The Guru In Human Form... Contd

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So whether it is in the main hall of the Shrine, or in the Lendi Gardens where Baba meditated for 2 hours everyday, or in the Dwarka (Masjid) where he lived and assembled his durbar and where he manifested his loving protection over devotees far and near, the feeling of his dynamic presence and nearness persists, and there persists too an all-pervading peace despite the very voluble and frantic worship that is poured out by the pujaris and by the incessant chain of visitors who throng in the ashram from the early hours of the morning. In Shirdi there is not that atmosphere of dignified peace which one expects in ashrams; here there is a catholicity of worship untrammeled by any rules or restrictions where each man, woman and child just unburdens his or her heart in perfect spontaneity.

The Master's compassionate sanction is there, "Cast all your burdens on me, and I will bear them." In spite of all the din and noise, the place is instinct with holiness, and the peace which belongs to it is of another world, and it seeps into one's innermost self almost surreptitiously. It was the same when Baba was alive and resided in the ashram; It is the same now, three decades later -- a sudden discovery of the true silence within the heart amidst all the noise and liveliness without; a coming upon the quintessence of one's being -- this is an experience which many devotees gratefully share.

It is as if the Master were saying again, as he was wont to say then, that true solitude springs from the wells of the Atma and comes as the result of an inward purification. Not only any external or physical isolation, but by the difficult process of making the mind quiet does man's consciousness open to the forces of Divine.

As a matter of fact, Baba often decried the practice of renouncing the world and running away from it, for he feared that such an escape into isolation or solitude very often gave rise to a false sense of smugness in the sadhana. For, said Baba, so long as the six elemental passions of Kama, Krodh, Lobha, Moha, Mada and Matsar had not been sublimated, so long as the mind continued to chatter, so long would it be futile for the aspirant to seek solitude, for in the very act of alienating himself from the world he might miss a true perspective of his inner preparedness and progress. So Baba usually cautioned his devotees to be in the world and not of it.