From jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca Sat Mar 27 16:34:24 1999
Newsgroups: alt.meditation.shabda
Subject: (2/7) Jaimal Singh - A Great Saint
From: jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca (James Shannon)
Date: 28 Mar 1999 00:34:24 GMT

                             


                              A Great Saint
                         
                 BABA JAIMAL SINGH: HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS   
                                          
                                    by

                            Sant Kirpal Singh Ji
                              
                               [Part 2 of 7]
                                            
                  

PART TWO:  BABA JI - A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

EARLY YEARS

   It was in 1838 that Baba Jaimal Singh was born in the
village of Ghuman in the Gurdaspur District of the Punjab,
to a family of pious Sikh cultivators. Ghuman was as
any other village in the region. If it was distinguished in
any way, it was by its having a shrine known as Dera Baba
Namdev, in memory of the great sage Namdev who, many
centuries earlier, had spent his last days there. Legend
holds that when the Saint arrived and wished to pray
inside the local temple, he was refused admission because
he was an outcaste. Undeterred he went and sat down
behind the back wall and was soon lost in samadhi. The
Lord, unhappy at the insult offered to His disciple, turned
the face of the temple toward the place where Namdev sat,
and all the priests and brahmins fell at his feet asking
for forgiveness. It is from that day that the local village
is said to have taken the name of Ghuman, a Punjabi word
signifying "to turn around." The village folk visited the
shrine to offer devotion, and many a wandering sadhu
often came there to pay his homage to the great sage.

Bhai Jodh Singh and Bibi Daya Kaur, the parents of Jaimal,
were frequent visitors, and the latter, while there,
would often pray for a saintly son. Great souls seldom
come unannounced and one night Bibi Daya Kaur was visited
by the great Namdev in a dream who told her that her
prayers were granted; and ten months later Jaimal
was born amidst domestic festivity and rejoicing.
 
   The history of a Saint is the history of a soul's
pilgrimage. It is a story which to be spiritually complete
covers innumerable years and countless lives. The final
enlightenment may seem sudden, but its preparatory stages
are long and arduous. Like Buddha and Jesus, Jaimal showed
remarkable spiritual precocity from a very early age. When
visiting the shrine of Baba Namdev with his parents, unlike
other children of his age, he would sit calm and attentive;
and even as a child of three he could repeat many of the
verses he heard at spiritual discourses. The villagers
wondered at his prodigiousness. He was soon nicknamed
Bal-Sadhu or "child-saint," and his rural admirers pressed
his parents to give him an opportunity for education.
 
   So when Jaimal was five, he was put in the charge of
Bhai Khem Das, a learned vedantist who lived close by.
In those times education in India did not concern itself
with training for a vocation. It was pre-eminently a
mental and spiritual discipline based on the study of the
scriptures. The young child displayed keen aptitude for it
and soon mastered the Gurmukhi script. Within a year he had
already read carefully the Punj Granthi or five basic Sikh
scriptures, including the Jap Ji, the Sukhmani Sahib, and
Raho Ras. In another six months he had the key passages
of these spiritual treasures by heart, and by the age of
seven he had grown into an excellent pathi or one who
could recite the scriptures in a melodious way with
professional mastery. The next year was spent in studying
the Dasam Granth - the scriptures compiled by the last
of the Sikh Gurus.
 
   Jaimal showed great respect for his teacher who was
delighted with the boy's application and rapid progress.
The two would spend long hours together, and the lad
would hear Bhai Khem Das with great attention. His
hunger for knowledge was insatiable and the reading of
scriptures only fired his imagination still further. One
day, picking up the Jap Ji, he began reciting the twentieth
stanza, and after finishing the recitation, turned to his
teacher and asked: "Sir, what is the meaning of Naam,
of which Nanak has said, `When one's mind is defiled by
sin, it can be cleansed only by communion with Naam,' and
of which all the other great ones have sung such praises
in the rest of the Granth Sahib?" Khem Das was touched
by his pupil's questioning spirit and discrimination, but
was unable to enlighten him on the subject as he himself
was not conversant with the mystery of Naam.
 
