Baba says, ‘make the Father your one strength and one support‘. Then, you will experience your destination to be close.

When I first come to Baba, I experience a surge of zeal and enthusiasm. I am intoxicated having come to God. I want nothing else, I think. This is what I had been seeking, I have found it.

Then, as I move forward along the spiritual path and the tests of Maya come, my enthusiasm weakens, I become tired and thoughts of intoxication change to exhaustion: ‘how much longer do I have to face these tests?’, ‘when will this end?’.

The reason for this, Baba explains, is he fact that my intellect is no longer connected to just the One. It is divided amongst many. When I come to Baba, it’s like I forget everything else, everyone else and my mind and intellect are swept away by the new knowledge I receive, by the experience of Baba’s presence. But then, as I move along, I slowly slip back into body consciousness.

I really want that promotion at work – I tell Baba that I want it but I don’t see Him do anything about it. So I think: well, Baba is incorporeal, I need to make the effort. So I knock on the doors of other souls. I bend over backwards to impress them so they will promote me. Even when I don’t need anything, I believe that it is important to stay in the vision of certain personalities, people with authority. The thinking is: ‘you never know when you might need them, so I have to keep them happy’. Because of this dependency, even when sometimes I don’t agree with what they do, I feel obliged to go along. I thereby sacrifice my own self-respect in the process and lose my happiness and enthusiasm.

Sometimes, it’s not people but facilities. I have strong preferences, needs, desires and my time and energy are invested in obtaining the required facilities.

When your intellect is scattered in many, Baba says, you become tired. Make the Father your One Strength and One Support, then victory is guaranteed.

But to make the Father my One Strength and Support requires surrender. And surrender requires courage. I need courage to make an offering of the many types of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and place it on the altar.

Is that promotion even more important to me than my connection with myself and with my Father? I had searched for Him for half a cycle, He is here now. Did I call Him so He could help glorify me in the old world? or did I promise to help Him re-establish the new world? We start out strong when we first meet Baba but then in advertently slip back into the world of Maya.

I think and even say: ‘everything is Yours Baba’, ‘I am Yours’ but in reality, I think of everyone and everything as ‘mine‘. I look at bodily relationships as ‘mine’ and feel the burden of responsibility. When a situation comes, I get afraid because I forget Baba and make myself alone. I feel ‘I‘ have to figure a way out. Sub-consciously I think that Baba is incorporeal, that He cannot help me with everything. He is my Father, Teacher and Satguru but when it comes to situations of the corporeal world, I need help from corporeal people. So my intellect is divided.

Then, other times, I seek fulfillment in certain relationships and I don’t think I can get it from Baba. The issue, Baba says, is that to celebrate a meeting with the Incorporeal One, I myself have to become incorporeal and subtle and I often find this hard. So I convince myself that I need corporeal ‘friends’ and ‘companions’. Then inevitably when I don’t find fulfillment from souls, I feel disheartened and tired.

So when I experience my zeal and enthusiasm decrease, when I experience tiredness instead of intoxication, let me check if I am caught up in one of the many traps of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and moved away from Baba.

These are storms of Maya, Baba explains. However, don’t become afraid of them and stop making effort. Before reaching the high destination, you first experience storms. In order for a steamer to cross an ocean, it has to go through the middle of it. Therefore, don’t get flustered or become afraid; do not become tired; do not come to a standstill. Keep your Companion with you and every difficulty will become easy.

When I take one step of courage, He promises multi-millionfold help.

If something is good for me, He will make it happen even without me asking. If there is a crisis, He will send help. It might be the same person I was thinking of but let me surrender the problem to Him. Let Him touch that person’s intellect and show them the way to help me the right way. Let me have the courage to surrender and remain still. Let me dare to make Him my Friend and Companion and experience the subtle meeting.

When I surrender my intellect to Him, when I truly make Him my world, I have nothing to fear or worry or want. I don’t have to hustle and strategize and depend on limited resources or souls. Therefore, there is no tiredness, there is a sense of security, of peace, of certainty, of being carefree. There is constant zeal and enthusiasm.

Baba reminds me that even when I was on the path of bhakti, I had promised that when God came, I would be with Him constantly. That I would eat with Him, walk with Him, sit with Him…that I would make Him my world. I am here now, He says, remember Me alone.