A small group of four or five energetic and enthusiastic workers of the Swaraj party dropped in today. They happened by en route from another city where they had been canvassing for votes for a candidate in the forthcoming council election.
After touching upon general topics, the conversation turned to Swaraj and what India and Indians should do for its attainment. The party leaders, in their eagerness to impress upon Shri the importance and value of their work and the interest they took in it, betrayed their self-interested motives, which is to say, their party politics.
Whereupon Shri imparted to the group of them some sound and severe advice, writing (on his slate), “What is politics, after all, but fraud? Whatever may be your own honest and candid opinion, you are obligated to proceed according to the creed of your party, even against the voice of your own conscience, and thus you become dependent upon others in your actions, a practice which violates the fundamental principle of Truth.” Shri [Baba] impressed upon them all that, in whatever you do, don’t go against your conscience.
– “Meher Baba’s Tiffin lectures”, p269
07-October-1926; Meherabad