The following two Messages dictated by BABA were distributed to over ten thousand people who came to have BABA’s darshan on the first of November, 1953, at Dehra Dun, India, that being the day he had allowed public darshan. BABA asked that they be reprinted in The Awakener.

ON PLAYING WITH ILLUSIONS

APPRECIATE THE FAITH, which has brought you here. I also appreciate your love and devotion. It has made me very happy.

I know and understand your difficulties and problems, sufferings and expectations. Not only the individuals, but the whole world is in the throes of suffering. When suffering comes, it comes according to the divinely established law of Karma. It must then be accepted with grace and fortitude. But it must he remembered that your actions are the cause of much of your suffering. Through wise action, it can be minimized. What humanity needs is spiritual wisdom; and for this, it must inevitably turn to the Perfect Masters and Avatars.

Suffering comes through ignorance or attachment to illusions. Most people play with illusions as children play with toys . If you get caught up in the ephemeral things of this world and cling to illusory values, suffering is inevitable. It is not easy for little children to give up their toys, for they become the victims of a habit, which they can not undo. In the same way, through millions of lives, you have got into the habit of playing with illusions; it is difficult for you to get disentangled from them.

For ages and ages, the Atma (Soul) has been seeing its own shadow and getting engrossed in the illusory world of forms. He gets addicted to the spectacle of his own creation and desires to see it through cycles and cycles of creation. When the soul turns inwards and longs to have self-knowledge,