Yesterday [Sunday, May 20th, 2001], Shiva downloaded many e-mails, which he brought to me. Since I wanted to reply to all those e-mails yesterday, I worked up to 10:00 p.m. I was very, very happy that I had completed the work.

Somehow Jack [Small] and Gwendolyn’s greeting card was left out. I don’t know how it happened. It was kept separately, and when I went to bed, I remembered. I thought that I would reply to it in the morning, and this thought lingered in my mind. So I got up twice, thrice, to go to bathroom.

But when I got up at 4:00 a.m., I still could not sleep, so I was remembering Baba.

He appeared to me in physical form and said, as usual, “What are you thinking?”

He was talking with me in signs, and I forgot that Baba was no longer in the physical form. I felt as if I were with Him, and I were keeping night watch.

Immediately I answered, “Nothing Baba.”

He said, “Did you not think that you forgot something?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I was thinking that I forgot to reply to Jack and Gwendolyn’s greeting card.”

And Baba said, “When you forget Me, do you worry? Do you think that you should not forget Me? Everything in the world is to be forgotten if you really want to remember Me. That is Real Remembrance. Loss of memory is not forgetfulness. You have to forget your own self. How will you forget your own false self? When you lose all your impressions, then only the State of Forgetfulness you can achieve. It happens only through my love. That is why I say, ‘Don’t worry. Be Happy.’ But now I tell you, you must worry if you forget Me. This worry is worth worrying. The rest of worries are bindings.

“Now, when you met me in Nagpur you were married. You wanted to leave your wife and daughter and go to Rishikesh to lead a celibate life in any ashram. But when I went to Nagpur, you joined Me, and you were with Me. After four, five years I also called your family to live at Meherabad.

“You were with Me, but did you think about celibacy? You did not. Thinking about celibacy is not celibacy. Why? Because those impressions of lustful desires and lustful thoughts are still there. But those thoughts you lost completely. And when you lost those impressions, how could you remember desires and thoughts? This is called forgetfulness, when you don’t even have those thoughts and desires. This is called real celibacy.

“So know well, that complete forgetfulness is the State of Remembrance of Divinity continuously. Not only remembering, but experiencing divinity.

“Whether My mandali members are gaining anything? They are losing and losing. In fact, there is nothing to gain. Everyone is Reality. Why does one forget Reality? Because he is covered with falsehood. So he remembers falsehood and forgets Reality.

“In order to gain the experience of Reality, you have to lose the false self. This loss is gain. When you experience Reality, you know that previously you were remembering all that which you should have forgotten. And you were gaining all that which you should have lost. My mandali members do not put on robes, and they don’t do any practices which may make them appear as something spiritually advanced. They remain very, very simple and look like ordinary persons. They are very natural in their behavior. They don’t sit for meditation. They don’t do any austerity. They don’t observe any fast, and they don’t do any penance. But what they are internally, I know. If you do austerity for thousands of births or do different penances, you will not achieve that which they have achieved.

“And they look so simple. They are so natural.

“They don’t pose that they are spiritually advanced. But go to any ashram. You will see people in robes, they follow spiritual disciplines -- get up early in the morning, take a bath, meditate, eat a spiritual diet, and become modest. When you see them, you feel very much impressed. But you don’t know what is inside their modesty. They are full of desires and wants, though outwardly they appear very modest. But if you see my mandali members, you don’t find modesty in them.

“Had you seen Kaka Baria, he was very hard. He would not care for the world; he would not care for anyone. He would shout. People would think, ‘How could he be spiritual?’

“But he was very spiritual.

“Once, someone came to see Meherazad when Kaka Baria was there. He was living all alone, and he asked that person, ‘What do you want?’

“That person replied, ‘I have come to see the ashram.’

“‘You are not fit for this place,’ Kaka Baria responded. ‘What will you see? Better not to see and go away.’

“That man was amazed. ‘How he was behaving! He is the Avatar’s Mandali, and yet he does not know how to behave?! He has no love for anyone.’

“So My mandali are like this. The world cannot understand, because spirituality is beyond understanding. It must be felt and experienced.

“I have been telling all my lovers that My Remembrance is the solution of all the problems of the world. How is this the solution? Because if you go on remembering Me, you will forget the world. When you forget the world, the question of problems does not remain there.

“My mandali members are My Jewels. I always tell them, ‘What you are doing for Me, I cannot do that Myself. You are so great.’”

This conversation went on for two and a half hours. But when I was dictating, all sorts of interruptions occurred. Though I have tried to remember all that I heard in Baba’s silent voice, so much I forgot completely. If I remember some time in the future, I will dictate it.

Bhau
Meherabad
Monday, 21st May, 2001

Ps. Coming soon: Long to Long to Hear that Voice of the Heart, followed by I am Fire, not an “Awakening,” but a nice message nevertheless