After one day in Sholapur, Baba returned to Meherabad on January 6th. (1942). Later that day, January 6th, Baba remarked about the war and India:
The greatest lesson that this war has taught to all of us is the futility of false values in life, such as wealth, property, possessions, et cetera, which have no consideration or value at all when life itself is at stake. People with immense wealth, owning valuable properties which they have amassed and built up after years of thought, calculation, labor, and so forth, have to leave it all in an instant when life itself is in danger, as during air-raids or direct enemy attack. Nothing of these can be carried with one when one has to flee for one’s very life. Not only this, but even one’s own relatives and dear ones, for whom one has toiled lifelong for years, have to be left – separated temporarily or even forever. None can tell.
But in spite of this bare fact glaring one in the face, people will not give up selfish ends – motives driven by lust and greed. They grab at things which they know would have to be given up in an instant’s notice.
India, which is the land and source of spirituality, has to bring home this most important and fundamental lesson of the futility of things in life, by furnishing the world with a living example of sacrifice and suffering, in giving things away and being content with the smallest share. In short, India has to suffer more than any other country. In order to play the role assigned by divine dispensation, India has to sacrifice and suffer most. This is the greatest lesson which India has to teach and prove to the world.
Lord Meher, Bhau Kalchuri, Original Publication, Vol. 8, p. 2753.