In Karwar, Baba gave this explanation to the women about spiritual poise:
What is spirituality? It is the undoing of what you have been doing since ages. You always thought of selfish motives for eating, preserving your life, and attending to every need with zeal. All these lives you have made a habit of looking to yourself. If the slightest thing goes against your habit you are upset. Now, to undo all these selfish bindings, you have to do what you have not been doing, or not to do what you have been doing.
What you have been doing always is thinking of yourself, so now you must not think of yourself, but think of others. This is what is called “love.” But it needs character, poise, perseverance.
Poise – what is it? That state of mind where nothing excites you, nothing upsets you. Only if you have poise can you help others, then only can you make others happy. That means love: thinking not of yourself but of others.
If you are in the Sahara, and for four days you have no water to drink and, all of a sudden, one bottle of water appears – how do you react? If you have poise, you will let your companion drink and not mind dying and letting her live. But if you fight and grab for it, you lack poise and spirituality. It is this poise that makes you sacrifice and makes others happy.
-www.lordmeher.org, p2095
April, 1940; Karwar