Seeing The Truth Beyond The Saint

FIle under: Real True Gurus

Gleaned from a mentor's website:

Surat is craving for the gift of love for the Holy Feet of Guru. Full of enthusiasm, she comes before Guru and is delighted on having His darshan. She is pleased on hearing His discourses. She breaks off all ties with the worldly people.

So once again does the tragic separation of the "worldly" and the "sacred" commence. Surat does not see that all "craving" is of the same fabric, that her desire for what "Guru" proffers is no different than her earlier wanting for a sari of a different color or finer cloth.

Worldly activities do not interest and please her any longer; she has kicked off all karams and dharmas (the so-called religious deeds and duties). She loves Guru as a child loves his mother. Now she does not feel restful and easy without darshan; she does not feel interest in any other thing.

Surat has left her parents and siblings in tears and confusion, she has abandoned the friends of her youth and the hope of husband and family. All other ties sundered, she is free to pursue and indulge her deep attachment to darshan and her dependence on Guru.

She daily performs Abhyas and Dhyan (contemplation); she has enshrined Guru's form in her heart. Every moment she sees Him within. She feels delighted on seeing His countenance.

Surat feels nothing whatsoever other than delight, the plight of the destitute and diseased touches her not, nor do the pleas of her family, which arrive weekly and are not read, she sees only the image of Guru's continence.

She enjoys Anhad Dhun within. The current of ami (nectar) is dripping from Sunn.

Surat spends whatever waking hours are granted her daydreaming elaborately of fictions described in Guru's discourses, she performs arduous labor in Guru's service in order to keep Him nourished with carefully prepared meals and fresh fruits and to assure the comfort and cleanliness of his abode. For a very brief lucid moment she remembers her father's kindness to her and her sisters in the face of the taunting of her brothers and their friends. She pushes the distraction aside with a thankful prayer to Guru and is rewarded with the enjoyment of several particularly attractive fictions.

The mind and Surat rise to higher planes and hear Shabd stage by stage. She witnesses wonderful spectacles within and sings the praises of Guru with ardour and zeal.

Guru never notices her devotion, he is thinking of his own beloved Guru, and how of the many yearning devotees that clung to Him for decades only he, the cleverest and most patient, has attained equivalent status and the allegiance of many respected and moneyed families. He takes an orange from the hand of a young woman and does not look beyond that hand, the nearby face is that of Surat but Guru remains lost in his thoughts and the sweetness of the proffered fruit.

Beloved Radhasoami Guru has showered His grace and mercy on Surat; she merges in His Holy Feet with love."

In the midst of this final, ecstatic reverie, Surat notices the appearance of Guru's Holy Feet. Though recently pedicured, they are ill-formed as well as pasty-white and soft from a sheltered existence where walking is seldom required. She looks up at Guru's contentence with tear-dimmed eyes and sees an inattentive old man with juice dribbling down his chin and onto his clothing. In that moment she is Enlightened and thanks Guru for the last time.