A tale of two devotees

4 Jun 04

Ik oankar satnaam gurprasad||

You are all dhan dhan, may this foreheads forever be pressed at the gur-sangat's lotus feet.

When we visited Baba Ji he pointed out Bibi Tarlochan Ji in the video of the sangat. He said she was great, she has stood by naam through thick and thin. When she first came to the sangat she was old and weak and oppressed by her own family. Over time she went from being a sparrow to a hawk, transformed by naam. In the end when the whole of Tornoto turned against Baba Ji's sangat including her own family she shocked them all by standing upto every single one of them. Baba Ji said that is the glory of Naam, it truns sparrows to hawks , jackals to lions just as Guru Gobind Singh ji said. When she first came to the sangat she didn't even want naam. She only asked for seva , to be able to serve the sadh sangat with her own hands, for the sangat to come to her house. She used to say "Baba Ji, dont give me naam, just keep giving me seva of you and the sangat." And look what happened - she got naam , she got everything , God was so pleased and gave her all the spiritual gifts. She wanted to be nothing and God made an old weak lady into EVERYTHING.

And now another member of the sangat, who was well respected in Sikh circles but had not gotten anywhere spiritually also came to see Baba Ji. He had many questions and his committment grew as well as of his family. He used to ask Baba Ji for naam to go into his heart, and Baba Ji blessed him, he used to ask for many spiritual gifts that he desired after reading about them for 40 years in Gurbani and Baba Ji clapped his hands and God's grace was bestowed. When he had only one rung left to become totally ONE with Akal Purakh, he lost his faith in Baba Ji and went back to his old path. Baba Ji said see what happened, his bhagati was a fraud. He wanted all the spiritual gifts because he wanted to be something special, but God has put him back down again.

We can all learn from these examples. It was not my intention to criticse anyone, just for us to learn that on the path of bhagati remember LOVING GOD is the only target, dont get distracted by trying to get smadhi's, experience of light and sound (anhad vajay) , darshan of great souls etc. It is easy to get disllusioned on the path when you thnk I have done naam simran and nothing has happened to me, and then when something does happen you get happy. I do that all the time. But that has made the gifts of God into benchmarks, like a karate student who is given coloured belts to show his progress. And then he can tell everyone he is a black belt. You can do bhagati and accumualte spiritual experiences with the attidue of becomeing a spiritual black belt. But you will fail. Because the real karate never had coloured belts, the belt was to hold the uniform intact, and over years of training the belt would get dirtier and dirtier so getting darker and darker. But the student was never concerned with the belt only in doing what his teacher instructed. Infact Baba Ji said, once a student becomes black belt and goes beyond that, they never get into fights - they enter into spirtual realms of chee and meditation.

Now Baba ji said that "people in the sangat have been blessed with darshan of great souls, but I have no desire for that. People want heaven and to avoid hell, but I have no desire to even go to Dargah (Gods court). Because I see God right here right now in the Creation, in everything and everyone. The only thing I say is PARBRAHM SARNAAEE - may I forever be in the shelter of Supreme God."

May we be able to surrender everything to the Guru, "tan man dhan sabh saup guru kao, hukam manio paaia" ..give body, mind and wealth ALL to the Guru, obey the Guru's command and you will merge with the Supreme.

You are dhan dhan , thankyou for lettimg me do seva of you all

sada sukhee raho

parbrahm sarnee

dust of your feet