   A day later, Bhai Jodh Singh, seeing that his son, now
eight, was old enough to help him, went to his guru with
an offering of a silver rupee and jaggery in traditional
style. After laying it at his feet, he expressed his desire
to have Jaimal released from his studies in order to tend
his flock of goats. Khem Das raised no objection. "He is
your son and you may dispose of him as you consider best."
But his young ward could not wish him farewell so easily.
"Sir," he assured him, "I shall work for my father all day,
but in the evening I shall come to you and continue the
studies."

   Jaimal proved true to his word and kept unbroken his
association with his learned teacher. Proud of his
perseverance and piety, Khem Das initiated him soon after
into the Japa of Sohang, which he himself practiced. The
boy would get up long before daybreak, have his bath, read
the scriptures and sit for meditation. He would then lead
his goats into the fields. His young friends soon observed
that while the goats grazed over the meadows, he did not
hang around, idly looking on, but kept reading and reciting
holy texts and often sat down cross-legged for meditition.

At sundown he would return with his herd, have some milk
and food, and then proceed to his guru. There he would sit
attentively, learning how to read and interpret the
scriptures. After he had mastered the Granth Sahib, he began,
at the age of nine, the study of Hindi and the Hindu texts.
Studies over, he would visit the shrine of Namdev and return
home late at night. Often, while away in the evening, he
would sit down and be lost in meditation, so much so that
once he was away for the whole night while his parents
searched frantically every part of the village in vain.

This intense application did not go unrewarded, and the
boy once told his teacher that he could see stars and
moon within and glimpse inner Light - the first spiritual
experience of the mystic soul.
 
   Bhai Jodh Singh was far from satisfied with his eldest
son's unworldly ways. However religious-minded a man may
be, he is seldom happy to see his son turned a renunciate.
Jaimal was growing up, but instead of showing any interest
in family affairs, he was moving in the opposite direction.
He not only spent a great deal of his time reading
scriptures, practicing spiritual sadhnas and visiting his
teacher, Bhai Khem Das, but also began passing long hours
in the company of the sadhus and holy men who came to the
village to pay homage to the shrine of Namdev.

Wishing to curb his son's inordinate religious inclination,
his father thought it best to send him away from Ghuman
and its visiting sadhus. So at the age of eleven years
and eight months Jaimal was sent off with his fiock to
the home of one of his two sisters, Bibi Tabo, who lived
in the village of Sathyala.
 
  At his sister's, Jaimal continued his old schedule of
religious practices and goat-grazing. Many a month passed
away in this uneventful manner. Then one day while
following his herd he met a yogi who had just arrived at the
village. Happy to find the company of the holy, he bowed
in reverence, milked his goats and offered the yogi a drink
of milk. The man in saffron was touched by the lad's piety
and began to question him. Jaimal told him of the scriptures
he had read and the intense desire for enlightenment they
had sparked in him. The sadhu was very pleased by the
account and offered to train him. He told him frankly
that as regards the mystique of Naam he knew little, but
whatever he himself practiced he would freely impart. So
next morning as instructed, Jaimal proceeded, without
having eaten anything, to his newly-discovered guide for
initiation. The yogi was an adept in pranayama and
instructed his young disciple into its secrets.
   
    Having found a spiritual guide, Jaimal was once
again lost to the world. His old holy indifference to family
ties and worldly affairs returned, if anything with
redoubled intensity. He would often sit for three hours at
a stretch in meditation. The yogi, pleased by his devotion,
stayed on in the village and Jaimal was more often than
not to be found in his company.  These developments
caused his sister much concern, and anxiety finally drove
her to send word to her father to take the boy away. Bhai
Jodh Singh soon arrived on the scene and ordered his son
back home. The two set out homeward early next morning,
but while they were on the point of leaving the village,
Jaimal, his eyes moist with tears, begged his father to
permit him to see the yogi for the last time and bid him
farewell. His father agreed and the boy, with an offering
of fresh milk, hurried to his preceptor. He sadly related
how his father had arrived and of their intended departure
that day. The yogi smiled, blessed him and bade him be of
good cheer. "Continue your sadhnas at home as before,"
he said, "and all will be well. I myself shall see you
there some day."
 
