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Baba stated this same sort of drama had taken place in the time of Buddha, and this bird that flew away represented one of Baba's close disciples who would get Realization too, but would die before Baba broke his silence.

 

So, Baba will test one in many ways. He will wear one out to exhaustion-point with consent change of plan, with no time for food or rest, and one is tempted to say, "It is a pity Baba does not know his own mind; all this changing wears one out." Baba knows it does, that is why he does it. He wants to test and, through the test, increase one's power to control and the quality of one's endurance.

 

And, when he sees one getting agitated, upset, he may say, "If you worry like this, it is no good your working for me." Then one has the chance to show Baba that, even if one's control is lacking, still, love binds one to him and so one doesn't answer him back as one may feel tempted to do at such a trying time.

 

Baba's frequent rebuking of a disciple has been explained by C. B. Purdom in "The Perfect Master" as follows:

 

"Baba does it for the sake of protecting him if he is in danger, or of attracting to himself the sanskaras or impressions that are affecting the disciple and so freeing him from them."

 

All Baba does is done out of love—hence a blessing to all.

 

I have taken but one aspect of Baba's varied activities during this five-year period of his working with the West; namely, a few incidents, some from India, out of the many, showing glimpses of Baba's early training with his Western group.

 

During this five-year period, Baba went back and forth between India and the West as well as travelling around the world, so it was only on his visits to the West (nine times in all) that we saw Baba, and then only for short periods of a week, ten days or a month, according to the length of his stay, and once, in 1933, when he called some of us to India and we stayed three weeks.

 

But, during these short periods, Baba had tested our love in the face of disappointments, opposition and other difficulties. And then, in 1936, Baba was asking us for a second time to go to India, this time to stay five

 

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