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The Gospel of Sadhu Sundar Singh

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The Gospel of Sadhu Sundar Singh www.akademijavjecnogproljeca.org The Gospel of Sadhu Sundar Singh by Friedrich Heiler, Ph.D.,D.D. CONTENTS Introduction PART I The Ancestral Faith of Sundar Singh I. The History of the Sikh Religion 2., Sikh Doctrine and Worship PART II The Life Story of Sundar Singh 1. Youth. Inner Conflicts 2. Conversion {a) Sundar Singh's Own Account {b) Critical Considerations 3. Trial and Persecution 4. The Sadhu's Sphere of Activity {a) Missionary Journeys in the East. Sundar Singh in North India ; Tibet and Nepal ; South India and the Far East (b) Missionary Journeys in the West PART III Sundar Singh's Religious Life A. Vita Contemplativa 1. Prayer 2. Ecstasy 3. Inward Peace 4. The Joy of the Cross 5. Heaven upon Earth 2 B. Vita Activa 1. Brotherly Love 2. Witness for Christ 3. In the World, yet not of the World PART IV The Religious Thought-World of the Sadhu Theologia Experimentalis The Conception of God The Creation . The Living Christ Salvation . Miracles . The Future Life The Bible The Church and the Churches Christianity and Heathenism . PART V The Significance of Sundar Singh 1. His Position in the History of the Christian Religion . 2. The Significance of Sundar Singh for India 3. The Significance of Sundar Singh for Western Christianity Bibliography Notes 3 INTRODUCTION A STRANGE guest is standing before the door of an English house : a tall, upright figure in a long, saffron-coloured robe, with a large turban wound round his head. His olive complexion and his black beard proclaim his Indian birth ; his dark eyes, with their gentle expression, reveal a heart at rest, and they shine with an infinite kindness. The stranger gives his name to the girl who opens the door : Sadhu Sundar Singh. The girl gazes at him for a moment in astonishment, then she hastens to call her mistress : '* There is someone at the door who wishes to see you, ma'am ; I can't pronounce his name, but he looks like Jesus Christ ! " (i) At a meeting in a certain town in America a three- year-old child was sitting in the front row. She was staring with all her might at the speaker — that mysterious man in the saffron robe. When the speaker had finished his address and had sat down, the little girl said in a clear, high voice, which rang through the hall : ** Is he Jesus Christ ? " (2) The English girl and the American child were not the only people who instantly perceived the sanctity and divine vocation of the Indian visitor who reminded them so much of our Lord. Many men and women, both in Asia and in Europe, who had the good fortune to see him felt as though he were a reincarnation of one of the great men of God from Bible days. ** Wherever he goes you hear people saying : * How like he is to Christ ! ' " writes Mrs. Parker, his friend and biographer. And Jean Fleury, a missionary among the Mahrattas, says : " The man is a living sermon : I have never met anyone who helps you to see Christ as he does." Even the well-known American theologian, Frank Buchman, of the Hartford Theological Seminary, sums up his impression of the Sadhu in these words : " He is more like Christ than anyone we have ever seen." This intuitive impression is confirmed by all we learn of the life and teaching of this remarkable man. In the wonderful story of his life, and in his apostolic activity, this Indian Christian disciple resembles the great apostle of the Gentiles. Like Paul, Sundar Singh was converted in a wonderful manner by a vision of Christ; like him also, Sundar Singh was changed from a bitter enemy into a devoted disciple and apostle ; like Paul, again, he did not receive the Gospel from man, " but . through revelation of Jesus Christ " ; like him also, he has travelled over land and sea in order to bear witness to the grace and power of his Saviour ; like him, he has done and suffered all things for the sake of the Gospel ; like Paul, he can say literally : " In labours more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft . in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers ... in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness ... in labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." " In everything commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings ... by evil report and good report." 2 Corinthians 11:26, 27. The outward and inward resemblances which can be found between the lives of Paul and the Sadhu are sur- prising. A Swiss minister says : " I believe that right down the centuries no one has been more like Paul than the Sadhu, in his message, as well as in other ways, not only because he happens to be an Oriental, but because, like Paul, he is possessed by Christ to an unusual degree." In many ways, however, Sundar Singh is still more like our Lord as He was upon earth. Like Jesus of Nazareth, he wandered homeless from village to village, from town to town ; like the Master, often "he had not where to lay his head," Like Him, he withdraws constantly into the solitude of the hills, where, far from his brethren, he spends hours in deep communion with the Eternal Father. Like Him, he proclaims the Gospel in simple language, which can be understood by all ; like Him, too, he is a master in the art of teaching through parables which help dull minds to catch something of the m.eaning of the heavenly mysteries. Like Him, he is full of love for children, and always " suffers the little ones " to come to him. He has left all to follow his Master — home, family, and possessions ; in order to serve Him completely he 4 took quite literally the com- mand : *' Get you no gold nor silver in your purses ; no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff." And as the instructions of Jesus were literally obeyed by him, so also the prophecy of Jesus has been literally fulfilled in his life : '* Before governors and kings shall you be brought for My sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles." So in the life of Sundar Singh we see part of the Bible history being lived out before our eyes ; that life of the Saviour and of His apostle which to so many of our contemporaries seems either an incredible legend or an unattainable ideal has become once more concrete and actual in the life of this man of God. " At every turn," says the Swiss pastor already quoted, " the New Testament comes alive in all its varied wealth of inner and outer experience ; through him we see it among us in all its richness and wonder." 5 Part I THE ANCESTRAL FAITH OF SUNDAR SINGH I. The History of the Sikh Religion THIS Christian apostle of the present day, whose life is a veritable '* Mirror of Christ," comes from that great country of religion — India. None of the other non-Christian lands possesses such a rich mine of religious wealth as the land of the Ganges and the Indus. From those far-off days when the holy rsi received the inspiration which they embodied in the Vedic Hymns, the stream of religious life, gradually widening into many different channels, has flowed through the centuries right down to our own times. From the infinite variety of India's heritage of religion, which our scientific research has not yet been able fully to survey, some leading tendencies emerge : the rich ritualism and asceticismof Brahmanism, the deep mystical wisdom of the Vedanta, the artificial spiritual discipline of the Yoga, the profound doctrines of Buddhism, the glowing theocentric devotion of the Bhakti^ and the consuming zeal of Islam. These widely varying types mingle and cross each other again and again in the history of religion in India. One of its most remarkable com- binations is the Sikh religion, the ancestral faith of Sundar Singh. (3) The Sikh religion is a reformed faith which tried to achieve a higher synthesis between Hinduism and Islam. Its founder was Guru Nanak, who belongs to that group of great religious Bhakti of the Indian mediasval period with which we associate the names of Chaitanya, Nam Dev and Kabir ; the latter had already achieved a union of Hindu and Islamic-Sufi piety. Nanak was born in 1469 at Rayapur, near Lahore, in the Punjab, of wealthy parents ; very early in life he left the world, donned the saffron robe of an ascetic, and became a faktr^ a wandering saint, or, in the language of the Indian Middle Ages, a sadhu. He sought salvation in all the existing religions and cults of his day, but without success. " I have consulted the four Veds, but these writings find not God's limits. I have consulted the four books of the Mohammedans, but God's worth is not described in them. I have dwelt by rivers and streams, and bathed at the sixty-eight places of pilgrimage ; I have lived among the forests and glades of the three worlds, and eaten bitter and sweet ; I have seen the seven nether regions, and heavens upon heavens. And I, Nanak, say : man shall be true to his faith if he fear God and do good works." ^ This was the new truth which Nanak found after strenuous search, and which from that time forward he never tired of proclaiming everywhere.
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