Narayan fell at his feet, recognizing the old man as his Master. The disquiet he had experienced for nearly ten years melted away at the sight of his guru.
The old man embraced the youth and told Narayan, "I am hungry. Go beg and bring me some food." When Narayan returned with the food, he found the monastery doors locked. Shocked, he started shouting for his Master. Hearing his cries from his quarters a distance away, the caretaker of the monastery appeared and told him, "No one has been here all day." The caretaker had gone home hours before, after locking the door.
When the door was unlatched at Narayan's insistence, there was no one inside. Narayan was bewildered. The Master had appeared only for this deserving soul. Narayan sat outside the monastery under a neem tree, silently calling upon his guru to come and partake of the food. The youth was overcome with tears, and the terrible despondency that had left him reappeared with a fresh tenacity. "Master, where are you? Why have you hidden? I have brought food as you instructed. I will not eat until you have eaten. Come, Master, come soon or I will die without you."
For three days, Narayan wept bitterly. The deep pang of separation was killing him. Just when it seemed Narayan would actually drop his body, he saw his guru standing before him. The old man sat down alongside the youth and accepted the food, which had dried but was not yet spoiled. The guru then gave the remaining food to Narayan, telling him, "Finish it, this is my prasad to you."
As soon as Narayan swallowed the first morsel, the appearance of his Master completely changed. The old man's body transformed into a young man with six arms and three heads.1 Narayan found that his Guru was none other than Dattatrey!
With the appearance of Dattatrey, Narayan himself transformed into NARAYAN — the Universal One. The youth became God-realized — crossing the limits of duality. But with the attainment of divine consciousness, young Narayan lost his individual consciousness and had no link with the world or his physical body. Gradually, over a period of time, Dattatrey's grace enabled the youth to regain consciousness of his body and his surroundings. Narayan became a Perfect Master.
The young Sadguru left the mountain and river of Ganagapur, returning to Arvi and his spiritual parents, Trimbak Rao and Lakshmi, to their great delight.
Footnotes
- 1.The old man was actually Khwaja Khizr, the divine position of a Perfect Master who takes various forms to bestow Realization and Perfect Masterhood upon those who do not have a living Master, such as Narayan. Khizr took the form of Dattatrey, because it was the divine form of God that Narayan worshiped. Khwaja Khizr was also the Master of Moses and of St. Francis of Assisi. He appeared to the sixth-plane Hebrew prophet as a burning bush and to St. Francis as the crucified Jesus.