PERSISTENCE OF PREVIOUS CHARACTERISTICS

 
Now why does one mast become a jalali, another a jamali, another a mahbubi, and so forth? Everyone has to pass through innumerable lives. If one man, who in his past life lived in an environment of strife and great activity, becomes in this life a mast, he is of the jalali type. If another, who led his past life in a quiet village, or was perhaps in a dull and idle environment, becomes in this life a mast, he is of the jamali type.

If in his previous life a man was a bachelor, who may, or may not, have committed the sexual act, and becomes in this life a mast, he is of the mahbubi type. This is because the sanskaras of love for women were unexpressed in his past life, and in this life they find expression in the wearing of some part of a woman's dress, or in acting in some ways like a woman.

Tukaram understood this persistence of previous characteristics when he wrote:

Tukaram used to do bhajan from childhood and stay in the company of saints.
Then he became God, and yet he carried on his bhajans; his original nature persists.