"Now listen very seriously to this lecture. As I said this morning, it is time we started dying. Dying not in the meaning of ordinary death, but the death of low sense desires. It is all bliss and yet all are miserable because of ignorance. This ignorance causes desires to be fulfilled, yet the goal of each and every one is to attain the 'no-desire' state.

"You want millions of things. You say, 'I want this, I want that.' And wanting inevitably leads to suffering. So try your best — your very best — by loving more, and then you will want less and less of that which is beyond your needs. Try seriously. It will be all bliss if you don't want anything. But you must try consciously. The stone wants nothing, but wants nothing unconsciously.

"Let us begin by dying. The more you want the more you are miserable. If you think seriously for just five minutes about what you have wanted all your life — what you have got and what you did not get — and today see if you are satisfied with life. All that you enjoyed all these years, today is nil. All you suffered is nil. It was all illusion.

"So when it is our right to be happy, why try to be unhappy by wanting things? If you do not get that which you want, you are disappointed. And when you do, you do not want it. Long for and want only the one thing that will kill the million other wants. Long for Union. How clear and simple. Try with all your heart. Do not say yes and then not do it. Begin seriously now. You cannot love each other — all right, but try at least to give in to each other. This you do not do. Why? Because you are not honest. That is why I love those in the mad ashram. They are honest in their insanity. You come from afar to love Me and to realize Me and you become fighting cocks and hens. I think I will have to leave you and go to Nepal or send you all to the Himalayas. So begin by wanting less. Try to love more. Try to have more tolerance. It is all sublime, and yet everybody is sad, miserable and suffering. Do you all promise to begin dying? [Each promised to try.]

"If I find disharmony and no willingness to die, it would be better to have you all leave. It is not for name or fame that you have come here. Baba has many disciples. He does not need anybody. I am always alone and always will be, throughout eternity. It is you who need Me until you become Me. But if you do not try, what is the use?

"Now let us be gay! If you were all strong physically then I would take you to Rishikesh to see the real India."

Norina brought up the question of food — how to cater to all and still be economical. Baba Himself took up the subject, and each was asked to give his or her opinion on the subject of food and menus. Once and for all Baba wanted these points clear. He said: "You all have promised to try your best to die, so let us begin with food. Let us have no more clashes. Let Norina go on giving the same as before. As all say, you, Norina, manage wonderfully well but what You lack is gentleness. You are much too blunt. And for the role of Mother you ought to be more gentle. Be one without duality.

"Be gentle and listen to all suggestions. If you can fall in with them, good, if not, kiss and say no, gently. This is tact. It hurts if you are too frank sometimes. And this I do not want. So all begin to try now, or seriously I will tell you all to go. Real harmony, love and peace — not forced. Don't keep the door closed [pointing to the heart]. Keep it open so that when I want I can enter. Every time I intend entering I find a closed door — all because of useless wants.

"Petty things take up all your energy, thoughts and time. So no more of that. Love and forget. This is the only thing that matters. Love, always try to love. You don't like Norina being blunt — love her all the more. She needs it. If she finds you weak in your wants, then she too must love you — you need it.

"If a mother found her child sick or weak, she would fondle it more, love it more. So when any one of you is weak, the rest of you should love that one more. By weak, I mean taken up with desires. Anger is weakness, pride is weakness, and so on. So all try. As Kaka says, 'No discuss, just try.'"

Let us now see how Baba dealt with the various types assembled at the Nasik Meher Retreat. How often He had to humor our less worthy qualities! Listen to Baba's explanation given us in January 1937:

"Love for a Perfect Master, however deep and devotional it may be, does not necessarily affect the original nature of a person because, despite apparent superficial changes, the individual nature remains the same up to the seventh plane. On the seventh plane, there is no individual mind, therefore no individual nature. This nature is so powerful that it continually strives to assert itself, and being inherently beyond one's control, even influences the expression of pure love by often assuming irritating and embarrassing forms. So to keep the love of My disciples for Me unalloyed, I have to humor less noble qualities of human nature, such as jealousy, pride, etc. Otherwise, there is always the danger of these qualities gaining supremacy over love and changing it into a feeling of opposition — thus creating hindrances in My work.

"Do not get disheartened or alarmed when adversity, calamity or misfortune pours upon you. Thank God, for He has thereby given you the opportunity of acquiring forbearance and fortitude. One who has acquired the power of bearing adversity can easily enter upon the Spiritual Path....

"Do not get angry, but be pleased with he who backbites you, for he thereby renders service to you by diminishing the load of your sanskaras; and also pity him for thereby he makes his load of sanskaras more burdensome....

"Don't criticize. The habit of criticizing our fellow-beings is a bad one. At the back of it often lies self-righteousness, conceit, a false sense of superiority. Sometimes it indicates envy or a desire for retaliation."

Baba also told us, "We are all One and irritations are only surface ones — they cannot affect the love we have for each other deep down." And thus, by Baba's personal living guidance, did He lead us along the Path He had chosen for us.
 

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