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32
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(OCTOBER, 1921
body and all the world reveres you as a saint. Without toil or labour you can be as emi. nent as Nadir Shah. The mysteries of birth and the sadnesses of death have no concern for the fakir. He sleeps in the mosque free from the cares of this impure world and begs and eats. He can scold people and incur no blame. If you call yourself a Pir or a fakir everybody is your servant."
At last, after many days journeying, Ranjha reached Tilla, the hill on which Balnath lived and Ranjha bowed his head and placed a piece of gur (sugar) before Balnath as an offering, and clasped the feet of all the jogis.... They were all engaged in religious contemplation and prayers. They were reading Gayan Gita Bhagvat and Bharat; and Ranjha folded his hands before Balnath and said: "Make me your fakir. Let me be your chela (pupil) and you be my Pir. The straight path to God is inaccessible without the intervention of Murshids (teachers), even as rice cannot be cooked without milk."
And Balnath looked at Ranjha and found he was a lad of pleasing countenance and of a comely wit, and doubts arose in his heart and he said to Ranjha: "My lad, your looks are saucy and you have commanding airs. Your demeanour is not that of a servant but of one whom others obey. Only those whose souls are submissive can become Jogis. You are more fitted to play the peacock and to strut in the assein blies of young coxcombs. You have a silken shawl over your shoulder; you have painted your eyes with lampblack; you play on the flute and stare at women. You tie cows up and milk them. In vain you try and flatter the Guru (holy man).
Oh Jat, tell me the truth what has befallen you that you wish to relinquish the pleasure of life and become a fakir ? Jog is a very troublesome task. The taste of Jog is bitter and sour. You will have to dress as a Jogi, to wear dirty clothes, long hair, cropped skull and to beg your way through life. You will have to meditate on your guru and hold your breath in your midmost throat. You will have to give up the pleasures of birth, to cease to rejoice when friends coine or to grieve when they die. You will have to abstain from casting eyes on women. You will have to become divinely intoxicated by taking kand, mul, post, opium and other narcotic drugs. You will have to think the world a mere vision. You will have to go on long pilgrimages to Jagannath, Godavari, Ganges and Jumna. Jog is no easy task You Jats cannot attain Jog."
And Ranjha replied to Balnath: “I accept all your conditions. I beseech you to give me Jog and to drown me in the deep waters of Fakir (The state of being a fakir). I swear I have given up women and earthly affairs. Do not, Guru, pierce me again and again. You should not break the heart of one who falls helpless on your threshold."
But Balnath still had doubts in his heart, and he said to Ranjha: “What is the good of begging if inan has not belief? Only those in love with death can acquire Jog. Good men subdue their passions by riding on the horse of patience and holding the reins of remembrance Jog means to be dead while alive. One has to sing the song of nonentity using one's meagre body as a guitar. One's self has to be entirely absorbed. It is no child's play. You will never be able to undergo Jog. What is the use of asking for it? Child, listen, God has made his abode in this body of dust. He is in everything as a thread runs through the beads. He is the breath of life in the living. He is as it were the spirit of bhang and opium. He is in the life of the world as colour is in the mendhi (Indigo). He permeates everything, even as the blood runs through all the body of men."
