A tavern keeper first receives cash from a customer before handing him the wine glass. He checks the coin to ascertain whether it is genuine or counterfeit. Similarly, the Sadguru also demands his price — not in money, but in love — before giving you the gift of love.

You can deceive a wine seller by passing him counterfeit coins, but never a Sadguru. He has no use for false coin — the show of love. With me, before the exchange takes place, one has to pay the full price. The price of knowing me is love — love, pure and simple.

But love entails pain — the pain of the pangs and thirst of separation while constantly burning. This gradually minimizes the strength of the ego and eventually destroys it, because love never thinks of or cares for itself. It just burns its victim in love for its Beloved. This burning gradually diminishes the ego and thus it is eventually totally annihilated. In this fire, love makes its victim realize the self.