A MERE GAME OF CARDS

 
Baba wanted a rest for a day, and a picnic to Shendi was suggested and met with the approval of all. but there was some difficulty in choosing his companions for the day: those who were the least needed to look after things at the ashram were old and the least gifted to entertain him on such a trip; while those who had the gift were most needed in the school; but Baba overcame this by giving the school a holiday.

Shendi is a garden, a market garden — a tiny green island in a brown sea of thorns and stones and broken earth, five to six miles out from 'Nagar on the road to Aurangabad and a little way before the turn-off to Happy Valley.

Baba was escorted to the patil's house, but no sooner had he graced the seat prepared for him than villagers began flocking in for darshan — the last thing that Baba wanted, and he rose to leave. To his host's protests he said, "I have touched your soil, visited your place: some day I will come again." But they prevailed upon him to stay, promising there would be no further disturbance, and immediately served tea.

For the rest of the morning they played cards. After dinner of bhakri-bread, hot dal and mangoes, Baba played marbles with Dhake and Manekar, while many of the young ones enjoyed climbing up and down the big Peepal tree under which the bus had stopped.

During some further games of cards Baba said, "Life and existence throughout its course until Realization is but a game of cards. When you play cards you become pleased or disappointed over winning or losing, become excited and concerned at critical stages of the game; but the moment you again take up your ordinary affairs you forget all about it.

"To the God-realized the very life and existence of the world is a mere game of cards. Worldly success and loss, pleasure and pain are no more permanent or significant than what you feel about a game of cards."