Reference: posted by mysticbumwipe on 7/13/01 to Kirpal Singh Satsang Club; Messages number 848 - 853
Colonel Sanders, first U.K. Representative, and Isaac Ezekiel, journalist and author of the book Sarmad, remember Great Master in letters written to the Beas affiliated S.African periodical in 1977.
Colonel Sanders writes:
I feel honoured to be asked to write about the greatest of Saints Hazur Maharaj Sawan Singh Ji. But, equally, I feel doubtful of my ability to convey any sort of picture which could do justice to such a great Soul.This letter affords me an opportunity for concentrated effort to hold my Master deeply in my mind and so improve my dhyan (contemplation of the Master who initiated me), so essential to simran and bhajan. I hope I may be forgiven for reminding myself that it is not I who write, so long as I keep Him in my mind.
When I was first called to the presence of the Great Master, I saw Him for a few minutes after hearing a valuable discourse on Sant Mat by Dr and Mrs Johnson. I then attended satsang given by Maharaj Ji and that was that! The Master sowed a seed which, someday, had to bear fruit. Why did this happen to me? The only answer, sincerely meant, can be: 'God knows'. As our present beloved Master emphasizes, instead of asking, 'Why this; or that?' simply ask, 'How to rise to planes of wisdom where all will be clear and where there will be no further necessity to ask why?'
We have read descriptions of the Great Master elsewhere, and we may ask if there is anything to be added to these. There is, because each disciple sees differently. To me, at first, He was just a beautiful, dignified, elderly Sikh gentleman. But very soon, after six months' separation, I began to see Him as a great and true Master.
His walk
There was His characteristic walk, slightly lame as a result of an accident many years before, but there was always the indication of power in and around Him. Every movement, though unhurried and calm, was exact and definite, purposeful and determined. His whole figure was majestic and illumined, and yet unconsciously humble. Often, when He walked between lines of His followers, He seemed withdrawn; yet He was aware of everything that went on and there was no doubt that every soul whom He passed received some blessing, even though He may not have looked their way. And we felt it! But what struck me most forcibly was His look of compassion ineffable love and understanding of our faults.He was a Father.
To illustrate His presence, I recall that, when He came unhurriedly along the verandah to hold satsang, there was the sense of complete power, complete mastery, and yet the withdrawn expression. When He reached the low dais on which He would sit, He would bend down and firmly place His stick where He wished it to rest, then, standing up again, He gave us all His Radha Soami as with folded hands He swept round the whole gathering so that we felt He had embraced each one of us.His countenance
I don't wish to indicate any sort of gloom quite the reverse, for the Master could laugh and a smile would often light up His countenance, while satsangs were usually illustrated by stories and humour.
Sitting down cross-legged, with His hands on His lap, He would jose His eyes for a few moments. Opening them, He often gave a little mmph', as though to indicate 'There now, let us start.' Then there was a little by- play as He turned to the pathi wallahs and asked them what the discourse would be about. Their reply, of course was 'Thy will be done’, and the Master decided it. .Naturally, my memory of incidents and the Master's actions in themselves would fill many pages, even years of telling. I will give just one or two as seen by me.
The first one will always remain as one of the most marvellous: I went to the Dera about harvest time with, to me, an important personal question and found Him standing alone in a field watching seva. As I approached Him, He seemed literally to be illumined, radiant, and in His wonderful manner, He quietly listened to the problem (it really was one!) and then gave the usual 'We'll see.' And it came to pass.
Another time, I had gone to Amritsar to see the Master who was to supervise some addition to the Satsang Ghar there. I was told that He was up on the flat roof. So I climbed up, and there was the Master now well into His eighties half-way up a tall ladder! On seeing me, He called out, 'Hullo’ in a deep voice, descended the ladder and shook me by the hand. This I appreciated greatly, as an informal meeting between two soldiers, for, as you know both Hazur Maharaj and His Master, Baba Ji, were long-service soldiers and the Great Master had been on active service helping to build roads behind the Black Mountain in the beautiful hills beyond Murree. He was an Engineer in the Military Engineering Service a most important assignment.
