{FN43-5} Lord Buddha was once asked why a man should love all persons equally. “Because,” the great teacher replied, “in the very numerous and varied lifespans of each man, every other being has at one time or another been dear to him.” {FN43-6} The eight elemental qualities which enter into all created life, from atom to man, are earth, water, fire, air, ether, motion, mind, and individuality. (BHAGAVAD GITA: VII:4.) {FN43-7} Body signifies any soul-encasement, whether gross or subtle. The three bodies are cages for the Bird of Paradise. {FN43-8} Even as Babaji helped Lahiri Mahasaya to rid himself of a subconscious desire from some past life for a palace, as described in chapter 34. {FN43-9} “And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.”-LUKE 17:37. Wherever the soul is encased in the physical body or in the astral body or in the causal body, there the eagles of desires-which prey on human sense weaknesses, or on astral and causal attachments-will also gather to keep the soul a prisoner. {FN43-10} “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out (i.e., shall reincarnate no more). . . . To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”-REVELATION 3:12, 21. {FN43-11} Sri Yukteswar was signifying that, even as in his earthly incarnation he had occasionally assumed the weight of disease to lighten his disciples’ karma, so in the astral world his mission as a savior enabled him to take on certain astral karma of dwellers on Hiranyaloka, and thus hasten their evolution into the higher causal world. {FN43-12} Life and death as relativities of thought only. VEDANTA points out that God is the only Reality; all creation or separate existence is MAYA or illusion. This philosophy of monism received its highest expression in the UPANISHAD commentaries of Shankara. CHAPTER: 44 WITH MAHATMA GANDHI AT WARDHA “Welcome to Wardha!” Mahadev Desai, secretary to Mahatma Gandhi, greeted Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright, and myself with these cordial words and the gift of wreaths of KHADDAR (homespun cotton). Our little group had just dismounted at the Wardha station on an early morning in August, glad to leave the dust and heat of the train. Consigning our luggage to a bullock cart, we entered an open motor car with Mr. Desai and his companions, Babasaheb Deshmukh and Dr. Pingale. A short drive over the muddy country roads brought us to MAGANVADI, the ashram of India’s political saint. [Illustration: MAHATMA GANDHI, I enjoy a quiet lunch with India’s political saint at his hermitage in Wardha, August, 1935.—see gandhi.jpg] Mr. Desai led us at once to the writing room where, cross-legged, sat Mahatma Gandhi. Pen in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other, on his face a vast, winning, warm-hearted smile!