THE MAHAGURU
The Server, not the Served

Quote
When we couldn’t walk, he gave us wings,
And the belief that we could fly.
And fly we did, under his selfless gaze
To unheard of spiritual highs.

In a vision, I saw myself seated with Gurudev and a few of his disciples, overseeing the descent of more than a hundred evolved spirits to earth. All the spirits were bald and dressed in cream-coloured togas. I knew the spectacle unfolding had to do with my guru’s mission. Some years later, when Gurudev casually mentioned that he had spent the last 500 years gathering his disciples, I understood my vision. He had aligned our existence on earth to match his own, so we could partake in his mission to spiritually uplift humanity.

Many dreams and visions are depictions of past or future events. Although my vision was of an event before my birth, I saw myself with the face of my current physical incarnation. Gurudev showed Ravi ji a vision of his past life in which both Ravi ji and Gurudev resembled their current incarnations. This allowed for recognition and interpretation of past connectivity.

The motley crew of Gurudev’s disciples showed up at his doorstep on one pretext or another. Some came as patients, and some in the garb of co-workers. Some came to satisfy their curiosity, while some others received messages about their future guru in the dream state. Gurudev took this eclectic mix of people from varied economic backgrounds under his wing. He wiped their slates clean and then rewrote the stories of their lives. They transformed from novices with little or no knowledge of spiritualism (in this lifetime) to spiritual healers under his watchful gaze.

The mahaguru was deeply invested in our spiritual journey, often hand-holding us as we found our bearings. He guided our flight to higher levels of consciousness and wished us to soar higher than he did. He inspired us when we failed and believed in us when we lacked self-belief. He shattered our delusions and then reconstructed us into the spiritualists we became. In time, we recognised our divinity and then helped others realise theirs.

One of my gurubhai’s described Gurudev as an ulta guru (unique guru). The term was coined to pay tribute to Gurudev’s propensity for turning convention on its head. While tradition dictates that disciples must serve their guru, in the mahaguru’s realm, seva extended to his disciples as much as it did to others. He shunned pedestals for a unique form of spiritual populism.

Despite Gurudev’s spiritually elevated stature, he never treated anyone as inferior to him. He didn’t just preach aatmic equality, he practised it. Sometimes, he would sit on the floor and eat his meal with us. He disliked being treated as superior to those around him. He would appreciate it when his disciples were given preferential treatment instead of him. He saw everyone as equal but at different stages in their evolutionary journey.

On the advice of his spiritual mentor, Buddhe Baba, he started referring to all those who came to seek his blessings as Putt — a Punjabi term of endearment for children of both genders. In guiding his disciples to spiritual heights, the mahaguru scripted an engaging twist in the guru-disciple relationship when he willfully became the server, not the served.

When he moved from a small, two-room dwelling in Shivpuri to a slightly more spacious house in Gurgaon, he opened the doors of his new home to us. On days when his house was overrun with his disciples and their families, he would sleep on an old cot in a tiny storeroom. He once said, “I don’t mind being inconvenienced as long as my disciples are comfortable.”

On events like Mahashivratri, when legions of devotees arrived in Gurgaon from different parts of the world, he ensured they were kept in comfortable accommodation. On one Mahashivratri, he single-handedly cooked a meal of aloo gobi for his disciples and only ate after they had.

Gupta ji, a disciple from Parwanoo, remembered that whenever he accompanied Gurudev on road trips, the mahaguru would stop the car near dhabas to buy beverages for his disciples. Instead of sitting comfortably in the vehicle and allowing himself to be served, he preferred to serve his disciples, prioritising their needs before his own.

Server, not the served

Gurudev serves cold drinks to his disciples on a road trip

Once a disciple complained about the blandness of the food served at the langar in the Gurgaon sthan. He demanded desi ghee in the dal and butter in the sarson ka saag. When word of the disciple’s unreasonable demands reached Gurudev, instead of getting upset, he asked the sevadaar to make the disciple’s food as he desired.

However, there were times when the mahaguru would shake up the status quo. For the first few days after they arrived at the camp at Renuka, Gurudev would wake Bittu ji at 3 am to serve him a hot cup of tea. Bittu ji would leave the cup unwashed and return to sleep after enjoying the early morning beverage brewed by his guru. For three days, Bittu ji revelled in the luxury of being served by his guru, but Gurudev gave him an earful on the fourth day. On being reprimanded for the dereliction of his duties, Bittu ji divorced his complacency. After that, he not only made the tea, but also washed the cups!

Gurudev bestowed his powers on us to accelerate our spiritual journey. He gave us mantras he had attained through years of effort and resolve. Often he would override our complacency by giving us a share of his mantra count to hasten our spiritual climb.

One day, he called me to his room, made me swallow a laung and announced that I was now siddh in a specific mantra. I was baffled since I didn’t know a single syllable of that mantra! I could not articulate my confusion as I was generally dumbstruck in his presence. Curiosity eventually got the best of me. A few days later, when I asked him for the words of the mantra in which I was already siddh, he gave them to me over the phone.

Ravi ji recalled, “Gurudev instructed me to do my paath from 11 pm to 2 am every night and told me that he would do paath on my behalf from 2 am to 5 am every morning, allocating its benefit to me. His greatness and selflessness were beyond measure!”

These are a few examples of how he armed us with his powers so that we could rise faster and achieve more spiritually. He altered many of the advanced mantras he gave us by adding his unique flavour to them. I believe his intent powered them with greater potency.

Sometimes, the mahaguru’s magnanimity made a few of us complacent. Bittu ji and Pappu ji were repeatedly advised by him to spend more time chanting their mantras, but they never did. One day, he said, “I cannot keep allocating a share of my mantra count to you if you don’t make an effort to earn some spiritual points of your own!”

The fruits of Gurudev’s tapasya, which he generously transferred to us, accelerated our transformation. By working for us, he ensured we could work for others. In return, our methods of serving him involved routine chores like ironing his clothes, driving him to and from the office, and cooking meals for him. These little acts of gratitude and devotion could never compare to the sacrifices he made and the selflessness he demonstrated in our relationship.

His philosophy and grace have given meaning to my life and, more importantly, my impending death.

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