Later the same day, Baba gave the following message:
During these ten days of my seclusion, I shall decide definitely the length of time this war will last, and exactly when it will end.
Before I speak, and before peace reigns, there must be a real world war in which India will be involved 100 percent, and places under Mohammedan rule, such as Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, and so forth, will also be entrapped in it, while Italy, Russia and America will play very active parts.
If this war prolongs in this above-mentioned manner, I shall speak in August 1941. In which case, for a year — from August 1940 to August 1941 — I shall, with certain of my male and female disciples, go to stay on the boundary of Russia and India, or on some island across the ocean. If the war does not prolong, then I shall decide whether to go to the border or somewhere else.
My speaking is largely connected with the world war and peace. Peace does not mean truce. A truce does not necessarily have to happen. A truce will not make me speak.
Before the end of the war, when peace is just on the point of appearing, I shall speak.
I shall speak just before permanent peace.
For several weeks, Chatti Baba had been telling his attendant, Krishna, that the people of Europe were undergoing terrible suffering. Baba would bathe this great mast every day with 150 to 200 buckets of water. The "bath" of bucket after bucket of water would take hours. Just after his bath, Chatti Baba had the odd habit of sitting on the ground and scooping up handful after handful of loose earth and pouring it over his head! Baba even instructed Krishna to keep fifteen baskets of earth in Chatti Baba's room every day to facilitate this need.
It was while he was pouring earth over his head one day that Chatti Baba poignantly remarked to Krishna, "There will be much anguish and privation in the world, and many will die of starvation, but Baba will finally assuage the suffering of the world."
Yet Chatti Baba grew more and more restless. At one o'clock on the night of Wednesday, 5 June 1940, he suddenly rushed into Baba's room carrying a lantern and bawling out, "Wake Up! Wake Up!" Savak was on nightwatch and asked him what had happened, and he replied, "Nothing."