A MOTHER'S LOVE

 
My name is Khodayar, son of Toos. I'm an Iranian who, in the Iranian year 1306, when I was nine (48 years ago) went to India along with 12 or 13 other boys from Yezd to Meher Baba's school. There we studied for one year and eight months. From when I first saw Baba I told myself that he was not like the rest of human beings. All his manner and gestures, everything he did, were such that I had never seen before in the world. He was observing silence, but he would speak with gestures in such a way that even the newcomers could understand. Even while observing silence, Baba would come and play games with us. He was very kind to us — very, very kind to us.

He was so kind to us, and his love and his kindness had affected us so much that when after one year and eight months our parents came to take us away, we did not want to leave. When our parents came and said they wanted us back, he sent us back to our own houses at his own expense. Indeed, during this one year and eight months our entire expenses as well as the trips to and from Iran were paid by Baba. Books and clothes and teachers and everything, he took care of, without taking even a single coin from our parents or having any expectations from them.

Before we left, Baba made all of us from Iran line up. He told each one of us individually: "Don't smoke, don't drink and don't tell lies." He kissed our faces, each one of us, and then sent us away.

When I returned to Iran I could not study any more because I could not find a school that could satisfy me after being in Baba's school. Everywhere else I went was just a place of mischief, but Baba's school was where angels were.

At Baba's school at 5 o'clock in the morning the first call to prayer was sung and they would wake up all the children. There were 160 to 170 of us there from all over the world, from all different religions. Although we were all from different religions and different classes, there was not the slightest enmity between us — we were all so kind and friendly to each other that we all felt like brothers of each other living, sleeping and studying in the same place.

So in the morning they would wake us up at time of morning prayers. They gave us powder to wash our teeth with, then we would wash our hands and faces and go to breakfast. For breakfast they would bake a bread so fresh and so delicious that I have never tasted anything like it anywhere. They would serve it with tea and milk. Then we would go to school. We were in school till noon. In the afternoon we would go play, and every other day we would have bath and our clothes washed by the clothes washer. Among the 160 or 170 people, not a curse word was heard.

It was a very educational place. Baba gave us so much education during the one year and eight months. In that period I studied equal to four years of English school and six years of Persian school. I don't understand how Baba did it, but he had the power to push all this into our heads. Every three months we would take a new examination and not fail.

But the important thing and the most interesting thing during this period was, aside from Baba's kindness, the spiritual lessons we were taught. We were taught spiritual things in such a manner that if I would open Hafiz's book, I felt that I understood all I read there.

One of the discourses that I remember hearing from Baba in this period was concerning the evolution of forms, about how a man dies from inanimate and becomes animate and then dies from animal and becomes man. He explained this to us using a doll. He gathered its limbs all together and bent them inside and also bent the head inside and he explained that this was the state of inanimate. This is the stone form which is the dwelling place of the soul in the beginning.

And then gradually he opened the limbs and the head and he stretched the legs up towards the sky and explained that this is what happened in the plant form. So this doll which was all together with all its limbs inside, now had opened the leg which was pointing up. He said that this was the plant and that it was getting nourishment through the head from the ground. Then he brought down the leg and made the doll stand on four legs. By gestures he pointed out that this is the state of animal. He explained that when the plant becomes animal the four limbs extend out and he stands on four legs.

Then he made the doll stand on its feet. He said that now this is human form, while even from the beginning it was the human form but that it was all involved into itself — while in the plant form he extended the leg, in animal form it put down the leg and stood on four legs, and in human form the same human stood up on two legs and became human. He explained all of this very beautifully to us by the use of this doll. And he did all of this while in silence and this was very enjoyable for us.

Many other times he told us stories with his gestures; many of them were really very funny. I remember another time the teachers asked us, "Do you know what is higher than these clouds?" We said no, but of course we were children then. How were we to know what was higher than the clouds? Baba explained that a mother's love is higher than that. This is another thing that has impressed me very much, it has remained in my memory.

In all my life, in whatever trouble I was caught, I would ask help from Baba and receive it. I was never left helpless anywhere. What Baba would always ask from me was that I should constantly keep him in mind. When I was 13 or 14 I went to Bombay to work there. One day I saw Baba with two others, one of whom was one of my teachers from school. When they saw me, they gestured to me to approach. I approached. The only thing Baba said was that I should think of him constantly. I would think of him and this has been a great help for my external and internal life.

In short, with this life of mine and with the very little knowledge that I have, the only thing that I have been able to readily gather from Baba is this one thing, that we should try to find God within ourselves. I have been able to understand a little bit that God is indeed within ourselves, and that all of man's activities originate from His will — everything happens under His orders and because of His help. All the wants, all the desires spring from the power that God Himself has put in our being. Man is not his little self, but is God. It is God in man that has all of these attributes, all these deeds and actions and speech. When man begins to feel this way he finds a very close communication with God and doesn't feel himself separate from God. He doesn't even feel separate from the rest of the people in the world.