Baba was tired from the journey and only glanced at the group, not stopping for anyone except Margaret Starr, whose eyes were bathed in tears which she could not stop. Her tears were to continue flowing throughout Baba's visit. The flow was to light a fire, after which only burning was to be her life's work! The water of tears was setting fire to her heart, but who knew it? This water is of both joy and pain combined. The pain could not be shunned because it was the pain of longing, and its presence brought a great joy.
Among the persons gathered to receive Baba was an elderly American gentleman from Boston named Thomas Augustus Watson, 77, who was in England with his wife Elizabeth, 75. The couple had stayed at the retreat for a week in August and returned to meet Baba. Watson had worked with Alexander Graham Bell in inventing the telephone, and since retiring was searching for spiritual knowledge.1
Upon entering the retreat and before climbing the staircase to his room, Baba stopped for a moment and placed his hand on Watson's head. Baba's divine touch had such a deep effect on Watson that the old man wept like a child. His heart seemed to be overflowing with love.
About his first interview with Baba, Watson recorded in his diary:
Baba was sitting when I entered the room. He looked at me. He smiled at me. He touched me lovingly on the shoulder and like a flash of lightning I knew what love is ... what love can be ... what the love of God is! And all the love I ever felt seemed a poor, feeble, paltry rudiment. I felt like a child. What more is there for me to learn in this world?
Having observed similar incidents while on tour with Baba, Chanji took Watson into the library and made him sit down. Watson continued to weep for about fifteen minutes and then became quiet. His eyes filled with tears and he asked softly, "How long have you been with him?"
"For seven years," Chanji replied.
Hearing this, Watson placed his hand in a fatherly way on Chanji's back and said, "My son, do you realize how fortunate you are to have been living in such close contact with such a great personality?"
"Yes sir, I do consider myself fortunate," Chanji answered. "It is his grace that I am near him."
Footnotes
- 1.Thomas Watson assisted Alexander Graham Bell during the experimental period of the telephone. Resigning from Bell Telephone Company in 1881, he formed a company to build engines and ships. Watson, at one point, was an avid "medium." He (and Bell) had attended séances in Salem, and Watson "spent hours listening to the weird hisses and squeals of early telephone lines in case they proved to be the dead trying to make contact." (Economist, 12 March 2005, p. 15.)