THE REAL LIFE

Baba explained:

It is very difficult to be without wants. "I want to sleep, I want to eat" — these are wants. "I do not want to sleep or to eat" — this also is a want. It is therefore rather impossible to be without wants. What then is the solution? Hafiz provides one.

Hafiz has said: "Only the grace of the Perfect Master can make you free from all wants. Even if a wee bit of the effulgent glory of God were to be revealed, you would become millions of times brighter than the Earth's sun. If for one slight moment you have the fortune to drown yourself in the Ocean of Love, do not hesitate. That moment does not come frequently. As soon as the Master says: 'Drown!' do not hesitate. Drown the moment the Master commands you to drown. Don't worry about what the world will think of you. The world will call you mad, but you should not hesitate.

"If even one hair of yours is dipped in the Ocean of Love, you become 'wet' eternally. In that bliss of Union with the Beloved that you then enjoy, there is no break. It is continuous. From head to foot you become God if in this path you become footless and headless."

"How to become footless and headless?" asked Baba.

Do whatever I tell you. Do not use your mind. When the Will of the Beloved becomes your will, then you are footless and headless. Yet all this is impossible — even the very desire for union with Beloved God is madness. So there remains only one solution, and that is to become the very dust at the feet of the Perfect Master.

Implicit obedience to the Perfect Master is the only answer. Where his orders are concerned, follow them literally. Do not use your head to analyze their significance. Do what the Perfect Master wants you to do. Let your feet move at his command. Let your life be lived in accordance with his behest. This is becoming footless and headless.

Baba asked Deshmukh to translate this into Marathi. Deshmukh hesitated on the grounds that it was a difficult task as the passage dealt with philosophy. Baba corrected him:

Do not take this as a philosophical passage. It is not philosophy! It depicts Life Perennial. This is the life expected of a real man. The life that you lead is the life of an animal! It portrays nothing but animality.

One may be an intellectual genius, but unless he realized the Truth, his so-called knowledge is a play of words in ignorance. His interpretations of life and the commentaries on Truth can lead one only so far and as much as one blind man leading another.

What is the picture of life in general? At first you are a child absorbed in games. Then you grow young and pretty, become lost in youthful reveries and in course get married. You have children. As you grow old, the worries pile up and get multiplied. Old age with all its inevitable weaknesses draws nearer each day, when finally with an unsatisfied feeling you have to leave the gross body. Can you call this a life worth living? Is it much different from the life of an elephant?

I know our innumerable incarnations wherein the selfsame story is repeated over and over again. Remember, this is all a dream, but a significant dream. Its purpose is to make you aware of the nothingness of the dream itself. But you are so overpowered by ignorance and the self-sown illusory worries that you do not wake up to the situation, and do not firmly resolve to lead the life of a real man.

In the couplets, Hafiz gives an indication of Life Perennial. This is the life one should aim at. It is for this life that you have a human form. And unless you decide to live Life Perennial now and make sincere efforts to do so, all previous human forms, so to speak, are likened to those of animals. So only the life of love (for God) leading to Life Perennial is worth living. One who loves God has only one longing, one worry, and that is, to become One with God. This is the Real Life which leads the lover to the Everlasting Life.