In one village he visited, Sundar spent the day sitting and talking to people about Jesus Christ. Some rejected outright what he said, while others were interested in the things he said. But as night fell, the local people went off to their houses, leaving Sundar alone. Sundar walked over to a tree at the edge of the village and sat down under it. It was then that he realized how hungry he was. He’d had nothing to eat since the few handfuls of rice someone had given him the day before. As he sat under the tree, Sundar began to think about the people of the village in their houses eating rice and vegetables and fruit. How he wished he could be sitting in one of those houses eating. He thought about how good the food would taste and how comfortable he would feel with nourishment in his now empty stomach.
As his mind began to drift off into thoughts of food, Sundar stopped himself. No. These were fruitless thoughts, he told himself. He had chosen to follow God and trust Him to provide for his needs. If He had provided no food for Sundar to eat today, that was fine. Sundar would go to sleep hungry and would not grumble or complain or let his mind run after fanciful thoughts about sitting and eating. Instead he began to sing and praise God. And as he did so, waves of happiness and contentment swept over him.
Sundar had been singing for nearly two hours, when two men from the village walked over to where he was seated. The men looked at him closely, and then one of them looked at the other and said, “He is not drunk; he is happy.”
Seeing an opportunity to share the gospel, Sundar explained to the two men why he was singing and that he was happy because he trusted God. The two men listened attentively, and when Sundar had finished speaking, one of the men said, “Please forgive us. It did not occur to us to offer you food. Wait here and we will bring you something to eat.”
Several minutes later the two men were back, carrying a basket of food which they offered to Sundar. Sundar took the basket and thanked the men for their generosity, and in no time at all his hunger was satisfied.
As he made his way amid the villages of the Punjab plain, Sundar found himself at a village less than an hour’s walk from Rampur. When he had finished in the village, he set out for his hometown. Sundar did not know what kind of reception to expect, and he was pleasantly surprised at the way people welcomed him. Instead of hurling abuse, stones, and rotten fruit and vegetables at him, as they had done in the past, the people invited him into their homes and businesses to talk. They seemed to be genuinely interested when he talked to them about Jesus Christ.
While in Rampur, Sundar sent a message to his father, asking if he could see him. His father’s response was swift. He sent a message back saying he did not want to see his son. As far as he was concerned, Sundar was dead.
But Sundar felt he should try again, and so the following day he sent another message to his father, asking to meet him. This time his father relented and invited Sundar to the house for dinner.
Sundar made his way to the Singh family compound and greeted his father. But it was soon obvious to him that his family was not glad to see him and merely tolerated his presence. This was particularly obvious when it came time for dinner. Instead of inviting his son to sit with him and his brothers around the meal, Sher Singh indicated that Sundar should sit separate from the family, explaining that he did not want his son to pollute the food they would eat.
For Sundar it was a bitter blow. He had come, hoping that somehow they could put their differences behind them, but he now realized that was not going to happen. After the family had served themselves, they served Sundar a plate of food, which he ate in silence, sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room.
As Sundar ate, Sher Singh stood and picked up a pitcher of water and walked over to his son. He held the pitcher high and poured the water into Sundar’s hands. No matter how he tried, Sundar could not hold back his emotions. Tears welled in his eyes. What his father had just done was a great insult. It was the way Hindus of high caste served the untouchables, the lowest caste members of Indian society. Sher Singh was indicating to his son that he considered him the lowest of the low.
Sundar began to wonder what he had been thinking in hoping for a new start with his family. It was not going to happen. He was as good as dead in their eyes, and he began to wish he could be anywhere but in that room with them. To his relief the meal was soon over, and Sundar stood to leave.
Before he left, Sundar stopped at the door, turned, and said to his father, “It doesn’t matter if you have forsaken me. My life now belongs to Christ, and He will not forsake me. His love is unchangeable and greater than your love. Before I became a Christian, I dishonored Jesus Christ, but He did not forsake me. I cannot forsake Him now, and I will not forsake you as you have forsaken me. I thank you for your love to me in the past, and I thank you for allowing me to spend these hours with you under your roof. Good-bye, Father.”
With that Sundar turned and walked out of the house. He made his way to the edge of town, where he slept the night under his thin blanket on the hard ground.
The following day Sundar left Rampur, wondering whether he would ever return to the place again. He set out in the direction of the village of Doliwala and arrived there at sunset, just as the storm clouds that had been gathering throughout the day broke and rain began to pour down. Despite the rain, as Sundar walked down the main thoroughfare of the village, people clustered around him, eager for some words from a holy man. But their curiosity soon turned to anger when they realized that Sundar was a Christian sadhu. They picked up rocks and drove him out of their village.
It was dark by now, and Sundar was soaked to the skin. He walked until he came across an abandoned hut by the side of the road. The door was missing, but Sundar was glad for somewhere dry to stay. He was tired from walking all day. He wrapped himself in his thin blanket, found a dry corner, and was soon sound asleep.
