God in Quest of Man

Thus it was in ancient India, and in several other countries too, that bands of youths set out in quest of the Reality that is God. They renounced their all they were attached to none. Fearless were they and full of courage, they faced the hardships of life in the true heroic spirit. In the days of the Buddha, indeed, princes renounced their thrones and rich noblemen, not two, not three, not five, not ten, but hundreds of them, gave up the comforts of their stately mansions and rejoiced in the rigours of the homeless life.

Today, our lives are moulded by other considerations. Today, Mammon is the God we worship, and in pursuit of money we may waste all our powers. Today, comfort-cults dominate us and the lust for power and possessions is strong. Today, young men dream the dreams of building up careers of honour and power.

Yet, even today, there are souls, scattered here and there, who are restless until they find their rest in God. God, to them, is the one Reality of life; all else is an illusion. In their hearts burns the fire of longing. And, again and again, they cry out: “O, for someone who may take us out of our little selves into the larger life of the Spirit!” Such a one, for want of a loftier name is called a “Guru”. I love to speak of him as the “Beloved”.

The greatest discovery of life, to my mind, is the discovery of the Guru. And you may not discover him until first he has discovered you. He will appear to you in answer to the yearning of your heart. You will look at him, he will look at you, he will look into you and he will read your heart as the pages of an open book. Each will recognise the other and the light of recollection will dawn on both. “He is the one whom I have sought, year after year, birth after birth!” you will say to yourself. And he will say to you, “My child, come follow me!” And without a question, without a doubt, you will follow him wherever he leads you, unto the very ends of the earth, aye even unto hell. For without him heaven itself will appear to you as a desert; and with him the fires of hell will be as the cooling waters of the Ganga!

I often think that the spiritual way is made up of three steps. The first is longing, yearning. The seed of longing is implanted in every heart, it sprouts at its own time. And once it sprouts it makes the heart restless. Often the man feels unhappy, miserable. Nothing can bring comfort to him. The wealth of the world, its honour and power are to him, as ashes and dust. He has seen through the vanity of worldly life. He now longs for God alone, and for someone who may show him the way to God. One mark of this longing is tears. His eyes are filled with tears. He weeps, again and again, and out of the anguish of his lonesome heart cries out, “Where art Thou, Beloved? Hide not Thy Face from me! In separation from Thee, every day is as an age!”

He sets out in quest. This is the second step on the path. He is in search of his Guru. He little knows that the Guru is already in search of him and at the right time will appear to him. “When the disciple is ready,” reads a text in an ancient scripture, “the Guru appears”.

Then the disciple takes the third step. When the Guru has appeared to him and accepted him as his disciple, he has but one thing to do. It is obedience. Implicit, unquestioning obedience is what is asked of every disciple. This obedience is not merely mechanical. If it is mechanical, it will reduce the disciple to an automaton and will make him utterly unfit for the creative action to which he is called. True obedience is an act of the will.

The disciple surrenders his will to the will of his Master, the disciple’s will is blended with that of his Master. So is the disciple released from the bondage of the ego, from the clutches of his carnal self, his lower self of pride and desires and appetites. The disciple is liberated and he enters into the life of freedom, the freedom which belongs to the sons of God. The disciple becomes a child of God. His travail is over; his journey is complete; he has reached the Goal.