(Excerpts from :
Church of the Churchless: Radha Soami Satsang Beas)
The guru who initiated me in 1971 was Charan Singh. He died in 1990. Before his death Charan Singh appointed a successor, Gurinder Singh, who similarly had been initiated by him.
Charan Singh would give talks (or
satsangs) to thousands of people. He'd sit on a high podium. Devotees would gaze spellbound at him, hoping to catch a glance (
darshan).
The devotional attitude of Sant Mat initiates essentially is, "The guru is everything; I am nothing." We can imagine Gurinder Singh sitting in the audience while Charan Singh was alive thinking just that.
He is everything; I am nothing.
Yet there came a day when Gurinder Singh found himself on the same podium, having been elevated to the status of guru. So now all the initiates are looking at
him, thinking "The guru is everything; I am nothing."
But wait! How did Gurinder Singh go from being nothing to everything? At what point did this happen? Was it sudden or gradual? Did this transformation depend on the formal conferring of guru status, or did it occur in some other fashion?
And a more basic question: Did the change from nothing to everything even happen?
Do you see what I'm getting at? These are intriguing questions that I never gave much thought to back when I was one of those true believing initiates trying to be as nothing-ish as possible while I was in the presence of the guru.
I didn't spend much time musing on the fact that the guru once was a disciple, just like me. In the Sant Mat tradition a disciple is the humble servant of the guru. Yet what changes when a disciple
becomes the guru?
Overnight, the servant becomes a master (in fact, this is what the RSSB gurus are called in English,
Master). Even stranger, gurus often say that they are still nothing compared to their own guru, who is everything to them.
Yet that guru (Sawan Singh, for Charan Singh) generally has
his own guru. And so it goes. So somehow all the gurus are both nothing and everything.
However, the disciples are just nothing. Unless they become a guru, then they're everything.
(Excerpts from :
Church of the Churchless: Radha Soami Satsang Beas