Baba gave discourses to the children, often using similes and analogies to illustrate his points. One day (18 December 1927), Baba brought out a doll and explained the progression of evolution.
Bending the head of the doll downward and folding all its limbs inside, Baba stated, "This is the state of inanimate objects in the world, such as stones, rocks and minerals. Life is there but it is curled up like the doll and you cannot see it. Everything is latent."
Unfolding the doll's arms and legs, Baba pointed the legs toward the sky and explained, "This is the state of the soul in the plant form. Its mouth is at the roots and its legs or branches are in the sky."
Baba brought the legs down and placed the doll on all fours, indicating that the doll was now in the animal form.
Finally, Baba made the doll stand on its two legs and explained, "The soul has now reached the state of a human being — this is the final and highest form."
To illustrate the working of sanskaras, Baba took a mirror out of his coat pocket one day and explained:
Suppose this mirror represents the mind's sanskaras while chaitanya [consciousness, awareness] is unconscious consciousness. Now the moment chaitanya is created in the unconscious mind, it arouses the sound sleep state of God to know its Self. Also at that moment sanskaras begin. The mirror, which was placed aside, now begins to move toward the eyes.
Drawing a diagram on a chalk board to illustrate his point of a mirror lying flat, then gradually being tilted to an upright position, Baba continued:
One of the first movements of consciousness takes the mirror to the stone form where only a corner of the mirror falls within the boundary of one's vision [the mirror is raised only slightly]. The next movement, to the vegetable form, brings a greater area of the mirror within sight. The next, to the worm, fish, bird and animal kingdoms, brings a still greater area into view. Then the final movement, toward the human form, brings the entire area of the mirror before the eyes and one sees his own reflection therein and believes the reflection — the shadow of the Self — to be the Real Self or I, which is not true.
So the mirror, which was slanted with the evolution of forms, is slowly brought upright with heightened consciousness.