'I' and 'mine' represent the body idea.......

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……“Once Kondaji’s (a Marwadi) stack of hay took fire. Baba tried to prevent it by sending him to go and look at it. But he returned without seeing it properly, and then said there was no fire. Then Baba pointed out to the smoke issuing from the stack. He then ran up and found that the whole thing had been reduced to ashes. People in the neighbourhood, with neighbouring stacks, were all afraid that the brisk breeze that was blowing would set their stacks also on fire. Baba then came up, and going round Kondaji’s stack, drew a line of water round it, and said; ‘Only this stack will be burnt’. Kondaji, however, was very sorry that he had lost his property. Then Baba said, ‘How stupid is this? The marwadi talks of himself as his body, that is, the form made up of flesh, bones etc. Hay is something totally

different. What has he to do with the stack or the stack to do with him? Hallo, Marwadi, you better make up for this loss in some other transaction’. Thus, Baba gave him some practical advice to get over his grief, and at the same time pointed out that philosophically speaking, there was no basis for the notion of either ‘I’ or ‘Mine’. It is ruinous for any soul that desires its true welfare to go on dwelling over and over again upon ‘I’ and ‘Mine’. When he thinks of the ‘I’ it does not get to the real inwardness of the ‘I’. On the other hand, it centres its emphasis on everything unimportant. For instance, if you ask a boy whom you meet, ‘Who are you?’ you may get ten different answers, such as, ‘I am a boy, I am named Rama, I am the son of Krishna, I am a Hindu, I am aged 16, I am a boy attending St. Peter’s School’, etc. That is, every one of these things is not he, but it is an accident attached to him which he mentions as he. What is the central core round which all

these accidents gather? That he does not know. Philosophers might say, ‘There is a piece of Chaitanya or Pure Consciousness which, however, changes its purity and gets attached to some external body, and then a particularity comes into it, namely, a red haired youth. So, the ‘I’ becomes a red haired youth. Thus we develop various notions of I, which stricty speaking are not true, and which do not help us in the ultimate goal that we have to reach, however useful some of them may be for our progress in our material circumstances. Therefore, Baba tried to rebuke this egotism especially when it showed itself in offensive forms. Abhimana means overfondness of dwelling on this particularity you call ‘I’ connected. with the body, and it also comes in relation to property, Therefore, the most important thing to be attained in the case of a sadhaka is to lessen and remove this abhimana to dissociate himself from the body idea. ‘I’ and ‘mine’ represent the body

idea.”……

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