Passage 8

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In plain words

A rule may be made that one person from each house must be enlisted in the war. At that time, when a government officer comes and asks that mother, ‘You must send some one person from your house to the war’, she has the same attachment for all her children, and she will not agree to send any of them. But because of the government's rules, it is the eldest she sends, not the youngest. This alone does not mean that the mother has no Prema for the eldest, or that she has Prema for the youngest. The eldest has, to some extent, the power to understand the affairs of the world, and he knows the way to move in this world; so she sets out to send just such a one under the compulsion. That alone does not mean the mother has no Prema. In the same way, the saguṇa bhakta, the saguṇa-nirguṇa bhakta and the nirguṇa bhakta are just like three children to God. But His looking after the saguṇa bhakta like an infant is one trait. So God holds a greater fondness for the saguṇa and nirguṇa ones. The saguṇa-upāsaka is like a small child to God. The nirguṇa-upāsaka is like the eldest child. The saguṇa-nirguṇa-upāsaka resembles the middle child. This saguṇa-upāsaka, with the feeling that everything is offered to God, describing God's form, names and līlās, plunges his own life in Ānanda and dedicates his life. Just as the mother sees to all the infant's needs before the child asks, giving it food at that hour, bathing it at that time, dressing it on each occasion, in just the same way God Himself personally looks after those who are saguṇa-upāsakas, giving them that dharma in every way so as to give them Ānanda in many ways. Free of any good and bad, likes and dislikes, attachment and aversion, the feeling of complete equality is found only in the infant alone. It gives no thought at all to what time it should take food, or what time it should put on clothes. Everything depends on the mother alone.