ALTERNATIVES TO OUR DESTINY

 
This is not to say that if we obey Baba, all our suffering ends. Suffering is absolutely essential to the journey of the soul, as it alone can break us of our attachments, and it may even be intensified for a short while as Baba guides us on the most direct route. This family [described in previous paragraphs] didn't understand that if they had obeyed Baba, any suffering they endured would have been according to His wish; instead it was the result of carrying out their own willful desires.

Baba has said that nothing happens without His will, but that His wish gives us the privilege of choice: we can choose to obey Him. Baba's orders come from His all-knowing compassion. Sometimes when we ask Him a question, the answer is an order that we might not like, but it is Baba's wish that we obey. Baba has said, "Better that you don't ask Me; if you ask Me, then you must do as I say. If you don't want to obey, then don't ask Me." This lesson has to be learned.

I was allowed to see the painful consequences that occur when people ask Baba for something and then expect His approval or when they simply act according to their own desires, forgetting to seek His pleasure. Baba gives us alternatives to our destiny that can cut short our suffering if we will only obey Him.

As He once told us, a huge field contains grass of different lengths and thicknesses — short, tall, thick, thin. But when a flaming match is thrown, it burns the whole field of dry grass within minutes. Baba said that His spiritual match, in the same way, can burn away the whole field of our sanskaras. But complete obedience and faith are necessary. These qualities take many lifetimes of dedication to develop, and only after we are prepared, by the grace of God Himself, do they manifest.