TO BE STEADFAST ON THE PATH
by
Sant Ajaib Singh Ji
This question and answer session was
given on March 2, 1988, at Sant Bani
Ashram, Village 16 PS, Rajasthan
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[Question]: Would it please Sant Ji to comment on the disciple's
attitude toward earthly life, in connection to true submission
to God and the Master?
[Sant Ji]: It is a good question. We hear in Satsang and we read in
the Masters' writings that we must submit ourselves to God. When
the Masters come into this world They live that exemplary kind
of life in which They give full importance to meditation. They
live that life to teach us that, along with doing all the worldly
things, we have to obey the Master. We have to give importance
to the commandments of the Master, and do the Bhajan and Simran.
Since They Themselves live a life like that, They inspire us also
to live the same kind of life.
Yesterday we had a Satsang on Guru Nanak's bani in which
we heard how Guru Angad, along with attending to the responsibilities
of His earthly life, did His job towards His Master. We heard how
He pleased His Master, how He obeyed the commandments of His Master,
how He surrendered to His Master and how He became as the part of
the body of the Master.
Swami Ji Maharaj said, "When the dear one comes to the
Master he should chase away all the religious deeds which he
has been doing. Whatever Path the Master puts the disciple on,
that Path should become his religion, his everything, and he
should remain true to the devotion of the Master." I have often
said, "Before you come to the Master, search as much as you
want, read the history of the Master, see if He has done any
meditation or not; but after you have taken Him as your Master,
whatever the Master tells you to do you should do it. After that,
it is not good for you to be wishy-washy; you should be steadfast
on the Path which your Master has put you on."
Master Sawan Singh Ji served in the army, and He did many
other things in this world, but He gave most importance to
meditation, love of the Master, and obedience to the commandments
of the Master.
What is our lacking? We do not give that place to the love
of the Master which we should be giving. We are not ready to
refuse the orders of the mind. We are always eager to refuse the
order of the Master, because we have understood the mind as our
owner.
Once there was an initiate of Kabir Sahib who after receiving
Initiation from Him went on different Paths, he did many other
things, but finally when he was in trouble he remembered his Master,
Kabir Sahib. And when he came to Him, Kabir Sahib said, "Why did you
wander here and there and give so much suffering to your soul? If you
had done what I told you in the beginning, if you had given your soul
the great Elixir of Naam to drink, you would not have gone through
all these sufferings." Even after that - Saints are very gracious -
He lovingly accepted him; He embraced him and gave him all His grace.
Master Kirpal often used to talk about the love of Laila and
Majnu. He used to say that they did not have a worldly love,
they had a very pure and high kind of love. When people hear
stories of the lovers they are eager to go and see them, so once
a prince came to see Majnu; he wanted to see the person who
had become emaciated in the remembrance, in the separation
of his beloved. When the prince came, somebody told Majnu
"A prince has come to see you," Majnu replied, "Yes, I will see
him, but he should come in the form of Laila." So do you think
we have even that much strength? Do you think we have that
much love and affection for the Master?
Usually people go to the courts to sue for the deras or the
ashrams (when their Master leaves the body), but Param Sant
Kirpal...did not fight for His Master's Ashram. He left everything
there. I have seen the house that Master Kirpal had made in the dera.
He did not even go there for that, because He had completely
surrendered Himself to His Master and He did not care for those
things. He used to say, "Whatever I have done, I have done only
for my Master." Because He had completely surrendered Himself to the
Master, He did not look for anything, He wanted only His Master.
This is called the total submission, the total sacrifice, for the
Master.
Dear Ones, we can sacrifice or surrender ourselves to the
Master completely, only when we give first preference to meditation,
and obedience to the commandments of the Master. If we consider the
world second, only then can we become successful. Master Kirpal
always used to say, "I became successful only because I gave first
preference to God, and the world came next."
Dear Ones, when we understand our Master as our everything
then we always give first preference to Him. Master does not want
us to change our society. He does not want us to change anything
of this world. Guru Nanak Sahib says, "We have met the perfect
Master and, along with living happily in the family life, He is
making us achieve liberation." Master does not want us to leave our
families, our home, or our society. It is a fact that we may not be
willing to attend to the responsibilities which we ourselves have
taken on our shoulders. But the Master always inspires us to attend
to the responsibilities of the world, and He always showers grace
upon us. But what is the reason that love for the Master is not
awakened within us? What is the reason why we have not surrendered
ourselves completely to the Master? Only because we do not give
the first preference to the Master and to meditation. We always
give preference to the passions and things of the world. We have
fallen into the swamp of lust, anger, and the other passions, and
because we have given preference to them and not to meditation,
to the Master, that is why our condition is like this. If we were
to give first preference to the Master, if we were to completely
surrender ourselves to the Master and to the Bhajan and Simran,
then we would not have any difficulties.
