His doubts about Baba's divinity remained. Once, during Baba's stay in Satara, Ali visited from Bombay. Ali fell ill, and one evening Ramjoo took medicine for him from Dr. Nilu.
The next day, Baba asked Nilu, "What did you do last evening?"
Nilu reported, but Baba inquired, "Nothing else?"
Nilu then remembered Ramjoo's visit and told Baba about Ali being sick.
Baba remarked, "He will surely die by your medicine! He cannot be saved now!"
All day long, Baba went on declaring the same thing, while at home Ali was recovering. When Ramjoo told Ali about it, he was greatly impressed.
But on his return to Bombay, Ali reverted to his previous misgivings and wrote a letter to his father, which Ramjoo showed to Baba. Baba asked him to call Ali to Satara, and he came one afternoon to Rosewood.
Baba asked him, "Are you a good man?"
Ali did not reply, and Baba remarked to Ramjoo, "You were saying Ali is very clever. He seems to be quite stupid!"
Baba then asked, "Have you read the Gita?"
"No," Ali said.
"In the Gita, Koran and Bible the same thing is repeated. Everyone has to surpass both good and evil. Good is as much a stack of hay as bad. I set fire to both! Knowledge cannot be attained without their turning to ashes."
Baba asked Ali, "Do you love me?"
"Yes, I think so," he replied truthfully.
"When I can't love you, how could you love me?" Baba teased.
Baba told him: "Even if the whole world is throwing stones at me, and you feel that your Baba is Baba [God], then hold on to your faith. But if the whole world is bowing at my feet and you feel that your Baba is not Baba, then stick to your conviction."
After this meeting, Ali was drawn close to Baba, and gradually all his doubts disappeared.
Meanwhile, lovers from the West were sending letters to Satara requesting clarification about Baba's circle, so from 20 April 1955, over a period of several days, Baba gave this discourse, which Mani typed and sent to the West at the end of that month:1
Absolute Oneness prevails in Reality. Space and time are but illusory. They are merely the effect of the reflection of God's Infinitude. When man realizes Reality, the reflection which has estranged him from Reality vanishes, and he experiences the absoluteness of the Absolute Oneness of God. And when such a man continues to live his life in illusion, he leads the life of the Man-God or Perfect Master on Earth. With his abiding experience of the Absolute Reality, he serves as the pivot around which rotates the entire cosmic universe. Every point in the cosmos is equidistant from the Perfect Master, who abides in illusion as the nucleus of the cosmos.
Footnotes
- 1.According to Adele Wolkin, it was Bili Eaton who wrote to Baba requesting clarification about the circle.