2. The Path That Will Lead You to God
Chapter 2
The Path That Will
Lead You to God
Sundar Singh squinted against the bright sunlight as he followed his mother across the dusty Punjab plain. Despite the grit in his eyes and the sun beating down on his turban-covered head, Sundar felt like bursting into song. Today, September 3, 1896, was his seventh birthday. Even better than that, it was the day his mother declared him ready to recite the Bhagavad Gita to the holy man, whom they had visited together for as long as Sundar could remember.
As he walked, Sundar thought of his older brothers, who had laughed at him as he and his mother left the house in Rampur village to visit the holy man. “Ha,” they had said. “Too much religion will make a little head like yours pop! How are all those words going to help you become a banker or a lawyer?”
His mother had raised her hand to them. “Stop now,” she said. “Every one of you has his own path to walk, and Sundar has his, too. Only God can tell what he is preparing Sundar for.”
As Sundar thought of his mother’s words, he loved her even more for saying them. She was known as one of the holiest women in the region, a bhakta, or saint, some people called her. Although Sundar’s father, Sher Singh, was not particularly interested in religious matters, Sundar knew that he, too, was proud of his mother and her gentle ways. Although the family was Sikh, his mother often said, “God speaks in many ways and through many faiths.” As a result, she encouraged Sundar to understand the good in all religions.
That is why on this particularly hot September afternoon Sundar and his mother were on their way to visit the holy man, or sadhu, as holy men were called, to recite to him not the Sikh scriptures but Hindu scripture.
Most seven-year-old boys living in India in 1896 had not yet learned much about their faith, but Sundar was an exception. He spent hours listening to various religious teachers in the Sikh temples. In addition to memorizing the entire Bhagavad Gita, he knew large tracts of the Sikh scriptures, the Granth Sahib. He also knew that Guru Nanak had started the Sikh religion in 1496. The guru had been born into a simple Hindu family and worked among Muslims, and by the time he was twenty-seven years old, he had started a religion. He worshiped one eternal God and rejected the Hindu caste system, insisting instead that, in God’s eyes, men and women, rich and poor, were all alike. Now, four hundred years later, the Sikh religion was thriving in North India. And its followers still believed that there was one benevolent God.
Sundar and his mother followed a winding path that led them to the edge of a forest. There, sitting in the shade of a tree, was the sadhu, clad in a yellow robe. The sadhu welcomed the two of them warmly and then proceeded to ask Sundar some questions. As Sundar answered, the sadhu’s eyes lit up, and finally he said, “Now you must recite the Bhagavad Gita for me.”
The holy man sat cross-legged on the ground, his back straight as he waited for Sundar to begin. Sundar cleared his throat and began to recite the Hindu text in Sanskrit. At first he was nervous, and the words tumbled from his mouth in a halting, high-pitched voice. But as his nervousness subsided, his words started to flow with confidence.
Sundar got so caught up in the recitation that he was not sure how long he had been speaking when the holy man finally raised his hand. “You may stop now. You have done well,” he said.
With that, Sundar stood tall and thrust out his chest.
Then the sadhu spoke again. “You have recited well, yes, but you are proud at having done so. Pride is the enemy. You must learn humility as well as the Bhagavad Gita. Humility is the path that will lead you to God.”
Sundar knew that the holy man was right. Pride was exactly what he was feeling. He was proud at having recited the Bhagavad Gita so well. As he thought about the sadhu’s words, his shoulders slumped, and he diverted his eyes to the dusty ground.
“What does the Bhagavad Gita say is the way to please God?” the sadhu asked.
“It tells us that the way to pleasing God is by keeping all the laws that have been handed down to us by our forefathers.”
“And?” the sadhu questioned further.
“It also tells us that to please God we must practice the way of meditation and self-denial. That we must cut ourselves off from the ideas of men and think only on the things of God,” Sundar said.
“You have spoken correctly,” the holy man said with a look of satisfaction. Then he added, “If you do these things, the day may come when you, too, can call yourself a sadhu. Now it is time for you to go. But do not forget what we have spoken of.”
