can perform the function; but I may be wrong. Originally Christianity was a Jewish movement attached to the synagogue, but the breaking up of Jewery and its dispersal, as well as the Christian persecutions by the Jews who didn't agree with it, as well as by others, brought the Church into being; and the eucharistic gathering enabled it to persist and to develop. The Church is really based upon the sacrifice of the Mass, which is the drama of the passion of Jesus, in which those who participate sacrifice themselves.

Is there anything equivalent in Baba? At this stage we can't tell. It seems to me that organization is foreign to the special purpose that Baba represents, and unless we envisage an entirely new culture, I do not think it is called for. Indeed, I see nothing in the essential meaning of Christianity that doesn't welcome and provide for Baba, though forms of Christianity and the creeds of the Church may seem to contradict this. No doubt Jews and Moslems, Sufis and Hindus can say the same. Each is capable of infinite rebirth in the same spirit; for God is neither here nor there, but wherever he is worshipped in spirit and truth. That is what Jesus said, and what Baba wants us to realize when he condemns empty rituals. He doesn't say "give up rituals," but "if you participate, know what you are doing!"

In Jesus we get the revelation of the transcendent God and the real nature of man as divine. This is contained in Christianity—Jewish, Greek and Roman—and its various forms, orthodox and heretical, which is the basis of our Western civilization. In Baba we get the same revelation in an Eastern-Western setting, which doesn't replace Christianity nor the religions of the East, but reinforces them in their essential core.

For myself, I accept Baba because he has the tremendous courage to declare that he is such a revelation, which is in nothing said or done by him, but in his being. The ordeal of Jesus was that he was tempted to make himself supreme and to use miraculous powers. He refused and chose instead to remain practically unknown, to surrender everything, to count himself nothing and to allow himself to be killed, not as a 1hero but as a deluded criminal. Baba uses no powers, cuts no figure and is among us as a helpless, disabled man. He presents himself as the object of love and as servant of love, whose sufferings are for us all. To accept him is to accept what he reveals, that is to say, that we can change by grace our self-centered souls into God-centered lovers and servants of God.

If you ask me why I have given these talks, it is because we must love