That evening Baba had been invited to Dr. Patwardhan’s leper colony, five miles from Amraoti. He was taken around the asylum, and he sat with the patients in their tiny prayer hall for some time. Baba spoke through his alphabet board, laying special stress on the following points:
God loves most those who suffer most. Uninvited suffering is a blessing in disguise, for both pleasure and pain ultimately end in the Nothing. Lepers must not become despondent and curse their fate, but should consider their affliction as a God-given chance of coming nearer to Him. Compared with the few suffering with physical leprosy, many in the world today suffer from leprosy of the mind.
-www.lordmeher.org, p3222
December 1952; Amraoti