WE STILL MUST TRY OUR BEST

 
There was only one time, in all the many occasions I had to see to Baba's physical needs, when it seemed that I was able to actually help Baba. This concerned Baba's eyes.

Starting in Dehera Dun, Baba developed a problem with His eyes. He had an irritating, scratchy sensation in His eyes, as if something, a particle of dust or something, had blown into His eyes which caused Him considerable discomfort. For the next two years, during our wanderings, Baba continued to be plagued by this problem.

Periodically we would persuade Baba to allow some doctor to see Him, but they could never find anything wrong. We were sometimes in big cities, and we would consult the top doctors, the specialists, but they could never find anything wrong. Some would prescribe drops, some would suggest that Baba needed glasses or should wear dark glasses, but none of this brought any relief and Baba continued to suffer.

Finally we were in Satara. This must have been 1951.... One day as I was walking through the town I noticed this sign board for an eye doctor. I don't know why I noticed it, because it was such a crude little sign. Not at all the sort of sign to inspire confidence, but for some reason I went inside and there was this shabby, dilapidated little clinic.

I don't know why I went in. Maybe it was because we had already gone to so many big doctors, so many specialists, and none of them had been able to do anything for Baba, so it occurred to me that maybe some small doctor might see something the bigger ones had missed. Anyway, what did I have to lose?

So I went inside and talked to the doctor, and he agreed to come to our bungalow and examine Baba. Why shouldn't he agree? As it was, he had so little business, he didn't insist that Baba come to his clinic. So he came to our bungalow. But see what kind of doctor he was. When he came, he didn't even bring anything with him.

He pulled Baba's upper eyelid up and back and said, "See, see those tiny white specks there?" They looked like crystals. "They are what are causing all the problems. Do you have a forceps?"

He hadn't brought anything with him, so he asked Dr. Goher for a forceps. Then he asked Goher for some antiseptic solution. He had to ask her for everything. Then he started plucking the tiny white granulations off Baba's eyelids. In no time he was done. There was a little bleeding from where he had used the forceps, but within a couple of days Baba was all right. The problem was completely gone.

For all that time Baba had suffered and none of the big-time doctors had been able to do a thing, and here this little doctor in a run-down clinic in a small backwater sort of place was able to diagnose the problem and cure it.

But this was the exception. Usually our very efforts to help only resulted in causing Baba more pain. Why this should be I don't know. Are we especially clumsy people that our every effort should miss the mark, or is the fate, you may call it, the role of the Avatar such that when He comes He must suffer and therefore even our attempts to reduce His suffering only do the opposite?

I don't know, brother. But what can we do? We still must try our best. And that is what I mean when I say that it is easy to say do your best and leave the results to Baba, but it is no joke, I tell you, to do that.