then. So that was the discipline He used to make us undergo.

"One day when we were living in Bombay, Baba got into the mood of playing. He used to play with us, marbles, kite, cricket, just like a boy. But at no time did we lose respect for Him, although He used to treat us on the same level. You see that love was so beautifully balanced with discipline, you can't imagine. Only Baba could do it . . .

"Anyway Baba got into the mood of wrestling. I was 19 years old, very strong then. Baba said, 'Use your full strength and wrestle with Me.' At that time Baba was very lean, and looked very weak. I thought, I'll throw Him in no time, so I did not use my full strength. Baba said, 'Come on, grapple with Me.' I went near Him and He just caught hold of me; but I didn't use my full strength. 'No, no, not like this, you are to use your full strength. 'Alright, Baba. 'Once again I did not use my strength thinking I'd throw Him. Then Baba said, No, this is not right, I order you to use your full strength' I tried to grapple with Him, thinking I will just pick Him up and throw Him, but before I had even thought about it, He just caught hold of me, and threw me like a pumpkin, and I rolled ten to twelve feet away from Him and fell flat on the ground.

"I thought, look at the arguments I had within me, I thought I was strong. One really cannot show any pride to a Perfect Master at all."

Adi quotes a Hafiz couplet in Persian. "Hafiz is a Persian poet. Baba is very fond of his poems. He was a Perfect Master. He says: 'Do not show your pride to the Perfect Master at all, because He can melt a huge mountain in His hand like wax, He is so strong' He is a mighty Beloved, as Francis Brabazon says. I call Him Almighty Beloved. "You cannot show your pride, your arrogance before Him at all. So I got a very good lesson that day."

"Did you go on Mast tours with Baba?"

"Yes, some of them, not all. The Mast work of Baba is such a unique thing, that however much we try to understand it, we couldn't — even to this day. First of all, it is inner work. To my mind, it was for two purposes. He used to travel hundreds of miles to contact a Mast just for a few minutes. He would go from Ahmednagar to Kashmir, two thousand miles; for a few minutes He'd contact a Mast, then it was all over.

"One purpose, I think, was to advance the Mast himself; probably if he was on the third plane, push him on to the fourth or fifth, or if on the sixth plane, put him on the seventh. And the other was to utilize the experience, the energy, the status of the Mast, to make him contribute to Baba's inner spiritual work. Because the Masts are so engrossed in their own bliss, their own experience, they don't care about the world at all. But Baba, you see, is both God and Man at the same time; although He enjoys the all-power, all-knowledge and all-bliss of God, He also knows the suffering of the human being, because He freely identifies Himself with us as much as He identifies Himself with God. That's why He is called God-man, and that is why it is sometimes difficult for people to understand who Baba is."

"Why does Baba suffer?"

"Because He has come into the world to help the human being. How could He help, until He had fully identified with him? You see, there is a very great difference between a Perfect Master and the Avatar. The Perfect Master, Baba says, does not identify as much with the world as the Avatar, because, the Perfect Master when He does some work for human beings, only acts, whereas the Avatar becomes. That is the distinction.

"Did previous Avatars have something like Baba's Man-O-Nash?"

"The outward activities of various Avatars were not similar. Similar situations are not necessary for their manifestation. They can pick up and work through any situation. They have taken bodies at different times in different situations and their work depended on the circumstances at the times. But remember, there is one Avatar, not two. He represents God. All the rest of the Perfect Masters are only the executors of His work which He plans far ahead.

"Before the New Life began, Baba was sitting in the blue bus in which He and the mandali travelled to Kashmir years ago. He confined himself there for one