DEVOTIONAL HABITS OF SADHU SUNDAR SINGH
The circumstances of the life of a wandering evangelist
do not admit of absolutely regular habits. At times
the Sadhu will have almost whole days of solitary communion
with his Lord and Master. On occasion he has
spent the whole night praying. At other times he has
to be content with two hours of devotion in the early
morning, in England often from five to seven. When he
can find time he extends these two hours to three or four
hours. Whenever he is compelled by circumstances to
omit or unduly curtail his morning meditation he feels
a certain restlessness and unhappiness throughout the
day.
He starts the day by reading a chapter of the Bible,
at first rapidly, but making a mental note of those verses
which seem particularly rich and suggestive. Then he
returns to these verses and lingers over them as long as
he feels that he is having fruitful thoughts on them.
Then he spends about fifteen or more minutes in collecting
his thoughts in preparation for prayer. Then, as he
puts it, the Holy Spirit Himself teaches him what to
pray for, both in regard to himself and in regard to
others. For prayer he has no one posture. He prays
sitting, kneeling, sometimes walking. As a Sikh he used
to prostrate himself in prayer, but now he does not fol-
low this practice.
"In praying do you generally use words?" we asked.
"No, the language of prayer is a language without
words. When God speaks to the soul we have an immediate
apprehension of His meaning, somewhat like what
occasionally happens in conversation when you know
what the other man is going to say before he says it. So
when we have a quiet time God speaks to the soul. His
thoughts are put directly into our minds without words,
and very often they are thoughts which are not expressible
in words; yet in one minute we may learn in this
way what we could not learn otherwise in thirty years.
Hence in private prayer I do not use words, but in large
gatherings it is necessary to do so."
He lays great stress on the necessity for stillness and
waiting on God. "God is quiet, He does not make a
noise; therefore to understand Him we must be quiet."
"In the hurry and rush of life God is silent ; we have t6
sit at Christ's feet if we would feel His blessing, and
then Heaven will be in our heart." "Before Pentecost
the Apostles had to wait ten days." "To receive great
blessing from the Holy Spirit there must be great preparation."
"Philosophers have found that they can think better
when they are quiet. How much more then must this
be true of the deeper spiritual things ! But those who
have had no experience think the desire for quiet is
merely laziness. "
"When praying do you picture to yourself the figure
of Christ?" we asked. "I always did so at first," he
said, "I don't do it so frequently now. His figure
comes up now and then. It is like the image of Christ
which I always see in my' Ecstasy. Often, and increasing
with the lapse of time, I feel the presence of Christ
without seeing Him, either with my physical eyes, as in
the case of the vision before my conversion, or with my
spiritual eyes, as in the case of my ecstatic experiences.
As you become like Christ you feel His presence more.
When we are in a hot country and a cold wind blows, it
refreshes us very much. So is the presence of Christ to
me in the midst of work."
THE BEGINNER'S WAY
Thinking that not a few of those who have met the
Sadhu or heard him preach would value some practical
advice from such a man on the cultivation of the devotional
life, we put to him the question: "What advice
about prayer and meditation would you give to a beginner?"
"I should tell him to read a chapter, say of St. John,
and to note the striking texts ; then to try and find the
inner meaning of these texts. This will teach him how
to concentrate."
"In the earlier stages of my Christian experience I
used generally to select one or more texts from the New
Testament about the love of God, and fix attention on
them. Such concentration produces the same result as
the focusing of a magnifying glass on a piece of cloth.
When we concentrate on spiritual things by fixing our
thoughts and hearts towards the Sun of Righteousness,
light and heat from that Sun will fall on all the rubbish
of life and burn it. Everything against the will of God
will thus be destroyed.
"At different times I have asked converts to Christianity
what it was that led them to Christ. Some have
quoted, 'Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden and I will give you rest'; others, verses from St.
Paul. Different texts appeal to different people. So it
is better to read a whole chapter and to pick out the text
that appeals to one.
"But the same method will not suit all men."
"Scientists often spend years, sometimes a whole lifetime,
in making an important scientific discovery. Then
how can we expect to discover spiritual beauties by
spending only five minutes every day in quiet and
prayer? Some people become tired at the end of ten
minutes or half an hour of prayer. What would they
do when they have to spend Eternity in the presence of
God? "We must begin the habit here and become used
to being with God.
ECSTASY AND VISION
ESOTERIC CHARACTER
To the Sadhu, as has been already indicated, the great
source of illumination, solace and physical refreshment
is the recurrent state of Ecstasy in which he feels himself
caught up to what he believes to be the place alluded
to by St. Paul as "the third heaven" (II Cor. xii. 2).
"I never try to go into Ecstasy; nor do I advise other
people to try. It is a gift to be accepted, but it should
not be sought; if given, it is a pearl of great price.
During the fourteen years of my life as a sadhu there
have been many times when, suffering from hunger,
thirst or persecution, I might have been tempted to give
it up but for the gift of these times of Ecstasy, but these
I would not give up for the whole world."
"In Heaven I see not with bodily
but with spiritual eyes, and I was told that these spiritual
eyes are the same as those which all men will use
after permanently leaving the body."
To all the Visions there is a constant background. It
reflects, indeed it is the convincing proof if further
proof were needed of the wholly Christocentric character
of the Sadhu 's Mysticism.
"Christ on His throne is always in the center, a figure
ineffable and indescribable. The face as I see it in
Ecstasy, with my spiritual eyes, is very much the same
as I saw it at my conversion with my bodily eyes. He
has scars with blood flowing from them. The scars are
not ugly but glowing and beautiful. He has a beard on
His face. The long hair of His head is like gold, like
glowing light. His face is like the sun, but its light
does not dazzle me. It is a sweet face, always smiling
a loving glorious smile. Christ is not terrifying at all."