“I will not,” Sundar replied as he and his mother turned and set out for home.
That night, and for many nights afterward, Sundar thought about what the sadhu had told him. He wondered about how he might become holy. He read the Sikh scriptures for hours at a time, until his father complained that so much reading and religious thinking was bad for his health. Despite his father’s objections, Sundar could feel something tugging at his heart—he wanted to find the way to God. He determined that part of finding his way to God would be to do good whenever the opportunity arose.
One day not too long afterward, Sundar’s father gave him a rupee to spend on whatever he liked at the local bazaar. Sundar took the money and ran off, trying to decide which of his favorite sweets he would buy. At the edge of the bazaar Sundar saw a beggar woman. She was skin and bone, her hair was matted, her dark eyes were glazed over and sunken, and she was shivering uncontrollably. Sundar had seen her before but had never stopped to really look at her. Suddenly he remembered his decision to do good wherever he could. Here was a woman who desperately needed help, and he could help her. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the rupee his father had given him. He could do without the sweets.
“Here, take this,” Sundar said, handing the woman the rupee.
Tears formed at the edges of the woman’s sunken eyes as she reached out and took the coin and thanked Sundar for it.
A warm feeling of satisfaction swept through Sundar at his kind deed. But was there more he could do? Yes, there was. Sundar turned and ran back to the family compound.
“Father, Father,” he called as he ran in the gate.
Sundar found his father inside sitting at a table making entries in a ledger.
“Father, I need ten rupees,” he began breathlessly. “There is a beggar woman at the bazaar. She is very sick and needs our help. I gave her my rupee, but it is not nearly enough. With ten rupees she can buy food and a blanket to keep warm.”
Sher Singh put down his pen and looked directly at his son. “Sundar, I cannot give you ten rupees. First, it is a lot of money. But if I give you the money to give to this woman, every sick beggar in Rampur and the surrounding area will be coming to our gate expecting the same treatment. No, that will not do. I will not give you the money. You have done what you can; now let someone else take care of her.”
“But—” Sundar began.
His father raised his hand to stop him. “Enough, Sundar. I have spoken.”
As his father picked up the pen and again began making entries in the ledger, Sundar turned and left the room. And that was when he saw it. Right there on the sideboard in the living room was his father’s money pouch. At first Sundar tried not to think about it, but an idea formed in his head and would not let go. No, he told himself, he could not steal money from his father’s money pouch. But then a picture of the beggar woman flashed through his mind. She needed his help. Before he knew it, Sundar had picked up the money pouch and slid a ten-rupee note from it. Father will never notice that it is missing, he reassured himself.
Sundar ran all the way back to the bazaar. He was out of breath when he spotted the frail form of the beggar woman. He stopped short, thinking about what he was about to do. Suddenly he was confused. How could he steal from his father? Surely that one wrong would undo all the good he was trying to do for the beggar woman. If he followed through with this action, he might find himself farther away from God, not closer to Him. Despite desperately wanting to help the beggar woman some more, Sundar turned around and began winding his way through the streets toward home. Less than half an hour had passed since he had taken the money, too little time, he reasoned, for anyone to notice that the money was gone. He would just slip the ten-rupee note back into his father’s money pouch, and no one would ever know what he had done.
Sundar was surprised when he walked through the gate into the family compound. His father was storming back and forth in the yard. “Ah, there you are. Some money is missing from my pouch, ten rupees to be exact. Do you know anything about it, Sundar?”
Sundar wanted to say yes and hand over the banknote, but he could not. He could see the anger in his father’s eyes, and he feared the punishment that would be meted out to him. Then Sundar heard himself say, “No, I know nothing of the missing money.”
“Then it must be one of the servants,” Sundar’s father said in a determined voice. “I will get to the bottom of this. We cannot tolerate a thief in the house.”
