Search your own hearts and see whether you are prepared for such obedience. If your conscience is not prepared for it, then what should you do?
Everything is the play of the mind. If I wish, I could make the harmonium start playing itself. People would take me for God and would be ready to surrender themselves to me. But this would not be dedication to me, but to the playing of the harmonium. If a dead child is made alive, people are ready to obey — but this obedience would be to resurrecting the child.
Ravikant Rawal of Surat described how he had once witnessed a lover succeed in invoking rain by taking Meher Baba's name at a particular place during a drought. In response, Baba commented:
We need not doubt what he says, he has seen it with his own eyes; but the fact remains, I did not know about it and I did nothing in that connection.
Nozar [Dadachanji] loved me. His family loves me; they did not grieve when he died but obeyed my will.
You all somehow feel that I am someone really great, but you have no conscious experience. There will not be greatness in your obedience after knowing me. But it is really great to obey me when not knowing my True Self. Mind will revolt against such obedience.
Kaikobad Dastur has some experiences and derives anand [bliss]. He says he knows who I am. If I tell him to cut his family to pieces, he will do it cheerfully because he knows Baba is something. But obedience without consciously knowing me will make you greater than me. Whatever I say, I say in all sincerity. It is impossible to obey me literally. Were I in your place, it would be difficult for me to obey. So, what should I say about obeying me without knowing my Real State!
If obedience is impossible, then there is another way — purifying the heart. There are three ways: the first is obedience; the second is purifying the heart; and the third is selfless service [ seva ].
To cleanse our hearts is very difficult. How to do that? It is not in renunciating the world and leading a secluded life. While leading a worldly life, you can cleanse your hearts. Suppose you become angry, you have bad thoughts. What to do? The thing to do is to let the thoughts come and go.