   At Ghuman Jaimal revived his association with Bhai
Khem Das and continued to greet visiting sadhus as of
yore. He was now in his fourteenth year and continued
with unmitigated zeal the practice of the sadhnas he had
learned. But he soon began to hunger for more. The yogic
practices he had mastered failed to satisfy him, and on
reading the Granth Sahib he became convinced of a higher
reality, to be attained by different means. As he
progressed on the path, he became progressively more
detached from the world. He noted all the esoteric hints
and references to the five-worded Word, the Panch Shabd,
to be found in the Sikh scriptures, and kept pondering over
them, asking every new yogi or sadhu he met if he could
explain them to him; but all in vain.
 
   At this stage of his search, he and his family suffered a
sad bereavement. He was not yet fourteen when his father
fell ill and died. The family was grief-stricken but Jaimal's
spiritual discipline worked as a protective shield. Quoting
from the scriptures, he comforted his mother and his two
younger brothers and discouraged any weeping or wailing.
If the soul was deathless and if all was according to the
Lord's Will, then why any mourning?



THE GREAT SEARCH
 
  Had Jaimal's interest in Spirituality been only a seed
cast on rock or sand or a sapling yet tender in its fiber,
had it been no more than the mere curiosity or the
spontaneous piety of a simple village lad, the passing away
of his father would have rung the death-knell of his quest.
As the eldest male member of the family, the burden of
domestic responsibilities fell on his shoulders; and perhaps
more souls are lost to heaven by the sense of duty to earth
than by downright sin and evil. But Jaimal's urge was a
plant of tougher roots and stronger fiber. Undaunted and
unmoved, he divided the outdoor duties among his brothers,
kept up his old exacting routine, and in six months' time
mastered the Yoga Vashishta and Vichar Sangreh (two
standard works of Hinda theology).
 
   There arrived in the village about this time a sadhu of
the Udasi sect. As was his wont, Jaimal went to see him
and inquired of him the meaning of the passages he had
noted down from the Granth Sahib. The sadhu explained
that he could initiate him into at least the mystery of
the Ghor Anhad or deep reverberating sound referred to in
the Sikh scriptures, if not into that of the Panch Shabd.
Jaimal, keen to learn whatever he could, offered himself as
a disciple. But the Diwali festival was at hand and his
new teacher wanted to celebrate it at Amritsar. Reluctant
to miss this opportunity, Jaimal went to his mother and
begged her to allow him to join the sadhu and go forth
on his quest for truth. But Bibi Daya had to see to the
welfare of the family and would not hear of her eldest son
going away. She reminded him of his duties. "Your father
is no more," she said, "and you must carry on in his place.
If you are gone, what will become of us?"
 
  "I am not insensitive to what you say, my dear mother,"
replied her son, "but the Lord is above us, and he who
sustains his creatures even on the rocks and in the sea
will not forsake us in our need. Man's primary duty is to
seek his Creator and all other duties are secondary. Be
not afraid but be of good cheer; and let me proceed with
your blessings."
 
   Deeply religious herself, Bibi Daya was touched by
what Jaimal said with such conviction. Seeing his
determination and being too fond of him to break his heart,
she at last relented. "I know I cannot stop you. Nor do I
wish to do so. But if you must go, promise to return home
when your quest is over."
 
   Giving his word of honor, Jaimal departed and his
mother and brothers bade him a tearful farewell. He had
hardly entered his fifteenth year and he was already
embarked on a quest that was to carry him through many
cities and was to involve him in great toil and travail.
It was a time when the railroad was still unkown in India,
let alone modern motorways and airways. The rich could,
of course, ride on horses, but the humbler folk had to
depend on the sturdiness of their own feet. Travel was
difficult and arduous. The British had only recently
conquered the Punjab and stability was still to be
established.

   The Great Mutiny was only half a decade away, but the
people were growing restive and the country was beginning
to seethe with discontent.
 