We in the West have cause to consider that one of the Master’s greatest works was to be instrumental in bringing Sant Mat to the West. As you now know, the USA first heard about it through an Indian in the early part of this century. And now, due to the great and continuous work of the (the Masters who have come after him), an ever-increasing number of souls from East and West, North and South, can join hands on a spiritual basis and say to the Masters who Initiated them 'Our Father' and pray with wordless gratitude.
Isaac Ezekiel writes:
I came to the feet of the Master in interesting circumstances. During the Second World War, I had gone on a recruiting campaign from Bombay to Amraoti, and among the items of programme fixed by the local officials, was a visit to Sir Moropant Joshi who, it may be mentioned was the first Indian member of the Executive Council for the Government of the Central Provinces and a leading social reformer during his days. Satsangis may know that one of Sir Moropant's daughters is Her Highness, the Rani Sahiba of Sangli, and another is Rani Lakshmibai Rajwade, wife of General Rajwade a leading aristocrat of the former Gwalior State.After Sir Moropant and I had discussed the problem of recruitment in the Central Provinces, and almost about the time that I was to take leave of him, I asked him, inconsequently, 'Sir Moropant, do you believe in the existence of God?'
The big question
'That is a big question, he said and suggested to me to read The Path of the Masters by Dr Julian Johnson, and wrote on a piece of paper: Mr Sohan Singh Bhandari, Dera Baba Jaimal Singh, P.O. Beas, District Amritsar, from where, he said, I could get the book. Mr. Sohan Singh was then Secretary of the Sawan Singh Service League.On returning to Bombay, I wrote to Mr. Sohan Singh, and almost by return post, I heard from him that the book was out of stock, but that he was sending me, instead, With a Great Master in India by the same author. I received the book just as I was leaving for Madras. I carried it with me, and was so fascinated by it that I kept reading it right through the journey and completed it just as I reached Madras station.
On returning to Bombay, I wrote to Mr Sohan Singh for any other literature on the subject, and he sent me the two volumes of Lekh Raj Puri'sSpiritualPath, which proved to be even more fascinating. After going through the two volumes, I wrote to Mr Sohan Singh to say how happy I was to read these books and that those who had lived during the time of the Master were very lucky indeed. Obviously, I was under the impression that Dr Johnson had referred to some past Master.
Mr Sohan Singh replied that the hook referred to a contemporary Perfect Master and that I could write to Him direct.
The news made me happy beyond description. I spoke to my mother and my wife about it and wrote to Param Sant Satguru Sawan Singh Ji Maharaj to say that the three of us would like to have the grace of initiation. The beloved Master replied that we would have to be complete vegetarians and teetotallers, and advised us to attend the satsangs held in Bombay. This was towards the end of 1944, and I wrote back that we would like to be initiated in December, 1944. He replied that it would be a bit too cold for us then, especially for my mother, and that we should come in March.
Not fit enough.
Accordingly, we booked three berths for the train journey to Beas, but apparently, I was not fit enough to meet the Master without some preliminary cleansing. A day before we were to leave for Beas, I got an attack of tonsils which necessitated an operation. I therefore followed my mother and wife a few days later. At the Beas Station, I was surprised to find a sevadar waiting to take me to the Dera.My mother and wife had already been housed in a comfortable free; bungalow, and soon after I reached it, I got a message from Sardar Bahadur Jagat Singh to come over to meet Him. To all outward purposes, He was just an ordinary satsangi. What struck me most when I saw Sardar Bahadur Ji for the first time was His eyes which, though apparently looking at you, seemed to have a far, far away look and when I started staring at Him, He had a hearty laugh. Our conversation was of the usual type. Sardar Bahadur Ji enquired about my journey and other matters, and then took me around the Dera. He told me that Hazur Maharaj Ji would be in the Dera in the evening and we could then have His Darshan.
