In plain words
I cannot put My foot down. That I bear such severe pain with restraint, smiling all the while: this itself is the true ideal. And some people are thinking. Some are asking among themselves, "Swami knows past, future and present, does He not? Does Swami not know what will happen in the future?" Neither the future nor the time gone by do I think about in the least. That is why I teach the devotees too, "Past is past, forget the past. Stop thinking about it. Future is not sure. Do not think of the future. You must not brood about this future. Do not brood on the past. Hold to the present and live." In the same way, I have never brooded on the future. A small example. In the Rāma Avatāra, word spread that Rāma's coronation would take place before sunrise the next day. At the very time when He was to be crowned at that daybreak, He gave up every tie and went to the forest. Here you must recognise a fine ideal. Such equanimity no one but God can keep. No one else can follow it. God can do anything. Through this restraint, however much pain there was, I did not set My mind on it. If the whole mind is on it alone, it turns more dangerous still. The pain grows more still. Turning the mind away is itself the right remedy for this pain. When I move, it strikes like a great shock. I take the letters the devotees have written and go on reading them.
Devotees hope, "Swami could cure this in a single moment, could He not?" I am not so selfish. When others are hurt, do I cure them at once? For this there is a set span of time. Until the time runs out it has to be gone through. But by prayers one can bear that pain with restraint. Whatever happens within this world of nature, we must try to turn the mind away. We must develop a character that never turns the mind towards sorrow or grief in the least. We must not let our mind spread over these in the least. Thinking of the Ātma is happiness. Thinking of the body is sorrow. So we must not worry for the body's sake. Moment by moment it oozes only filth; no civet or musk is ever born of it. Pains of the body keep coming and keep going. If I cure My pain at once: "How selfish Sai Baba is! Because it was His own pain He cured it. He does not cure the pain of others," they will say. Your bodily pain or any other bodily pain: one may soothe it, teach restraint and give strength, but one must not take it away. As long as it is to stay, so long it will stay. After that it will heal. All these four days this mind of Mine has not been on it at all.