Great Spiritual Leaders
I tell you the story of Markandeya. You see, his father had no children and the father and mother were unhappy. So they prayed to Shiva and they said that we want to have a son. Shiva said, “I’ll give you the son, but I will have to take him back after eight years. So he’ll only exist till he is about eight years of age.” So they gave that boon to him, plus this kind of a curse. The parents were very upset that, “our child will die after eight years of age,” very upset. But they found the child very bright, brilliant, and also shining and very religious.
One day he asked his father, “Why do you always so worry? I mean, after all, I am your son.” So they said that, “It is said so, eight years or sixteen years, something like that, now I will be losing you very soon. Who can surpass Shiva? So I cannot think we can really ask anyone to neutralize the curse upon us. If you are not born to us we would not have been so attached to you. Now you are born to us, we are so much attached to you.”
He was a very wise person. He said, “No, I know someone. I know Adi Shakti.” And he went to this place where you got to see this Saptashringi. There he prayed to Her. Nobody had prayed to Adi Shakti. They would pray to Jagadamba. They would pray to all others. To Adi Shakti, who is the God, he prayed to Her… She came there, appeared from the Mother Earth. She just came out and he prayed to Her. He prayed to Her and then the whole place became so vibrated that Shiva could not touch him.
Then he wrote all this Markandeya things. I mean, he was the first who wrote about Adi Shakti. All these things that you read about Shankaracharya, he took it from Markandeya. He was the first who wrote about Kundalini, the first about realization. He was the first who did all that …
So that’s the great part of Markandeya. He took his birth later on as Buddha. Then he took his birth as Adi Shankaracharya. It’s the same personality. But he was actually the son of Rama, to begin with. He was Luv and he went to Russia and that is why they are called as “Slavs” … Another son was Kush, who went to China. That is why they are called as “Kushan”. Then they incarnated again and again, also as Hassan and Hussain, as Mahavira and Buddha, as Adi Shankaracharya and Gyaneshwara, like that.
Shri Mataji, Vienna, 1988
I have veered from Yama to the Lord.
My woes have vanished,
Happiness abides within me.
Those who were foes
Have turned into friends,
The evil have become gentle and pious.
Everything that happens
I now accept as a blessing;
I attained peace
When I realised the Lord.
A million afflictions infested my body;
Through my absorption in Sahaj
They have given way to bliss.
He who realises his true self
Sees the Lord
And only the Lord
In everything;
Nor disease, nor three fevers
Afflict him now.
My mind has returned
To its own Primal state;
I realised the Lord
When I died while living.
Says Kabir: I am merged
In the bliss of Sahaj;
I no longer know fear,
Nor inspire it in others.
Kabir
Kabir Sahib, otherwise known as “The Weaver Saint of Benares”, lived in Northern India between the years 1380 and 1460. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest mystics of all times. His verses, hymns and compositions are almost universally known in India, where they are sung with great love and devotion to this day.
He was extremely outspoken in his opposition to the folly and futility of the external religious practices adopted by both Hindus and Muslims. Despite that, he was revered and respected by the followers of both faiths.
He was held in high esteem by his contemporaries. Two of his disciples were Raja Vir Singh and Shah Ibrahim Adham, king of Bokhara. The latter, keen on his spiritual search, learned about Kabir at Kashi. Being accepted as one of Kabir’s disciples was not, however, an easy task for the King, who repeatedly begged Kabir for the invaluable gift of Initiation.
In the beginning, Kabir was reluctant to grant that boon, because he was very conscious of the fact that, as a monarch, Ibrahim would have a great sense of self-importance, and this trait is not desirable in a person who intends to tread the Spiritual Path. So, Kabir turned down his repeated requests. Finally, Kabir agreed to initiate the King on the condition that he would consent to work for him as a servant. Can you imagine the pride the King must have had to swallow in order to agree to be the servant of a poor weaver? But the King’s thirst for knowledge was such that he agreed to such a condition.
After the King spent six years performing menial tasks, Kabir put him to a test, intended to establish if he had lost his self-importance. The King failed the test miserably. Kabir then decided that the King was still not humble enough to deserve the boon of initiation. So, he prolonged the probation period by another six years. After that, the King was finally initiated into the Royal Path of God realization.
“The concept of Sahaj is central and pivotal in Guru Nanak’s mystical thought. It relates to the highest spiritual state humanly attainable and has thus deepest connotations attached to it. The ordinary meaning of Sahaj [is] ‘just what it should be’ or ‘just normal’. In other words, a simple human proposition: that a man should become a man par excellence, a real man; no adhesions, no default, no accretions, no deviations.
But this paradoxical word Sahaj does not go with mere ‘saying’ or verbal expression. It is an actuality, a real human state, a tangible workable human achievement. Guru Nanak himself … experienced directly the blissful union with God and the concomitant divine manifestations attending such beatitude.
Sahaj is originally a Sanskrit word which means ‘having been born together’ and thus something inwardly perceived or intuited along with one’s birth as a human being – a sort of indwelling mystical principle of divine perception given to man as his birthright and therefore, a natural and effortless heritage of divinity ingrained in humanity.
Properly speaking, Sahaj is the very mysticality of religion. It is the acceptance of inwardness and intuitionism as the true basis of religion, to the negation of all ritualistic externalities. Sahaj in this meaning would be the mystical state of a man who has accepted the divine will. Sahaj, thus, is the highest spiritual state attainable in Sikhism. It is the highest bliss.
Sahaj connotes a natural slowness and steadiness required for perfect action. Sahaj is the opposite of inordinate haste. Sahaj is compactness and self-sufficiency, while haste is flippancy and inner weakness. Sahaj would mean equipoise, equanimity and equilibrium. It may be called ‘balanced perspicacity’ or sambuddhata, in the psychological sense. All true balance and true action (which may be called Sahaj-karam, as distinct from the self-willed action) engender aesthetic as well as spiritual pleasure, while spiritual fulfillment produces infinite bliss.”
From a book on Guru Nanak by Dewan Singh