Chastising them severely, he wrote on his slate:
The first thing is that you should not have thought of holding a meeting without me. It was not my order. The second thing is that it was my order to celebrate the festival for a week. No one pays any attention to my orders. Why didn't you think of it in that way? Celebrating the festival has importance only because of my order, not because it is a Hindu or any other religious festival.
When you begin quarreling over, "Why celebrate their festival and not ours," it is better that I retire to the mountains to rest, rather than stay among such narrow-minded, duality-conscious persons! You all may have outwardly given up shariat to a certain extent, but not inwardly. Had I known that you, members of my mandali, only wanted to follow the shariat, I would have allowed you to observe your religious festivals. I had thought that your intellects had overcome this childish attitude. My God!
I was arranging these celebrations for the benefit of the children who are here, as most of them are Hindus. I thought it would be enjoyable for them to rejoice, dance and sing bhajans. I thought that for them we should have this observance of outward religious display, but you men, you should have the gnosis — divine knowledge and inner experience. That is why I give you discourses full of inner secrets. But it is good that you have shown me where I was wrong. I intended outward rejoicing for them and God-realization for you, but you complain, "Why theirs and not ours?" Do they ever question why you, and not they, are being made worthy of my blessing? For them it was bones; for you it was flesh. But now you have opened my eyes. From now on I will stop all outward celebrations and also stop giving discourses. Do you agree? You say that everyone should be on equal footing. All right. For them, no festivals; for you, no God-realization! How do you like that equality?
If you are convinced that I know more than you, why try to teach me? What right had Rustom to call a meeting to protest my order? Think about this for a minute: I order you to do something, and after meeting together, you pass your order and send a message to me through Behram[ji] claiming I should cancel my order.