AWARE ONLY OF LOVE

 
Once Meher Baba told Dr. Abdul Ghani, "If I really like anything, it is masts and children. I like masts for their strength and children for their helplessness. The fire of love is very terrible indeed, and masts present a challenge to God, the Beloved, of this terrible fire of love."

At this point, Dr. Ghani asked Baba, "Why do so many masts choose dirty and unsanitary surroundings, and how is it that their health is not affected?"

"To live in dirty surroundings," Baba replied, "is one way of utterly forgetting one's bodily existence. And the beauty of it is that when the body is utterly neglected or forgotten — because the consciousness is aware only of love for the Divine Beloved — it does not deteriorate but takes care of itself automatically. The minds of ordinary people are constantly busy looking after their bodies, but they find that in spite of taking every kind of precaution and care, deterioration can never be avoided altogether.

"It is not given to everybody to be a lover of God. Such lovers are so consumed in the fire of love, that they simply 'enjoy' the torture of love and long for more and more of it. They are not conscious of their stage of spiritual progress and neither do they have any thoughts about their separation from the Beloved or union with Him. They are resigned to the state in which they find themselves, and when their resignation reaches its climax, it is the Beloved who seeks union with them."