I was under the impression that the arrival of the Master would be a grand, ceremonial affair befitting His great spiritual height. Accordingly, we went to the terrace of Hazur Maharaj Ji's bungalow.
Behind us were seated Sardar Bahadur Ji and Rai Sahib Munshi Ram, Hazur's Secretary. Maharaj Ji, however arrived there so casually, talking with a person here, and a person there, that I did not even notice His arrival till my wife drew my attention to it. I was confused as to what I should do, and turned around to see what Sardar Bahadur Ji was doing, so that I could imitate Him. I thought that, according to ordinary courtesy, we should at least get up in honour of Maharaj Ji's arrival, but Sardar Bahadur Ji sat still, apparently doing nothing. That, we later came to know was the test of real love. Real love does not make an exhibition of itself, does not indulge in show and the mockery that is implicit in it. It remains unseen and unrecognized by outsiders.
Unconscious of its existence Hazur Maharaj Ji then occupied a low chair turned to us and enquired about our journey, whether we were comfortably housed, and other matters, like a Father enquiring about His children. The utter absence of any outward show of His tremendous spiritual height simply baffled me. This Saint, who was the Sovereign Master of the highest spiritual realms, was seated amidst ordinary, sinful people, totally unaware of His own greatness, and completely unmindful of the unholy record of those around Him, which He could see as through a glass case.
In course of time, I came to recognize, though even now rather faintly, that real spiritual greatness, like real love, is unconscious of its existence. It is a part of one's nature. It is far, far away from exhibition and show.
Of course, none could escape noticing His magnificent, patriarchal if that word is at all suitable here personality. His silvery, flowing beard and His face, so heavily furrowed with lines carrying over forty years of unflagging service to His two hundred thousand disciples a service that had, literally, worn out a physical frame whose inherent strength and majesty defy description.
Only two days later was the initiation ceremony. All the seekers from Bombay were initiated in the small Satsang Hall. The ceremony was so simple, the teaching so easy, there seemed to be nothing profound about it. It took us some years to grasp the big fact that Saints teach the profoundest truths in the simplest language. All this was so fundamentally different from some other lectures on spiritual subjects that I had listened to, wherein I could not understand a single sentence. Why they indulge in a language which none can understand is still a mystery to me. Perhaps because they, themselves, are not clear on what they pretend to teach.
What fools
We were so stupid evening that we were Maharaj Ji to take His then that the very initiated we went to permission to return to Bombay. We thought we had obtained what we wanted, and nothing more remained to be done. It was years later that we learnt that an hour's company of a Perfect Master is equal to more than a hundred years of Bhajan and Simran (meditation). And so, after travelling over a thousand miles from Bombay, we decided to journey back another thousand miles, after hearing only a couple of satsangs. Maharaj Ji knew what fools we were and decided, when we went to take His leave, to pack in as much instruction as possible within the time at our disposal, so that we could carry something home. It was like a little girl who returned home after her first day in school. 'Mary, what did you learn today?' asked her mother. 'Not much,' said the child, 'I'm afraid I shall have to go to school again tomorrow.And so we returned to Bombay, like the girl in the story, with this difference, that we were under the impression that we had learnt everything that was to be learnt, and all that we had to do was to sit down for Simran and Bhajan and reach Sach Rhand in a matter of a few months, if not a few days!
It is twenty years since then, and today we are as ignorant and sinful as ever. The realization of our frailties and weaknesses is, itself, a great gain. It is the wisdom imparted to us by our Master. Once Hazur Maharaj Ji asked a Satsangi who had advanced up to the First Stage to conduct satsang. In the course of his discourse, the Satsangi said, 'I used to commit a lot of sins before I reached the present stage.' Hazur immediately corrected him, and asked him to say, 'Even now I commit sins.' Hazur explained that none was free from the workings of the mind and the five passions till he had reached Sach Khand.
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