cross-legged position on the floor uncomfortable and impossible to maintain for long. His seat on the couch which he resumed brought him well below my level—such is his humility—and I found myself looking down on him. This made me acutely uncomfortable with its implications and I realized I could not possibly remain in that position. In an uprush of emotion I slipped off the chair and sat on the floor at his feet as a child would do. In that moment alone was unconsciously expressed an inner recognition and acceptance of the spiritual peace and power flowing from the Master, but he only smiled and said tranquilly: "Tell me something about yourself."
"You must know it already, as the Master; what is there to say?" was all I could stammer out, and it must have sounded rather disrespectful.
"Never mind," he said, "tell me something and we'll take it from there."
I tried to speak of my past life, of my spiritual search and longing for proof of the things I had come to believe in, but emotion gripped me and after a few halting sentences I came to an embarrassed stop, fighting for self-control. Seeing my distress, the Master made a small gesture and immediately I regained composure. He went on to speak of the Christ and I His teachings, of the Kingdom of God which He declared to be within us, and of the "light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." He evidently knew the Christian Bible thoroughly and explained many obscure and difficult passages in the New Testament.
During his talk, owing to our changed positions, he was now looking down on me and I became aware of an extraordinary sensation in my eyes as I looked into his. It was as if an electric current was being poured into them; the sort of sensation one would get if very fine jets of water were sprayed upon the eyes; and I could hardly keep them open—indeed, for the rest of the time I could only use them nearly closed, as slits.
When finally I rose to leave, he said: "Come again; come tomorrow early, at about eight o'clock." I left him with a feeling of exhilaration, of having met a tremendous personality, and that here at last perhaps was a spiritual teacher who could help me to understand what life and religion were all about.
I wanted to mention that his experience that he describes of ..."an extraordinary sensation in my eyes as I looked into his. It was as if an electric current was being poured into them; the sort of sensation one would get if very fine jets of water were sprayed upon the eyes;"..this is more or less exactly the experience I had with Darshan Singh in 1980. It was amazing for me to read this today and realize how closely this fit my experience at that time.
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