paper to serve as its tail; but when I sent up the kite the tail came off and was lost. I was bent upon my kite having a tail, and, with some sticky filth near at hand, I stuck on another tail. This time it remained stuck and, irrespective of what it had been fixed with, kept flying with the kite.

"To stick to me means to keep me pleased at the cost of your own comforts and pleasures. It means to remain resigned to my will whether you keep good health or bad, whether you make money or lose it, and whether you gain name and fame or become the laughing stock of others . . .

"During wars, often fought for prestige and power, wealth and lands, soldiers give up their lives as a matter of course in their duty to their country . . . why cannot it be possible for you to consider yourselves as already 'dead' in serving me?"

"Sometimes I cannot help asking myself about the things I do and say, and about the things I deliberately avoid and easily forget . . . At the last Meeting in Meherabad I gave out my final Declaration and yet it was followed by a Clarification, a Confirmation and lastly by the Decision . . .

"Until the other day I had not given it a thought . . . then, while taking a rest, I asked myself why at all I did give out the Declaration. Who asked me for a Clarification? Where was the need to issue a Confirmation and what made me give the Decision?

"I was satisfied that all that was, had been inevitably necessary . . . Throughout time, in accordance with the common law of nature, there are four stages to everything. Therefore the day I had announced my Declaration, I knew the Decision inherent therein would have to be worked out by me through the stages that would automatically follow. For example:

"After a mango stone is sown and nurtured, a sapling is bound to spring up. The sapling is not in itself the mango but it represents a declaration of the mango's advent. The sapling does not stop there, but unfolds to clarify itself into more leaves, branches, and a trunk.