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Bhakti-marg, which is the sum and substance of every religion, makes us frigidly rigid over "right is right" and "wrong is wrong" leading to a dry-as-dust, brittle and boring attitude of the mind. Under yoga practices the experiencing of different kinds of temporary samadhis brings forgetfulness of Reality and causes the yogi to lose sight of the Goal itself. By "jap-tap" and "chilla-Kashi" he is entrapped in novel, but nonetheless limited, powers that eventually prove a boomerang for his mind.
The real "headache" lies in the fact that we really have to become what we really are, and therefore in order to gain God, we must first lose Him. Suppose I am God; then first I have to lose myself in order to be able to find myself.
Complete loss of God means, wants are not there, desires are not there, likes or dislikes are not there, you are not there, God is not there; in short, nothing is there: and this is Real Fana or the Divine Vacuum. The moment this Fana takes place, at that very moment, God comes into His own full glory of the everlasting Baqa. This is not according to the Western conception of Realization of "this inside" or "that outside" but is discovery of God, by God, for God.
Even when God is lost and found, the life of God is not there. The life of God can be led by regaining ordinary human sobriety and, at the same time, retaining one's Divinity Individualized. For example, Sai Baba's Individuality is eternal, although his work in the different planes and spheres of existence is no longer there. Only those who were then in the respective planes of consciousness know about Sai Baba's work in those particular planes; and all the work of Sai Baba in all the planes at one and the same time was known only to him and his contemporaries.
As our train steamed into Ahmednagar station at 8:10 a.m. on the 15th of October, 1959, we hurried to get out of the stuffy atmosphere of an Indian third-class compartment. We spied our lanky friend Padri, an old mandali member, standing on the platform, trying to locate us in the overcrowded train. The look of urgency in his eyes at once conveyed the message that we must hurry as Baba wanted us to be in Meherazad on the dot of nine.
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