One day, Baba asked the doctor what he was thinking. Daulat Singh replied, “Some of my friends and family are anxious for your darshan, but I do not wish it without your permission.”
Smiling, Baba spelled out, “If you won’t pray for it, then I pray to you to bring them all here for an hour on September 20th. But I can’t spare more than an hour.”
Daulat Singh was overjoyed and informed those interested. Accordingly, darshan was held at Karamchand’s bungalow in Nishat on September 20th. Almost five hundred people came to meet Baba. Meeting each briefly, Baba sent them back, but did give some extra time to Daulat Singh, his family and a few others.
Among them was a recluse who described his austerities to Baba and also his visits to different saints. Baba praised him, and in the midst of talking with everyone observed, “Daulat Singh is a gem!”
The recluse replied with a knowing smile, “He is a gem, but he is still worldly. He has not yet renounced the world.”
Baba just smiled and did not comment. He began discussing something else and after a while asked, “I remember a story. Would you like to hear it?” All expressed their eagerness and Baba’s fingers flew across the alphabet board, which Vishnu read:
A man renounced the world and was passing his time in meditation, solitude, repeating God’s name, and so forth, and also visiting different saints and mahatmas. Years passed by like this. Once he had the luck to encounter a Perfect Master. He prayed to him for God-Realization, and the Sadguru told him to stay with him in his ashram.
The Master also had other followers who were living under his orders. There was no spiritual practice of any sort in the ashram and he thought all the others there were useless, as he did not observe them doing anything spiritual. Some were cooking, some were washing, some were cleaning and thus, according to the words of the Master, keeping themselves busy.
Although now living with the Perfect Master, the sanyasi had continued his spiritual practices and become a recluse. One day he asked the Master, “When will I see God?”
The Master replied, “If you act according to my orders, you will gain the sight of God very soon.” The recluse nodded in accord. The Master, picking up a small piece of stone, then told him, “Go to the market and, in exchange for this, bring five seers (cup measurements) of vegetables.”
Looking at the stone, the recluse replied, “Master, this is a stone. Who will give five seers of vegetables in exchange for it? No one will touch it.”
The Master said, “You have promised to obey me and now you are arguing. If you do as I say, you will have God’s darshan.”
The recluse went to the market, but no vendor was ready to agree to the bargain, and all laughed in derision. With great difficulty, one agreed to give him two seers of vegetables. Refusing, the recluse returned and said to the Master, “Master, I had told you from the beginning the exchange was foolhardy. Who would give five seers of vegetables for a stone? I could get nothing.”
The Master said, “Now go to a sweetmeat shop and bring five seers of sweets for this piece of stone.” The recluse left thinking his Master deranged. No one was willing to give five seers of sweets and the most he could argue for in one shop was three seers. So he returned, again empty-handed.
The Master then directed him to approach a goldsmith and bade him to bring back not less than five thousand rupees in exchange. Now the recluse was convinced the Master was completely crazy, but he went anyway. The goldsmith examined the rock and announced that he was ready to pay one thousand rupees. This surprised the recluse as now he was being offered a thousand rupees in exchange for a stone against which previously he could not even get five seers of vegetables. He then thought the Sadguru knew what he was doing and there was something more to it than met his eye.
He returned to the Master and told him what had transpired. The Master next asked him to go to a jeweler and sell the stone for one hundred thousand rupees. So he went and the jeweler agreed to the sale and paid him the amount. The recluse brought the money and the Master told him, “You did not value the stone, but the jeweler knew its true value. He knew that it was in fact a diamond. Only a jeweler’s eye could recognize the stone’s genuine worth.
“The vegetable vendors, the sweetmeat shopkeepers, the goldsmiths – all are like those who are veiled; they can only evaluate things according to their consciousness.”
The Master then told the recluse: “I am the Jeweler and I know the capacities and capabilities of those around me. They act according to my wish, leaving their own aside. Those who reside with the Jeweler are truly spiritual. Whomever you have approached in your years of wandering until now have all been like vegetable sellers, shopkeepers and goldsmiths – limited by their own limited viewpoint. So, it is better to remain with the Jeweler who knows your true worth and who, in time, will make you a Jeweler like himself.” In this manner the recluse was convinced and held fast to the Master’s feet.
And the recluse seated before Baba also learned a good lesson from this tale, especially about Dr. Daulat Singh.
www.lordmeher.org, p2975