the toothpick, He sent me downstairs for a newspaper. I honestly felt like jumping into the lake . . . I felt myself completely exhausted mentally because He asked to do two things at one and the same time, eat and not eat, bark and not bark, do and not do! That's how the impressions get either thinned, eradicated or unwound . . .however the Avatar decides . . . Impressions create great havoc; they are responsible for estranging man from God . . ."

"I have a friend who used to say, you go with Baba to the West and enjoy yourself. But on ship-board Baba used to ask us to get up at 4 o'clock and be dressed and ready near Him at 5 . . . you see, His love was so great that the best thing we could do was to be looked on as very insignificant things; whether He allowed you to eat or not eat, all that became very insignificant because of His love.

Filis: "How old were you when you first came to Baba?"

Adi: "18 years old."

Filis: "And how old was Baba?"

Adi: "Seven years older . . . today someone asked me, 'What is love?' How can you describe love? Every minute of his life he experiences love. Yet he asks what is love? Because that love pertains to God, to Meher Baba, the personification of God. Has that man ever asked himself what is that love he has for his wife or his child, or his family? He never questions it. But when it comes to love for God, he measures it with the yardstick of the intellect. My counter-question was, how do you measure the love you have for your wife? 'Reply to my question, and I will reply to yours,' I said, and he was silent. He experiences that love every minute, and he doesn't know what it is.

"But how does one create love for God? I try to give a human example. Suppose a child is born to a mother, then taken from her at birth and given to another woman. That child grows up looking upon that woman as his real mother. After 20 years the real mother confronts her child saying, 'She is not your real mother, I am.' What then? The child has only love for the false mother, because she is all he knows, and all he has had contact with.

"And so I say, how do we create this love for Baba? By reading of Him, talking about Him, thinking, meditating on Him, taking His Name . . . by any means, bring Him into your heart, in your mind, your thoughts. . . Asking questions won't do it. . . that would be like asking a scientist how did you become a scientist? It will not give you His knowledge."

"That doesn't mean one has't the right to ask about Baba's love. But not out of curiosity. One has to be serious, be prepared to spend time, energy, to sacrifice, like the scientist did for his knowledge. God, the personification of God, His creation, His love, is so vast. . . . But then, one has to be ready for it. Baba said, 'It is as difficult as it is easy.' In the field of love, that shouldn't bother you! Nor should one expect anything, even God-Realization! No hopes, no expectations, no desires. . . It is all giving, no taking back. The moment you give to Baba and expect anything, Baba says it becomes a bargain, a transaction, and in the field of love, there is no such thing.

"And yet, it does not mean you will not get anything from Baba! — but once you get it, you will never lose it. Anything I get today, and lose tomorrow, I didn't get at all. So these small experiences, the light a yogi sees, some fragrance he gets on the first plane, dreams, visions, — Baba gives no importance to them. He says: 'The only experience I have come to give you, once you get it, you never lose it.' That is the highest gift.

"That doesn't mean if a man gets a vision, it has no value. Everything has a value, but it has a proportionate value. Baba has given us a great sense of values. He has not only revealed to us the spiritual facts He Himself has experienced, but He has given us a knowledge of values. Suppose a man learns all the parts of the human body, he knows their names, he knows their number, from the books he has read. But he doesn't know where they are placed. So he puts the nose on the neck or the head on the feet and so on. He produces a caricature. Just so, it's not enough to know the spiritual facts; we must have the sense of relative values which Baba teaches us.