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REMEMBERING
AUJI
GU RU
By Jaipat Singh Jain
Twenty years ago, one of Jainism's most revolutionary monks left for devlok. Jains outside India owe him a deep debt of gratitude. Below is his brief story, as narrated by a follower.
THIS is a story of a boy. His name was Sardar Singh. He was born in the year 1926 in a small village in Punjab, the land of five rivers, in undivided India. When he was a child, he began living with his aunt. One day, when Sardar Singh was 8-years-old, a Jain monk visited his home. The monk was Muni Chotelalji Maharaj and the family knew him well. The muni initiated Sardar Singh into meditation. Sardar Singh was so carried away by meditation that he obtained his aunt's permission to accompany the monk.
For the next six years thereafter, Sardar Singh wandered with Maharaj Saheb. During this time, Sardar Singh learned to meditate on the Namokar Mantra. A life-saving incident disclosed that Sardar Singh had learned to use of Namokar Mantra to ward off danger and heal the wounded and ill. His powers were magical. Mindful of their potential, at one point, Chotelalji Maharaj restrained the boy from using his powers. Sardar Singh used the restraint to intensify his study of the Mantra and to immerse himself in meditation.
Soon, Sardar Singh was privately in communication with another Jain monk. He had long conversations with the monk and followed the monk's instructions dutifully. He even began addressing him as his Guru (teacher). That Jain monk, Roop Chandji Maharaj Saheb of Jagraon, Punjab, had in fact left the world several decades before Sardar Singh was born; yet, Sardar Singh regularly met with him in his meditations.
One day, when Sardar Singh was 15 years' old, Roop Chandji Maharaj prompted Sardar Singh to become a Jain monk. Sardar Singh, as was his practice, dutifully reported that to Muni Chotelalji and expressed his desire to become a monk. Muni Chotelalji, however, advised Sardar Singh that he could not be given deeksha (ordination as a monk) without the express consent of Sardar's parents.
At about that time, Sardar Singh's older brother died. Sardar Singh was now the eldest son of the family and his mother wanted Sardar to end his wanderings with Muni Chotelalji and return home. She approached Muni Chotelalji. The Muni asked her to identify her son from two boys of near-equal age that were accompanying him, one of whom was her son. She confidently identified one of the two boys as her son. As
Plaques
JAIN DIGEST
it happens, the boy she identified as her son was not Sardar Singh (that boy later became a Jain monk and came to be
called Pujyashri Sobhag Muni Maharaj Saheb). The incident inspired her to consent to giving Sardar Singh to monkhood. Thus, on April 21, 1942, Sardar Singh took deeksha as a Jain monk of the Sthanakwasi order and came to be called Muni Sushil Kumar. The name Sushil Kumar comes from being an obedient disciple.
Soon, India savagely broke into two parts. A million men, women and children were butchered in Punjab alone. A religious zealot killed Mahatma Gandhi, the symbol of hope, peace and awakening. The country plunged into a decade of faithlessness in ahimsa.
In such a dismal setting, a young Jain muni drew attention. He had the unusual practice of addressing followers of different faiths on the values of ahimsa found in their own scriptures. One day, he approached India's political and religious leaders and invited them and leaders in other parts of the world to an all-faith conference. Thus, in 1957, there was held under this young monk's leadership, the first World Religions' Conference. It was held at Delhi's Red Fort and was attended by more than 100,000 people, including India's prime minister, president, vice-president and education minister. It had a healing effect on a traumatized country.
That young Jain monk was Muni Sushil Kumar and ever since then, he came to be regarded by successive prime ministers, presidents, religious leaders and common men as a perennial source of wisdom and one to whom all communities - Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains and others - could and did turn to time and again in times of personal and national disharmony. He was a much sought monk by Jains and non-Jains and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles barefoot across the length and breath of India.
Amidst all bustle, Muni Sushil Kumar remained intensely engaged in his private practice of meditation. A favorite place for him for meditation was the forest near Dadabari in Mehrauli, New Delhi, where he frequently secluded himself in deep meditation for days at a stretch. Dadabari is the site of the Samadhi of the legendry Jain monk Manidhari Jinchandra Suri Dada Guru (1140-1161 A.D.).
One day during meditation there, he met with Dada Guru. Dada Guru admonished the young monk from engaging in meditation solely for his personal salvation. Your job, said Dada Guru to the monk, was to be a global missionary of
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