That state was just like the sound sleep state. It cannot be described even as "nothing." It was the "God IS" state of God. All of a sudden, God had a whim [ lahar ]. Where did this whim come from? We will not go into this now. It is already explained in God Speaks . I will touch on only one thing.
The appearance of the whim was like a breeze. From it, firstly there was movement in the Infinite Ocean; secondly, waves were created; thirdly, the bubbles. Simultaneously with this whiff of wind [the whim] three things happened:
First: Consciousness
Second: "Who Am I?"
Third: The existence of Nothingness.
All these three were latent and manifested with the onset of the whim. God became conscious of "Who Am I?" but with the illusory consciousness of the Nothing, He became conscious of the Nothing in gas, stone, mineral, metal, vegetable, worms, reptiles, fish, fowl, animal, man and woman. When He consciously realized Himself, He found that all this was nothing. Nothingness reappeared but with the consciousness of the "I-Am-God" state. This is a continuous process and it will go on eternally.
To make it clearer, take this hall to be a huge, limitless ocean; it is boundless. We are all drops of the ocean, part of the ocean itself. Now what is meant by Eruch [his body] is a bubble of the ocean, and we are all other bubbles. But the drop does not see itself as the ocean but as a drop. It is unaware of the ocean.
Baba then had his discourse "The Head and the Hair" read out by Eruch, which Dhake translated into Marathi.
Baba continued:
Tomorrow I will tell you something about love — how to love me, obey me and surrender to me.
I want five persons from among you who can fast for seven days on water from the 15th of February. I have selected five from each of the previous three groups. Tomorrow, I will select five from your group. All should not volunteer. It is easy to remain on water for seven days. Some of the mandali have done so for 40 days. In the West, there is a craze of breaking fast records.
The real difficulty is my order. Those undertaking the fast are forbidden to sleep for seven days and have to utter my name continuously. This is no joke. So don't stand up impulsively, only out of emotion.