I tell Harry that as long as he is here and attending to me, I will do what he says, and in his absence will try to carry out his instructions. But I cannot promise to carry them out fully because I have work to do. He has satisfactorily attended to his business and I have to attend to mine. I have taken on this body for humanity's sake, and I have to use my body for the work I have to do in my love for humanity. Therefore, I must not take care of it to the extent of letting it interfere in my work. On the other hand, I must take enough care so that my body stands up to the strain of work that lies ahead of me during the year.
I have decided not to give the combined East-West sahavas for two reasons. Firstly, handicapped as I am physically, it would be a great strain and fatigue to me. Secondly, if I give it in spite of that, I would not be able to give fully to my lovers that which I wish my sahavas should give, and they would not be able to receive all I would want them to have. Hence, I have decided to give the sahavas separately, to the Easterners in India and to the Westerners in Myrtle Beach and Australia. I will give the Eastern sahavas in February, and I shall ask that the physical expression of their love — garlanding, embracing, et cetera — be modified in keeping with Dr. Kenmore's advice and instructions. The number of Easterners attending the sahavas has been restricted to 1400 (two groups of 700 each instead of four — one group of Hindi and Marathi-speaking lovers, and another of Gujarati and Telugu-speaking).
I will definitely give my sahavas to my Western lovers in May 1958, for fifteen days in Myrtle Beach and five days in Australia. I want no publicity of any kind, no [public] "open-day" program, no "visitors" in that sense. The sahavas will be for those who desired to come to India for my sahavas, both those who intended to and those who could not make it, and also for others who love me, are willing to obey me, and wish to attend the sahavas.
After 15 July [1958], there will be no more sahavas, congregations, mass darshans, et cetera. I have to do all that before 15 July, unmindful of my physical condition and outward circumstances.
The following day, the lovers in America, Europe and Australia were informed through a telegram of Baba's decision, in which he stated:
"I have decided as God in my divine knowledge, and as a human patient through Dr. Kenmore's knowledge, that combined West-East sahavas in India is absolutely inadvisable."