REDISCOVERING LOST STRANDS The stream of life rolls on ceaselessly in the endless course of time;
the power of the Timeless appears and disappears in the realm of relativity. Before proceeding with the life sketch of Baba Jaimal Singh Ji, it would
be worth our while to have a peep into the background that made him what he
was. It was indeed the power of Swami Ji that flowed through him in whatever he
did and wherever he worked, for he was wholly lost to himself and given over to
the Divine in him. In order to understand things in their proper perspective and link up
the history of our spiritual heritage, we will have to go back to Guru Gobind
Singh, the last of the ten Gurus in the line of succession to Guru Nanak. The Rani (Queen) of one Ratan Rao Peshwa, accompanied by Bhai Nand Lal,
came to the feet of Guru Gobind Singh for refuge. (*2) (*2 Cf. Shri Des Raj, Hindu Sikh Ithras.) Guru Gobind Singh traveled widely, penetrating the Himalayas in the
North and going to Deccan in the South. During his extensive travels, he met
and lived with the ruling family of the Peshwas and initiated some of ist
members into the inner science. It is said that one Ratnagar Rao of the Peshwa
family was initiated and authorized to carry on the work by Guru Gobind Singh. Sham Rao Peshwa, the elder brother of Baji Rao Peshwa, the then ruling
chief, who must have contacted Ratnagar Rao, showed a remarkable aptitude for
the spiritual path and made rapid headway. In course of time, this young scion
of the royal family settled in Hathras, a town thirty-three miles away from
Agra in the Uttar Pradesh, and came to be known as Tulsi Sahib (1763-1843), the
famous author of Ghat Ramayana, the science of the inner life-principle
pervading alike in man and nature. The vita lampada of Spirituality was passed
on by Tulsi Sahib to Swami Shiv Dayal Singh Ji (1818-1878). The link between
Tulsi Sahib of Hathras and Swami Ji of Agra is likely to be overlooked, but
there can be little doubt of it. From the manuscript account of Baba Surain
Singh, the Jivan Charitar Swamiji Maharaj by Chacha Partap Singh, and the book
entitled Correspondence with Certain Americans by Shri S. D. Maheshwari, we
learn that Swami Ji's parents were the disciples of the Hathras Saint and
frequently visited him at his home for darshan and attended his discourses whenever
he visited Agra. It was he who named the sons of Lala Dilwali Singh Seth; that
is, Shiv Dayal Singh, Brindaban and Partap Singh. Before the birth of the
eldest child he prophesied that a great Saint was about to manifest himself in
their home, and after his birth he told the parents that they need no longer
come to Hathras for the Lord Almighty had come in their midst. (*3) (*3 Chacha
Partap Singh, Jivan Charitar Swamiji Maharaj, p. 6; S.D. Maheshwari,
Correspondence with Certain Americans, p. 221.) The Hathras Saint took a keen and lively interest in casting the life of
Swami Ji in his own mold. He initiated the young child at a very early age and
Swami Ji, on the last day of his life, told his disciples that he had been
practicing the inner science from the age of six. (*4) Swami Ji's veneration for the Hathras Saint becomes abundantly clear
from his life. He held Tulsi Sahib's disciples in great respect, honoring among
them especially Sadhu Girdhari Dass, whom he supported during his last years. Once
when the Sadhu fell ill at Lucknow, Swami Ji hurried there from Agra and helped
him to contact the inner Sound Current, with which he had lost touch (owing
presumably to some past karma), before his death. (*5) Again, Swami Ji very often gave to his followers instances from the life
of his great predecessor, to teach them the importance of virtues like
patience, forbearance, forgiveness and Godliness. (*6) Before his passing away
in 1843, Tulsi Sahib bequeathed his spiritual heritage to Swami Ji. For six
months Tulsi Sahib lay in a state of samadhi (spiritual trance) lost in Divine
consciousness. It was only after Swami Ji had paid him a visit that Tulsi Sahib
left his mortal frame. Baba Garib Das, one of the earliest disciples of Tulsi
Sahib, confirmed that the spiritual mantle had been entrusted by his Master to
Munshi Ji (as Swami Ji was then known on account of his great learning in
Persian). (*7) Swami Ji was to spend fifteen years of his life in almost
incessant abhyasa (spiritual practice) in a small closet. (*4 Chacha Partap Singh, op. cit., p. 109.
*5 Ibid., pp. 33-34 *6 Ibid., pp.
