I have long felt compelled to save the world, especially after my near-death experience. I died because the simple things we take for granted, were denied me. No one suffered like I did, and I suffered quietly. I had stopped talking almost a year before I left my body. I had discovered that what I had to say was said anyway – in its purest form. I had watched a limb of a branch blossom in front of a large window overlooking SF Bay. Then a robin alit on the branch on a rainy day. Here was human language born in unlimited beauty. When I beheld a picture of Baba for the first time, I noticed he suffered a pain radiating between his eyes and his sinuses. I heard myself say; “He suffers like I do.” When I read he suffers for the sake of world, he became my master.
My mother Rosemary would tell me how at two I would sit in a room by myelf hitting my head against the wall over an overd. She could not stop me. When she tried, I cried. When she left the room I went back to hitting my head. You could see a scar there until I was thirteen. The only thing she wanted me to be, was a Franciscan Monk. This photo has been touched-up.
Jon Presco
” Not only do Perfect Masters not use their divine power to avoid or alleviate their own physical suffering which th…ey consciously experience as illusion, but they take upon themselves physical suffering in order to alleviate the spiritual ignorance of others who are in the bondage of illusion.
St. Francis of Assisi suffered such excruciating headaches that he had to dash his head against stone, although others could be healed by a touch of his hand. Jesus Christ suffered the tortures of crucifixion to take on the suffering of the universe. Being simultaneously the Father and Son, His own infinite bliss was not interrupted by the cross nor did this status intervene in the bodily agony which He suffered as an ordinary human being.
The sublime difference in individual suffering lies in the fact that an ordinary man suffers for himself, Masters suffer for humanity, and the Avatar suffers for one and all beings and things.*
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*Baba gave this explanation to the above question that had arisen in the minds of a few after his auto accident in the U.S.A. in 1952 when he underwent severe bodily injury. To quote extracts from the report of Dr. Goher Irani, who was among the disciples following in another car at the time of the accident:
“Baba’s face and left side of the body were badly injured, resulting in fractures of the left humerus and left tibia and fibula. The nose was severely damaged, the nasal bone being fractured and displaced and the septum markedly deflected causing profuse bleeding from the nose. As a result the structural appearance of the nose is considerably altered. The mucous membrane of the nose and accessory sinuses have become very sensitive and prone to congestion with the slightest exposure to cold, causing orbital and frontal headaches, heaviness and fullness in the nose, and puffiness under the eyelids. This condition is aggravated during damp weather and winter months.”
Rosamond Press 
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