Baba similarly visited every room of the home of Elsie Smart in Ringwood. Stopping at the sunroom here, Baba made the sign for perfection. Elsie introduced Baba to her two children, Bill and Jean, at her home.
Baba told her, "It is a great blessing to have my presence in your home."
Elsie later wrote:
The King of Kings had come to our quiet suburb, had passed through my home and garden. There was no fanfare or banners flying. It was his wish that it be so, but the living memory of Baba's visit will never fade. I had decorated the living room with pink camellias. They were still alive and glowing, three and a half weeks after his visit!
Denis O'Brien was driving Baba at this time, and once while they were driving up a hill he asked Baba a question regarding spirituality. Denis became so absorbed as he listened to Baba's exact and detailed reply, he took a wrong turn and went two miles out of the way!
Whereas Baba would mainly walk around the houses, going from room to room, at Oswald and Betty Hall's house, at 9 Kerrie Crescent in Eltham, he sat down on the sofa prepared for him and appreciated the warmth in the house. Baba asked if they had built the adobe-brick house themselves.
When Oswald answered that they had, Baba seemed to stare high on the wall for a few moments, and then said through Eruch, "A lot of love has gone into the building of this house."
He called for a period of silence, and after a minute or so gestured, "I have now blessed this house. Live here always. Never sell it or let [rent] it for money."1
Baba looked for a long time into Oswald's eyes. Oswald later wrote a poem about that experience in which he stated: "He gazed intently, tenderly and long, and I in those loving depths most sweetly swam till lost, found that they were my very own."
Footnotes
- 1.In the decades that followed, the Halls' residence became central to the meetings and growth of the Melbourne Baba group, replacing the other homes. By 1991, it had become the usual venue for celebrations of Baba's Birthday and the Anniversary of Baba's visit, and a trust was later formed to try to retain the house permanently for use of Baba lovers.