Baba pointed to one of his lovers named Soman.
For example, you are called Soman. In the experience of final fana you are not left as Soman. Only God exists.
In the state of baqa you become Soman the Infinite; for example, you leave your limited Somanship and get established in God. To others you appear as the same person you were before, but they are not in the least aware of the change, of the transformation within from finitehood to Infinity.
Outwardly you behave as an ordinary person behaves: you eat, you drink, you work, you play. You talk and joke, but you are not understood as you really are. They take you as someone with a finite form and mind. Some may regard you as an exceptional person, but only a few can know you as Soman-the-Infinite. This is the baqa state.
The number of Perfect Masters is always restricted to five. In any age or cycle it is neither more nor less. (The Avatar is an exception after the eleventh age.) When one of the five Perfect Masters drops his body, one from among the baqa state — not in the fana state — takes the place as a Sadguru or Qutub. So goes the Divine Scheme.
One day or the other, everyone has to experience final fana which is the Goal of creation. It is a long, long journey, but if my nazar [glance, grace] descends on you, you will experience the fana state in no time, for in reality there is no time, and no journeying. That nazar is entirely different from my looking at you now.
In short, first one has to experience final fana and then abide in God retaining one’s individuality. Such a one is entitled to Sadguruship.
What then is the surest and safest way to realize the Self? Worry not, crave not for the seven stations of the First Journey — not even the Second Journey which baqa implies. Leave it all to me. Only obey me and love me more and more. Hafiz in one of his couplets says:
Don’t pray to God!
Pray to the Qutub!
Hold fast to his daaman.
Relinquish all rituals and ceremonies and maybe one day
the grace of the Qutub will descend on you.
The Sadguru has the authority to liberate anyone if he so wishes. He is the Man-become-God.
-www.lordmeher.org, p4806
July, 1962; Guruprasad