I was enjoying a week’s stay at Myrtle Beach when Sheila told me that my column for All Baba Things Considered was due. I had no idea what I would write about but, being at the Center, I had been exposed to all sorts of opinions about the future. Some Baba folks are eagerly waiting for Baba to break His silence in a dramatic and world changing way. Others seem to think that Baba has already broken His silence and continues to break it by speaking in the hearts of His lovers.

Some worry that the “manifestation” will bring with it the formation of a Baba religion while others are of the opinion that, for the first time ever (at least as far as we know), the Avatar will revitalize the essence of all existing religions and will not start (or allow others start) one in His name.

Naturally, I don’t have a clue. Whenever anyone tells me their opinion, I can only nod my head and say, “It’s possible,” because all things seem possible to me with Baba. I find it interesting to speculate about the future but I realize I don’t care all that much about it. I am not particularly keen to see one particular outcome nor apprehensive about another. Perhaps this demonstrates a deplorable passivity on my part or a lamentable disengagement with the world.

Or perhaps it is because it seems possible to me that there will be no recognizable breaking of the silence, no discovery of the “Book,” no discernible manifestation and even no revitalization of the world’s religions in any way that we can see or understand.

Maybe this seems reasonable to me because I look at past advents and, apart from a new religion developing each time, I don’t see the world changing in any predictable way. Maybe I tend to this view because, in fact, I have enjoyed Baba’s anonymity. I am very grateful that I have had the opportunity to have had unhurried moments with Baba’s mandali in more or less private conversation. That even today one can still find oneself sitting alone in Baba’s Samadhi, or, as I am currently experiencing, walk Center paths alone and slip into the Barn or Lagoon Cabin without having waited in a queue for hours.

I am selfish enough to like this and, possibly I am willing to consider that things won’t change merely because in some ways I don’t want them to, and if this means that the world at large is deprived of knowing about Baba, so be it.

It’s not that I don’t have faith in Baba, or so I tell myself, but I have faith that Baba is the Avatar even if nothing seems to change in the future. Although Baba clearly said He had come to help the world individually and collectively, I can’t help but feel that the world and its affairs is only the painted scenery, the backdrop before which the real drama is being played out. And that is the story of an individual soul slowly shedding its blinding layers of sanskaras to eventually emerge from this chrysalis into the radiant light of realization.

I don’t pretend that this view is correct. Nor am I interested in trying to convince others of its validity or seek to buttress its authority with a persuasive quote from Baba’s writings (and I could probably find one although I am well aware that the overwhelming majority of Baba’s words support other positions). This is just my own, possibly idiosyncratic view.

If and when events prove it to be wrong, I may be surprised but I won’t be terribly disappointed. If I have a point to make in this column (which my wife has doubted) I guess it’s that I don’t pretend to know how to interpret Baba’s words about the future but take some comfort in Baba’s message that “Understanding has no meaning. Love has some meaning, Obedience has more meaning. Holding my daaman has most meaning.”