   It was in such conditions that Jaimal set forth for
Amritsar. Three days after reaching there he was initiated
by the Udasi sadhu in a local garden into the science of
the Ghor Anhad. Like his contemporary Sri Ramakrishna
(1836-1886), Jaimal Singh was destined to sit at the feet
of many intermediary masters before meeting his True
One. Like him he was destined to learn many a sadhna
and make rapid headway in each. And like him he was
destined not to be bound, like other yogis, to any of them,
but to press ever forward toward a higher and still higher
goal. His early mastery of the Granth Sahib stood him in
good stead. It worked as an infallible touchstone with
which to test every new attainment and to know that his
real goal lay still further ahead.

   Having practiced japa and pranayama, and having
delved into the ecstacy of the Ghor Anhad, the quest for
the secret of the five-worded Word became Jaimal's over-
mastering passion. While at Amritsar, he did not fail to
contact other yogis and sadhus, questioning them for the
clues of that which he sought. Someone suggested that he
might discover the object of his search at the feet of Baba
Gulab Das, then residing at the village of Chatyala. The
boy needed no further prompting and not long after was
seeking permission of Gulab Das's disciples to see their
master. The request was granted and he appeared before
the revered sadhu. A lively discussion ensued which,
because of the newcomer's tender age, irritated some of
the older disciples standing around. But Gulab Das assured
them that Jaimal, if young in years, was mature in mind
and was a true seeker of God. He tried to satisfy the boy
as best as he could, explaining that Naam was no more
than the sound vibrating in the pranas, initiating him still
further into the secrets of the pranva or the pranic yoga.

Jaimal, though ready to learn whatever he could, was not
convinced by the sadhu's interpretation which, as he
pointed out to him, failed to explain (a) the number "five"
used time and again in the Granth Sahib in connection with
the inner Shabd; and (b) the fact that the Sikh Gurus
repeatedly asserted that the path of Naam was distinct
from other yogic forms which could not give the highest
liberation.
 
   From Chatyala, Jaimal's quest led him to Lahore. There
were Hindu sadhus and Muslim fakirs of all descriptions
there. The young Sikh lad sought their company at all
hours and incessantly mingled with them. But try as he
might, he could discover no clue. Finding himself in a
great city, having trudged many a mile, with no money in
his pocket, hardly ever certain of his next meal, he was
not a little discomfited with his predicament. He lived in
the hope of solving the secret which none could unravel
for him. Weary of foot and heavy of heart, he set out for
Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak and a place
of holy pilgrimage for the Sikhs.
 
   But at Nankana Sahib, Jaimal failed once again to find
what he wanted. The ways of Providence are mysterious.
A seeker's way may be cluttered with countless obstacles
which may almost seem to break his heart, yet at the very
moment when the spirit is on the brink of collapse, it
whispers a word of encouragement and flashes a ray of hope,
saving him from the giant despair and putting him on the
road to New Jerusalem. And so the boy, now fifteen, met
at Nankana Sahib, Bhai Jodha Singh of the Namdhari
sect who directed him to Baba Balak Singh of Hazro, a
village beyond Attock in what later came to be known as
the Northwestern Frontier Province. With undeterred
resolution, Jaimal set out on the long journey. He first
halted at Aminabad whence he proceeded to Shah Daulah.

From Shah Daulah his journey took him across the Jhelum
river to Tila Balnath, and thence to Rawalpindi. He spent a
few days in each of these towns and never failed to get in
touch with the fakirs and sadhus to be found there. Being
not very far from Panja Sahib, the famous shrine marking
one of Guru Nanak's most memorable miracles, (*1) he
proceeded there even if it lay somewhat off his route.
There he sojourned for a while, enjoying the natural
scenery and the clear water gushing from the sacred fount.
He journeyed from there toward Attock and at last arrived
at Hazro, his destination.
(*1  It is related in Guru Nanak's life that the great sage
was touring the region with his devoted disciples, Bala and
Mardana. The party was feeling exceedingly thirsty and there
seemed to be no trace of water around. The sage directed his
followers to Wali Kandhari, a Muslim hermit who lived on the
hillside by the side of a spring. The Wali, lost in his own
pride, sent away the strangers empty-handed. When they
returned again at their Master's bidding, he scoffed: "If
your Guru is as great a man as you affirm, can't he even
quench your thirst?"
   When these words were related to Nanak, who stood at the
foot of the hill below, he smiled and struck the rock with
his open hand. Straightway a crystal jet burst forth and
everyone drank his fill. The Wali was full of remorse, but
it was too late now; and to his consternation he discovered
that the spring that ran by his hut had suddenly dried up.
   The rock where the Saint struck his hand still bears the
imprint of his palm and fingers and a clear stream of water
sprouts from beneath. It is a great center for Sikh
pilgrimage.)

