At this point a fifth qawaal, who had sung before Baba in Meherabad in 1955, appeared with his musicians. Baba enjoyed his singing immensely. And as the other four groups sat in the audience full of pride in their "art . " Baba eyed them occasionally and they realized that to sing before the Avatar required something more than ability.
After the program, Baba instructed Gajwani and Siganporia to pay the four qawaals in full and not disappoint them.
On the 9th, Koduri Krishna Rao of Kovvur came with his family to see Baba in Ashiana. He had stayed in Bombay for a number of days, finalizing details with the sculptor B. V. Talim for a statue of Baba for Mehersthan. The next day, an Indian freedom fighter and former Governor of Uttar Pradesh, K. M. Munshi, and his wife came for darshan.
Baba remarked to him, "To experience God is difficult and different because the seer and seen are One."
For five days, from 10 to 14 March 1959, Baba gave darshan in Ashiana daily from nine o'clock until noon. Many people streamed in each morning, packing the lobby and stairs to the apartment, waiting to have their turn for darshan. Most had not met Baba before. Jagat Murari, 34, a documentary filmmaker with the Films Division of India, was one of the first to arrive. He met Baba for the first time at 9:30 A.M. on the 10th. Murari had a deep interest in spirituality and had been told about Baba by his friend and mentor, Ezra Mir, who was also his boss. Murari subsequently moved to Poona and became close friends with Jalbhai. He and his family saw Baba at Guruprasad, and Murari later filmed Baba at Meherazad.
An American woman named Ursula Sylvia Hellman, 48, also met Baba on the 10th. Born in Berlin, Hellman married, but her husband was killed by the Gestapo for helping Jews. She developed an interest in spirituality, and in 1955 spent six months in Rishikesh with Swami Shivananda.1 She became the first Western woman to be initiated into sanyas in 1956 and was christened Swami Sivananda Radha. In 1959, she was on her way back to the Himalayas. Arnavaz had met her by chance in a shop and invited her to her apartment "to meet a living saint."
Sylvia Hellman later wrote about her encounter with Baba:
Then came a moment when Meher Baba motioned me by a gesture of his hand to come close. I also bowed in reverence to him. I could do no less after having witnessed such a miraculous manifestation of love that I can only regard as of a divine nature.
I was a stranger from across the ocean, a woman from a different culture. Meher Baba pulled me up too and looked very deeply into my eyes for a few seconds — or was it eternity? I received his blessing as his eyes burned like two big suns, and his beautiful smile came from the heart.
Footnotes
- 1.Baba had contacted Swami Shivananda in 1953. The Swami had also written the foreword to a book by Graham Phelps Stokes, published in 1958, The Ever-Returning Christ And Other Writings.