A few days after this mast trip, Baba, with Eruch, Baidul, Kumar and Bhau, returned to Islampur and Kolhapur on several occasions to work with two particular masts. The contact in Islampur was the fifth-plane mast Dhondi Bua, who had been brought to the Mahabaleshwar ashram in December 1946. Dhondi Bua was a tall figure, with luminous features, quite robust and healthy, despite being completely naked in all weather. When a blanket or shirt was given to him, he would reject the offering, saying "I cannot bear happiness! I cannot bear comfort!"
Once, when Baba and the men went to contact Dhondi Bua at 1 or 2:00 A.M., he was seated in a temple. He had urinated and defecated near the front of the idol there. During mast contacts, one of the mandali was to distract the mast in conversation so that Baba could do whatever work he wanted to with them, usually by outwardly massaging their bodies or pressing their feet.
So Eruch asked Dhondi Bua, "What is this place where you are now?"
"Oh, this is a big temple of the Lord," the mast replied. "It is a sanctified place."
"Then how is it someone has excreted and urinated here?" Eruch wondered.
Dhondi Bua reflected, "After all, what is a temple?"
Eruch answered, "A temple is a sacred place where God is installed. So naturally, people come to worship Him there."
"No, no!" the mast explained in a clear tone. "God is everywhere! And because God is everywhere and all-pervading, man cannot lay his hand on Him. So what they do is to prepare some imaginary image of that God which they cannot handle, and they install it in a place called a temple."
The mast concluded, "So, really speaking, a temple is not a place for worshiping the Lord, it is a prison for the Lord! People imprison Him there!"
The mast would collect discarded beedies and smoke them. If anyone offered him a fresh beedi or cigarette, he would not take it, but say, "Comfort does not agree with me. I cannot bear to come in contact with it!"
Sometimes, the mast would be seen rolling in the dust. Baba said this was from the agony of love for God that masts have.
“”"You can have not the slightest idea of what such love means," he told the women one day. "It is unbearable agony and burns the lover so that the mast is but a living fire!"
Baba was overjoyed at his contact with Dhondi Bua and worked with him several times during this period. Baba would frequently mention him and wanted him kept at Satara, but the mast could not be persuaded to come.
