Guruji: Our Father, Saviour and Shiva

It is God alone who is intimate with His saints and His saints alone who are intimate with Him. Though lakhs know of Guruji or are in a relationship of devotion with Him, we still know too little, in fact not much at all, about Guruji, the person. One cannot help but think that this is in accordance with His wishes. Spiritual biographies are not open to the merely curious, for spirituality is not the subject matter of curiosity. It is a highly engaged pursuit.

Guruji's biographical details are scant and what devotees know of him is a mere outline. That outline we have cannot be given full credence because as time passes memories become untrustworthy and incidents become stories and stories become long. With these caveats, what we know follows.

Guruji was the light divine born on 7^th July 1954 in Dugri village of Malerkotla tehsil in the Punjab, a region sanctified by the Sikh gurus of yore. If Jesus's birth was attended to by the Magi, Guruji's was by serpents–a key happenstance which gives the clue to His real identity. He was and is Lord Shiva, who is depicted–and indeed has been seen by some devotees–with snakes garlanded around His blue-throated neck and his wrists.

Dugri was a farming village, and Guruji's early life likely followed its patterns. His father recalls that his young son would often help him till the fields. When he did so, the yield would turn out to be many times more than other fields'. Guruji would often be found at the nearby dera (settlement) of Sant Sewa Dasji, often to the exasperation of his family, who wanted him to study. Sometimes he would be locked inside a room to forestall such spiritual adventurism. Yet he would again be seen sitting with the sages at the dera. The sages, who saw beyond the immediate, would warn people to leave Guruji alone, telling them that he was the "lord of all the three lokas".

The import of these words–that Guruji was the Sovereign Lord–was not heeded even when, decades later, the number of his disciples had grown manifold. But divinity cannot remain hidden, because its nature is to give succour. A childhood instance that has come down is of a schoolmate's fountain pen getting damaged before an examination. Guruji gave the boy his own pen with which the classmate completed his papers, while Guruji wrote the exams successfully with the broken pen. That may not have been very surprising for His classmates who cite that Guruji knew of all the questions that were to be set beforehand! His teachers, on the other hand, were perplexed by the student who'd suddenly disappear from the classroom seat only to return momentarily.

Guruji studied on to fulfil the wishes of his father, who like any normal parent wanted his son to get a good education. Guruji got two Master's degrees, in English and Economics.

After some time Guruji left home to fulfil his spiritual journey in this world. He would often appear in the house of one of his acquaintances, stay for a few days and then move off for days at a stretch. His parents realised that their son was no ordinary person. His mother called Him 'Guruji' just as His devotees did and would often be seen touching His feet during satsangs. If a devotee would ever be so bold as to ask for His name, Guruji would give a short but meaning-filled reply. Mahapurushs have no name, he would say, implying that the personality of such a one as Him had already merged with the Divine. There was no name because there was no identifier left. The personal and human had become the impersonal immanent in a body.

The purpose of that body then became to deliver humanity from its ills and sufferings. People thronged to Guruji for deliverance, from problems, mostly material, of home and hearth and jobs and businesses, to diseases that had latched on to them owing to karma. Soon the news of his powers spread all across Punjab and people sought him out. Never for the real thing, Guruji pointed out. He wanted people to come to him, as the embodiment of the divine, for the sake of love and for love alone. That love given humbly, He could do a million impossible things. Guruji was a giver; He never expected or took anything from anyone.

Guruji sat at various places including Jalandhar, Chandigarh, Panchkula and New Delhi–and a river of satsangs, like the Holy Ganga, began flowing amid these arid lands. It was here that people came from all over India and other parts of the world to seek his blessings. The tea and langar prasad (blessed food) served at Guruji's satsangs were endowed with his special divine blessings. His doors were open to the high and low, poor and rich, to the neighbour as well as the foreigner. One with the divine himself, he observed no distinctions and asked his devotees to bear none in mind. He wanted them to desist from mere outward ritual and superstitions born of fear. He asked them to love God and told them that all religions were one and came from the same source. That there was one God, and one universal brotherhood of humanity. Therefore, it stood to reason, there could be no distinctions of caste and creed. He had no truck with astrology and ill-informed short cuts touted as remedies. Instead, he helped his devotees ride out their karma, always taking the worst of it upon himself, sacrificing His own body in the process. To him and for His disciples, the sangat, the votaries of His congregation, were supreme.

In return, he merely wanted his devotees to become good human beings; to criticize no one; to help everybody and to harm none. He exhorted them to turn to the divine and to sow good deeds and behaviours even as he navigated their life, their souls, over the tempestuous waters of their past karma. What mattered most was complete surrender and the unconditional faith reposed in him. "Kalyan karta," Guruji would say and "Blessings always" is what the devotee would get. He once explained that His blessings were not for this life alone, but extended to self-realization.

Guruji never delivered any sermons; His was a process, as he often announced, of practical spirituality. His teachings came via the shabads that enraptured the hearts of those who sat around Him. So His message was received by the devotee in ways that were public as well as intimate, owing to the sacred connection between the Guru and disciple. This connection was the very root of the relationship. It lifted the devotee's life to a level where joy, fulfilment and peace came easy. The shabads became a beacon that always showed the disciple his true aim and they also became a map that told him where he was.

Guruji left His form, beloved of devotees, smelling always of roses, on 31^st May 2007. It was in a way a lesson. He had told His devotees time after time of how evanescent life was. With the manner of His passing, he impressed the lesson on our psyche. In the sanctum of His mandir devotees have lovingly built His samadhi. 'Bade Mandir', the sacred temple, set amid an enchanted garden stands as a mark of His spiritual largesse. So beautiful that many can only exclaim that it is heaven on earth. And so powerful that they need only pass by it for a blessing.