Baba says, ‘children who maintain courage receive help from the Father‘. But, you have to understand the accurate meaning of it.

When Baba comes, He finds chaos. His children have forgotten who they are and Him, and are running around like orphans. The five vices have taken over the world He had once established and reduced it to a degraded mess. He knows He’s got to get this cleaned up and fix things. He’s got two options: 1) go at it alone, given He is the Almighty Authority or (2) do it along with the children.

He picks option 2. ‘This is the family path‘, He reminds us, this is not for sanyasis.

I don’t do anything without My children, He says. So what does He do to fix the world? He sets out to find and bring together His lost children. He reminds each one of us of who we are and of Him. He tells us the story of the cycle, of what the world used to be and how it became what it is now. ‘You have to become pure again’, He says. When you become pure, so will the world.

Then, He asks the question: ‘will you help Me make the world pure again?’

This is obviously the more circuitous route. Baba knows that it will take time for His children to remember, that we will slip back at times, will need to be reminded again and again and again…But not only does He choose this route but even when I slip, He doesn’t chastise or look down upon or impose Himself on me. He gives the soul time to realize, He waits patiently. Yes, it takes longer but the Father takes His children along with Him on the journey, He does His work together with the children who join Him on their own will, because they too see His truth, because they too feel inspired….not by force.

There are times when I feel inspired to do something. For example, maybe I feel a strong inclination to donate a bulk of my wealth to God’s work or maybe, I feel strongly that I want to dedicate my life fully to God’s work and so want to leave my job or it could be that I feel I want to live at a center etc. These are all big decisions that impact not just me but others as well.

Baba says, ‘you have to have unity in your gathering. You have to consult with each other first‘.

If I have a family or a community that depends on me, I cannot simply announce to them one day that I have decided to leave or that I am donating everything etc. and then just do it. There has to be a consultation, a discussion. It is sanyasis who decide one day that they have had enough, that they are fed up with the world, or that they feel a calling to lead a different life and then, simply leave at the expense of their families and community. They go against the contract they once signed. Baba does not ask His children to shrug off their responsibilities, He asks them to shoulder them well.

But often, we feel so righteous about doing certain things that we simply look up and say to Baba: ‘I want to do x, y or z. You have to help me Baba’. Baba says, you have to consult with each other and find unity, find agreement. Only after that, based on that, will Baba help. It’s like any big project that affects multiple stakeholders. If I think it would be good idea to plant trees and paint all the fences in my community, I am not going to simply start doing it! I will first consult with my community members, see how they feel about it and then move forward based on what the collective decides. Then, if we need money etc., I can go to the government and ask for help. That is the last step, not the first.

Now, there are times when I receive direct Shrimat from Baba about certain things, for example: purity, diet, lifestyle etc. that might not be readily accepted by family and friends. They might be uncomfortable with the changes, might make things inconvenient for them. In these cases, I don’t consult, I assert. But even so, even as I firmly stand by what Baba has asked me to do, I don’t look down upon family, I don’t adopt a ‘holier than thou’ attitude and dislike them. Instead, it is my responsibility to do my best to help others see why something is important to me.

In the world, becoming a sanyasi or going at things alone might be considered courageous but it is not so in Baba’s world. Here, an act of courage is to stay in the midst of family, in the midst of the world and serve it. That’s what He models for me and is what He expects me to do. It’s finding agreement in the midst of disagreements, it’s finding common purpose, it’s never giving up on love no matter what.

I am bound to help you on your journey but you have to follow the method, He says. You have to understand what courage means and then take that step.