Not for any other reason or object of my own, but for the sake of my duty and work to bring you all out of the bindings of maya, and thereby enable you to rise above religious and other prejudices and eventually realize the Self within, which you fools are seeking externally in the endless rounds of birth and death.
As Vivekananda has rightly expressed, "The real teacher is he who comes down to the level of his students."
For you fellows, I have to come down from my spiritual infinity to the level of this material world, where you are all groping ignorantly in the dark in search of "happiness" which you cannot and would not ever find without the help of one who has found it and who can lead you to it.
Chanji had mentioned the same theme in a letter from Mysore to Charles Purdom (dated 4 March 1936):
[Baba] does and will manage things in his own ways in spite of all the opposition of maya or of all that the world would say or write or even if his own devotees wouldn't understand, for he alone knows what he does, which is always for the good of the individual or of the group, although almost invariably "misunderstood and misjudged" by a world that judges his actions with the limited mind.
One of the men mandali had to stay awake on guard duty at the women's bungalow to guard against the possibility of thieves and miscreants throwing stones and damaging the tatta compound. Jamadar, Vishnu's mother Kakubai and Murli arrived on the evening of 18 April to help with matters in Mysore. Masaji had also come. This left Pendu, Padri, Adi Sr., Sidhu, Mehera's mother Daulatmai and Gulmai's daughter, Dolly, as the only residents still living at Meherabad.1
The doctor had permitted Mani to go for a drive every afternoon to speed her recovery, so Baba accompanied her most afternoons, with Jalbhai and Chanji and Tukaram driving. A few evenings, Bhausaheb and Jalbhai entertained Baba with humorous skits.
On 23 April 1936, Baba mentioned Vivekananda again in reference to Deshmukh's recently released book, My Master and His Teaching . Baba said it would appeal to "those who have heart."
Baba added, "Devotees of Krishna are interested in his life, but pundits are only interested in Vedanta and the Gita. The Gita and Vedanta are very good indeed, but they only touch the head, whereas the life of Krishna touches the heart. Vivekananda's best work is My Master , though it is a slim volume. Why? Because it was written with love. Other of his works are more intellectual."2
Footnotes
- 1.Raosaheb had been at Meherabad, but he left and stayed in Bombay for some months. After some time, Daulatmai went to stay with her daughter Freiny and her family in Nasik, but later moved back to the Family Quarters.
- 2.My Master is taken from a lecture delivered by Vivekananda in New York in 1896 about his guru, the Perfect Master Ramakrishna Paramhansa.