During this period [1943], there were numerous reports in the newspapers that famine was occurring in Calcutta, Lucknow and other places in India. On 26 September, the day Baba had broken his recent fast, he had told Chanji confidentially that he wished to go to Calcutta for a month and feed the people there, serving the food and distributing clothing himself.
On Friday, 1 October 1943, Baba explained further:
This work of mine is quite distinct from that done by others. For spiritual reasons, I want to serve the food myself. There are hundreds of institutions engaged in the work of handing out free food, but I do not wish to work through them. The meaning of my feeding people is quite different. It is not to fill the stomachs of the hungry, but to feed humanity spiritually.
My work is not purely for external [physical] relief and aid, but as always has a spiritual significance. Relief work for feeding the masses goes on everywhere, to a lesser or greater degree, wherever there is distress. But in this particular case, where it is on a mass scale and people are dying in the streets by the score, it creates a special situation. My work for those in dire and real need, with food and clothing personally given, will have a double significance and benefit to all concerned.
The current world crisis and suffering is to create and does create in mankind a hatred of maya, for things worldly, however attractive or dear. Parents giving away their own children, husbands deserting their wives, et cetera, are all indicative of a feeling of detachment from maya. For me to work under these conditions is very important and beneficial, not only to individuals coming in my direct contact, but through them to others of the same class and to humanity in general.
Otherwise, of what use is even spending Rs.10,000 for feeding the poor? Although we can ill-afford it, materially it will have very little effect when thousands are in distress and lakhs are being spent. But given under conditions of desperation by me personally to the truly poor and the needy, selected and brought by my mandali, it has a great significance and a far-reaching effect.
Baba further indicated, “This work will bear fruit later, after I speak.”
-www.lordmeher.org, p2379
Oct, 1943; Mast Tours, North India