As the motive for these spiritual exercises, Baba placed emphasis always on worship or on helping him in his universal work, never on any spiritual benefit that might accrue to us individually. There was to be no attachment to the results, at least, not consciously. Rarely did Baba discuss one's own spiritual progress except in group sessions when ethical behavior in terms of forbearance, love and self-control came up.

Baba would often lecture us about controlling emotions. He knows we will all get angry, but he wants us to control it; he knows we will hate sometimes, but he wants us to transform the hate to love. To maintain poise—that is true spirituality!

I was once asked, "Does Baba believe in prayer?" This is Baba's answer: "A life of prayer is ever-essential. Atman (soul) can be obtained only through the Atman (Soul) itself, which is the object of prayer, the desire and the fulfillment."

The following words of the Gita express very clearly what Baba wished us to learn, the way to live rightly and think rightly: "Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits. So, let not the fruit of action be thy motive, nor be thou to inaction attached. Perform action, dwelling in union with the Divine, renouncing attachment and be balanced evenly in success and failure."

May we not add too, that whether we see the fruits of Baba's work or not, does not really matter—it is enough to love him!

It was very necessary at first that Baba supervised every activity in the ashram, because, although we all loved Baba, still with our very different nationalities and different ages, life did not always run smoothly. I don't think Baba expected all would go smoothly, with our assertive egos. Had he wanted continual peace, he would have selected very different types. We all had too many sanskaras, more than ever we suspected while we were still out in the world. Loosening up the ego must have been for Baba not unlike extracting a tooth, painful to the patient, but most satisfying to the surgeon! And as Baba saw the ego slowly disintegrating under his ceaseless drilling, there he would be, ready to fill the void with his love and presence. In the ashram at Nasik, we Westerners had clashed only amongst ourselves. Here in Meherabad, however, Easterners and Westerners had to adjust their