Wisdom of the Sadhu: Teachings of Sundar Singh

Rating:
Summary: Humble wisdom.
Review: "If you want to see the world of the spirit, you must look with spiritual eyes ... you can only apply the wisdom that arises from love and reverence. In a certain sense, all of space and time is spiritual. God's presence pervades everything. Thus all people live in the spiritual world ... we either turn joyfully toward the light, or rebelliously toward the darkness." -- Sadhu Sundar Singh
As an angry young Sikh distraught over his mother's death, Sundar Singh was preparing to take his own life when he experienced a visionary encounter, not with Krishna, but with Christ. He became a Sadhu, a wandering mystic, not pursuing a hermit-like existence, but traversing the jungles and high mountain passes to appear in remote villages and lend assistance and care to the poor and disease stricken, and to counsel spiritual seekers. In the early twentieth century, Singh led the life of a first century apostle. Western Christians will find Sundar Singh's parables and dialogues wonderfully lacking in western conventions. He eloquently describes the intellectual futility of trying to wage logical arguments against God's existence, his allegorical explanation of the Trinity is better than most, his teaching that there is but One source of peace, love, and understanding is the bedrock of Christianity (and all monotheism).
In Sadhu Sundar Singh we find a true Christian mystic, a student, a servant, a holy man. His ministry and teachings became known to millions, he was admired by hundreds of thousands, and loved by tens of thousands whose lives he touched. His life and teachings also caused certain interests to despise him and attempts were made on his life. He disappeared, alone in the high Himalayas, in 1929.
Singh was not a writer, he produced six small books (which contained much of the material used in this compilation), perhaps solely because admirers urged him to. Yet he offers an elegant economy of words, using familiar objects of the natural world as illustrations for his allegories and parables. His "warning to the West" remains a telling indictment of the spiritual numbness of Western materialism and of western "Christians" who embrace the doctrines of culture more dearly than the teachings of Christ. When, during a trip to Europe, Singh was chided for not being more concerned with twentieth century science, he asked his questioner to what he referred. "Natural selection, you know, survival of the fittest," blustered the questioner. "Ah," Singh responded, "but I am more interested in divine selection, and the survival of the unfit."

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Compilation
Review: Sundar Singh, a Sikh convert to the Christian faith, offers occidental readers a unique perspective of what it means to follow Jesus Christ as the Master or Guru of one's life.

This anthology contains anecdotes, sermonettes, aphorisms, and interviews with Sundar Singh which, if read with opennesss and sincerity, should move you to reflect on the ways you are approaching the person of Jesus of Nazareth in your own spiritual life.

Sundar Singh's teaching is filled with both the passion of christian committment and the insights of ancient