Hardly able to comprehend the situation he had gotten himself into, Sundar turned and left the compound. This time he went to the woods on the outskirts of the village to think and be alone. What a mess he had made of things. All he wanted to do was help the beggar woman at the bazaar, but now he was nothing but a liar and a thief.
The sun was beginning to set when Sundar finally began making his way home. When he arrived, he learned that his father had had the house servants beaten as punishment for stealing money from him. Sundar’s mother explained that since none of the servants would own up to the crime, Sher Singh was left with no other option but to punish them all. Sundar was horrified at where his actions had led.
That night Sundar could neither eat nor sleep. As he tossed and turned on his sleeping mat, his conscience gnawed at him. How could he ever look his father in the eye again? Or the servants, knowing that they had endured the punishment that should have been his? Finally Sundar could stand it no longer. Even though it was midnight, he had to set the matter straight. He stumbled to his feet and went to wake his father.
Sundar trembled as he shook his father awake. Sher Singh looked surprised and then shocked as Sundar handed him the ten-rupee note and confessed what he had done.
When he had finished his confession, Sundar stood tensely, waiting for the beating he knew would follow. But to his surprise, instead of telling Sundar to get the whip, his father reached up and put his arm around him. “Sundar, I have always trusted you. And your confession convinces me that I was not wrong in that trust. Now run along to bed, and we will talk more in the morning.”
The following morning when Sundar awoke, his father was waiting for him, his money pouch in hand. Sher Singh pulled the ten-rupee note from it and handed it to Sundar. “Take this and buy the beggar woman some food and a blanket,” he said. And then he pulled out a one-rupee coin. “And here, take this and buy yourself some sweets while you are at the bazaar.”
“Thank you, Father, thank you,” Sundar said, taking the money, scarcely able to comprehend his father’s kindness. He quickly dressed and headed for the bazaar.
Soon after this incident, Sundar began attending the American Presbyterian mission school near his home. Most of the other boys in Rampur were forbidden from attending a Christian school, and they would not have wanted to anyway. Sikhs were taught to despise Christians because Christians believed that God had come down and taken on the form of a man. But Sundar’s mother was different. She had made friends with two of the foreign female missionaries and decided to enroll her youngest son in their school.
Sundar was happy to attend the school. Indeed he enjoyed it greatly, until he was fourteen and a terrible thing happened—his mother died. Sundar was devastated. All of his religious acts—his praying, visiting the temple and the sadhu, reciting the Bhagavad Gita, even learning about God from the Christian Bible—had been encouraged by his mother. And now, unexplainably, she was gone.
Sundar’s mother had also taught him about the Hindu belief in reincarnation, how each soul is destined to pass through an almost endless cycle of death and rebirth until finally it attains the merit needed to once and for all pass from this world. Sundar had accepted his mother’s words, but now he found no comfort whatsoever in reincarnation. The thought that her soul might be reborn as someone else whom he would not recognize saddened and distressed him.
The missionaries tried to comfort Sundar with words from the Bible, but he spat their words back in their faces. He thought bitterly about the fool he had been for hoping in God and trying to find and serve Him. His heart grew hard, and within a month of his mother’s dying, he was impossible for the Christian teachers to control. He argued with them at every turn, using his quick mind to refute anything they said in Bible study. He quoted long passages from the Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist scriptures to back up his points.
Finally Sundar announced to his father that he would not be going back to the mission school. He would rather walk three miles each way to the public school. His father let him go, and Sundar did everything he could to purge the Christian teaching from his mind. On his own, he found this more difficult to do than he had anticipated, so he gathered together a group of young hooligans to harass the Christians in the village. Sundar’s hatred for Christians grew, and he vowed not to rest until the Christians were driven from the village. Sundar’s father tried to reason with his son, but Sundar would not listen. Now that his mother was dead, he did not care what anyone thought of him.
Finally summer arrived, and with it the relentless heat of the plains. Sundar soon found it more and more difficult to walk the six miles to school and back. He realized why one morning, when he could not get up from his sleeping mat. Despite the summer heat, his entire body shook, and he felt very cold. He had caught malaria.