By Malcolm Schloss

All life is a miracle, and all men are magicians. If they but realized the power of their slightest thought and word and action, they would be more careful what they thought and said and did. Not realizing their power, and accordingly wasting it, they are attracted to those through whom they feel power flow constructively; from them they demand demonstrations of power - what they call "magic", "miracles".

I have a friend who is a very capable ceremonial magician, and who used to lecture on magic. Years ago, at the close of one of his lectures, a woman approached him.

"Mr. Man," she said, Can you do magic?"

"Yes;" my friend answered, and, before he had a chance to add “And so can you," the woman interrupted eagerly, her eyes shining, her face wreathed in smiles: "Do me some!" And she stood waiting, expectantly.

That is the average person's attitude toward magic, and the exercise of what should be normal, but is considered supernormal, power. Jesus is probably worshipped by more people because of the miracles He performed than He is for the sublimity of His life and teachings, yet if people would follow His teachings they would perform what they now call miracles as naturally and automatically as they breathe.

Baba's attitude toward miracles is outlined in an interview to the Bombay correspondent of the Associated Press just before He sailed for the West in 1932.

"Anyone who becomes one with Truth can accomplish anything," He wrote, "but it is weakness to perform a miracle simply to show one's spiritual powers.

"Christ, Who made the blind to see and the deaf to hear, Who restored the dead to life, did nothing to save Himself from suffering the agony of the world. The only miracle for the perfect man to perform is to make others perfect, too."

There are two stories which I heard while in India which illustrate Baba's attitude perfectly. One concerns an old school-mate of Baba 's, who become one of His earliest disciples, but who, for a time, simply could not realize what a complete transformation of consciousness had taken place in Baba, and what a vast difference there was between his erstwhile genial companion and his present spiritual master.

Baba knew that he was hankering after miracles; so, one day, He asked B. to go to the desk in another room and write a letter for Him. As B. made himself ready to take dictation from Baba, he suddenly started, pushed back his chair, rubbed his eyes, stared at the desk.