Filis described that first meeting:
It was 9:30 A.M. when Delia, standing on the steps of the Lagoon Cabin, said, "Shri Meher Baba, this is Filis Frederick."1 How would Baba look? I did not know. I thought of Jesus, but at my first glimpse of Baba the thought flashed in my head, He looks Egyptian! The long eyebrows, dark almond eyes, the golden skin. He embraced me, and my heart beat fast: He is mine, he is mine. He gestured to a chair beside him.
Baba asked through Adi, "How do I look?" I said to Adi (because someone had misinformed me we could not speak directly to Baba in the New Life), "He looks ill." As soon as I said it, I felt, No! He looks beautiful.
Eyes like black diamonds looked lovingly into mine. I felt my heart overflow with his love. He seemed so familiar, so intimate, so close.
"I heard about you from Norina, Elizabeth, Don and Margaret," Baba stated, "and I heard you from within. Do you love me?
[Yes, Baba.]
When I see such souls who love me, I feel very happy and strong. People like Filis are intimate ones. I love you because you love me so much."
After fifteen minutes, Baba called in Filis' "twin," Adele Wolkin, 34.
"She has eyes like Babajan," Baba remarked, "very large, grey-blue."
He spelled out to them both: "I heard so much about you both that I feel so happy that at last I have seen you. Are you not nervous?"
"No," they said.
"I am overjoyed. Are you happy?"
"Very happy."
"No more happy than I am in seeing you. When you know me, you will love me like a little child. I am a child — grown up!
"I love humor, I love to tease and work hard here, and at various places, while talking to you now. And when you love me with pure, simple love, there should be no barrier. Love, pure and simple, then all doubts go away. Until then, mind gets tempted to doubt. Even if love is there, the mind goes on working, thinking this is right or wrong. But love does not bother; it loses its all in the Beloved. Do you love Baba honestly?"
"Yes, Baba!" they replied.
"What can I do for you?" asked Adele.
"What more can you do for the Beloved? I want love, nothing else! Love me, and let God love us.
Footnotes
- 1.Baba would spell Phyllis Frederick's name on the alphabet board as "Filis," and so after this meeting she adopted this spelling.