Hafiz has said:
Separation and Union are none of your business.
Seek only to resign yourself utterly to the will of the Beloved.
Baba was in a splendid mood after working with Keshav, and asked Ghani, "Which is more difficult — to give up one's life or to lose one's life?"
Ghani replied, "To lose one's life is harder."
Baba agreed and further explained:
In pursuance of name and fame, and goaded by the applause of the expectant multitude, people have given their lives for a great cause, for their honor, their religion, their country. Even cowards have given up their lives under a sudden impulse, or on an uncontrollable provocation. Such a death is a matter of a few seconds.
But to lose one's life is to die by inches. Every second, one suffers the poignant pain of ego elimination, culminating in utter resignation to the Divine Will. This dying can only be the lot of heroes, and they are very few indeed. Keshav mast is one such hero.
Ghani then entertained Baba from eleven to tea time, by reading from the works of Urdu poet Seemab.1 After meals, at 4:30, Baba and his companions left by car for a Sunday drive toward the racetrack and further on toward Hadaspar village.
When they returned to Thube's bungalow, Baba chalked out a schedule which he stated he would adhere to — "rain or no rains" — until he returned to Meherazad:
Two mad, masts or utterly destitute people to be brought to Baba daily in the morning to be bathed, fed and clothed.
Between 11:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. Baba is to be entertained by Ghani reading, reciting or talking on light topics.
Baba will sit in seclusion for two hours in the temple on top of the hill (about a mile from the bungalow). Baba will walk to the temple and back, obviating the necessity for his evening walks.
After meals Baba will engage himself in discussing matters with the mandali or entertain himself playing cards.
Baba will continue sitting with Ali Shah daily, bathing and feeding him.
On Monday, 18 July 1949, Jalbhai, Eruch and Ghani left in the morning to bring two masts or mad. Baba himself walked to the temple to look at the room where he intended to sit in seclusion for two hours daily.
The three mandali returned at 10:30 that morning, bringing two men about whom Baba stated, "They have a whiff of the Path."
After he had bathed, fed and given them new clothes, they were taken back.
Footnotes
- 1.Seemab Akbarabadi (1880–1951) was born in Agra. Over his lifetime, he wrote many books and published and edited a journal of poetry. One of his couplets is: "Lord, devotees go to the Ganges to purify themselves,/ But the Ganges flows to your feet to be purified."