Master Sawan Singh Ji often quoted a saying in Punjabi
which meant, "Your hands to work and heart to the Beloved."
How many of us have adopted or have developed this quality of
remembering our Master when we are working in the world?
Almost all of us bring the worldly thoughts when we sit for
meditation; when we are supposed to be remembering the Master,
then we are thinking about the worldly things. But how many are
there who bring the Form of the Master in front them or remember
the Master when they are working in the world?
Dharam Das was an initiate of Kabir Sahib whose question
and answers you may read in the book Anurag Sagar (Ocean of Love).
He was very wealthy. At that time in India, the currency had
greater value, and he was so wealthy that he was called by the
name "Wealthy" Dharam Das, because he had fourteen billion rupees.
You can imagine that, since he had so much money, he must have had
so many different kinds of businesses to attend to; you can imagine
how many responsibilities he might have had at that time. But when
he met Kabir Sahib he got Initiation from Him. After that when he
went within he said, "O Master, I swear by You, that I don't have
any desire except for Your Will, even in the state of dream."
You see that if one is a true disciple of the Master he
will never swear by the name of the Master. He would be ready to
incur any kind of loss, but he would never swear by the Master,
because he understands that the Master is God. But only to
express his true condition he said, "I swear by You, O Lord,
that I do not have any desire of lust or any other thing. I have
only desire for You even in dreams." If the beautiful Form of
the Master is in front of us while we are awake and while we
are doing the worldly work, do you think that we will not have
the darshan of the Master when we are asleep? Only those who
remember the Form of the Master during the day get the darshan
of the Master while asleep. If we have any desire of the world
during the day, those same desires come in the form of bad
dreams. But if we have only desire for the Master during the
day, and if we have only remembered Him and His beautiful Form,
in the night also He will show us His beautiful darshan.
Dear Ones, the creation of this world is such that the
Negative Power has spread His snares all over. Not even the Saints
and Mahatmas can tell you about any place on this physical world
where you can go and not get involved in the worldly affairs or
where you can get the completely pure love. But it is the
personal experience of the Master that if you go within, if you
rise above the physical body, remove the physical veil from your
soul, and then if you go to the Astral plane and remove the
Astral cover from your soul, and then further if you cross the
Causal plane and remove the Causal cover from your soul, then
you can reach a place where the creation of love starts, where
there is no difference between male and female, where there is
no enmity, where there is nothing of the worldly nature, only
love exists over there. When we reach there, after removing
all these covers from our soul, only then do we know how to
become grateful to our Master and only then can we learn how
to completely surrender to the Feet of the Master.
When we reach the plane of love then we see how long we
have been attending to the responsibilities of this world. Then
we understand why we have to do our real work of meditation.
Master Sawan Singh Ji used to tell a very beautiful story in
this context. There was a person going someplace on a horse. On
the way his horse became thirsty and he wanted the horse to get
some water. He came to a place where a farmer was taking out
water from a well, using a pump operated by a bullock. He
asked the farmer to give his horse some water. The farmer told
him to bring his horse near where the bullock was pumping but
he was making a lot of noise. When he moved and made noise
the horse became afraid and shied away and he would not drink
the water. So the rider said, "Why don't you stop the bullock."
But when the farmer stopped the bullock the water stopped
flowing, and when he moved, the horse would not go there to
drink the water, because he was afraid of the noise. The farmer
said, "The water will not come out unless the bullock moves
and your horse will have to drink the water bearing this noise
of the pump.
In the same way, we have to live in this world, attending
to the responsibilities of the world, and we will have to do our
Bhajan and Simran attending to the responsibilities of the world,
no matter how difficult they may be. But we should give first
preference to our real work, which is the Bhajan and Simran.
Guru Nanak Sahib says, "He may be talking with the people
of the world with his mouth, but within he has manifested his
beloved Lord." He says, "The life of a gurumukh or of a satsangi
should be like this: outwardly he may be talking or doing the
things of the world, but within he is always remembering his
beloved Master."
In one of the bhajans it is written: "This is the call
of Ajaib, the heart-string is moving within." What is called the
moving of the string is that on your tongue the Simran of the
Master should be going on. In your eyes the beautiful Form of
the Master should be installed and all the time you should be
remembering His beautiful Face.
