Baba with Meher Ashram school children
On November 25th, Meher Baba discoursed to the ashram boys about love for God:
God is within you and you have to search for Him within. But how can you search? By trying to create love for Him in your heart. Once a person’s feet are firmly set on the path, he progresses toward the Goal.
Love can be compared to hunger in the following manner: let hunger symbolize love. Thoughts of eating food symbolize constant thoughts of God. Trying to obtain food may be compared to restlessness and longing for God. The help of a mother symbolizes the help of a Sadguru, and actually eating a meal symbolizes attaining God-Realization.
Just as appetite is necessary before one takes food, so love must be created before one can realize God. Once the appetite is there, thoughts of eating begin to come incessantly. Similarly, when love for God is produced, one begins to think continuously of Him. In both cases, striving begins – a hungry boy seeks food and a seeker searches for Beloved God. The consequent labors bring the former in contact with a cook or his mother and the latter into the realms of the Master. In the due course of time, both achieve their respective goals.
This is a befitting example, but it is, after all, only an example. Love is not as easy to create as appetite, and a Master is not so quickly found as one’s mother.
How will you create love? Instead of crying for love, you must shed your blood for the Beloved! This is love – the highest state of love. Is anyone among you like that? No one. But don’t worry; still try to love.
–www.lordmeher.org, p979