To what avail a Pilgrimage?

Mrs. Aruna Dayal

Aruna Dayal

Whilst elaborating on Guru Nanak’s words, Param Pujya Ma, in a flow of devotional song, explains how vital it is for the seeker to be blessed with his Master’s Grace. It is this Divine favour, which transmutes each visit to a shrine with a transformative power. Without grace, all experience is barren.

Ma’s own experience of pilgrimages, made when She Herself was a young and ardent seeker, is indicative of the power of a devotee’s surrender converging into the current of Divine grace.

When She visited the Golden Temple in that period of Her intense spiritual quest, She bowed down in utter devotion at the very threshold of that holy place. She took the dust from the sacred threshold and applied it to Her forehead in a spirit of prayerful submission.

When Chhote Ma, who was with Her at the time, asked Her, “Will you not enter?” Ma replied that the saint and the sinner, the rich and the poor, the proud and the humble, all cross this portal. Having taken the dust of their feet to her forehead as a ‘tilak’, She is pledged to offer worship and render service to all the Lord’s children, unconditionally. Having surrendered to the Omnipresent Self, enshrined in all beings, what would the parikrama achieve?

This is the essence of the words of the Sadguru which Ma elaborates for us and has always affirmed in Her life and words.

Literal meaning of the Guru’s words:
“If it pleases the Master, I will set out on a pilgrimage and bathe in the holy waters. If, however, this does not please Him, then why go to bathe in any shrine? All that I see of Creation and its play, I perceive that all beings get only that which is written in their fate.
If one can truly listen to and imbibe even one injunction of the Sadguru, it will be as if all the precious jewels are piled like a treasure within my intellect. O Master, grant that I submit to the Truth which you repeatedly enjoin – there is only one beneficent Supreme Overlord who grants all things to his creatures. May I not forget this Truth.”

Param Pujya Ma takes up the Guru’s words and Her query pours out in sublime song:

“What is the purpose of pilgrimages made to different shrines if the seeker is not blessed with his Master’s Grace?

If the Sadguru eludes the devotee and does not extend His blessings, such journeys are in vain”.

Param Pujya Ma asks:

Lord, tell us what pilgrimage will yield a vision of Thee?

What manner of pilgrimage is it, so that this self will dwell on Thee?

The Guru explains that each man gets circumstances tailored and shaped by his own deeds. The apparent reality of each man’s little world fades away into nothing as the body turns to dust. The eternal cycle of coming and going; of creation and distribution is energized by man’s actions.

Even a journey to holy places will be reduced to an empty act if the devotee is not blessed by the Master’s Grace. To what avail such a pilgrimage if the heart does not enshrine the Lord within?

Param Pujya Ma addresses the Guru:

“O Nanak, O Nanak, may I carry Thy Word in my mind

If I live by Thy Word, O Sadguru, the eternal treasure will be mine.

What is the value of precious jewels, however rare?

Thy Word, worshipped within, is the treasure beyond compare.

If only we may obey Thy Word in act, thought and mind

Putting aside all creeds and dogmas, lost in his Command divine…”

Such devotional submission to the Lord’s injunctions will light the pyre on which worldly dogmas and creeds will be consumed. Such a devotee becomes the dust of his Master’s Feet; the endless cycle of birth and death is consumed in the fire of such devotion.

The Guru tells us repeatedly that mankind has but One benefactor, One Supreme Lord who grants life and gives all things to His created beings. If only the seeker understands, accepts and lives by this assurance of the Sadguru, all travails will be at an end. His mind will be cleansed and its impurities washed away by the clear stream of Faith.

May this mind become wholly Thine

May this intellect lose itself in Thee

Then will I know, O Nanak,

This body self will be Thine, entirely…

Such faith, having taken birth within the devotee’s heart will render the cycle of karma insignificant and irrelevant. He will be unaffected by the writ of Fate: for he is immersed in the Lord, and accepts His Will in loving and joyful submission.

To what avail a Pilgrimage?

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