   He was very happy to meet the venerable Baba Balak Singh
who was impressed by the young visitor's keenness of mind and
intensity of spiritual yearning. They passed some delightful
days together reading, reciting and discussing the Granth
Sahib. Balak Singh was a man of great wisdom and piety, but
as far as Spirituality was concerned he, like Gulab Das, was
only conversant with japa through prana, and knew little of
the Panch Shabdi Naam spoken of by Kabir and the great Sikh
Gurus. However he gave his young friend hope and directed him
to Chikker to a householder Sikh of great spiritual eminence.
 
   Jaimal arrived from Hazro in the village of Chikker and
began inquiring for the man he sought. He seemed to find
no clue till he met an old retired Sikh who asked the young
stranger if he could assist him in any way. Jaimal related
from where he had come and the object of his quest, and
asked to be guided to the local saint. The old gentleman,
who was himself the man he sought, kindly replied that no
such saint lived in that village as far as he knew, but
offered to do for him whatever little lay in his power.

   Jaimal's long and exacting search now at last began to
yield some fruit.  The householder mahatma at whose
home he now found himself gave him the first definite
clues of what he sought and put him on the first rung of
the spiritual ladder. Shortly after his arrival the God-
intoxicated boy received initiation. His earlier
assumptions were confirmed and he now knew it for certain
that the path of Naam had little to do with other yogic
practices. But after initiation he pointed out that the
scriptures spoke of the "five-worded Word" and he had been
imparted only two. On hearing this, his host and preceptor
related to him the story of his own initiation:
 
  "It was many years ago that I went to Peshawar. There
I met a great mahatma and wished to be initiated by him.
He accepted me as a disciple and unlocked to me the
mystery of the first two Shabdas, bidding me to come back
again as early as possible. I proceeded to my village and
intended to return soon. But such are the traps of Maya
that I was unable, due to some unexpected piece of
business, to fulfill my wish. Two months went by in this
way, and when I did at last reach Peshawar, my Master had
passed away, taking with him the key to the remaining
phases of the Divine Naam." (*2)
 
(*2  In the past it was a common practice with mystics to
initiate their disciples by degrees into the inner science.
After the sadhak had mastered one stage, he was acquainted
with the mysteries of the next and so on to the end. The
method was not in itself objectionable, but it often led to
results of the kind we have just noted. Jaimal was to meet
another case like that of the Chikker mahatma a few years
later at Delhi after being initiated by Swami Ji at Agra,
when he met a Muslim fakir who too had suffered by the early
death of his pir. To avoid such mishaps, Masters of the Surat
Shabd Yoga nowadays initiate their disciples directly into the
mysteries of all the five inner planes that the soul has to
traverse before it can merge with the Absolute.)
 
  Jaimal had no choice. He had to be content with what
he got. He stayed on with the Sikh mahatma for some time,
enjoying his hospitality and inspiring company, and
sedulously cultivating the gift he had received. Then a day
arrived when he bade his latest teacher a touching farewell
and set forth for Peshawar to pursue his unfulfilled quest.
He had the satisfaction of being put on the right road, but
he was not the man to rest till he had attained his goal. At
this ancient frontier city he once again, like a keen
huntsman, began seeking the trail of some man of full God-
realization. But Peshawar was not the place where his quest
was to be crowned with success and his thirst satiated.

