After seeing the two other saints and bowing down to them, Baidul returned and informed Baba. Baba asked him, “What did Ishwar Singh say?”
“He asked me who Meher Baba was.”
“How did you answer?”
“I told him he was a great saint.”
This upset Baba terribly, and he stated at length:
Do you take me for a saint? Is this how your heart speaks? Had you said Baba is an ordinary man, I would not have felt bad! After thirty years of association with me, you still call me a saint?
Truth and honesty demanded that you should have told him that you don’t know who Meher Baba is, but still you have accepted him as your Guru. Were this question put to Dr. Deshmukh, he would have immediately replied that Baba is the Avatar! I do not mean that you should have declared that. You could have safely said that I was your Master.
What was the idea in telling him I was a saint? I am not a saint! At the moment there are a number of saints in Dehra Dun, Hardwar and Rishikesh. Here on Rajpur Road (the locality of Baba’s residence) are four saints – Anandi Mai, Mangat Ram, Ishwar Singh and Miran Bhai. Only yesterday, I explained to the mandali about saints, in the words of Kabir:
“The advantage one derives by pilgrimage is one.
The benefits one derives by visiting a saint are four.
But the benefits one derives
by meeting a Sadguru are numberless!”
–Lord Meher (First Ed), p4145