Happy, Relaxed and Divine

Maharaj Charan Singh recalls the Great Master’s humour : An extract from Spiritual Heritage:

Nobody could match Great Master’s humour. There was no limit to his humour. And he was also practical, I would say, in the sense that sometimes, when he found that the subject matter had become very serious – and naturally, it reflects on people’s faces when you talk about hell and punishment and misery, because these are not very pleasant; and everybody looks within and knows what he has done and that he will have to suffer for all that, so of course one cannot smile about it. So when he found that people had become very sad and serious, just to erase that effect he would finish with an amusing anecdote or story, or say something that would make everybody roar with laughter and forget everything he had said!

He would say what he wanted to say, fearlessly…. He never compromised with the teachings or in his explanations; but still, at the end he wanted everybody to get up from satsang absolutely relaxed and happy, without any tension, and he always managed it.… We always came out of satsang with a smile.

He used to tell a lot of stories.…[In satsang and] even in his conversation, when talking in a family group and trying to explain certain things to us – that we should not behave like this, or that we should study and work hard – would tell us one or two stories to convince us of what he was trying to say. That was his approach: a very humorous and smiling approach, and always very loving.

I remember one incident concerning my younger brother and myself. It is generally a custom in India for the boys in the family to press the legs of the elderly men in the evening when they are tired. My brother and I often used to do it after we got back from college. The Great Master would lie down and we would press his legs. On one occasion, I was pressing one leg and my brother was pressing the other. He was quite over-enthusiastic as a boy, and after doing his leg, he started on the other leg also, which I was pressing. So sometimes I would touch his hand, saying, “Do not touch this leg, this is my leg!” And sometimes he would do it again. But while striking each other, by mistake we would also strike Maharaj Ji’s legs.

Maharaj Ji went on watching, and all the while he was talking to Sardar Bhagat Singh and other people about some of the Dera lands.… When he thought that we had started striking his leg too much, he got up, sat in a chair and told a story to the four or five people sitting there:

There was once a sadhu who had two disciples, and they used to press one leg each. But one disciple was very naughty, and while pressing his leg, he would try to do the other leg also. And the other disciple would not let him. So they began striking the other one’s leg and began to quarrel.
The first said: “I will break ‘your’ leg.”
And the second said: “I’ll break ‘your’ leg.”
And then they pulled out bamboos and beat that sadhu so much that they crippled him!

After telling this story, Maharaj Ji smilingly said: “My children have not reached that stage yet. They are only striking with their hands, not with bamboo sticks!” And we were just sitting there at his feet.

So his whole approach was like that, whether family matters or in satsang matters.