Consequently, the night before the event, hundreds of bullock carts were seen lined on the roadside as people from neighboring villages and towns arrived in Ahmednagar. A large pavilion had been erected in Wadia Park, and vast crowds began collecting early that morning.
Because the Meherabad meeting to be held at the end of September was exclusively for men, large numbers of women lovers and devotees came to Wadia Park from such places as Bombay, Poona, Nasik, Nagpur, Delhi and Dehra Dun, to take advantage of the opportunity for Baba's darshan.
The Westerners were driven from Meherabad to Wadia Park in two station wagons. Baba with the women mandali arrived from Meherazad at 9:00 A.M.
No sooner was Baba seated on the dais, than he spelled on the alphabet board: "To save you all the trouble of bowing down to me, I bow down to you, not as man to man, but as God to God!"
Baba then stepped down from the stage, and bending down, offered his salutation to all in the crowd.
Mounting the dais, he stated, "To make you all share my feeling of being one with you and one of you, I sit beside you."
Descending the platform again, Baba sat first with the men on one side, and then with the women on the other. Climbing up the steps once more, he washed the feet of seven poor people.
Before touching their feet with his forehead and paying each Rs.51 as a gift offered to God ( Dev-dakshina ), he declared: "As each one of you is in one way or another an incarnation of God, I feel happy to bow down to you and to lay at your feet this Dev-dakshina."
Baba's arti was sung by seven young women dressed in seven different colored saris. Gadekar also sang another arti. Sarosh read out a welcome address on behalf of the Reception Committee, and other speeches were made by the mayor and various dignitaries. Each one garlanded Baba after finishing.
Sarosh then read out in English three of Baba's messages. The first was the beautiful message "Meher Baba's Call":
Age after age, amidst the clamor of disruptions, wars, fear and chaos, rings the Avatar's Call: "Come all unto me!"
Although, because of the veil of illusion, this call of the Ancient One may appear as a voice in the wilderness, its echo and re-echo nevertheless pervade through time and space, to rouse at first a few, and eventually millions, from their deep slumber of ignorance. And, in the midst of illusion, as the Voice behind all voices, it awakens humanity to bear witness to the manifestation of God amidst mankind.