While wandering among Pathans through its many streets,
a mastana Sikh, lost to the everyday world of rational
behavior by divine intoxication, stopped him and accosted
him with the words: "Why do you expend your labors in
the North when your day is to dawn from the East?" Though
he could extract nothing more from the strange counsellor,
his advice drove home and soon after Jaimal began retracing
his steps to the Punjab. On reaching Rawalpindi he decided
to visit the famous Kashmir Valley and the popular hill
resort of Murree. A lover of Nature's beauties, he greatly
enjoyed his hilly tour and in Kashmir met many a sadhu.
His sightseeing over, he finally turned homeward. With
tatters on his back and barely any shoes on his feet or
money in his pocket, he at last reached Ghuman to the
great joy of his fond mother and his affectionate brothers.
 
   The family celebrated the homecoming in traditional style,
offering thanksgiving to the Almighty, arranging scriptural
recitations and the singing of hymns, distributing sweets
among the neighbors and offering food to the poor. Jaimal
Singh, now sixteen, took up the family duties once more and
gave himself up to the consolidation of what he had learned
in his recent itinerary.

Soon after his return, the Sathyala yogi who had initiated
him into Pranayam three years earlier arrived, true to his
parting promise, at Ghuman to see his young disciple. Jaimal
Singh received him with reverence and humility and his former
teacher offered to instruct him in the other practices of
traditional yoga. But the youth was no longer a child. His
wide travels and the varied accompanying experience had
given him a new maturity. What had seemed desirable once
no longer seemed of much value, for his contact with many
a yogi had convinced him of one thing at least: the kriyas
of Hatha Yoga might give strange physical and occult
powers, but they could not bestow full inner peace and
freedom.  Every fresh day only strengthened his old
conviction that the path of complete mukti or emancipation
lay some other way, and all that he now sought was
initiation into the mystique of the Panch Shabd.
 
   Time rolled on its mercury wheels, but Jaimal Singh
was not the man to sit idle or be content with only the
second best. "Awake, arise and stop not until the goal is
reached," enjoined an ancient Vedic text, and his life was
a living embodiment of this precept. Barely eight months
had elapsed since his return when the urge to resume his
quest for the holy Naam became too powerful to be resisted,
and he began pressing his mother for permission to set
out once more.
 
  "How can you expect me to let you go again? You were
a child then, but now you are a grown up man and
understand your responsibilities."
 
  "Ah, mother, at my birth you prayed for a saintly son.
Then why stop me now?"
 
  "How can you talk this way? Have I ever checked you in
your religious inclinations? Surely you can pursue your
devotional practices and spiritual disciplines while
living at home?"
 
  "How can godliness and worldliness go together?"
 
  "But you yourself have seen how others have encroached
upon our lands after your father's death. We barely get
enough to eat; and when you are gone, your brothers being
so young, what will prevent them from forcibly occupying
the rest?"

  "Let them take whatever they will. This world is not
ours, and even if these lands are not taken away from us
we will have to leave them some day when our life span is
over. We have only to sustain ourselves. What matters if
all our property is lost? The Lord has given us sinewy
arms, and with his grace we shall earn a respectable
living."
 
   He whom nothing could dissuade while yet a child
could not be deterred now, and Bibi Daya had no choice
but to let him go. Thus at the age of sixteen years and
nine months Jaimal Singh once again set out on his
spiritual explorations. Having well nigh exhausted the
Punjab and the Northwest, with the words of the Peshawar
Sikh still reverberating in his ears, he bent his footsteps
eastward. The times were insecure and the British had not yet
fully entrenched themselves in their new northern conquests.
Night travel was therefore prohibited, and sentries were
stationed at night on the chief highways to prevent any
stray travelers. But Jaimal Singh was too eager to be thus
restricted. He would spend the first half of the night
resting and sleeping and in the second, while the sentries
were drowsing and dozing, continue his journey as quickly
as possible.
 
   At Vairach, a village on the banks of the Beas not far
from home, he met a sadhu named Kahan who was engaged in
collecting bricks. "Good day, holy one," said the youth.
"What is it that keeps you so busy?"
 
