This also proves another fact — what is apparent is not real!"
Norina, Elizabeth and the mandali suggested various places for creating a center, including the Himalayas, Mount Abu, Nilgiris Hills and other scenic locations. In reply, Baba remarked:
The Himalayas are no longer spiritual. Spiritually they are no more than masses of stone!
In the great universal game of the spiritual evolution of mankind, worked out personally by the hierarchy of great spiritual Sadgurus and the Avatar, the Himalayas or Mount Abu or the Nilgiris were once so highly spoken of, and recognized and revered by the world as the homes of great rishis and saints. It was called the land of the rishis [the abode of sages and saints]! But now, they have no greater part to play in the work nor have any greater importance than huge heaps of rocks!
Man wants God but is given stone in the form of churches, temples, idols and images! They are now all corrupt! Considered once as places of worship, but they have turned into pitiable centers of business for their caretakers. The places of God's prayer, worship and love have changed into places of business!
Thus are the names of God and religion besmeared, bringing ultimately to humanity natural calamities such as plagues, pestilence, famines and other curses of nature with untold miseries on humanity in their wake. So, it is for this that the teaching of the Avatars and Sadgurus caution one not to give importance to such places and forms of worship. Their work is to diminish and destroy all these piles of stone which keep humanity away from God rather than draw it closer.
Vithal Bhokre came from Poona to meet Baba on 2 April 1938. The same day, Baba announced that he would be sitting alone in seclusion during certain hours every morning, and none of the men were to enter a proscribed area while he was doing his work.
While in Panchgani, Baba would give darshan once a week on Thursdays to his lovers in nearby towns. In addition, at times other lovers would come from distant cities. On Friday, 8 April, a fourteen-year-old boy named Suloo Ram Meshram arrived from Nagpur. He had found out about the Master by reading a newspaper account of Baba's visit to Nagpur in 1937 and contacted the Jessawalas for more information. Suloo had written to Baba in January 1938, and Baba had invited him to Panchgani in April.