Age could not understand the spiritual charge of a Perfect Master and how it affects the world and the inner work between Masters. This exchange about Maharaj's biography was a divine joke between the two Masters. Without hesitation, Baba went ahead with plans to publish the Urdu version of Upasni Maharaj's biography.
While he was in Ajmer, Baba had sent back Ramjoo and a few of the other mandali to their respective homes. One morning, at the Lonavla train station, Ramjoo encountered his old friend Usman Saheb — the man who had first brought him into Baba's contact during the picnic trip to Mandwa. Although Ramjoo greeted Usman cordially, Usman taunted him with a couplet from Saadi's Gulistan , in pointed reference to Meher Baba: "Verily, it is worse than the tortures of hell/To walk into heaven with the feet of another."
Between 1918 and 1921, Usman often visited Merwanji at the Kasba Peth toddyshop. However, during 1922, before Baba left Poona for Bombay, Usman had changed his mind about him and had once again become enmeshed in the entrapments of the world. Usman was erroneously convinced it did not behoove a Muslim to accept an Irani as his guru.
When Ramjoo returned to Manzil-e-Meem, he informed Baba of his meeting with Usman Saheb. After lunch, Ghani read out the couplet Usman had cited and Baba remarked:
Whatever Usman Saheb told Ramjoo is 100 percent true. Heaven should be earned by our own exertions. It should never be gained by favor, or by the help of someone else. It should be deserved. Yet even heaven is in the realm of maya and, even by entering it, the bondage to illusion does not snap.
But to enter heaven without deserving it, merely through favor or someone else's help, is no doubt not only equal to but worse than burning in the fires of hell. In heaven there are beautiful experiences and in hell terrible ones. However, in both situations there is sanskaric binding. In heaven there are shackles made of gold, and in hell there are rusty iron chains. Both types bind. It is quite useless to count on anyone's help to replace one type of fetters with another.
So, if Usman's interpretation is as I have explained, his statement is quite correct. If, however, his intention was to ridicule me or taunt you for following me, then his effort has failed miserably.