On March 30th, (1930) some devotees came to Nasik to see Baba who expounded on the nature of love to them:
Love me and you will know me; but I am such a Reality that it is extremely difficult to know me. The price is love. No repetition of God’s name, no penance and no meditation is necessary – only love, and such love that it annihilates your ego. This means your love should be so deep that it makes you forget yourself and the world. This experience will leave you desireless, dazed and confounded. This is real love.
You have feeling for me in your hearts, and because of it you may remember me often during the day but you do not continuously. This feeling or devotion, though good, is not love. It should not be mistaken for love, because that real love which is to see and know God cannot be created. It has to be bestowed. It is bestowed through the grace of the Master, and such grace is conferred on a very, very lucky few.
Still, do not be discouraged. Although you do not have the love that is needed, you have deep feeling for me. Try always to remember me and to speak of me. This is the best beginning – the determination to be ready to receive the Master’s grace. If this continues, a day will come when you will be the lucky one to receive the great gift – the bestowal of my love. To be ready, perpetuate this feeling in your heart and increase it, making it deeper and deeper.
How to begin? Remember me before starting and after finishing any work. Think of me before doing anything. If you have to write something, remember me before starting and then mentally say, “Baba, it is you, not I, who is writing.”
A tavern keeper first receives cash from a customer before handing him the wine glass. He checks the coin to ascertain whether it is genuine or counterfeit. Similarly, the Sadguru also demands his price – not in money, but in love – before giving you the gift of love. You can deceive a wine seller by passing him counterfeit coins, but never a Sadguru. He has no use for false coins – the show of love. With me, before the exchange takes place, one has to pay the full price. The price of knowing me is love – love, pure and simple.
But love entails pain – the pain of the pangs and thirst of separation while constantly burning. This gradually minimizes the strength of the ego and eventually destroys it, because love never thinks of or cares for itself. It just burns its victim in love for its Beloved. This burning gradually diminishes the ego and thus it is eventually totally annihilated. In this fire, love makes its victim realize the Self.
Lord Meher, Original Publication, Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 4, p. 1293.