Sundar Singh (1889-1929) was raised in a wealthy Sikh family and encouraged to serve God. Educated at a Presbyterian mission school, he rebelled against formal religion. A mystical vision of Jesus changed his life and he was baptized in the Anglican church at age sixteen. His family cut off all ties with him. Thirty-three days later he took on the ascetic lifestyle of a sadhu, or wandering holy man. As German scholar Friedrich Heiler once put it, "He is India's ideal of the disciple of Christ — a barefooted itinerant preacher with burning love in his heart. In him, Christianity and Hinduism meet, and the former stands forth, not as something foreign, but like a flower which blossoms on an Indian stem."

Over the years, he traveled from place to place and talked about Jesus and the Gospel stories about him. He talked with people in Tibet but encountered strong opposition. In India, many were curious about this strange Christian sadhu; in addition many believers were upset because he chose never to be ordained and become accountable to traditional religious authorities.

Charles E. Moore, a member of the Bruderhof community in Ulster Park, New York, presents an overview of Sundar Singh's life and mysterious death. The material in this Modern Spiritual Masters Series includes excerpts from the six slim volumes the sadhu wrote. Here you will find musings on his beliefs, parables, stories, and anecdotes. The secret of Sundar Singh's vast travels and ability to endure hardship on the road comes from his view of prayer, which he called "living and breathing in God."