Beryl gave Bernice a photograph of Baba, and one night while meditating on the photo, Bernice saw a golden light come from it. It filled her home and touched her sleeping family. She was convinced of Baba's divinity and had many further experiences of Baba's presence. It was for this reason that Bernice was a bit "afraid" of meeting Baba in person. "I thought I was going to disintegrate!" she remembered. Then Baba peeked at her and her family from around the screen, and his eyes twinkled in recognition. "Oh, he knows me," Bernice cried. "Baba, you know me!" and she fell into his arms.1
Filis Frederick later wrote of this afternoon in New York:
One by one or in small groups, the people now came in to meet the Master. Each one was introduced to Baba with a few descriptive words which Baba always likes to hear. His radiant smile as each new soul entered the room, his warm embrace or extended hand, his compassionate interest in each and every individual's problems, which he knew without words or explanations, and his parting prasad of a grape to each one as they left, made an indelible impression on those fortunate to be in the same room. Above all, his silent, wordless communication of love from heart to heart, proved again and again, if proof were needed, that here indeed was the living embodiment of Love Divine. The flash of recognition in the heart, the pulse of love, seemed almost visible as it jumped from Soul to soul, from the free Shivatma to the jivatma in bondage.2 Love indeed can be silent, and yet, transform the world to its image.
Age was spellbound as it witnessed this scene. Wine was flowing from Baba's glances and he poured a glass for each through his prasad. The room was fragrant with the heady smell of Wine. Some were satisfied simply to inhale the fragrance and had no longing to taste the Wine; yet it is the luck of births that brings one to the occasion, even to smell this heavenly scent!
Jean Robert Foster of Schenectady, New York, had found out about Baba through Darwin Shaw. She recalled these days:
No one could forget Baba, sitting on the chaise lounge, radiant in white and pink coat. Flowers in tall vases perfumed the air. Two large sprays of yellow roses had been brought in. There were attar-sweet red roses, pink and white ones with their buds and many other flowers. There were old-fashioned nosegays, and certain devotees and children brought long-stemmed single blooms and offered them to the Master.
Footnotes
- 1.Another of Beryl's sisters, Benita Van Putten, also met Baba at the Delmonico reception.
- 2.In Vedantic terms, Shivatma is the God-realized soul and the jivatma is the soul in evolution or involution.