93-96. *7 Jivan Charitar Babuji Maharaj, Vol. III, p. 29.) After the passing
away of Tulsi Sahib, Swami Ji continued to visit Hathras to honor the memory of
his preceptor. On one such occasion, we are told, when Swami Ji went to Hathras, the heat was so great that his
disciples Rai Saligram and Baba Jiwan Lal had to carry him between themselves
over the last lap of the journey where no transport was available and the
ground was very uneven. (*8) The great respect that Swami Ji displayed for the Granth Sahib embodying
the teachings of Guru Nanak and his successors seems ultimately to have been
derived from family tradition. The recitation of the Sikh scriptures was an
article of faith in the family. His father, Lala Dilwali Singh (a Sahejdhari
khatri Sikh, belonging to the order of Nanak Panthis), was devotedly attached
to Jap Ji, Raho Ras and Sukhmani (Sikh scriptures), which he read from day to
day with great religious fervor and deep reverence. A copy of Sukhmani in
Persian script, in the hand of Swami Ji's grandfather, Seth Maluk Chand, at one
time Diwan of Dholpur State, is still preserved in the archives of Soamibagh. (*9)
(*8 Ajodhya Parshad, Jivan Charitar Hazur Maharaj, p. 36.*9 Chacha Partap
Singh, op. cit., p. 5.) The essence of Sant Mat thus came to permeate the very being of Swami
Ji. In later years, at least on one occasion, while discoursing on the Jap Ji
at his home in Punni Gali, Swami Ji clearly acknowledged his spiritual debt to
the Punjab, referring to Nanak and his successors as the fountainhead of
Spirituality and to Paltu Sahib and Tulsi Sahib as great subsequent exponents
of the inner science. We will deal with this incident while tracing the life of
Baba Jaimal Singh Ji in the succeeding chapter. His younger brother, Rai
Brindaban Singh, a postmaster in Ajodhia, was a close disciple of Baba Madhodas of Mahant Dera Rano
Pali in Ajodhia. He, like his elder brother Shiv Dayal Singh, had a firm faith
in and a great regard for Gurbani. He was continually engaged in the sweet
remembrance of the Lord (Bishambar) whose praises he chanted with a beautiful
refrain, as is evident from his compositions under the caption Wah-e-Guru Nama
in his Urdu book Bahar-i-Brindaban: (*10) O Brindaban! Leave aside all else and do the Japa of the great name Wah-e-Guru. It shall not only purify your body, mind and soul, But give you salvation, peace and happiness besides. Again, we learn that when the end of Lala Dilwali Singh drew near, his
son Shiv Dayal Singh (Swami Ji), sitting near his bedstead, began reciting the
Gurbani, so as to keep his father's attention steadily fixed therein at that
crucial time. Giani Partap Singh, basing himself on Baba Bhola Singh's Radhasoami Mat
Darpan, tells us in his study of world religions (*11) how Swami Ji in course
of time became a frequent visitor to the holy Sikh shrine of Mai Than at Agra,
commemorating the visit of the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur; where Sant Mauj
Parkash, originally known as Didar Singh of the Nirmala order and a great
Sanskrit scholar, used to give lucid expositions of the Gurbani or Sikh
scriptures. It was because of his close association with Sant Mauj Parkash that
Swami Ji learned Gurbani and its significance in Surat Shabd Yoga, and he began
using this very shrine for his discourses on Gurbani. Chacha Partap Singh in
his life sketch has given in rapturous terms a graphic description of one such discourse: (*10 Lucknow: Nawalkishore Printing Press. *11 Sansar Da
Dharmic Ithas.) "It was about eight in the morning that the Maharaj one day went to
the Gurdwara in Mai Than. After reciting a shabd or two from the Granth Sahib,
he began expounding the subject. In a rich and sonorous voice, the sublime
thoughts seemed to flow from him like endless waves from an inexhaustible
reservoir within. I was so overwhelmed by the sweep of his words that all at
once I felt lifted above the body and bodily environments, lost to all that was
of the world. From that very day I was a changed man altogether, with an
intense longing for the Divine, fully convinced of the greatness of Swami Ji
and of his holy mission." (*l2) (*12 Chacha Partap Singh, op. cit., p.
52.) After some time Swami Ji shifted the venue of his teachings to his
private apartments in Punni Gali and continued his discourses from the Granth
Sahib (the copy he used was brought by Hazur Sawan Singh Ji from Agra and is
still treasured in the archives of Dera Baba Jaimal Singh at Beas in the
Punjab). This system of addressing private gatherings at his home continued for
quite a long time; but on Basant Panchmi Day in the year 1861, the floodgates
of Surat Shabd Yoga as revived in this age by Kabir and his contemporary Guru
Nanak, and firmly entrenched by his successors in the Gurbani, were now thrown
open by Swami Ji to the general public. Lest there still be any doubt lingering in the minds of the skeptics,
Swami Ji who till the last continued initiating people into the secret of the
traditional five-melodied Melody (Panch Shabd Dhunkar Dhun), significantly
enough on the last day of his departure from the earth-plane, cleared his
position beyond the least shadow of doubt by declaring: "My path was the path of Sat Naam and Anami Naam. The Radhasoami
faith is of Saligram's making, but let it also continue. And let the Satsang
flourish and prosper." Among Swami Ji's trusted and devoted disciples was Rai Saligram Sahib
Bahadur, popularly known in later times as Hazur Maharaj, after he came to
occupy the spiritual headship. While Hazur Maharaj, after the passing away of
Swami Ji, continued his discourses at Pipal Mandi in the heart of Agra city,
Partap Singh, the younger brother of Swami Ji, generally called Chacha Sahib
(respected uncle), carried on the work in Radhasoami Garden, three miles away
from Agra city. Another disciple, Baba Jaimal Singh Ji, one of the earliest and most spiritually advanced disciples of Swami Ji, as directed by the great Master himself, settled down at Beas in the Punjab to revitalize the work of Spirituality and to repay in some measure the debt that the world owed to Guru Nanak. We will now examine in some detail the life and work of this distinguished spiritual son of Swami Ji.
|