Sadhu Sundar singh “ The Apostle with bleeding feet” Sadhu Sundar singh is called the “Apostle with bleeding feet”. He was a Christian monk, and his work and ministry to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in India and South Asian region is matchless. He represented Christ and Christianity in a Indian form. He was truly a Sadhu, who found his Salvation, only through life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his Guru. Sundar Singh was born September 1889. He was the youngest child in an aristocratic Sikh family (all Sikhs are named Singh) in the village of Rampur in Patiala, India. The Sikh faith combines Hinduism and Islam, and so his mother lovingly taught him the Sikh and Hindu scriptures and urged him to become a holy man. When he was seven years old he knew the entire Bhagavad Gita by heart, and he was filled with longing for santi, peace of soul. Sundar Singh eagerly studied holy books, meditated, practiced Yoga, and did good works. When he was fourteen years old, in 1902, his mother and older brother died. (In 1908, C. S. Lewis’s mother, uncle, and grandfather died.) Unlike his mother, Sundar Singh’s father thought he was overly religious for his age. Once, the boy’s Guru said to his father, “Your son will become either a fool or a great man. Sundar Singh sought God in Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. He was exposed to Christianity for a year in a local school provided by American Presbyterian missionaries, but the more he heard of the New Testament, the more he resented it. He quit the school. When he saw missionaries in public he abused them and ordered his father’s servants to do the same. He finally burned a New Testament in public to express his outrage. Later, Sundar Singh saw that his fanatical opposition to Christianity had disguised a secret attraction to it. His father disapproved of his Bible burning as much as his obsession with proper Indian religions and wondered if his son was losing his sanity. Indeed, on December 17, 1904, fifteen-year-old Sundar Singh told his father goodbye and announced that he would commit suicide before breakfast. He fully planned to lie down on the railroad tracks near his house and be run over by the 5 a.m. express train in order to find God on the other side of death. At 3 a.m. on December 18, Sundar Singh arose and took a cold bath according to Hindu custom. He begged and begged God to reveal Himself before the train came. Suddenly such a great light appeared in his small room that he looked to make sure the house was not on fire. Then a luminous cloud appeared, and he saw a Man’s face in it – radiant with love. The Man spoke in perfect Hindustani, Sundar Singh’s mother tongue: “Why do you persecute me? Remember that I gave My life for you upon the Cross.” Sundar Singh fell down before Jesus and worshipped him. Peace and joy finally flooded his soul. At breakfast he told his bewildered father, “The old Sundar Singh is dead; I am a new being Sundar Singh’s Christianity was even less acceptable to his father than the previous enmity to Christianity; he considered his son insane. The family pressured him to abandon his new faith, then finally drove him away. It is said that his last meal at home was poisoned. His friend Gardit Singh, who became a Christian at the same time, actually died from poisoned food. In the local uproar, the mission station had to be closed down and village Christians moved away for safety. Sundar Singh went to study the Bible at a medical mission station. Because it was unlawful to be baptized until he turned sixteen, he was baptized an Anglican Christian on his birthday, Sunday, September 3, 1905. His teacher advised him to get theological training, but he felt called to preach the gospel as a traditional Indian holy man instead. Thirty-three days after his baptism, Sundar Singh put on the yellow linen robe of a celibate sadhu and set out with only a Hindustani New Testament and a blanket which he often wrapped around his head as a turban. He used no money, and he never begged; when no one offered him food and shelter, he did without.When someone asked him if stones did not cut his bare feet, he answered that his feet were so hard they cut the stones. n 1909 Sundar Singh took the advice of friends and became a theology student at Saint John’s Divinity College in Lahore. In 1912 Sundar Singh’s fame began to spread across India, and in 1916 the first of several books about him was published. Wherever he went in India, both Christians and nonChristians thronged to see and hear him. In 1918 he also preached in Ceylon, Burma, Singapore, Japan, and China. In Penang, Malaysia, he was invited to preach the message of Jesus in a Sikh temple. In 1919 Sundar Singh’s father received him kindly and said he was ready to become a Christian. Stories from those years are astonishing and sometimes incredible. Indeed there were those, who insisted that they were mystical rather than real happenings. That first year, 1912, he returned with an extraordinary account of finding a three-hundred-year old Christian hermit in a mountain cave—the Maharishi of Kailas, with whom he spent some weeks in deep fellowship. According to Singh, in a town called Rasar he had been thrown into a dry well full of bones and rotting flesh and left to die, but three days later he was rescued. At these and at other times Singh was said to have been rescued by members of the Sannyasi Mission—secret disciples of Jesus wearing Hindu markings, whom he claimed to have found all over India. The secret Sannyasi Mission is reputed to have numbered around 24,000 members across India. The origins of this brotherhood were reputed to be linked to one of the Magi at Christs nativity and then the second century AD disciples of the apostle Thomas circulating in India. Nothing was heard of this evangelistic fellowship until William Carey began his missionary work in Serampore. The Maharishi of Kailas experienced ecstatic visions about the secret fellowship that he retold to Sundar Singh, and Singh himself built his spiritual life around visions. Whether he won many continuing disciples on these hazardous Tibetan treks is not known. Singh did not keep written records and he was unaccompanied by any other Christian disciples who might have witnessed the events. For a long time Sundar Singh had wanted to visit Britain, and the opportunity came when his father, Sher Singh, came to tell him that he too had become a Christian and wished to give him the money for his fare to Britain. He visited the West twice, travelling to Britain, the United States and Australia in 1920, and to Europe again in 1922. He was welcomed by Christians of many traditions, and his words searched the hearts of people who now faced the aftermath of World War I and who seemed to evidence a shallow attitude to life. Singh was appalled by what he saw as the materialism, emptiness and irreligion he found everywhere, contrasting it with Asias awareness of God, no matter how limited that might be. Once back in India he continued his ministry, though it was clear that he was getting more physically frail. In 1929, against all his friends advice, Singh determined to make one last journey to Tibet. He was last seen on 18 April 1929 setting off on this journey. In April he reached Kalka, a small town below Simla, a prematurely aged figure in his yellow robe among pilgrims and holy men who were beginning their own trek to one of Hinduisms holy places some miles away. Where he went after that is unknown. Whether he died of exhaustion or reached the mountains remains a mystery. Some said that Singh was murdered and his body thrown into the river; another account says he was caught up into heaven with the angels.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 05:22:24 +0000
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