The Poona Bhajan Mandali (devotional songs singing group) sang for Baba after the children’s programme. I sat on the floor next to Baba on His left. For a long time, Baba talked to me about the difference between a Gum and the Avatar while the singing programme was going on. At first, He explained the difference between a Guru and a Sadguru. Anyone from whom you imbibe knowledge is a Guru—a teacher, but a Sadguru is a Perfect Master. He or she is a God-Realized person, unlike a Guru. The five Perfect Masters bring about the Advent of the Avatar at the end of seven hundred or fourteen hundred years.
“When the five Perfect Masters give their charge to the Avatar, they become nonfunctioning. After a Perfect Master drops his body, his spiritual powers remain around his tomb for about fifty years. Anyone who approaches the tomb of a Perfect Master with love and faith can derive material benefit but not spiritual benefit. Of the five Perfect Masters, one is the head, and he is called the Qutub-e-Irshad. His power to help devotees remains for seventy years after his demise and then gradually lessens. Anyone who approaches the tomb of the Avatar with love and faith derives not only material but spiritual benefit also.”
Baba then asked me, “What is the state of mind of a Perfect Master?”
I replied, “A blank mind.”
Baba retorted, “A blank mind is an idiot’s mind.”
He went on to explain:
“Suppose I keep a radio near Me and tune it to New York, I will hear the programme from New York. The sound waves from New York are here now, but your ears cannot receive them. Now, if you speak into the radio, your voice will not be heard in New York unless the radio is a radio cum transmitter. The radio can receive from only one station at a time. The Avatar has a Universal mind. While I am talking to you, I know what is going on in the mind of everyone seated here. I also know the minds of the people standing outside this room. I am conscious of everything going on in the minds of everyone in the universe. My Universal Mind receives from every being in the world and can transmit a thought to anyone in the world. That is the state of the mind of the Avatar.”
-Glimpses of Guruprasad, Dr Hoshang Bharucha, p54