12. To Tibet Once Again
Chapter 12
To Tibet Once Again
With so many people wanting to meet him and hear him preach, Sundar spent the next four months traveling to Vellore, Trichur, Calicut, and various small towns in southern India. At the end of this time Sundar was exhausted. He felt like every ounce of strength had been sucked out of him, and he gratefully accepted the invitation of a Christian lawyer to spend a month in solitude in his summerhouse in the mountains.
While at the summerhouse, Sundar spent several hours each day teaching himself English from a book. He realized that one of the most tiring aspects of preaching in the south was speaking in Hindustani and then waiting while it was translated into Tamil or one of the other languages of southern India. Many people in the south spoke English, and Sundar longed for the day when he would be able to talk directly with them. Even if he could not, it would be much easier to find a translator to put his English into another language than one who translated from Hindustani.
At the summerhouse he also caught up on his correspondence. Many of the letters Sundar received were heartening. One read, “Ever since you left Calicut, I have been looking back with gratitude on those blessed days you spent with us.… We are again reminded of those days when last week a Mohammedan young man came to us and said he had decided to become a Christian as the result of listening to you.”
Another letter from Calicut reported, “When you were in Calicut the sub-postmaster heard you, or heard God’s voice through you. Some days after, he saw Christ calling him in a dream. He comes every day to read with me. He says he wants to be baptised and fully follow Christ.”
As people in the surrounding area learned that Sundar was staying nearby, they began to visit the house, either to ask questions or just to get a glimpse of him. One man who came was a magistrate. He was very troubled, and Sundar invited the man to sit with him in the back garden. The two of them started talking, and the magistrate said, “Sadhu, I know your time is valuable, and I do not want to take up too much of it. I have spent my life studying religions, and there is one problem which none of them can answer. I would like your opinion on in it.”
“Ask your question,” Sundar replied, “and I will tell you if my Lord Jesus has given me any light on the subject.”
The magistrate continued. “Every day thousands of men are born and every day thousands of them die. What is the profit of all this to God? I am inclined to believe that there is no meaning in it but that the various elements come together and then get dissolved as one of the processes of nature.”
Sundar thought for a moment and then replied, “Sahib, you are a learned man, and I am not. I am not sure I can satisfy you, but with the little grace God has given me, I shall try to answer your question. Once I was sitting in meditation on a hill for some months. In the valley below I saw busy farmers at work, day after day. First I watched them plough the fields; then they manured them. When the rains came, they sowed seed. The seeds came up, and the plants grew. The farmers watered the plants and weeded them. The corn plants produced ears, then blades, and then full corn. As the corn ripened, the farmers took turns walking the fields at night, making sure that no wild animals or men ate the nearly ripened corn.
“Then one day the care of the corn was over. The farmers brought their scythes and began cutting the sheaths of corn, which they had so carefully tended all those months. The plants could have well asked, ‘What is the profit of all this? Why did the farmers take such good care of us, only to cut us down in the end like this?’
“But you see, my friend, the plants did not know what the farmers knew. We may not know why we are born and why we die, but God does.”
The magistrate nodded. “You have spoken well, Sadhu, and given me much to think about.”
That night, and for many nights afterward, Sundar prayed that the magistrate would come to understand that God knew the reason why he had been born.
After six weeks of rest, Sundar received an invitation from a Methodist minister to come to Ceylon to preach. A ticket for the short voyage to Ceylon was included with the invitation, and Sundar decided to go.
At Uduvil, in Ceylon, the struggling American Methodist mission had built a special shelter of coconut fronds and had sent out invitations for people to come and hear Sundar preach. When Sundar arrived at the place, he found two thousand people waiting for him: adults and children, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists, all of whom wanted to hear his message.
Each successive meeting in Ceylon attracted larger and larger crowds, and many people compared Sundar to Jesus and His wandering ministry. A group of young men followed Sundar from one preaching spot to the next, asking him questions and wanting him to pray for them.
Once, as Sundar sat meditating under a tree, a nobleman approached him. “Sadhu, you are the one all India is interested in. May I sit and talk?” the nobleman asked.
“Most certainly,” Sundar replied.
