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128 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
Up to this point he had hardly noticed me; why was he coming to me in this manner now? He had been with his devotees and I was angry with him; why should he have come to me and how did he find me?
He reached out and gave me a small piece of candy—but the spiritual gift was immeasurable. What an immense revelation to me: his understanding of another being, deeper than anything I’d ever realized before. In an instant he showed me he was nearer to me than my very breath, that he actually resided in my heart, and, what’s more, that he responded to my pain. He had waited for the moment when I would be ready to understand—and accept. In this tender, intimate act of compassion I saw the glory of his omniscience and omnipresence, the mighty transforming and healing power of his unconditional love. And he wanted nothing in return.
How to get that love, to sense it in the universe, to realize it in ourselves, to express it in everything we do—those questions followed. Baba answered: Love is cultivated, purified and expanded through the process of devotion, offered to humanity in the form of selfless service. It is about the importance of this reality that he had come to teach.
How unfortunate that the process of devotion—love for God—is so poorly understood by many Western scientists and intellectuals and is actually viewed as primitive and regressive. At first I, too, was embarrassed by my impulse to prostrate before him, to touch his feet, to direct every thought, word and deed to him; to sing and pray to him. But his love made that all so natural, allowing me to see that the expression of devotion is one of the most innate instincts of the heart. What a great mistake to dismiss this inner holiness as a regressive trait! Freud thought that neurosis was caused by overly harsh repression of natural drives. But what greater ill is caused by the repression of our most sacred instinct—our heart’s yearning for God. To deny this is to turn our back on our own precious liberation.
Modern clinical psychology has given rise to so many different theories and practices. Some are interesting and some obviously nothing more than a joke, such as the short-lived “tickle therapy” which gained some recognition in the U.S. until its originator was sued and lost credibility. (It was ruled that more harm than good was done to a client who had been tickled for hours without letup. It