My Dear Children – East-West Gathering, November 1962:
Two days later Baba gave those present a stern rebuke, which might also have
been directed towards the world in general.
“I had to give you a message on Thursday because you expected one; and the
theme of the message was on your being my children, because despite much
talk about a Baba-family there is more a semblance than a reality of kinship
among you who are the children of One Father.
True children of One Father do not greet one another with smiles and
embraces and at the same time harbour grudges and ill-feeling, but have an
active concern in their hearts for the well-being of one another and make
sacrifices for that well-being.
If you make me your real Father, all differences and contentions between
you, and all personal problems in connection with your lives, will become
dissolved in the Ocean of my Love….
Unless there is a brotherly feeling in your hearts, all the words that you
speak or print in my name are hollow; all the miles that you travel in my
cause are zero; all organisations for my work are but an appearance of
activity; all buildings to contain me are empty places and all statues that
you make to embody me are of someone else.
I have been patient and indulgent … because you have been very young
children in my love, and children must have some sort of games to play. But
now you are older and are beginning to realise that there is a greater work
ahead of you than what you have been doing. And you have been searching your
minds and hearts as to what this work might be.
It is not a different work … it is the same work done in a different way.
And that way is the way of effacement, which means the more you work for me
the less important you feel in yourself. You must always remember that I
alone do my work … I allow you to work for me so that you have the
opportunity to use your talent and capacities selflessly and so draw closer
to me….
When you put my work before yourself the work will go right, though not
necessarily smoothly. And when the work does not go right it means you have
put yourself between it and its accomplishment.
The way of my work is the way of effacement, which is the way of strength,
not of weakness, and through it you become mature in my love….
From Much Silence, page 127-128, By Tom and Dorothy Hopkinson, © Meher Baba Spiritual League LTD 1974