The nobleman took a place on the ground and sat cross-legged opposite Sundar. “You have proved that you can draw men of every faith to you,” the nobleman went on. “And you have shown that there is a measure of truth in every religion, that all roads lead to God. The Emperor Akbar built a great temple to all religions four hundred years ago. And the founder of your Sikh religion, Guru Nanak, discovered truth among the Hindu and Muslim faiths. But the time has come for another prophet, a guru who will draw all India to his feet. There are errors that must be purged from all religions so that the real truth might come forth. What is needed is a teacher who can unite the best of all religions and discard the unworthy. Jesus in this new religion would be the greatest revelation of God the world has ever seen, though Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism would not be discredited or discarded. And you, Sadhu Sundar Singh, would be the prophet of this new way of Jesus. You would go down in history as a greater prophet than Guru Nanak, the holy men of Hinduism, even Mohammed.”
Sundar sat and stared at the nobleman for a long time. Finally he said, “You have been sent to try me, to tempt me by appealing to my pride. But your scheme will not work. If you truly knew me and the things I teach, you would surely know that I teach and preach only Jesus. He is the one and only true manifestation of God. He is the only one who can lead men to new life and enlightenment in God. All these other religions you speak of will surely pass away, but Jesus Christ shall remain forever. I serve only Him, and I seek no glory for myself. I do as He leads me to do, and I count it a joy to suffer the privations of life in serving my Lord. Now go, for your temptation has no power over me. I am content with the lot the Lord Jesus has given me, and I seek no other glory but His.”
With that the nobleman scrambled to his feet without saying a word and left. Sundar continued to sit under the tree until dark, thinking about pride and how easily it could enter his heart and turn him from his mission if he did not constantly stand guard against it.
Sundar returned to India from Ceylon in July and traveled northwest to Bombay to attend a conference. Following the conference he headed east to Calcutta. When he arrived there, he came down with a serious case of influenza, the same strain of influenza that had begun sweeping the world following the end of the Great War in Europe, leaving millions of people dead in its wake. Even so, Sundar was not afraid. Instead he prayed and committed himself into God’s hands. And although he become very sick, he did not die. As he recovered from the illness, he continually thanked God for the opportunity for a long rest and more time to pray.
As much as Sundar would have liked to return to the Himalayan region once he had recovered from his bout of influenza, he felt God was calling him to go still farther afield. This time his destination was Burma, on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. To get to Burma, Sundar made his first major sea voyage. He enjoyed the experience. Being out of sight of land and surrounded by sea was a very different sensation from climbing over the high, rocky peaks of the Himalayas to get were he wanted to go.
Sundar arrived in Rangoon, Burma, refreshed and ready to preach. Bishop Lefroy had preceded him there and set up a series of meetings under the auspices of the Anglican Church. Just as in southern India, these meetings were hugely popular and attended by ever growing crowds.
After one of the meetings, an Indian man approached Sundar. “You do not recognize me, do you, Sadhu?” the man asked.
Sundar took a good look at the man and realized that he was the doctor who had treated him after he had been poisoned by his brothers. “Of course I do,” Sundar replied. “You are the doctor who attended me in Rupar. What brings you here today?”
The doctor beamed. “I laughed when you told me about the resurrection of Jesus and that His power could heal you, but then I saw you recover from imminent death. When you left, I purchased a Bible and began to read it, and soon after I became a Christian. I live here now in Burma, where I am a missionary doctor.”
Sundar reached out and embraced his new friend in Christ. It was one of the happiest reunions of Sundar’s life, and he thanked God for using such a horrible situation to bring another person into His kingdom.
The meetings in Burma continued, and as a result, many Burmese people were able to hear the gospel clearly presented for the first time in their lives. Sundar was so encouraged by the response of the people on this side of the Bay of Bengal that he decided to continue his tour on to Singapore.
In Singapore Sundar faced a new challenge. For the first time he could not find an interpreter to take his Hindustani words and translate them into the local languages. This was discouraging, until he decided that it was a God-given opportunity to overcome his fear and begin preaching in English. At first Sundar felt that his words were awkward and slow, but with each successive sermon, his grasp of the language improved until he felt quite comfortable speaking English. This was heartening for Sundar, since English was the international language of Asia.
Encouraged by the success of his preaching in Singapore, Sundar decided to continue north up the Malaya peninsula to the island of Penang, where he had the unexpected joy of talking to a group of Sikhs who had been invited to hear him preach at Saint George’s Chapel. At the close of the meeting, a Sikh man stood and invited Sundar to speak at the Sikh temple.
Other people in Penang were greatly touched by Sundar’s simple message. The chief of police came to hear him preach and then gave a half day off to his police staff so that they, too, could go and hear Sundar speak.
