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Your Task

O PAPA, the endless and beginningless! A human being born as such places before himself any one aim to be achieved in life. Commonly, children try to follow the path trodden by their parents. If the parents are of a charitable nature, their children aspire to be like them. If the parents attain name and fame, likewise their children wish to attain name and fame. Similarly, if the parents amass wealth, their children develop the same tendency. However, to accomplish any one of these aims they should have intense and concentrated aspiration for it. If a man places before himself God-realisation as his goal he must intensely thirst for it.

O Purushottama Papa! We established this Ashram with the sole object that those who wish to realise your eternal Being may come to it and achieve the goal by following the path of devotion and by practising universal love and service. But, you in the forms of devotees and disciples, when they first came here, evinced great love and devotion with a view to fulfil their aim in realising your immortal Being. But later on, straying away from the path, they sought the very pleasures of worldly life which they had once renounced. Besides this, you in these forms, picked faults in us, got angry and slandered us in many ways. And lastly, creating confusion in the Ashram, they left it with a mind thoroughly unsettled and disgruntled. When we saw that you in these forms played in this manner, it became evident that we could not succeed in attaining the high ideals we had laid down at the opening of the Ashram.

O Papa, the all-pervading! Once you came in the form of a Sannyasin and displayed unique devotion. But you, who dwelt in him, being not prepared to reveal yourself to him, played a different game. So, having abandoned the path of Self-realisation, he acted objectionably, brought about his downfall and finally left the Ashram. You came and played also as another great Sannyasin and lived in the Ashram. But in a short time you showed yourself in him as one hankering for sense pleasures and this fact came to our knowledge. Your Lila is really wonderful!

O world-regulator Papa! You in the forms of many businessmen came to the Ashram, giving up their business and with the one object of realising the eternal Truth and doing Sadhana to that effect. But, as you were not willing to manifest yourself in them, after some time, causing their minds to flow world-wise, you made them plan to start business in the Ashram itself. When they found that we did not agree to their proposals, they left in a state of dissatisfaction and frustration.

O Papa, the refuge of all! You visited the Ashram in several other forms and gave us intolerable trouble, and we had to eject them by force. This is indeed your Lila. On one side you play as a Guru and are ready to render help to the aspirants who come to you. On the other side you play in many forms as seekers of God. But you, who are dwelling in them, gave them a short-lived devotion for you and, before they attained the goal, deprived them of it by bringing down their minds to the old state, that is, to the pursuit of sense pleasures. You made them go to the length of acting reprehensibly. If merely by external sight and contact you seek to help them to realise your infinite Being, they cannot of course succeed. You ought to reveal yourself to them for the highest spiritual experience.

O Sadguru! As you are the forms of all Gurus, if you do not manifest yourself in some devotees at least, it cannot be considered that the Ashrams, Maths and temples you have started are of any spiritual value. Still, it is an undeniable fact that you have sown the seed of Ram Nam in the hearts of those who are living in your presence and in those others who come in your contact, and have also granted them the taste of infinite bliss and peace. You have afforded them faith in Ram Nam and given them the necessary impetus to repeat it more and ever more. Most of them, having staunch faith in the repetition of the Name, have advanced on the path considerably. Thus their minds having really expanded, they have become truly loving and generous. Can they be perfectly satisfied merely by this much of achievement? Until now you have not created in them a burning aspiration to have you and you alone. You have not yet given them the intense aspiration, by an inner renunciation, for realising their oneness with you. You have not so far made them experience eternal bliss and peace. Great and eternal as you are, I can emphatically declare that the Ashram and similar other institutions cannot be said to have fulfilled their purpose until the devotees who resort to them have realised the bliss and peace which you are enjoying.