Another incident took place in Scarsdale while Baba and Ivy were seated in private, discussing matters. As Ivy related:
Just then the Negro cook, Alberta, walked into the room with a letter in her hands and interrupted the conversation with, "Baba, I would like to show you my children," so she pulled out some Kodak pictures to show him. Suddenly he started making motions from her to me and back again. We stared at each other, wondering what this was all about. Then he dictated the answer and Rano said: "Baba wants both of you to shake hands."
This seemed very strange, because we had known each other since she had cooked for Elizabeth during Gramercy Park days.1 However, we warmly shook hands and Baba seemed satisfied. It was not until the past few years that it occurred to me this clasping of one black hand in one white one symbolized Baba's archetypal act wherein he reaffirmed the brotherhood of the races.2
Once, in Scarsdale, Baba revealed to Darwin Shaw, John Bass and Fred Winterfeldt an upcoming catastrophe in which many would die. Fred mentioned someone who, to protect his family and himself from the destruction Baba had foretold, wanted to establish a home high in the mountains and stock it with provisions.
Baba interrupted, stating, "No place will be safe, not even the top of the Himalayas! Only by the grace of God can one be saved." He added, "When this happens, you and you and you [pointing to each], stay put."
"Will this destruction be man-made or natural?" Fred inquired.
"It will be both," Baba replied.
Filis was feeling sad that some had missed seeing Baba.
Knowing her thoughts, Baba shook his head and explained, "All those came whom I wished to come. Don't worry."
And to the group, he stated: "It is your love which will draw me back to the West."
Mani had a lively, animated nature and was always quite talkative. But the day before they left New York, Baba put her on silence and told her to remain on silence until they reached India. He did, however, allow her to talk to him, but not to the others.
Their last night in Scarsdale, 29 July, Filis was allowed to spend the night with the women mandali. Early the next morning a woman came at 6:00 A.M., banging on the door. Rano answered it. "Baba said he will not see me again for 700 years, so I have come to prove him wrong," the woman said, challenging Baba's word.
Footnotes
- 1.Elizabeth Patterson owned a house in Gramercy Park in 1945–47.
- 2.Ivy O. Duce, How a Master Works, (Sufism Reoriented, Inc., 1975), p. 131.