In doing Baba's work, there is one great difficulty. No doubt the workers have love for Baba, but, at the same time, they have their own characteristic weaknesses. The great difficulty resides in the expression of one's ego, the feeling of self-importance by which a man is possessed, despite one's best efforts to lose it. The heart is for weakening the ego, but the mind is for strengthening it. The mind gains a sense of greatness in doing Baba's work. There is no escaping this.
What is to be done then? Try to be humble. But even if the leader of a group, charged with the responsibility of spreading Baba's message of love far and wide, tries to be humble, his co-workers may take it as mere posing on his part and look down upon him. Although other people will ultimately respect him for his quality of leadership.
Another difficulty in doing Baba's work is that the workers themselves fail to cooperate. With differences of opinion prevailing, they find fault with one another. The result is that the work itself suffers. All this results from the workers differing among themselves while they dare to carry to people my message of love, tolerance and purity of heart.
Baba asked whether this was true, and from all corners, cries of "True, true!" were heard. Baba asked Ramakrishnan what the solution for these difficulties might be, and he replied, "Baba, all this is due to maya."
In response, Baba stated:
If maya were not there, then the work I started in the beginning [creation], from which I am not yet free, would not be there. Then, where would differences and disunity come into the picture? In fact, I, myself, am the worker, the work and everything. No, this [maya] is not the answer. I have been looking for a remedy for ages, but until now I have not found it. Can anyone suggest one?
No one responded. Then Baba said:
But there is a remedy for this type of disunity. If the workers tried to act upon it sincerely, it would be easy. Real workers are those who, in addition to helping their leader, disregard his faults. In such cases, the workers themselves become leaders and yet remain sincere workers, too. If my workers follow this advice and cooperate with their leaders and co-workers, understanding that it is I who have entrusted the responsibility to the group heads, then Baba's work would be done.