Master or Avatar? But if a man just sows his wild oats in the world and suffers, he gains nothing at all.

"Baba also suffered. But His suffering was not that of an ordinary man, although it looked just the same. I don't think anyone will gain by self-inflicted suffering, or self-mortification. Baba never advised that. The greatest thing Baba advised was mental detachment. A man may give up his wealth, his possessions, but his mental preferences may be still there. They are so many — 'I like this, I dislike that.' They also have to be gotten rid of."

"So Baba says, you don't really have to bother with philosophical arguments. He says He has given the world God Speaks to satisfy the intellectual convulsions of human beings. It will not advance you an inch, but reading it gives you an opportunity to love Baba in your heart.

"Even so, you may understand about God, about man, the inner stages, the different aspects of God-consciousness — and still have a confused sense of values, because it is still intellectual knowledge, not knowledge gained through experience. Baba has divided knowledge into different types (in The Everything and the Nothing): there is external knowledge; internal knowledge of the subtle and mental planes, and then God's knowledge. An intellectual giant may be a spiritual pigmy. In the same book you have read about the ignorance of ignorance, — the ignorance of knowledge, — and the knowledge of knowledge. The external or material knowledge is the ignorance of ignorance; the internal or spiritual knowledge is the ignorance of knowledge on the subtle plane, and knowledge of ignorance on the mental plane; and the final divine knowledge is knowledge of knowledge. I tried to explain it in Marathi, at our Ahmednagar Center, but it went over their heads. . . So I said, next time I'll have an analogy for you. It took me two days to think it out. Let us say there is a real car and a toy car. Let the real car represent knowledge, and the toy car, ignorance. If a baby is given a toy car, it doesn't know there is such a thing as a real car. It does not know it's a toy car either. She is ignorant and what she sees is ignorance. That is ignorance of ignorance. Now when the baby is older, a real car is placed before it, which the baby still doesn't understand. That is ignorance of knowledge. Now the baby becomes a grown child, and has understanding; and is given the toy car — and she knows it is not a real car. That is knowledge of ignorance. But when the child becomes fully grown, and is given a real car — the real car represents knowledge, and she is knowledge: — we now have knowledge of knowledge. Is it clear?"

Someone asks for stories about Baba, so Adi continues: "In 1932 I was going to Deccan College. I was 18 years old then. In my very early contact with Baba, He had come to Poona and was staying in a hut on the Ferguson College Road. Baba said I should come there every evening and the whole of Sunday, when Baba used to go back to His family's house — the one we visited today. So I used to walk the distance of three or four miles with Baba and a few of the disciples. I was wearing a hat, a very beautiful, expensive hat. We neared a huge, thorny cactus bush and Baba said, 'Now if I ask you to part with your hat, will you do that?' I said yes, but I thought to myself, I can't go without the hat, I wasn't used to the sun in those days, I could not stand the sun for half a minute. Now today I am very much used to it, after going thru Baba's discipline. So Baba said, 'Take the hat and throw it into the cactus bush.' Willingly or unwillingly I just flung it like this —," Adi gestured.

"We went a few steps ahead. I had with me a musical instrument, a piccolo. . . very expensive. So Baba said, 'Will you part with this?' So I said yes, thinking, is Baba going to ask me to part with all my clothes and I'll go naked on the road or what. He used to ask us 'If I ask you to strip your clothes off, and go naked in the open street, would you do it?' And we said, yes, we'll do it, but never did He actually order it. But He used to ask us many a time.

"A few steps further on He said, 'Will you throw your piccolo into the cactus?' And I took my piccolo and threw it there. I was very fond of playing the piccolo