Sai Baba used to enjoy smoking a chillum [clay pipe]. Once a poor woman went to him with her child. The small boy was standing naked before him; still he asked the mother: "Is it a boy or a girl?" Thus, though knowing everything, Sai Baba was displaying ignorance.
I am the same way. I promise a person God-realization tomorrow, but at that very moment I know that he requires hundreds of births for the same. In such an act of promising, ignorance is manifested. It is difficult to grasp how I, as the Highest of the High, can be so ignorant!
It is because, being the Avatar, I do not act but become everything as everything. The Avatar, who is Infinite Knowledge, becomes infinite ignorance, too. But how can you imagine my state of being simultaneously on and between the highest and the lowest levels of consciousness? From the Highest level, I know everything, while on the rest of the levels I do not know anything.
This dual role that I play has been depicted to some extent in one Persian couplet:
I appear in the Highest Sphere, but at the same time, I seem to appear not to know what is just near my leg.
I am God and Man as the Eternal God-Man, and as such I stoop down to all levels of consciousness to make myself available to all things and beings, so that they may know me as the One Indivisible Self.
I am the Lord of the Universe. I know everything. I have given you your body; I reside in you, yet I ask you daily about your health. Do you know why? I want you to be healthy so that I can pulverize you in my love!
I give and I demand. Such is the dual role I play eternally with creation.
As usual, Bhau continued his nightwatch duties at Guruprasad. One night Baba asked Bhau to give him a glass of water. When Bhau was filling the glass, Baba motioned for him to turn on the lights. When he had done this, he took the water to Baba.
Baba instantly became angry, gesturing, "I asked for water, and you went to put on the lights? What a fool you are!"
"But you told me to put them on," Bhau said. "How can I do two things at once?"