Baba replied, "This is my order. Go to him once more to fulfill my instructions. If not, leave me and never see me again!"
"But, Baba," Deshmukh protested, "I have become yours and do not wish to approach anyone else."
"To be mine means to keep my will. Since you cannot do it, how can you say you are mine?" asked Baba.
Deshmukh felt helpless and returned home to Nagpur. Fortunately, Upasni Maharaj came afterward to visit Nagpur.
Overcoming the trepidation filling his heart, Deshmukh got up the courage to go see him. He took a booklet he had recently written, My Master and His Teaching , with Meher Baba's photograph on the inside cover.
Strangely enough, this time Upasni Maharaj was happy to see Deshmukh and was very gentle, kind and considerate. He made him sit close and talked lovingly with him. Deshmukh offered his booklet about Meher Baba to Upasni Maharaj. Seeing Baba's photograph, Maharaj reverently touched the booklet to his forehead. He garlanded the booklet and handed it back to Deshmukh as prasad.
Deshmukh was thus convinced that the harsh treatment meted out by Upasni Maharaj at Sakori was due to his own improper thoughts about Meher Baba and Masterhood. From then on, he had rock-like faith in Meher Baba.
Baba was invited to attend the Maharashtra Poet's Conference being held in Nasik at a local school. He agreed to make a brief appearance at the conference on 16 September. He was brought on the stage, thanked and garlanded by one of the organizers.
A lawyer named Mazumdar came to Nasik that day. Finding him anxiety-ridden, Baba consoled him:
Do not brood over difficulties and do not take them too seriously. Let things come and go; do not worry over this or that. Keep your mind in check and steady under all circumstances.
Spirituality is so simple, but the pundits [priests] and Vedantists have given it so many names and aspects, filling up pages and pages of volume after volume with dry philosophy. Ordinary people are puzzled as to what to accept and what to reject, what to do and what not to do. It has assumed such an aspect and has gone to such a degree that anything simple given as practice to a spiritual aspirant is not taken seriously. It is taken lightly and rejected, so that even Masters have to put some polished coating on these simple things and appear solemn, serene and dignified!