Conversion of the heart, which makes a man lose his sinful and bestial nature and climb up to Godhood

Unity of God is the central principle in both Hindu and Muslim religions,  and the one God has always to be revered and adored by prayer for protecting  oneself and one’s dependants and country. For this purpose, therefore, Hindus  and Muslims can always join, and in fact have often joined.

In national calamities  and crises, differences of opinion have not prevented people from joining  together. They pray to a common God for relief from great distress and peril. 
Similarly when an emperor ordered, people were able to join together and pray to  a common father. For some time Akbar’s experiment proved to be practical and  successful. Unfortunately, his ideas and practice did not take root, and his  successors had widely different ideas from his. Aurangazeb’s policy was  extremely opposite to his.

When we  discover a mistake committed in the past, it is our duty to discover and adopt the  correct policy.  “Live and let live.” Freedom to all people to adopt their  ideas of approach to God as far as possible  must be the basis on which society must be founded.  Any compulsion in religion will destroy religion and society also.

This cardinal  principle is noted to be one of the main features of Sai Baba’s dealings with his multifarious devotees. These include Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, and others.  Anything like compulsion or for that matter any attempt for conversion is  absolutely destructive of the work of religion. We can have neither religion nor  unity where compulsion is adopted.

Conversion is very often the result of either  compulsion or low motives. Baba knew this fact very well. On one  occasion, a Hindu convert to Islam was brought by Bade Baba to him. Saying, ‘Baba, this man has been converted to Islam’. He struck the convert on  the cheek and asked, ‘Have you changed your father?’ Changing one’s father is  absolutely unthinkable, and an absurd idea.

Each religion makes God the father of its followers. When one has got a useful, accredited father, it looks absurd to think of changing either the physical father who begot one. It also seems absurd to change the Universal Father that is adored in religion. So, Baba always dissuaded people from changing their religion. It did not matter if it was from Hinduism to Islam or from Islam to Hinduism. Baba also discouraged changing from Christianity to Hinduism, and vice versa.

What is most important is not mere external conversion. Conversion of the heart makes a man lose his sinful and bestial nature. It helps him climb up to Godhood. That real conversion is not called conversion by people because it generally has no external marks to denote it. Baba’s object was that all people should be really converted and should have God in their hearts. They should get firmly attached to God so that all of them will be soaked through and through with the idea of God. In consequence, there will be no friction between one person soaked in God and another person soaked in God.