On 2 September 1931, Baba mentioned calling Gandhi for a private meeting for an hour. The ship docked at Aden early the following morning, but Baba did not get off. Later that afternoon, while at sea Baba was walking on the upper deck when Gandhi appeared and noticed Baba from a distance. They were joined by many other passengers, so Baba, Chanji, Rustom and Ali moved to a discreet corner of the deck for some time. Baba and his group went up again for half an hour after dinner, after which Baba retired to his cabin for the night and Chanji went to the library to write his diary.
That evening, Gandhi gave a lecture on the significance of prayer to a group of passengers, and Rustom was among the audience. Gandhi explained what an important part prayer played in his life and how it brought him peace of mind. Gandhi claimed that three of the greatest teachers of the world — Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad — had left "unimpeachable testimony that they found illumination through prayer, and could not possibly live without it."
Gandhi's statement later gave rise to a protracted argument between Chanji and Rustom. They brought up the subject with Baba, saying that Gandhi had referred to Masters such as Jesus and Muhammad as "praying" to God at times.
Baba replied:
People like Gandhi are not to be blamed for misconstruing such things because they know nothing about the Avatar. They have no actual experience. It is a misconception to say that Avatarhood can be achieved through prayers. They take the nirvikalp-samadhi state [the "I-Am-God" state] of the Avatar before his manifestation of divinity to be a state of offering prayers. Such an idea is due to ignorance of the Avatar's inner state.
After attaining the divine state of nirvikalp-samadhi, the Avatar enters the second divine state of sahaj-samadhi [God-consciousness plus creation-consciousness). In this state of sahaj-samadhi, the Avatar experiences himself as everyone and everything, and when the Avatar prays to God in the Beyond for the good of the world, it is simply misunderstood. The Avatar does not pray for his own purity — he prays for others. His praying is quite different; it is not for himself. In fact, the Avatar himself is the Prayer-Made-Perfect.