Obedience should be so complete that one's concern with it makes one as much awake to possibilities as it makes one deaf to impossibilities — as envisaged by the poet [Hafiz]:
I was tied to a raft and thrown into the ocean;
Then I was warned to be careful not to let my robe get wet.1
Yet, all this does not and cannot explain the required degree of continued readiness for love and obedience to love. In fact, one of the three reasons for this sahavas is to help you grasp what love and obedience really mean.
You must have such a clear picture in your minds of this sahavas as to forget completely such things as declarations, messages and discourses by me. This is not an occasion for the fulfillment or the making and breaking of past and future promises. You have got to remove from your minds any picture of me upon a dais and you sitting before me — as has been the experience of most of you present here.
I want you to be with me, near me and before me in an entirely different atmosphere, so that you can freely breathe the air of my personal presence. We must be together as intimately as if we were living under the same roof for no purpose other than that of living with each other and for each other.
Do not look forward to any functions, meetings, timetables, programs, agendas or any cut-and-dried plans. You have simply to be near me all the time that I remain with you, playing, sitting, walking, joking, discussing serious things or listening to stories. I want you to live with me the day-to-day life I normally lead.
You are not expected to read, study, meditate or pray, but to feel at home with me as naturally and unreservedly as you would do at home in the midst of your own family and friends. I want you to be your natural selves, putting aside all the superficial niceties one usually assumes in social life. Being in my company, watching me and being watched by me, you will automatically learn and unlearn a lot, which no amount of teaching can convey. In short, there are three reasons for this sahavas program:
First: To give you my closest company in order to bring out the oneness between us.
Second: To help you understand love and obedience, and to make you imbibe these twin aspects of the nectar of the infinite existence behind all life.
Footnotes
- 1.Darmiyane qahre darya, takhta bandam karda-ee; Baad mi gu-ee kay, daaman ter makun hoshyar baash.