  "Nothing, my son, nothing; I am only collecting
material for your future dwelling," smiled Kahan, and
once more got lost in his work. When others of the village
would question him in like manner, he would reply with
characteristic brevity, "A temple will rise here one day,"
and relapse into his usual silence.
 
  Jaimal Singh, not knowing where to go, directed his
steps toward Hardwar on the banks of the sacred Ganges,
a favorite haunt of the holy. Traveling by night and by
day, he footed the distance with commendable speed and
in twelve days reached the Ganges. He explored the ghats
of Hardwar, then a small town almost entirely populated
by pandits and sadhus, hearing learned yogis, questioning
them and discussing his problems with them. From the main
town he traveled alongside the river, visiting all the
sacred spots in the neighborhood. At Tappo Ban he heard
of a very old sadhu of about a hundred and fifty years who
dwelt not far away in the heart of a thick jungle and
possessed great powers but seldom spoke to those who came
to see him.
 
   Undaunted by the yogi's reported silence, Jaimal Singh
wended his way into the forest and at last found the
hermit's dwelling. The sadhu was busy with his spiritual
practices and paid no heed to those that came to see him in
order to be blessed by his sight. The evening drew near
and the sky and the branches overhead burst into life with
the twitter of homing birds. All the visitors departed; the
forest would soon be dark and who could tell what wild
creature might be prowling in the thick foliage awaiting
its chance. Jaimal Singh alone stayed on. Night fell and
yet the yogi took no notice of him. He at last got up,
walked to a swing hung from a nearby branch and took
his stand, resting his arms on its wooden seat. Hour after
hour slipped by but the ascetic stood on motionless,
displaying no signs of fatigue. At last darkness began to
break and brought an end to his nightly feat of endurance.

He left the swing, disappeared into the jungle and returned
after bathing. Jaimal had been keeping night long vigil and
had kept watching the unusual behavior of the strange man
before him. When the sadhu came back after his bath, he at
last showed some signs of being aware of his visitor's
presence. He asked him who he was and what he wanted. The
youth told his name, the place from whence he came and
added, "Holy one! For many years I have been in search of
true spiritual enlightenment. I heard of your fame and your
great powers and have come as a supplicant to your door.
I have watched with interest your strange practices and
if indeed they grant full liberation from inner
restlessness, then pray instruct me into their secrets."

  The sadhu made no reply. He sat silent and closed his
eyes. After a while he opened them and answered: "My
son, my discipline is difficult and bestows many powers.
But as for inner spiritual freedom, I am afraid it has not
secured me that."
 
   Jaimal Singh wished to question the yogi still further,
but the latter became silent and receded from the world
of outer consciousness into that of meditation. The sun
ascended the heavens and the day passed by. Some devotees
came to have a glimpse of the famous yogi, bowed reverently
at his feet and, leaving some food for Jaimal Singh and
some oflerings for the ascetic, departed as on the
previous day. Once again the night fell and once again
the youth from Ghuman sat on. The yogi at last rose from
his seat and spent the second night in the same manner as
the first. When day broke, he went for his bath, and on
returning beckoned Jaimal to his side. "My son, I cannot
tell you much," he said. "But in my meditation I saw that
the Guru you seek dwells with his wife in Agra. He is
indeed a great soul and discourses from the Granth Sahib.

He shall unlock to you the treasures of the Panch Shabd.
Proceed there and I myself will follow as soon as I can to
partake of his bounty."
 
   What a burden fell off Jaimal Singh's back!  How many
nights had he spent tossing and praying, wondering if God
would ever grant his wishes!  The stranger at Peshawar
had given him hope, but his words were vague, and nothing
was certain. Now at last a definite clue had been given
to him and success appeared within sight. The Lord was
indeed kind and did not ignore his humble servant's
supplication. Refreshed in spirit and confident in mind,
the youth, with a heart overflowing with inexpressible
gratitude, bowed before the yogi now wrapped in silence
and humbly took his leave.


                      [End of Part 2 of 7]

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