his heart heavy with grief, he led his son to the door as darkness was falling. Already death had taken his wife and one son; now he was to lose his beloved Sundar. But he saw no choice: the boy had made his decision. Now he spoke the fearful curse: “We reject you forever and cast you from among us. You shall be no more my son. We shall know you no more. For us, you are as one who was never born. I have spoken.” The door closed behind him.
I will never forget the night I was driven out of my home. I slept outdoors under a tree, and the weather was cold. I had never experienced such a thing. I thought to myself: “Yesterday I lived in comfort. Now I am shivering, and I am hungry and thirsty. Yesterday I had everything I needed and more; today I have no shelter, no warm clothes, no food.” Outwardly the night was difficult, but I possessed a wonderful joy and peace in my heart. I was following in the footsteps of my new master – of Yesu, who had nowhere to lay his head, but was despised and rejected. In the luxuries and comforts of home I had not found peace. But the presence of the Master changed my suffering into peace, and this peace has never left me.
Parable
the scholar
After his death, the soul of a German scholar entered into the world of spirits. From a distance he saw the indescribable glory of heaven and the unending joy of those who dwell there. He was overwhelmed by what he saw, but his intellect and his skepticism stood in his way and blocked his entrance to the realm of bliss. So he began to argue with himself:
There can be no doubt that I see all this, but how can I be sure that it is real and not just a subconscious illusion? Let me apply the critical tests of science, logic, and philosophy; then we will see whether this apparent heaven really exists.
Now, the angels who dwelt in that place knew his thoughts and approached him, and one addressed him:
Your intellect has warped your entire being. If you want to see the world of the spirit, you must look with spiritual eyes. You must apply spiritual insight, not the rational exercise of logic. Your science deals with material reality. In this realm, however, you can only apply the wisdom that arises from love and reverence. It is a pity that you do not take to heart the words of the Master: “Unless you change completely and become like a little child, you shall not enter the heavenly realm.”
Clearly you long to see spiritual truth. If you didn’t – if your life and thoughts were only evil – you would not even see heaven from afar, as you do now. But until you tire of your folly and turn around, you will continue to wander the world, banging your philosophical head against reality. Only then will you gain true insight and be able to turn with joy to the light of God.
In a certain sense, all of space and time is spiritual. God’s presence pervades everything. Thus all people live in the spiritual world. Each of us is a spiritual being clothed in a mortal body. But there is another level of reality where our spirits go and dwell after physical death. This can be understood as a kind of misty twilight between the glorious light of heavenly bliss and the frigidity and darkness of death. Already in this life we set the course that determines where we shall enter into the world beyond death. From there, we either turn joyfully toward the light, or rebelliously toward the darkness.
jnana • knowledge
Cast out of my father’s house, I sought the advice of my former teachers at the missionary school. They provided for my material needs and arranged for me to go to the Christian Boys’ Boarding School in Ludhiana. The people there received me very kindly and protected me in every way. But I was shocked to see the godlessness of some of the students, and of some of the local Christians. I had believed that Christians would be like living angels; in this I was sadly mistaken.
A newly captured tiger prowls restlessly, while a tiger that has been caged for a long time sprawls lazily, awaiting the next feeding. Sundar’s thoughts fled the comfortable confines of the missionaries’ kindness. Everything was available to him: a good education, a position in the colonial establishment. Everything would be given him if he accepted the cozy life of a good Christian boy. Yet on his sixteenth birthday, he disappeared into the jungle. He reappeared thirty-three days later in the saffron robe of a beggar-monk. No more a lion, he had become a tiger – a tiger that seeks the thorny tracks of the jungle. His pilgrimage had begun.
Two sadhus sit cross-legged and converse with one another. One is old, very old, the picture of wisdom with a long, gray beard and faded saffron robe. The other, Sundar, is young and strong – a slight hint of fuzz on his chin. The one is a tranquil hermit at Varanasi, where the brown water of the Ganges slowly flows in its ageless, unchanging course past masses of bathing pilgrims. The other is a wanderer seeking the source, seeking the mountains where the sacred river dances and leaps in rushing, unpredictable torrents.
Old sadhu: The ancient rules laid down for the way of the sadhu are wise. A man follows first the order of the student, gaining the knowledge and skills for a productive life. Next he takes on the order of father, caring for family and property to exercise responsibility. Then, when his duties of the second order are fulfilled, he retires from the affairs of family and household, adopting the ascetic order of the sadhu and renouncing the comfort and pleasures of this world. In this way, he can offer penance for the failings of this life and all the lives that have gone before; he can restore his karma.
Young sadhu: I am not opposed to the ancient customs, but my motive in becoming a sadhu is different from yours. I have not become a sadhu because I think that there is any merit or salvation to be gained by it. I long only to serve God the Master with all my heart and soul and mind and strength and to love my fellow men and women even as I love myself. If we allow this principle to guide our lives, then selfishness will flee from our hearts and we shall be like children of God. We will find in every man and woman our own brother and sister. This is the only salvation; this is the only release from karma, from the cycle of sin and death. So I lay aside all worldly encumbrances and lead the life of a sadhu not to gain release from karma, but in thankfulness to God, who has already released me.
Let one of your disciples come with two mangoes, one ripe and juicy, the other skin and stone with all the juice sucked out. What would you say if he gave you the withered fruit and sat down to enjoy the delicious fruit himself?
Old sadhu: Such behavior would be inexcusable. It would be an insult and the height of disrespect.
Young sadhu: Well, if in the days of our youth we waste ourselves in our own pleasures and then, in the weakness of old age, offer in service to God only the bones and skin of our former strength, have we not also acted selfishly and treated God with disrespect?
Where the wild, rushing Ganges leaves the Himalayas near Rishikesh, there is the thick, wild jungle of Kajliban, a place of complete seclusion that few pilgrims penetrate. Two bamboo cutters discovered there the collapsed form of a sadhu in a clearing, too weak to speak or move. They took him to a village where he was nursed back to health with milk and broth and sago.
After several years of service, I felt led to go into the forest, where I would be free from interruption. I could fast for forty days even as the Master had done, and I could seek blessing on my past work and strength for my future work. Soon I was so dehydrated and enervated that I could not even move into the shade. But my spiritual awareness grew correspondingly sharper. Through this I discovered that the soul does not fade and die with the body, but goes on living, and I sensed the presence of God and the fullness of the Spirit, a reality that cannot be expressed in words. I also had a vision of the Master, though this time with spiritual – not physical – eyes.
Throughout the fast, I felt a remarkable enrichment of the peace and bliss that I had known in varying degrees since my first vision of the Master. Indeed, so great was this sense of peace that I was not at all tempted to break the fast. The experience has had a lasting effect on me. Before it, I was