Mahatmas tell us that in order to get the darshan of the
Beautiful One people do so many things. They leave their homes;
they go to the forest and they do so many other kinds of practices.
They even make their body very thin, suffering hunger and thirst.
But doing all these things they do not get the beloved Lord.
Finally when they get nothing from outside the come back to their
home. When they left their home in search of Almighty God they
did every single practice; but by doing those practices neither
their lust was decreased nor their anger was removed. They could
not get rid of any of their passions. When they did not realize
the Almighty Lord they came back to their home and had to face
embarrassment, because when they came back without success, people
laughed at them and again they had the same passions, the same
difficulties. Even though they left their homes still they did not
become successful. But the perfect Saints don't tell us to leave
our homes; They do not tell us to become renunciates. They tell
us, "Every morning get up and do your meditation for two or three
hours, live a pure life, earn your livelihood by honest means, and
attend to the worldly responsibilities which you have been given,
lovingly and happily. And you can still get the liberation, while
doing all the things of the world, if you would give first
preference to meditation, and if you would surrender yourself to
the Master."
I will tell you an interesting story which happened when I
was in the army. Once I came home on two days leave, with me
there were three or four friends also. We all had to go back on
the same train - the other people also lived in the same area
- and at exactly twelve noon the train would come to the station
of our village. But we did not go to the station at twelve o'clock,
instead we left our homes at one-thirty, and when we got there the
train had already left. As a result we got back late to the army.
When we got there late they told us that we will be questioned
because we had not come back on the exact time. Next day we were
summoned by the officer and he asked all of us, "Why were you
late, why didn't you inform us? Why didn't You send a cable?" That
was our first mistake and usually for the first mistake you are
forgiven just by being given a little warning. So we were not
very worried, but still since the officer was going to ask us
questions we were very confused, and we did not know what to do.
He started asking each one of us why we did not come on time.
All the other four friends said that the train was delayed, but
when that officer came to me I felt that I should be telling him
the truth. I told him, "Dear Sir, the train did come on time
but we left our home late. That is why we missed the train. Now
it is up to you, whatever punishment you want to give us you
can give us." So because I had told him the truth and I had
surrendered to him, he became very pleased and he forgave us. At
that time I learned this lesson: that if we had left our home at
eleven o'clock, an hour earlier than the train, we would have got
to our duty on time; then nobody would have questioned us. Nobody
would be scared of any punishment, there would be no reason for
us to be confused, and perturbed, and there would be no reason
for anyone to speak a lie. It was only because we wanted to rest
one hour more at home that we had to go through all that
difficult time.
Then I thought, "As we were afraid of that officer - we
were confused and the other people were not even able to speak the
truth - are we ever afraid of our Master like this? Do we ever
take our meditation so seriously?" There are man dear ones who do
not do meditation for many days, who don't remember the Simran for
many months, but do they ever think that they will be questioned
by the Master? And when the Master summons them, when the Master
asks them the questions, what will they say? Will they be strong
enough to tell Him the truth? Remembering that incident, I always
think that we people always give preference to the worldly things,
but we never give preference to meditation, to the Simran. We never
care for the Master as much as we care for a worldly officer.
In the book which Mr. Oberoi has written (Support for the
Shaken Sangat), the stories of Sunder Das are written. Sunder
Das was a person who got many opportunities to be in the company
of Master Sawan Singh and he paid off many karmas which Master
Sawan Singh told him about well in advance.
We used to live in the same house; we used to eat together
and meditate together. He used to say that if we remember the
Simran for one moment, it means that we have gotten the Simran
for twenty-one moments. And he used to say that if we have
forgotten the Master for one day, that means we have forgotten
the Master for twenty-one days. Similarly he used to say that if
we had not had the darshan of the Master for one year, it mean
we have not had His darshan for twenty-one years. And we don't
know if we are going to live that long or not, so how are we
going to fill up that gap which is created by not having the
darshan and not remembering the Master for those many days and
years. He had given preference to his meditation, and we used to
meditate together.
Once when we were sitting in the field meditating we were
sitting around a fire. We sat continuously for eight hours and
during that sitting a piece of burning wood fell on his leg. That
piece of wood burned his leg but he was not aware of it burning.
You know how painful it is when your body burns but he did not
feel any pain; because when the soul is withdrawn, when you are
enjoying the inner planes then you forget all the pains and
everything like that. So he did not feel any pain. Afterwards
when his meditation was completed, when he came back to physical
consciousness, he said, "I have never before gotten such a taste
in my meditation, as I have got today."
