Subsequently injuring his wings, he became nearly unconscious.
But the female bird was intelligent. She saw how foolish it was to try to break through the doors with the beating of her wings and she remained quiet, patiently waiting for the cage door to open. She saved herself from injury, because she wisely remained calm.
After a long time, the door was eventually opened and the pair flew out. The moment they were free, they realized what true freedom meant. They knew the pangs of suffering caused by the lack of freedom. Because they had been caged, their subsequent freedom had meaning.
The female bird flew away, but the male could not fly well because of a broken wing and he was eaten by a cat!
Now tell me who was the man who caged the birds? Who were the birds? Who was the cat? Try to grasp the meaning of this riddle and compose a poem about it.
The next day, 18 July, in the dining hall of their villa, Baba spoke about the work of the Perfect Master and the Avatar not being understood by everybody, citing an incident from the Mahabharata of Krishna and Arjuna:
If you read the life of Krishna, you will find that he often said, did and ordered things which seemed to go against common sense. He would tell one thing to one person and contradictory things to other persons, and would give different orders to different people at the same time. Krishna used to bluff, lie, and do all sorts of strange things for the upliftment of humanity. He was Perfect and One with God, and so found himself in everything and in everyone. He had to use different methods for different things and people.
I have to use maya to draw my disciples out of maya. The West does not understand this, but the East understands it. That is the difference in the mental attitude between the East and the West. Where there is no self-interest and no selfish motive but only the motive of doing good for others, whatever one may do, there are no sanskaras and no binding by sanskaras. I have to use infinite ways for my infinite workings, all different and all at different times.
When Krishna ordered Arjuna to kill the Kauravas, Arjuna hesitated and then refused, asking Krishna, "How can I slaughter my own kith and kin?" Krishna said, "Do as I tell you." But Arjuna would not listen. Then Krishna said, "Look into my face," and he opened his mouth and Arjuna saw in it all his brothers and relatives whom he had not wanted to kill. Arjuna saw that Krishna's mouth contained the whole universe, including millions of Kauravas who looked like clouds but then vanished from sight. Krishna showed him his Universal Body, which contained all living and inert forms. To see this is called Virat Darshan — Gigantic Sight. This is not real darshan. It is only the darshan of the Master's Universal body. The Avatar also has a Universal mind, to which all the individual minds in the universe are connected.
This then convinced Arjuna of Krishna's mighty powers and he plunged into battle, killing many. Krishna told him, "If you had had full faith in me, you would never have doubted or asked questions," and he then delivered the lecture which is now known as the Bhagavad Gita .
From this example, you will come to know that even the closest disciples of a Master misunderstand his way of working. To convince and create faith in them, Masters have to resort to performing miracles. That is why Krishna did what he did.
Implicit faith and abject obedience to a Master is the shortest, quickest and easiest way for attainment of God-Realization.
Baba continued by giving another example of a disciple's love and faith:
Swami Ramdas, who was a Perfect Master and Shivaji's guru, once placed a mango on his own leg and wrapped it in a bandage.