Baba's Mast Contacts from April to October, 1946

Baba left Ahmednagar on 16th April 1946 to stay at a place in the North which he intended to keep unknown even from his Mandali members. Vishnu, Dr. Nilkanth, Baba's brother, Jal, Kaka Baria, Eruch and Baidul accompanied him. Vishnu, Nilkanth and Krishna stayed at the unknown place, attending to the respective duties of managing and looking after the health, comfort, marketing etc., of the ladies. The other four members went out with Baba from time to time on Mast trips.

Baba undertook three categorical contacts as observed by those who accompanied him. There may be two specific reasons of contact:

(1)  To integrate and divert the innate forces of Nature from the various units of spiritual human dynamos into one spiritual channel of regeneration of the good and sublime in man. This may be done with the conscious knowledge of those whom he contacts. The process of regeneration may demand a period of remorseful transformation or partial destruction of the world.

(2)  To elevate or sublimate the different types of struggling, care-worn and care-free human beings to the quickening of the Spirit, unconscious through the process may be to those whom he contacts.

The three categorical contacts are: (a) The Masts who are God-conscious or semi-God-conscious, having no normal consciousness; (b) the Sadhus and Sufis who are spiritually advanced or (rarely) God-conscious, having normal consciousness; (c) ordinary Sadhus and Fakirs.

A Mast is drowned in his ecstasy. A Salik (spiritually and normally conscious) is self-gratified with his experience of Reality. A pretender is self-assertive in his being looked upon as a Saint. These three types are to be — as it were ― focussed out from their one-point absorption — and diffused sympathetically over larger and greater interests of humanity.

Baba is observed to know the process of physical contact effective for Universal Work. That is why we think he undertakes to contact Masts by going through the most uncomfortable journeys of towns, cities and villages, utterly regardless of sleep, food, rest and bath. No consideration is shown for any of these if one good Mast is to be contacted.

Sympathetic response from these holy men entails a very careful and delicate handling of their whims and vagaries. If it was only meant for Baba to touch them physically, the trouble was far too much. At the time of approaching him, a Mast comes to a state of emotional upheaval. He swerves and swings. He rises above the fervor of his Absolute God-love in a feverish protest. He disapproves the very existence of God hidden in humanity and works for its redemption from a self-created misery.

If it be that the tempermental elements are fiery, a Mast behaves with a babbling resentment. If he is naive, he reacts in passive resistance by evading contact. The momentous Mast contact is evidenced by Baba in hurried and speedy movements. The process seems like drawing out the whole being of a Mast and welding it into a course of humanized and harmonized action. It is too baffling a sight to see and too complicated a process to imagine. Who can, but Baba, know why he goes in for Mast contacts and what results from his doing so? Our attempts are too feeble to depict the truth.

20th to 27th April 1946: Baba with Eruch, Kaka and Jal, went to Rishikesh, Hardwar and Layman Zoola and contacted ten Masts. Baidul joined the party on 25th April.

© 1976 by Adi K. Irani