The following day, Baba expounded on "Wine and Love" and, on 18 July, on Saki — "The Wine-seller."1 Prem and Girja Khilnani came to see Baba on the 18th at 5:30 P.M. They expressed their disappointment over not being able to see him more frequently. Baba told them:
Better than your being with me is my being with you! I am in everybody's heart, but I am sleeping there. It is my old, old habit. In order to awaken me, you should always call out to me and say: "Baba, Baba, Baba!" continuously. Then I, who am asleep in your heart, will not find any pleasure in remaining asleep. Let alone sleep, I shall not find time even to doze! I shall slowly be awakened in your heart by hearing your constant call — your taking my name constantly.
Once I am awake in your heart, you too would awake and remain awake for all time. Therefore, repeat my name constantly and awaken me in your hearts so that you become awake for all time.
On Guru Purnima (the full moon day), Baba had the mandali pray collectively to God to help them hold on to Baba to the end. In the evening he sent for Francis to come to his room.
Among other things, he said, "Your stay with me so far has been entirely fruitful for me, for you and your group [in Australia]."
In a letter to the Australian group, Francis narrated this conversation and also discussed the coming of the New Humanity and Baba's suffering:
The longer one is with Baba, the more one realizes that the only solution to the condition of the world is a New Humanity; a humanity oriented to a completely different set of values than that which humanity has now; a humanity oriented with "new ears for music," this new music of "love God and each other as oneself," and an end of the piggish separateness of "mine and the world" — and the beginning of the New World.
The trouble is, the beginning of this New Humanity cannot be effected until Baba breaks his silence — which means dropping his body. One cannot imagine a world without Baba, a Man-Baba Unit. Then again, when one sees daily what is only one iota of his suffering, one cannot help but wish he would drop his body. One really feels like begging him to finish his suffering and let the whole world, including myself, go to hell or annihilate itself through war ...
Footnotes
- 1.Both discourses appear in The Everything and The Nothing.