1. ComD 1: f. 339; the 21st September 1926 entry that narrates this episode is one of the more expansive in the entire diary, occupying more than five pages (pp. 339-44).

2. Selections and extracts from TTL/FF pp. 106-7 (comprising a little less than the first third of this Tiffin Lecture) were published as “Fragments from the Spiritual Speeches of His Divine Majesty Sadguru Meher Baba. (10) On Renunciation,” Meher Message, vol. 2, no. 1 (January 1930), pp. 8-9.

3. This last participial phrase does not appear in the original text of TTL/FF p. 106, which reads: “But such a ‘Renunciation’ too is difficult (Tyag tyāg)” (TTL p. 106 and TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 1 read similarly; the Gujarati of ChD 57: p. 191 and ChD 62: p. 517 expresses the same meaning.) The word “too,” however, seems to imply that renunciation constitutes one path among several. To express this idea, as a transition the editors have reverted to the thought of the first paragraph of this lecture, which says that renunciation is the best expedient for most of humanity.

4. This text appears in ChD 57: p. 191. TTL/FF p. 106 gives a different version: “Peṭ samānā anna māge—tan samānā chīr/ kahe Kabīr, sun bhāī sādhu—tākā nām fakīr.” That is, “He who fills the stomach with food and covers the body with clothing/—Kabir says, O listen, brother Sadhu!—such a one can be named a faqīr.” TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 1 reads virtually like ChD 57: p. 191, except that the line “kahe Kabīr, sun bhāī sādhu” has been written, crossed out, and replaced with “adhik hī sangrah na kare.” The editors have selected the diary version since it expresses the thought more adequately.

5. TTL/FF p. 107 and TTL p. 107 read “even if the world (people) may call you ‘cowards’ . . .” (TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 2 reads similarly). The word hijrā, “an effeminate person, a eunuch,” has been interpolated from the Gujarati diary source for this passage (ChD 57: p. 192).

6. The English word “suffer” in TTL/FF p. 108 and TTL p. 108 (“suffers” in TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 3) renders the Gujarati of ChD 57: p. 192, “Bas kaī bī kīdhu ke mār,” which means, literally, “whatever they say, they get beaten up.”

7. The text of TTL/FF p. 109 and TTL p. 109 reads: “External Renunciation, even with desires (being created) is alright, too.” (TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 3a reads similarly.) The diary source (ChD 57: p. 193) reads: “External (rencn.) ṭhīk – desires āve tobī”; that is, “External renunciation is good—even if desires come.”

8. TTL/FF p. 110 reads: “If the Sanskaras of ‘karma’ attached to the ‘Pure Permatma’ (shudhd Paramātmā) be wiped off, it’s all right” (TTL p. 110 likewise, except that the lacuna has not been filled; TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 4 reads similarly). The diary source (ChD 57: p. 194) expresses the thought in Gujarati: “Pure paramātmā par je karmanā sanskār lāge te saghḷā nikaḷyā ke bas.” This translates: “When all the sanskaras of karma affecting that Pure Paramātmā are wiped off—enough.” What exactly does it mean to suggest that sanskaras are “on” or “attached to” pure Paramātmā? The editors presume that this language means nothing more than to indicate that Paramātmā is the real Self with which sanskaras get associated; and the text has been edited accordingly.

9. The original text of TTL/FF p. 110 and TTL p. 110 reads: “(as to the connection of a ‘Circle’ it’s quite a [sic] different).” TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 4 gives us: “(As to the connection of a ‘Circle’, it’s quite a different matter).” The diary source (ChD 57: p. 194) provides the following: “(circle nī to vātaj judī)”; this translates, “(The case of the circle is quite different).” Read literally, these source materials would seem to suggest that Tukārām was not the member of a Sadguru’s circle, since apparently the experience of circle members differs from his. Yet since Tukārām himself became a Sadguru later in his life, he must have been the member of a Sadguru’s circle prior to Realization. Probably Baba threw in this comment (about the case of circle members being different) simply to dissociate the episodes from spiritual history that he was relating in this lecture from the experience that his own circle members were passing through at this very time. Spoken to his mandali, what this comment means, in other words, is, “all this has nothing to do with you.” The line has been emended to suggest this.

10. The source for this line in TTL/FF p. 110 and TTL p. 110 reads: “This ‘Doing’ & ‘Being’ (it is that) drowns all” (TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 5 reads similarly). The diary source in ChD 57: p. 197 helps to clarify: “karvu – hovu” ej ḍubāḍe chhe”; this translates, “‘To do—to be’: this is what drowns.” In light of the lines that follow, Baba’s meaning seems to be that the ordinary human Mayavic kind of “doing” and “being” are what cause one to drown in the sea of illusion and falsehood; “drowning” does not refer, in other words, to the drop-soul’s drowning and merging into the Ocean of Reality, but rather to its immersion in what is unreal and its loss of the life of higher possibilities. Since the original sentence is ambiguous, in their emendation the editors have inserted the phrase “in the sea of illusion” to help clarify this sense.

11. Much of the content of TTL/FF p. 111, TTL p. 111, and TLD/FF: 21-9-26, pp. 5-6—which provide the sources for the remainder of this Tiffin Lecture as far as the quotation from Hafiz and the analogy of the machine below—appears as “Fragments from the Spiritual Speeches of His Divine Majesty Sadguru Meher Baba. (16) On ‘To Be Nothing,’” Meher Message, vol. 2, no. 2 (February 1930), pp. 19-20.

12. TTL p. 111 has a lacuna here; the couplet (without any attribution to Ghalib) is quoted in the Gujarati script in ChD 57: p. 197, ChD 62: p. 515, TTL/FF p. 111, and TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 5. There the form it takes is this: “Na thā may to khudā thā, / kuchh na hotā to khudā hota. Ḍuboyā mujko honene—/ na hotā may to kyā hotā.”

13. This Gujarati rendering of Hafez is based on the diary versions in ChD 57: p. 197 and ChD 62: p. 515. The editors have not been able to locate a source for these lines in the Dīvan of Hafez.

14. In TTL p. 112 the terms interpreting the analogy, that is to say, the “tenor” terms of each metaphor, are all missing; in each line this spot (following the verb in each sentence) has an unfilled lacuna. Happily, the key missing terms appear in handwriting in two sources. TTL/FF p. 112 provides English words, and TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 6 gives words in Gujarati. As it happens, the two sets of “tenor” terms do not altogether match in their meaning, though the typed English terms for the “vehicle” (or literal surface image of the comparison) are almost identical, as is show2 in the table below:

“Vehicle” of the metaphor in both manuscripts

“Tenor” of the metaphor in TTL/FF p. 112

“Tenor” of the metaphor in TLD/FF: 21-9-26, p. 6

the “machine”

Life

manuṣya

the “wheel”

Birth & rebirth

? (manuṣya) sharīr

the “points”

Sanskar

sanskār

the “instruments”

Good action

anant shakti-jñān

the “expert stopper”

Sadguru

sadguru

The edited text tries to integrate the two sets of “tenor” terms, according a certain priority to the text of TTL/FF p. 112, which seems superior at this juncture. (The question mark in the right hand column of the table occurs in the source manuscript.)