The day after their departure, when my headache had died away ... I thought that God's presence, God's love in our heart and in our home should bring peace and serenity and not fear, panic, the feeling of hurry or physical diseases. Had I not seen Baba, I would not have lost my spiritual, mental and physical forces for several days. But even under those circumstances, I did not wish to judge, especially as Baba's kindness to me was great.1
Baba left Galluis at 10:00 P.M. The staff was summoned to bid him farewell. One of them (perhaps Ganna's companion, housekeeper or private secretary) could not control her tears. Baba spent that night at Alfredo and Consuelo Sides' apartment in Paris. The Sideses had come to Galluis and were also well-to-do and, unlike Ganna Walska, they became two of Baba's main contacts in Paris.2
In the early morning of 10 November, after meeting a few new persons, Baba left Paris and arrived in Marseilles at 10:00 A.M. He and the group checked into the Hotel Terminus , Baba staying in room 303 and the others in rooms 304 and 305. Baba had been particularly anxious to reach Marseilles as he stated he had a "spiritual appointment" to keep.
As soon as they arrived, instead of unpacking, Baba asked to be taken to the city park. When they arrived, he began walking back and forth on a gravel path with Norina and Elizabeth on either side of him. A young Frenchman was sitting on a park bench on the other side of a small lawn. Baba eventually strolled around the lawn, walking directly past the young man who stood up and bowed his head in a reverential way to Baba as he passed. Baba then walked away, explaining that the young man was one of his borrowed spiritual agents working for him on the inner planes.
Boarding the Viceroy of India at three in the afternoon of Thursday, 12 November 1936, Baba sailed from Marseilles for India with Kaka and Chanji. The original plan had been to fly again from Baghdad to Karachi, but seats could not be procured. Passage on the Viceroy of India had been fully booked six months in advance, but "somehow" three places became available four days before it sailed The ship was absolutely full with not a single empty berth. Among the 658 passengers were six Indian princes and maharajas; but Baba met none of them during his voyage and his presence on board was kept a secret.3
Footnotes
- 1.Ganna Walska, Always Room At The Top (R.R. Smith,1943), p. 377. Ganna Walska emigrated to America soon after Baba's stay and purchased a 37-acre property in California, intending to establish a spiritual retreat for Tibetan studies. Instead, Walska converted the estate into a public gardens called Lotusland. During World War II, the Galluis estate was taken over by the Germans and used as their headquarters. Later it became an orphanage. It was torn down in 1983 after years of neglect.
- 2.Alfredo (known as Fredo) Sides, 54, was a prominent French art dealer; Consuelo, 34, an American, had worked with Mercedes de Acosta in New York in 1920 on a musical called What Next!.
- 3.Among the Indian royalty traveling on the Viceroy of India were the Maharaja and Maharani of Baroda — the father- and mother-in-law of Shantadevi the future owner of Guruprasad.