Message and Messenger

Guru Maharaj wrote a biography of Dada Guru. It is comparatively a small book in size, containing only 80 pages. Out of those 80 pages, only 19 discuss Dada Guru’s life events, while the remaining 61 deal with his messages. A question was asked - though this is a biography, why has more space been allotted to the teachings rather than to the life events of the teacher? Traditionally, most biographies go into detail about the messenger, briefly touching upon the message. A distance or separation is always maintained between the two. In this book, the biography of Dada Guru, that separation has been eliminated; duality is nowhere to be found. It becomes impossible to distinguish between the message and messenger. The message merges into the messenger, or the messenger merges into the message, or the merger never takes place, as the unity of the message and the messenger has existed all along. An absence of duality between the teaching and the teacher is affirmed. Perhaps, the same is being identified by two different names. The message and messenger are inseparable. 

Param Bhagwat Pundit Ji wrote Guru Maharaj’s biography and called it Philosophy of Life.  In this biography of Guru Maharaj, we see the same thread as in the biography of Dada Guru. The message and messenger are so intertwined that one cannot be differentiated from the other. Life events turn out to be teachings. In turn, the teaching becomes life events denying the possibility that one can exist without the other. To emphasize, one cannot exist without the other. They become identical. Message and messenger, teachings and teacher, lose their identities to become one.  

Someone visiting Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa asked him what would be a good commentary to read on the Gita. Paramahansa answered, “Sri Krishna.” The visitor was astonished by the answer. Perhaps, the visitor was looking for Sri Ramakrishna to select a commentary on the Gita by the great commentators like Sri Sankracharya or Sri Ramanujacharya among others. Everyone knows the Gita to be Sri Krishna’s message to the world – the great teacher’s teaching to mankind. No one had ever heard of the Lord also commenting on the Gita. Paramahansa looked at the surprise on the face of the visitor and explained that to understand the Gita, one must look at the life of Sri Krishna. He is the commentary on the Gita; He is the walking Gita; He is the message and the messenger; He is the teacher and the teaching. He reflects the Gita, and the Gita is a reflection of Sri Krishna. You will never understand either if you keep one separated from the other. Message and messenger cannot be separated.  

It becomes obvious through the writings of Guru Maharaj and Param Bhagawat, as well as Paramahansa’s assertion, that the message and the messenger cannot be separated. If we just look at the message, it is an abstraction. For an ordinary mind to comprehend the message, it needs a human face, a messenger.

Guru Maharaj said - सेवा और प्रेम ही धर्म है –Dharma is composed of only Love and Service. This is the most precise description of dharma. In this authoritative characterization, Guru Maharaj has compressed all scriptures. We are all aware of the Upanishadic question “What is ‘that’ which being known, everything else becomes known?”  If we rephrase the question “What is ‘that’ which being known, religion becomes known in its totality?”  Yuga Purusha Sri Hemendra Kumar Ji who has assimilated Love and Service, knew ‘that’ in its totality. Most of us are fortunate enough to have seen the Yuga Purusha in whose person Love and Service thrived. He did not only know dharma in its totality, He became the definition of dharma. Dharma reflected through him. Selfless Service needed a spokesman, a human face. Actually, it needed more than that; it needed to manifest itself. And, it succeeded in finding the Yuga Purusha Sri Hemendra Kumar Ji. Selfless Service was defined by every act of the Yuga Purusha. Each act of the Yuga Purusha was, as if it were, manifestation of Selfless Service. In the Yuga Purusha, we see the same magnificent identification of message and messenger which Guru Maharaj described for Dada Guru, and Param Bhagawat Pundit Ji depicted for Guru Maharaj. We are lucky indeed to have seen the Yuga Purusha, Manjhale Bhaiya. He left us on February 18^th of 2010. No, I am contradicting myself. He has not gone anywhere. We just don’t see him with our naked eyes. He is showering us with his unbounded love. दिल के आइनें में है तस्वीर यार की, जब जरा गर्दन झुकाई देख ली.