From Penang Sundar made his way back to Singapore, from where he traveled on to Japan at the request of a Japanese bishop.
The crowds in Japan who came to hear Sundar speak were smaller than those in other parts of Asia, but Sundar did not care. He preached in Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo, trusting that God was bringing the right people to hear his message.
Still awed at the places where he had been privileged to preach, Sundar left Japan for China, where he spoke at meetings in Shanghai, Nanking, Pastringfu, and Peking. Everywhere he went, people begged him to stay longer, and he became embarrassed by the things that were written about him. He read one newspaper article that said,
His coming was most timely, and I trust has given the Peking Cathedral congregation a great lift. It was good to see a Methodist translating for the Sadhu in the Cathedral. It was fuller than it ever has been on a Sunday, and at the Monday meeting—a suddenly announced service—the Cathedral was again full. His way of putting things in English is after the model of the Gospels.
In both Japan and China Sundar was impressed at the number of people who became Christians as a result of his preaching. He decided that this was because neither nation was burdened with a caste system like the one that dominated Indian society. Without such a system, people were free to make their own decisions. Sundar grieved at what a crippling effect the caste system had in his homeland.
From China Sundar had hoped to travel into a different part of Tibet, but at the time the Chinese and Tibetans were fighting each other, and he realized he would have to reenter Tibet by way of India.
On his return to India, Sundar spoke at a hurriedly arranged meeting in the memorial hall at Madras. News of his return from abroad spread like wildfire, and four thousand people turned out at the first meeting to hear Sundar preach. Sundar chose for his sermon the text “And ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem…and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
When he had finished describing some of the experiences from his recent trip, Sundar concluded his sermon by saying, “I am going to the hills and to Tibet now. It is quite uncertain whether I shall be able to return, so serious are some of the risks attending the journey and my work in the region beyond. Even if I do not see you again in this world, I hope to meet you in heaven amidst the revelation of a new life and its surroundings. I wish you good-bye till we meet again.”
As Sundar made his way from the pulpit a man thrust a bag of coins into his hands. Sundar immediately handed the bag back. “Brother,” he said, “God has called me to a life of poverty and dependence upon Him. Just as Jesus told His disciples to go out without a purse, so He has commanded me.” The man looked shocked as Sundar left him standing holding the bag of money.
But the man was not ready to take no for an answer and followed Sundar to the train station. As the train carrying Sundar pulled out of the main station in Madras, the man pushed the bag through the window. “This is for you!” he yelled as the train moved away, soon too far from the station for Sundar to return the money.
At the next station Sundar, taking the bag of coins, clambered off the train and went in search of a beggar. When he found one clad in rags, he dropped the bag into the beggar’s bowl. The beggar looked amazed as he loosened the bag’s strings to see what was inside. He then bowed to kiss Sundar’s feet, but Sundar motioned for him not to. “Freely I have received, and freely I share,” he told the beggar with a smile before climbing back aboard the train for the continuation of the journey north to his beloved mountains.
Although Sundar was eager to get back to Tibet, he was laid up for some time in Kotgarh while he waited for his cut and wounded feet to heal. Once they had healed sufficiently, Sundar set out with a Tibetan Christian named Tnaniyat.
The two men began the steep climb up and over Hangpu La Pass. It was a difficult crossing, which Sundar described in a journal.
At a height of 16,000 feet we slept out on the open plain when the cold was so intense that all feelings went out of the body and we became numb all over. The whole of one night the rain fell in torrents and in the bitter cold we had to sit all night under an umbrella. This place is a very dangerous one, for many people have died in the snow.
On the 15th of July we came to Hangpu La Pass, which is nearly 19,000 feet high, where we saw the corpses of three men who had died from the terrific cold. At this great height we could scarcely draw our breath, our heads and lungs were filled with pain, and the beating of our hearts sounded in our ears. Here is a great glacier in which many people have lost their lives, and their bodies have never been recovered to this day. Thanks be to God we passed through this awful place in safety.
The following day Sundar and Tnaniyat descended the mountain pass into Tibet, until they arrived at the small village of Mudh, where the headman of the village invited them into his house. The village’s headman also invited a prominent lama to dine with them that evening, and Sundar marveled at the openness of the lama. Most Tibetan lamas he had encountered in the past were more than eager to pass a death sentence on him or mete out some horrible punishment, but this lama was open and asked Sundar question after question about Jesus Christ and what it meant to become a Christian.
