CHAPTER FIVE

 

PRESENT MASTER

 

MASTER OF THE TIME is a living Master who is imparting

spiritual instructions to his following. But all

Masters of bygone times are past Masters or Masters out

of date. Each of these Masters had his own role to

perform. The accounts of the ancient and outdated

Masters and their teachings do a kind of spade work by

cutting the untrodden soil and by creating a

interest in us in esoteric matters of the spirit. Each

of them lays emphasis on the need of the living Master

and records his own spiritual experiences. It is from

their exhortations that we are moved to begin the

search. The innate urge in us is quickened and we are

impelled to go in quest of one who can lead us Godward.

 

The work of imparting actual spiritual instruction

and guidance is, however, done by a living Master.

Highly charged as he is with higher consciousness, he

injects the jivas with his life impulse. Spirituality

can neither be bought nor taught, but it may be caught

like an infection from one highly infected himself. As

Light comes from Light, so Life comes from Life, and

a spirit that is bodily ridden can only be moved by

Spirit that is untrammelled by body and mind. This

is the only way and there is no other way for spiritual

training.

 

Without a living Master there can be no escape from

bondage for the spirit.

 

Maulana Rumi, therefore, emphatically declares:

 

Trust not thy learning, cunning, and craft;

Do not break away from the sheet anchor of

the Living Prophet.

 

Prophet Mohammed, too, says:

 

He who has not sincerely approached the Immam

of the Time (living Master), the

Vice-Regent of Allah, the Perfect Guide,

cannot get anything.

 

Again, the Great Maulana said:

 

Hie to thy God through the Godman:

Float not uselessly on the treacherous waters

of egoism.

 

In the absence of a living Master, one cannot develop

the devotional attitude so very necessary on the spiritual

path. There cannot be any devoted attachment for a

person or thing which we have never seen and of which

we have no idea. The very term "attachment" signifies

that there is an object of attachment.

 

Some persons feel that this need for an approach

to a living Master so emphatically stressed in Gurbani

related to the time of the ten Gurus alone, but that is

not the case. The teachings of the Masters were

addressed to man in general and were for all times. Their

appeal was universal and not restricted to any particular

sect or any specific period:

 

The teachings of the Masters are common

for all.

 

Again:

 

Bani (Word or Sound Principle) is the Guru,

and Guru is the Bani personified, and the

Elixir of Life gushes out of the Bani.*

 

Whoever accepts what the Gurbani says, he

can be freed through the grace of the

living Master.

 

Bhai Gurdas in this context says:

 

The Vedas and scriptures are the wares of

the Masters and help in crossing the

ocean of life; but without the Master of

Truth coming down and living among us,

we cannot apprehend the Reality.

 

The esoteric mysteries cannot be fully explained in

writing, as the inner process has its own difficulties

and handicaps. In various ways the Master in his Subtle

Form helps the spirit in the journey from plane to

Plane. This work of guidance both within and without

cannot be performed by past Masters.

 

* There is a vast difference between Gurbani and Bani. The former

refers to the sayings of the Gurus as recorded in the holy scriptures

(especially the Granth Sahib), whereas the latter refers to the

eternal Sound Current, sometimes called Gur-ki-Bani, reverberating

in all creation. It emanates from God Himself and He alone can

manifest it. Moreover, this Bani (Naam or Word) is sounding

throughout the four Yugas (ages) and gives its message of Truth.

 

The nameless and formless Shabd becomes a form

and assumes a name and dwells among us. In the Holy

Gospel we have:

 

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

 

Unless God comes down in the garb of man, we cannot

know the Unknowable. The teachings of scriptures

remain scaled to us under the heavy weight of ancient

and archaic verbiage, unless a Master Soul who has

actual experience of the Science of the Spirit explains to

us the truth of these scriptures.

 

Even the apparently simple teachings of the late Masters

fail to yield the right import unless some living

adept in the line tells us their true significance, and

makes us experience the same experiences mentioned in

the scriptures.

 

By transmitting his own life impulse, he enlivens

the spirit lying helplessly shrivelled in the body under

the dead weight of mind and matter. Like a clever guide,

he, in an inimitable way of his own, quietly gives her a

new lead.

 

Next, he lays bare to the spirit's view new heavens

full of wondrous sights, charters her a plane (Shabd)

and pilots her Godward himself. From day to day the

spirit is wheeled around sharp corners, touches new

spots, experiences unknown thrills, and enjoys

exhilarating experiences too subtle to be described.

 

All this and much more is the work that a living

Master has to do.

 

In the history of Sikhism, we find that the Holy

Granth was compiled for the first time by the fifth Guru,

Guru Arjan. In spite of the well-known and oft-quoted

dictum that Bani is the Guru, implying thereby that there

was no need of Gurus thereafter, the Gurus carried on

the work of initiating people; and even today the Khalsa

(Pure One) with perfect, resplendent Light within is

authorized to carry on the work of spiritual instruction

and guidance to seekers after Truth.

 

Guru Gobind Singh says: We are the worshipers of

the Great Conscious Light and defines the word Khalsa

as: The pure Khalsa is one in whom the Light of God

is fully manifested. He further goes on to say:

 

Khalsa is my true form; I reside in Khalsa,

He is the life of my life, and my very prana

Khalsa is my valiant friend, Khalsa is my

Satguru Pura (fully competent Master)

I have told no untruth.

I tell this in the presence of Par Brahm and

Guru Nanak.