The doctors said that his leg was so badly burned that it
needed to be amputated, but it was the grace of Supreme Father
Kirpal who told him not to get his leg cut off. When Master Kirpal
came to my ashram, along with the other dear ones with Him, He said,
"You see, this is the devotion, this is called meditation. Is there
anyone from you who does meditation like this? Is there anyone among
you who forgets his body and everything and remains attached to the
Feet of the Master in meditation like this?"
So you see this is what it means to attend to the
responsibilities of the world while giving preference to the Master,
surrendering completely to the Master. Sunder Das used to attend to
all his worldly responsibilities, all his worldly obligations, but
he had given the first preference to his Master, to the Bhajan
and Simran, that is why he was successful in his meditations.
Dear Ones, nowadays we have tractors and other machinery
to plow the fields, but at that time we had only one camel and
two bullocks with which we used to plow the fields. We both used to
work together; we used to plow the fields and grow the crops. The
people who used to live around us would hide and try to listen to
what kind of conversation we used to have. And when they heard that
we only used to talk about the Master and the love of the Master
they were very impressed and they wondered how we had so much love
and devotion for our Master? We used to do our Simran; and we used
to do our meditation without missing it; and we also used to do a
wonderful job at the farming. Just he and I were there. Some people
would even say, "They do not have any worries, they have no worldly
things to do, that's why they are always talking about the love of
the Master." Sunder Das was an old man, so people used to say, "His
family has died, that is why he doesn't have any worries, and the
other person -" referring to me, they use to say, "He never got
married, so he has no family to take care of, that is why they are
always are doing the devotion of God."
Since I was younger than Sunder Das I would get up every
morning and after taking a shower I would make tea, and then I
would call Sunder Das to get up. I would say, "Sunder Das are you
awake?" He would say, "Yes, I am awake; but I am lazy and don't
want to get up, that is why I am pretending as if I was asleep;
but I am awake." So then he would get up, drink the tea and then
he would say this hymn from Tulsi Sahib's writing, "For doing
the Bhajan and Simran, for doing meditation and the things of the
Lord, I am always very lazy but for eating, drinking, and all
sorts of worldly things, I am always awake." After saying this
and drinking the tea he would start doing his work, and then he
would do his meditation also. So both of us used to work very
hard and we never allowed any third person to come and live with
us because Sunder Das used to say, "If we will let another
person live here, he will create problems and then we will not
be able to do anything." So just between him and me, we used
to finish all the work of the farming, and along with that we
also used to do our Bhajan and Simran. At that time I had the
Initiation into the Two Words and I used to do meditation on
those Two Words. Sunder Das was an initiate of Baba Sawan Singh
and he had the knowledge of all the Five Words and he used to
do meditation of Five Words.
Right from my childhood people used to come to see me,
saying that I was a Saint; and they always wanted to come and
see me. Even though we were not allowing people to come to
see us - but as Master used to say, "Even if the perfume seller
does not want to sell his perfume, but still sometimes one of the
bottles of perfume remains open which attracts the people."
Sometimes people would come and they would want to see the
Saints they had heard so much about, and when they would see
me working in the field in my work clothes and I would be
pushing a plow or something like that they would not think that
I was a Saint or the person whom they had come to see. So they
would say, "We want to see the Saint." And I would say,
"Okay, let us sit here and wait and he will come." And then
they would start talking to me and then they would realize that
I was the person they had come to see. So I never wore good
clothes and I never pretended I was a Mahatma, even though
people used to call me a Mahatma. I always remained very
humble and very simple, and I used to do all the worldly things,
all the farming and all the other things, and still our Simran and
Bhajan was going on with all the other things. We never missed
our meditations. Many times if there was too much work to do
we would stay up in the night and finish that work, but we
never allowed anyone else to come there and we never missed
our meditation. We did our meditations and we also did all the
worldly things.
There is so much to say in this matter, but since time
is running out I won't say anything more, but I would like to
make a request to all the dear ones, that you should follow the
schedule of meditation we have made here. Before coming here
you should prepare yourself. Those dear ones who do not have
the habit of meditating for long hours in their homes, when
they come here and see other people meditating for many hours,
they also want to follow them, that is why they do not take
enough sleep. And since they have not slept enough, then when
they come here to the Satsang some people are having a
difficult time staying awake. So you should follow the schedule
of meditation which is made for you. You should not sit for
meditation right after eating food, because that affects the
digestive system. And if you are feeling sleepy here in the
Satsang, it is natural that you will be sleeping even during
meditation. So, please follow the schedule of meditation, and
sleep according to the schedule, so that you will not have any
difficulty getting up early in the morning.
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