The surprising openness of the lama was reflected in the attitude of the people in other villages they visited. This time, instead of being run out of most villages, Sundar and Tnaniyat were invited to stay in the village and eat and talk with the people. The trial on this trip proved not to be the reaction of the people but the terrain the two men had to cross to get from one village to another. There were no roads to follow, just narrow, poorly defined tracks that often petered out. And there were countless rivers and streams to cross, and no bridges on which to cross them. Instead Sundar and his companion had to wade through the icy, fast-flowing water, which often came up to their chests.
Once as Sundar was attempting to cross the Morang River alone, his body became so stiff and numb that he could not bend and expend the needed energy to pull himself up onto the rocks on the far side of the river. Sundar had prepared himself to drown, when somehow on his third attempt to crawl out of the river he managed to hook one of his legs over a boulder and somehow roll up onto it out of the water. There he lay until he had warmed up enough to clamber up the riverbank and continue his journey on to the next village.
In these remote regions Sundar often encountered Tibetan hermits, men who had locked themselves away from the outside world in monasteries and caves. The hermits inhabited rooms where the sun did not penetrate and which they never left. In the confines of these rooms, cut off from the outside world, they prayed and meditated and twirled their prayer wheels.
Sundar longed to talk to these hermits about the true path to salvation, and one day such an opportunity presented itself. He was making his way across some mountains when he came upon an old Buddhist lama who lived in a cave. The man had closed off the entrance to the cave by building a stone wall, leaving only a small opening for air. He never left the cave and lived only from the tea and roasted barley that devout people brought and passed to him through the small hole. Because he had lived so long in complete darkness, the man had become blind.
When Sundar came upon him, the hermit was praying aloud. Sundar waited patiently until he was finished. Then through the hole he asked, “May I speak with you?”
It was too dark inside to see the hermit, but the man did answer. “Yes, I welcome conversation with fellow seekers,” he said.
Sundar asked him, “What have you gained through your seclusion and meditation? The Buddhist religion teaches nothing about a God who hears our prayers. To whom do you pray, then?”
The hermit answered, “I pray to Buddha, but I do not hope to gain anything by praying and by living in seclusion. Quite the opposite, I seek release from all thought of gain. I seek nirvana, the elimination of all feeling and all desire—whether of peace or of pain.” He paused for a moment before going on. “But still I live in spiritual darkness. I do not know what the end will be, but I am sure that whatever I now lack will be attained in another life.”
“Surely,” Sundar countered, “your longings and feelings arise from the God who created you. They were surely created to be fulfilled, not crushed. The destruction of all desire cannot lead to release but only to suicide. Are not our desires inseparably intertwined with the continuation of life? Even the idea of eliminating desire is fruitless. The desire to eliminate all desire is itself a desire. How can we find release and peace by replacing one desire with another? Surely we shall find peace not by eliminating desire but by finding its fulfillment and satisfaction in the One who created it.”
The hermit replied, “We shall see what we shall see.”
Finally it was time to return back across the mountains to India. The return journey was just as dangerous as the trek into Tibet had been, but Sundar made it safely back to Simla. From there he set out on a winter preaching tour of the towns and villages across the Punjab plain. He went as far east as his home village of Rampur, where a wonderful surprise awaited him.
It had been fourteen years since Sundar had last seen his father. Throughout that time he had not ceased to pray that somehow Sher Singh would become a Christian. With trepidation Sundar made his way to the family compound in Rampur. He still vividly remembered the terrible reception he had received from his father and brothers on his last visit and hoped things would be different this time. With tears running down his face, Sher Singh warmly welcomed Sundar into the compound. Sundar could see that there was something different about his father. But it was not until the two men were seated in the shade of a veranda and sipping tea that Sher Singh finally told his son that he, too, had become a Christian about a year before. He explained how he had been keeping track of Sundar’s travels through reports in the newspapers.
Tears welled in Sundar’s eyes as he received this news. After so many years of praying, God had finally answered his prayers, and he was once again sitting with his father, both of them now Christians.
The following day Sundar’s father said to him, “Son, I know I have often told you that I disinherited you, but that was to try to get you to denounce your religion. The fact is that secretly I have always kept your inheritance for you. I want to give you a portion of it now so that you can travel freely around the world preaching the gospel to all nations.”