The invasion, consisting of over 700 battleships and 4,000 landing craft, had already been postponed a day. Eisenhower had been firm and said something to the effect of: "Who's in command here anyway — you or me?" paraphrasing Baba's words to Margaret almost exactly.1
Before Norina Matchabelli had left India three years before, Baba had directed her, "I had given you the order to find me as God Personal. You have found me. Go and tell this to the world. You will hear my voice within. You will hear no other voice."
When Norina returned to America, she began giving a series of lectures on Baba in New York City and elsewhere.2 Her talks were so powerful and dynamic, many persons came to know of Baba through them, and also later to love him.
A Universal Spiritual Center for Baba had not yet materialized in India, so besides Norina's publicity work, she and Elizabeth had been actively carrying out Baba's instructions to locate a suitable site for a center in America. Baba had laid down certain conditions to them before they left. Now it seemed that they had at last found the perfect spot.
Here is Elizabeth's letter to Baba detailing the history of their search:
June 4, 1944
Dear Baba,
You have received a number of cables from me about the property in South Carolina, which I hope you will accept for one of your spiritual centers in the United States. When I first cabled, the land had been promised to me by Father, but as it belonged to a company of which he was part owner, called the Myrtle Beach Farms Company, it took considerable time to be made available. In fact, the whole tract of 1800 acres which was used as a hunting and fishing preserve by all the partners of the company and others to whom they gave permission to use it, is now being divided up in a legal way and Father's share is approximately 800 acres of this timber land and includes two lakes. This preserve is unique in the respect that it has six fresh water lakes, fed by springs, which are so close to the Atlantic Ocean that everyone wonders how they can remain sweet water!
Footnotes
- 1.Supposedly, the code words to the French Resistance for the invasion to begin were: "Throw the cat out in the rain."
- 2.Some followers in New York believed that Baba channeled "thought-transmissions" through Norina. She would enter a trance-like state, and the voice that spoke through Norina relayed Baba's messages, she said. But, according to Kitty, Margaret and Rano, Baba at one point remarked that Norina's claim that Baba was speaking through her in these public lectures were not his way of working, but that her talks did help his work anyhow. (Donkin's diary, 30 April 1943.)