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Aptavani-9
ness’? What does it mean to have no ‘I-ness’ (potapanu)? If
you were to tell a Gnani Purush, ‘Let us go to Mumbai today,’
he will not say, ‘No’. If people take him to Mumbai, he will go
like a ‘piece of baggage’ and he will return to Ahmedabad like
a piece of baggage. So he does not have ‘I-ness’. If people ask
‘us’ ‘Dadaji when shall we go?’ ‘We’ tell them, ‘Whenever it
suits you.’ ‘We’ do not say anything more. So when they take
this piece of baggage, there is nothing wrong in it. ‘We’ tell
them, ‘Son, take ‘us’ when it suits you’, because ‘we’ do not
have any ‘I-ness’.’ Do you think anyone who has ‘I-ness’ will
go anywhere like a piece of luggage? He will say, ‘I am not
coming today.’ Would anyone be ready to become a piece of
luggage? Would anyone say such a thing?
Many people in Mumbai and Vadodara tell ‘us’, ‘Dada,
it would have been nice if you had come early.’ They say such
things, so ‘we’ tell them, ‘They bring me like a baggage and take
me away like a baggage.’ Then they understand, but they ask
me, ‘Why do you say ‘like a baggage’?’ Alas! If this is not like
a baggage then what is it? The Lord is within for sure, but on
the outside if this is not a baggage, then what is it? Hence, there
is no ‘I-ness’.
I will go wherever they carry ‘us’. Often there are many
things ‘we’ do not want to eat and yet we do, there are times
‘we’ do not want to drink and yet ‘we’ do. ‘We’ even do other
things that ‘we’ do not want to. ‘We’ do not have a say in these
matters. It is all mandatory (farajiyat). ‘We’ will drink your tea
to give you encouragement. Even if the tea is too strong and it
does not suit the prakruti, ‘we’ will still drink it because it will
make you happy that ‘Dada drank my tea’. That is why ‘we’
will drink it.
During this journey that ‘we’ just made, ‘we’ did what
others asked ‘us’ to. If they say, ‘You have to stay here’, ‘we’
will stay there. If they say, ‘Now let us go from here,’ then ‘we’
will do that.’ ‘We’ do not have any amaarapanu - ‘we-ness’.