One Sunday in Poona, Baba reprimanded him again.
"Don't you value my words?" he asked Bhau. "You regularly break my order. You are not well and may die. Your death will not pain me, but your disobedience to my orders will! I am suffering already, and your disobedience is increasing my suffering."
To add to Bhau's torment, Baba went so far as to remark, "This accident happened because of you!"1
At the time, Bhau had no idea what Baba meant, but it was becoming too much to bear. He told Baba, "What am I to do? Circumstances are such that I am forced to disobey."
"Do you want to follow my instructions according to circumstances? If your obedience depends on circumstances, you will never be able to obey me."
"But then, what arrangements should be made for Eruch and Pendu?"
"Do you value my words, or Eruch and Pendu? Even if they die, so what? In keeping my wish, nothing should come in the way."
Eventually, in January 1957, Sidhu was called from Meherabad to remain near Pendu at night.
For ten days, Baba had trouble passing urine. He also did not pass any stool for several days, and Dr. Bansod had to manually remove his feces. It was a very painful procedure, but afterwards Baba felt greatly relieved. Every doctor who treated Baba felt pleased to attend to his needs, and despite the pain, Baba would act with them as if he were not suffering at all. The doctors would, in turn, lay their personal problems before him as if they were the patients.
But with the mandali, Baba's daily attitude was quite the reverse. To them, he complained constantly and was restless with pain despite all their attentions, thereby giving them the chance to serve him. He could not bear the slightest carelessness on the part of any of the men or women mandali and gave them innumerable lessons in the highest form of service.
On the evening of 15 December 1956, Baba told the women:
[During] the last 75 days of my seclusion, beginning from the day of the accident, I have to work through physical suffering. The main pattern of its intensity resembles climbing a hill: the first three weeks being in the ascension. (Hence the critical week beginning tomorrow is the apex.) The next three weeks are of slow gradual descent, and after that the last 45 days will be of gradual improvement, with only the normal pain and discomfort expected with someone in my condition.
Footnotes
- 1.Years after Baba dropped his body, Bhau understood what Baba meant: Baba had to suffer in this second accident, to wipe out the impressions Bhau had in order to have Bhau in his inner circle of disciples. It was necessary that Baba suffer physically to cement, or solidify, as it were, Bhau's place in Baba's innermost circle." As Bhau explained: "The Avatar brings with him two types of sanskaras, yoga-yoga sanskaras, and for his circle members, vidnyanic sanskaras. If he gives these vidnyanic sanskaras to any circle member, that person's sanskaric account is closed. He has no more binding sanskaras, nor can he create any. Baba then uses that circle member for his work. And that circle member does not know anything of this. When Baba said, 'You are the cause of my accident,' he meant that somehow, through this accident, he gave me vidnyanic sanskaras to settle the account of my binding sanskaras. How much he had to suffer for that purpose! Nobody knows how tremendously he would suffer for each circle member. He suffers for everyone, but for circle members, he suffers infinitely. That is how he makes them the medium of his work — work which he himself alone does."