A week later, on 29 April 1926, Baba used the simile of a cup and saucer to explain that the body was only a means to liberation:
Indeed, be well off in the world with your family, and do your duties towards your family sincerely. But do not harbor the ambition and desire to earn more for the satisfaction of the wants of these five senses of the body. Earn as much as would be quite sufficient for the maintenance of your family, and strive and strain your body and work hard toward that aim. But do not make yourself a slave to your bodily passions by earning more than is sufficient and by wasting your surplus income on such self-indulgent pleasures. Remember, this body is to be given up and shed. It is only given to you as a medium for you to know the Self, i.e., for Self Realization.
The use of a cup and saucer is for drinking tea (or water, or milk); that is, the cup and saucer are a means for drinking tea. The moment the tea is drunk and emptied into your stomach, those means [the cup and saucer] are to be put aside. In the same way, once you get Realization, this body, which is only a means towards that aim, is to be given up. For what is the use of it then [after Realization]?
-www.lordmeher.org, p650
April, 1926; Meherabad