As the first shafts of sunlight cut their way through the cracks in the wall of the abandoned hut, Sundar awoke. He reached over to pull up his blanket when something caught his eye. What was it? Was it just a shadow, or was it something else? Sundar peered harder into the early-morning gloom. It was definitely not just a shadow. Rather, it was something long and thick. In an instant Sundar was wide awake. A deadly black cobra was coiled up next to him for warmth! Sundar held his breath as he slid out from under the blanket and edged toward the door. The cobra did not move from its position on the edge of the blanket.
As Sundar reached the doorway of the hut, he thought of the cold winter nights ahead for him. Without his blanket he could freeze to death, but if he woke the sleeping cobra, he could die right there in the hut from one of the snake’s poisonous bites. After a brief prayer Sundar decided he needed his blanket and determined to retrieve it. He crept back to where he had been sleeping and gently tugged on the edge of the blanket, never taking his eyes off the snake for a moment. The cobra did not stir as Sundar eased it off his blanket and onto the mud floor. When he finally had the blanket, Sundar headed for the door as silently and as fast as he could. Safely outside the hut, Sundar knelt and thanked God for keeping him safe from the cobra.
Not long after his encounter with the snake, Sundar passed another perilous night. This time he had been in a Muslim village, where he had spent the day preaching in the marketplace without any success. In the evening, as the last rays of the sun disappeared from view, a man cautiously approached Sundar.
“You must leave at once,” the man whispered. “There is a plot to kill you. The people think you are a spy.”
Sundar nodded and picked up his blanket. He had nowhere to go except out into the barren land outside the village that was infested with dangerous wild animals.
Chapter 6
The Life of a Traveling Sadhu
Sundar found a sheltered, rocky crevice in which to spend the night. But he did not get much sleep. He lay awake most of the night, wrapped in his blanket, listening for the sound of jackals and tigers while swarming insects buzzed around him. And as the temperature dropped, he shivered with cold. He was grateful that no animals bothered him in the darkness, and he was very glad when the first vestiges of dawn crept across the land. He was soon up gathering twigs to build a fire. Sundar was sitting by the fire warming himself and praying about where to go next, when he noticed a group of men approaching. The men were carrying sticks and laughing among themselves. Sundar recognized one of the men—a Muslim man from the village who had hurled stones at him the day before.
Sundar stood and waited, his muscles tightening. He expected the men to mete out a beating to him with their sticks. He was surprised when this did not happen. Instead, when the group of men reached Sundar, their leader fell to his knees. “Please forgive us,” he said. “You are a holy man, and we have sinned against you. This morning we agreed to meet at dawn and go beyond the village wall to make sure that wild animals had killed you during the night. But not only are you alive, you are well and waiting for us with peace in your eyes. It is obvious that God especially favors you. Come back to the village with us, and we will give you food and shelter. When you have rested, we will listen to all you have to say.”
It took Sundar a moment or two to accept what the man was saying. The man had come to make sure that Sundar was dead, and now he wanted to honor him.
“Only God could turn your hearts,” Sundar finally replied. “I will accompany you back to your village and tell you the good news of eternal life.”
The men all walked back to the village, and true to their word, they fed and housed Sundar while he preached in the village. Sundar stayed in the village for a week, and when he left, the men asked him to return soon and tell them more of the strange stories of Jesus.
Sundar promised he would return and then set off to the west to find another village in which he could preach the gospel. He had gone only a few miles when he met another sadhu. This sadhu, however, was a Hindu and had discarded his yellow robe and was lying on a bed of nails at the side of the road. Sundar walked over to him and asked, “To what end do you wound and torture yourself so?”
“I see you are a sadhu too. Yet you do not know why I do this? It is my penance. In lying on this bed of nails, I am destroying the flesh and its desires. I serve God in this way, but I am still very aware of my sins and evil heart. Indeed, the weight of my evil heart is more painful than these nails. My goal is to kill all desire and so to find release from myself and oneness with God,” the sadhu answered.
“And how long have you been on this quest?” Sundar asked.
The other sadhu winced. “That is my problem,” he began. “I have been exercising this discipline for eighteen months, but I have not yet reached my goal. Indeed, it is not possible to find release in such a short time; it will take many years, even many lives, before I can hope for release from my sinful nature.”
Sundar stood quietly watching the man, thinking about the empty promises of Hinduism. How cruel it is to think that we must torture ourselves through many lives in order to find true peace. If we do not reach our goal in this life, why should there be another chance in another life? Is it even possible in thousands and thousands of lives?
“Brother,” Sundar finally said, “consider the notion that neither you nor I will ever find peace through our own efforts. I have found that peace is a gift from God, not the wages of self-denial and sacrifice such as you are making. Seek the life of God, and not the death of the flesh.”
A little farther along the road, Sundar encountered another sadhu doing penance. His feet were tied with a rope, and he was hanging upside down from the branch of a tree. Sundar sat down under the tree and waited for him to finish his exercise. When he came down, Sundar asked, “Why do you do this? What is the purpose of such torture?”
