CHAPTER TWELVE

 

GURU IS SUPERMAN OR GODMAN

 

AS A MAN, Guru is an ideal man: in him shines the

very Sun of Spirituality. He is the fountainhead

of Life. He is an epitome of the entire creation, visible

and invisible, right from Sat Lok down to the physical

plane. No one can know him fully, even as it is impossible

to swim across an ocean. For a dip in the water one

does not go into mid-ocean, but is content with the water

at the beach or the bathing ghat. Through the perfect

man one can enjoy the Love, Light and Life of God.

 

If we ask of his greatness, of his native place, how he

has come down, and what his mission is in life, all that

can be said is that he has come directly from the Kingdom

of God or Sat Lok, and having crossed the various

intermediary planes (Tap Lok, Jan Lok, Swar Lok,

Bhanwar Lok, etc.) has reached the physical world or

Bhu Lok just to manifest the Godhead that is his to the

world-weary.

 

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy

laden, and I will give you rest.

 

MATTHEW 11:28

 

The Son of man is come to seek and to save

that which was lost.

 

LUKE 19:10

 

Murshid-i-Kamil (Perfect Master) is a veritable abode

of God's attributes in fullness and in abundance. The

kindly Light of heaven shines in him and he diffuses it

among mankind. The Love of God is surging in Him

like heaving sea-waters.

 

The moving waters at their priest-like task of

pure ablution, round earth's human shores.

 

KEATS

 

And, above all, he is the Life of Life, and his greatest

mission is to impart the Life Impulse to the stark cold

jivas all immersed in worldly pursuits, dead to higher

instincts. God may well be perceived in Godman. It is said

that God made man after His own image and asked the

angels to bow before him. Maulana Rumi says:

 

He has placed the veritable sun in man.

 

When a person rises in cosmic awareness, he finds that

the Master is the hub of the entire universe. He is Truth

personified, possessing the very essence of God and fit to

be worshiped by all.

 

He is the leader and guide of mankind; the greatest,

the highest and the perfect one among them. He is the

genuine abode of all that is good and noble. He is the

prototype of God, working as His viceroy and administering

His laws on all planes (physical and spiritual). He is

gifted with forensic acuteness, discriminative acumen

and sound judgment. He may be unlettered, but still

he is the most learned. Even as a man, he is the holiest

of the holy, most pious and most loving; with love that

far transcends societies, countries, and nations. His self

is co-eval with mankind. He is the citizen of the world,

and his appeal is one of universal interest. He is, in short,

the deputy of God, come into the world to share His

Love, Light, and Life with erring humanity.

 

In this world, he lives just like any other individual.

Although in the world, he is not of the world. He loves

all people much more than parents love their children.

He knows but looks beyond our shortcomings and smilingly

helps us to overcome them. Full of compassion,

Christ-like, with sore and bruised feet, the Son of Man

ceaselessly goes about with insatiable hunger in his soul,

passionately seeking to recover and retrieve that which

is lost: lost man, his brother, lost soul.

 

He may look like a man, but in reality he is more

than a man, more than a Superman, indeed. He is perfect

in every respect: physically, mentally, morally, spiritually,

and as a manifestation of God. With all his greatness, he

works as the lowliest of the low and humblest of the humble.

He combines in himself power and poverty, intellect and

love, greatness and humility.

 

Master of Truth as he is, he far excels even a Superman.

His sway extends to purely spiritual regions, which

lie beyond human limitations of time, space, and causation.

He can at will leave the physical body, tread the sun and

moon, traverse subtle and causal planes, and transcend

Par Brahm and beyond.

 

Science with its material accomplishments is groping

in the dark. All scientific research is still in the material

world where the scientists are relentlessly working with

all the mental and moral force at their command. They

have no idea of the various planes to which the Master

of Truth has access at his free will and sweet pleasure.

 

Those who accept the Master's teachings and work

under his direction can see for themselves. All the Saints

are at one in their conclusion:

 

The Kingdom of God lies within.

 

Christ tells us:

 

The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation;

neither shall they say, Lo here! or,

lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is

within you.

 

LUKE 17:20-21

 

Again, in Gurbani, we have:

 

Everything is within you and nothing is outside

you. Quest without is fruitless, when the

crest jewel, O brethren, is lodged within you.

He who searches without is yet in the

wilderness.

 

The human body is the Temple of God. It is the real

church, the synagogue, and the mosque made by God,

and what a pity we try to seek Him in man-made houses.

One who knows how to cut deep in the cavern of the

mind and experiment in the laboratory of the soul can

successfully see the wonder of sublime sights and hear

the celestial strains of the harmony divine.

 

In the body lies everything: Khand, Mandal

and Patal (inner planes, high and low,

including the nether world). In it is lodged the

crest jewel of spirituality, and a devotee can

have this in abundance. The entire macrocosm

is in the microcosm. In this body one

can find Naam (Word) if one were to follow

the instructions of the Master.

 

Sannai, the great philosopher, tells us:

 

In the kingdom of the human body there are

innumerable firmaments and powers that

work in order. The spirit has to traverse

many a high and low region, mountain and

river valley. There are many plains, oceans,

wildernesses and bewildering heights of

which one can hardly conceive. In this

mighty maze the physical world is just like a

tiny speck on a big ocean.

 

The human body, being the Temple of God, is just a

model of the grand creation and whoever delves into it

is able to know the secret of the creation.

 

Brahmand and Pind have been fashioned alike.

The investigations of the one automatically

reveal the mystery of the other, like an open

book.

 

Great indeed is man, gifted as he is with untold

possibilities. The very macrocosm is lodged in the microcosm

of the body. We, however, look to outer raiment and are

concerned with it constantly, little knowing what is behind

the folds of this garment. We nourish and pamper

the body but allow the roots to run dry. The roots of the

entire creation originate in the subtle region, which we

can reach by a process of inversion.

 

Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not

receive the Kingdom of God as a little child,

he shall not enter therein.

 

MARK 10:15

 

But, unfortunately, we never have a peep within, because

we are averse to becoming as a little child. Emerson, a

great philosopher, also exhorts us to tap inside. Bergson

advises us to take a mortal leap within to land at the

source of all knowledge.

 

The lessons of the process of inversion, tapping inside,

the mortal leap within, or becoming as a little child, as

Jesus puts it, are given in detail by the Master of Truth,

both by word of mouth and by instructions on the various

planes as the spirit travels onward under his personal

guidance and care.

 

Saints are scientists of the spiritual world and Masters

of Para Vidya-Knowledge of the Beyond; i.e., knowledge of

that which lies beyond reason and intellect and

can be learned or known through the sense of perception.

 

It is a subject of extra-sensory perception (ESP) as it

is called by the modern psychic science researchers and

parapsychologists, who, as Dr. J. D. Rhine tells us in his

book Mind and the New World, have discovered through

their investigations that there is something operative in

the human being which transcends the laws of matter.

 

The Master of Truth is fully conversant with that something,

and is competent to grant the full extra-sensory perception,

as an eye-surgeon can restore sight to the physical eyes.

The Master, like Buddha, tells us that physical life is

all misery, but that beyond it there are countless

subtle planes where one experiences nothing but bliss and

light. Every day, he goes to these Planes and tells us of

his experiences. Those who follow his instructions and

experiment in the laboratory of the mind under his guidance,

see subtle worlds just as we see the physical, and

the results are as sure, certain and definite as two and

two make four.