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Guru & Disciples

O PAPA, the bestower of bliss! In order to realise your supreme Self, you at first lived the life of a worldly man and then, remaining in it, you remembered God. Only after the experience that your family and the universe were one was stabilized, that you renounced your home and passed through various struggles and tribulations. Similarly, you made me remain in the family and granted me the vision that the universe itself was mine, and to go from one place to another was to go from one room to another in the same house. It was only after I attained this state that you inspired me from within to renounce my home. Also you tested me by bringing into my life innumerable trials and difficulties. Compassionate as you are, without my being fully conscious of it, you made me pass through all the adverse situations and then merged me into your eternal Being.

O gracious Papa! After great struggle I became one with your Being. Still, as I was a woman and people saw me in your company, they entertained suspicion about you, who are so pure and worshipful. The joy which would have welled up in their hearts by your Darshan failed the moment they saw me with you. I had believed that by my staying with you it would prove helpful for people to realise your immortal Being. But my association with you produced an entirely different result, with the consequence that many devotees did not make any progress in their Sadhana to experience their oneness with you. Therefore, I did not accompany you during your tours from 1936 to 1938. But as you were advancing in age, your health suffered and in order to take care of your body I had to accompany you on the later tours. On account of this, the minds of men constricted and I was pained at heart to see that their progress towards the attainment of your eternal Being was hampered.

O all-pervading Papa! If the people who came to you were blessed by you with a keen desire to realise your eternal Being, looking upon you as the mother of the universe and themselves as little children, they would not have seen in you any kind of blemish.

O Purushottam Papa! When you created the world, you brought into being countless animate and inanimate beings. There are innumerable creatures which are not within our knowledge, and you have placed the human race at the head of creation, giving it the power of reason and feeling, so that people may be able to procure what they wanted. In order to carry out your creative activities, you have implanted in the hearts of the majority of them a desire to enjoy ephemeral pleasures instead of aspiring for eternal happiness.

O omnipresent Papa! With the object of giving these people eternal happiness you have, assuming the form of Gurus, established Maths, Ashrams and temples and bound them by the restrictions of caste, sect, etc. Just as the mother protects the child from going astray by setting limitations on it, so also, changeless, formless and motionless Truth as you are, you have assumed the human form of Guru and are protecting everybody by instituting rules and regulations so that they may easily merge themselves in your true, eternal and immortal Being.

O universal Papa! Having manifested yourself in Maths, Ashrams and temples, you have made unshakable the faith of those who approach you with devotion and love, by fulfilling their physical and mental needs. When they come to you with the aspiration for attaining immortal happiness even that you give them.

O Papa, the giver of bliss! In order to enable them to love the entire universe, you have manifested yourself in the forms of Gurus in different communities, to teach them first to love their relatives and then their community. So their love for the family and community would therefrom expand and unconsciously encircle the town and the state. In this way, when it takes a still wider range, you teach them to love the entire universe. In a similar manner, teaching them to love the whole universe, you absorb them into your infinite Being and thereafter grant them the awareness that they are not only the universe but also beyond it.

O beginningless and endless Papa! Why have you established Maths, temples and Ashrams? Who is a Guru and a saint? As you prompted me to think on these lines, I was subjected to many doubts about them from my childhood.

Saraswatiakka, my cousin, was living in the Bhatkal Nadgar Temple. You, in her form, were loving her disciples more than her family members. I was wondering why this should happen. Moreover, Srimat Pandurangashram Swami, who is yourself, when giving Tirtha, was being offered money by the devotees. Why should they offer him money? Why should he receive it and also the yearly tithe? These questions were also rising in my mind.

When I asked the elders about these matters, they replied, “The Swamiji is receiving money from us for our uplift. If we give him money we obtain devotion for God. Besides, we are blessed with health, progeny and prosperity.”

Thus, my doubts having disappeared, my reverence for Srimat Pandurangashram Swami remained firm. Now I have understood that what Saraswatiakka did was right. As it is the nature of the eye to look more and more at things that please it, and the ear to hear more and more the sounds that please it, so also it is the nature of the family man to love his own family members more than others, and it is the nature of the Gurus and gods to love their disciples and devotees more than others, as they are pleased and drawn towards them (the disciples and devotees) by their love and devotion.