he was God. But there are so many Gods. There is the God which people see in a shape of illusion such as a sunset or a mountain view or a symphony, or whose hand is seen in one's not getting caught in a rain-storm or in obtaining a good job: no doubt a very comfortable and profitable God to have — well worth a Christian candle or some Hindu incense — but not a God to whom one would offer one's life. There is the God who rules the shining planes of consciousness: but sight of his would blind one. And the God who is beyond the planes is unknowable except by his own Grace. And he is extremely careful to whom he gives that Grace.

So when beloved Baba used to tell us that he was God, I used to think, "Yes, Baba, you are God all right — the One God and all the Gods — but what good is that to me? " In fact, I used to get so fed-up with him being God that I wished he wasn't or I wished he was a sort-of an Old Testament God for whom I could slaughter some fat lambs or a spotless young bull in return for some added acreage. I got so tired of his being so much God that I wrote a song about it and sang it to him. It goes something like, "If only you were a bit less God, a bit more Man, I wouldn 't feel so much like someone upside down in a garbage can.

But Baba wasn't going to become more Man just for my sake, so I had to settle for him as the divine Beloved — one whom I could serve sometimes, instead of thinking about myself all the time. After all, although he is God, and sometimes is a Man, being one's own and the world's Beloved is his main job. Others can become as much God or as much Man as he, but only Baba is more beloved than any other beloved. And is infinitely worth serving.

But now a great problem arises. How to serve that One who is All-beloved, for whatever one does with love is done by him. All that is done for the Beloved is done by the Beloved. And so one arrives at the painful conclusion that the Beloved alone exists — which means that oneself doesn't. And that's a terrible predicament to find oneself in — for one is still there!

The only solution I found was to accept the position: "You alone are and I am not, but we are both here." And having arrived at this acceptance Baba now taught me a poetical form capable of expressing all the shades of the impossible relationships of lover and Beloved. Such a form has not existed in English up till now, because the lover-Beloved dilemma was not part of the British-American consciousness. And, of course, beloved Baba being the author of this new form was (or seemed to be) delighted with my exercises in it.

And here is a delicious piece of humor in connection with this. There was a period when Baba had me read a new poem to him 3 times every morning. Do you know why 3 times? Baba was memorizing them. Why memorizing them? So that he could quote them next time he comes back, in 700 years! That is really God-Man humor, isn't it. Then there were his extraordinary orders or commissions. His last was for 30 ghazals — ghazal is the name of the new poetical form he taught me. It happened this way. One morning after the usual morning business was finished, Baba said he wanted me to write 30 ghazals. Could I do that? I replied promptly and brightly, "No, Baba." This reply seemed to rather astonish him. He turned to the other mandali and said, "Well, what do you think of that? I ask this fellow to write 30 ghazals and he says, No, Baba." Then Baba turned questioningly back to me. I said, or rather I groaned, "I don't know whether I can write one ghazal — and you ask for 30. I don't think there are any more in my head." Then he says sympathetically and persuasively, "Try, and I will help you. " So it was back to the stone-quarry again to cut and build 30 more little poem-houses, each one a bit different; for the Beloved likes variety.

But still I did not know what a mighty Beloved our Beloved is. This knowledge has come to me only recently — since Baba laid aside his body.

Now, the Beloved would not be the Beloved if he didn 't have a 1000 whims and moods, if he didn't play his eternal game of divine pretence; if he was not all ears for the lover's praise and stone deaf to his complaints; if he was not All-knowledge and All-ignorance at the