Baba says, ‘now follow shrimat and stop the wandering of your minds and intellects.’

For half a cycle, for birth after birth, I allowed my mind and intellect to wander into expansion and this habit has therefore become very firm. Body consciousness, by its very nature, brings me into many varieties of expansion. ‘I am a child’, ‘I am young’, ‘I am old’, ‘this is my occupation’, ‘this is my social status’, ‘this is my net worth’…then, when I come into relationships, there is further expansion- I am so and so’s child, I am so-and-so’s father, brother, etc. Then, there is the expansion of possessions- I own such and such etc. With this expansion then comes the baggage of comparison, competition, jealousy, expectations, biases, etc. In bhakti too, there is so much expansion of rituals and customs to please the deities. Their aim is to attain the One and yet they follow methods that make them wander.

But now, I am neither a resident of the iron age nor am I a bhagat. Previously, I was calling out for God, now I know Him; He is my Father, Teacher, my Guide, my Friend, my Beloved, my Companion…my everything. The Father has now become my world or hasn’t He?

Do I still remember bodies or does my intellect only go toward the bodiless One? The very first lesson I am taught by God is: ‘you are a soul, a bodiless being.’ So when my intellect goes toward bodies due to the old habit, my task is to pull it back and practice being a bodiless being. Only when I consider myself to be a bodiless being can I remember the bodiless One. When I make the Father my world, nothing else remains. My intellect no longer wanders toward perishable wealth or perishable relations. I don’t have thoughts of ‘I have a lot of wealth’, because I have handed everything to the Father. I have made everything ‘mine’ into ‘Yours’. Or ‘is it that you think: what belongs to me is mine and what belongs to the Father is also mine?‘, asks Baba. The perishable body, mind and wealth is not mine, I have given them to the Father. The first thought for transformation I had was: ‘Baba, everything is Yours’ and it is only by saying ‘Yours’ will you benefit, says Baba.

Sometimes, I make the mistake of thinking that I am giving to the Father as a favor to Him. But the Father is God! He is the Bestower, He doesn’t need perishable anything! By teaching me to change ‘mine’ into ‘Yours’, He helps me release the attachment I have to that which I offered. ‘Mine’ traps while ‘Yours’ helps me detach. By saying ‘mine’, I carry a burden while by saying ‘Yours’, I become a double-light trustee. Until I become light, I cannot reach a high stage, that is, I cannot become liberated and fly.

To say ‘mine, mine’ or ‘I am so-and-so and such-and-such’ etc., makes the mind wander amongst various types of expansion and to say I am a soul and mine is just One Baba and none other enables me to return to the essence; it enables me to concentrate. One helps me focus, many divides. Baba says, ‘now, keep your mind in order by being the master and remaining seated on the seat of that stage.’ This comes from practice, practice and only practice. Throughout the day, Baba recommends, take a few minutes to pause whatever I am doing and check where my mind and intellect are engaged. If they are wandering, let me bring them back to where I want them to be in a second. This is how powerful my brake needs to be, explains Baba. And once I apply the brake, I don’t just linger there, I steer the vehicle back to where I want to go. By doing this, Baba teaches, the power of my mind and intellect will not be wasted, it will accumulate. The more I accumulate these powers, the more my powers to discern and take decisions will increase.

‘Surrender your mind and intellect and become completely surrendered’, says Baba. ‘You then won’t be able to create any thoughts in your mind that are according to your own dictates or other’s dictates.‘ To surrender the mind means to surrender the negative and waste thoughts. ‘When any thoughts arise, let there be honesty and cleanliness, He teaches. Let there not be any rubbish of sinful actions, nature or old sanskars within. This is called being Manmanabhav!‘ By being manmanabhav, I easily become a conqueror of attachment and an embodiment of awareness. All my bondages end and I become liberated-in-life.