Both missed Baba desperately, and on the 29th, Baba sent Delia this letter to cheer her up:
You have grown much in your understanding, and realize that all I do and all I make each of you suffer is only to draw you closer in love to me, your Beloved. Could I bear to see you all suffer if it were not that the goal to which suffering is leading you is the pearl of great price? The love that passeth all understanding.
Why are you one of my circle? Because you have within you the very thing you now so earnestly desire — the capacity to love and to love to the very end. And when this power to love has reached its perfected state — i.e., when you are without any thought of self — then you will experience a happiness beyond anything you have as yet experienced. This is Union. Love for the Beloved free from self. It is the effort you are making to control your moods and emotions, and to get above dark periods that has made you feel me so near.
You are right when you say I haunt you so that your longing and desire for me have become increasingly intensified. Why? Is it not I who am this desire and longing? You are mine, and it is myself in you I love. Is not the struggle worthwhile?
In June 1938, Sidhu was called from Meherabad to Panchgani and told to bring Chhagan's wife Shanta. When he arrived, Baba told Sidhu to take Bhagirath sightseeing in Mahabaleshwar and then have their food when they returned to Panchgani. Sidhu took Bhagirath and showed him all the sights. On their way back, they felt hungry and ate in a restaurant. Only afterward did they remember Baba's injunction to have their meals at Panchgani upon their return.
Filled with trepidation, they entered the mandali's house. Baba was waiting for them. As soon as he saw them, he asked them to go have their supper. Their hearts fearful for disobeying, they confessed that they had already eaten.
Baba asked, "What was my order?"
Both men acknowledged their mistake.
Slapping them soundly, Baba chided, "Always remember my instructions!"
There was more to the incident than they knew at the time, for soon after this they were saved from a serious car accident while out on an errand for Baba — which they attributed to Baba's slap!