EMBRACING HIM IN YOU

 
Time and again throughout the years, people would come and greet Eruch at the Trust Office. Out of consideration for him, especially as he aged, many people would say, "Don't get up just to embrace me."

And Eruch, as he got out of his chair, would respond "I am not embracing you, I am embracing Him in you."

When Eruch would say this, I would sometimes chuckle a little bit to myself. I discounted his words, thinking that he was just being his old lovable self. Only later did I come to understand that through such a simple action he was upholding the Truth — the Truth that Meher Baba is the One residing in everyone....

If we do not accept this truth as a fundamental principle upon which our service rests, we will surely feel conflicted. We will always be at odds with ourselves and with others — irritated that we may be serving the false separative selves of others and upset that we have lost sight of the One we should be serving.

Meher Baba gives us the assurance that we can serve Him in others, when He says, "To serve the Master is to serve your own self in every other self." His words help us answer the question, "Who do we serve — Meher Baba, others or ourselves?" And as we can see, He has included them all because in truth there is no distinction. All are one because there are no distinctions in the eternal soul....

Furthermore, once our service is focused on the oneness of the spirit, we can then choose to serve the material, intellectual, emotional and cultural needs of others. But it will be done through the approach of spiritual understanding. In addition, and more critically, we will be seeing to the spiritual needs of their souls.