Once, while discussing a center, Baba revealed to Shantadevi, "In your palace, I have done much work for the whole universe. It has earned Guruprasad a place of great importance."
Marvin Campen, an American Sufi (under Ivy Duce's guidance) living in Switzerland, had written to Baba asking permission to visit, as he was going to Saudi Arabia on business. Campen arrived in Bombay on 21 May 1959 and was taken to Poona the following afternoon by Jim Mistry. Meherjee met them at the train station, took Marvin to the Napier Hotel and told him, "Be ready to go to Baba tomorrow morning at 8:15 A.M."
As usual, Baba came into the living room of Guruprasad at 7:00 A.M. on Saturday, the 23rd. Before going into the hall he was busy attending to correspondence and other day-to-day details of his work. At 8:30 A.M. everyone was summoned inside, including Marvin. Marvin placed a music box, shaped like a Swiss chalet, at Baba's feet. When opened, it played Baba's favorite tune Begin the Beguine, and Baba listened to it happily.
Baba was in a communicative mood and said:
The First Song of the Infinite is the beginning of creation. It brings about the apparent descent of the Infinite into the domain of multiple duality. Duality implies unending sufferings.
I am eternally happy, for I know that I am the Infinite One. I alone exist, there is nothing besides me, all else is illusion. Simultaneously, I suffer eternally.
As myself, I am free, but in you, as you, I get myself bound. I knowingly suffer through you to make you free from bindings. This is my crucifixion. Your experience of suffering is because of sheer ignorance. Your ignorance is my suffering.
Baba then gave a discourse titled "Awake Dream State to Real Awake State" (printed in The Everything and The Nothing ) and ended by stating:
The law of karma is impartial and inexorable. It knows no concessions, gives no preferences, makes no exceptions. It dispenses justice. By the Divine Law you are shielded from remembrance of past lives, for it would not help you in living your present life but would make it infinitely more complicated and confusing.
For me, "past" does not exist. I live in the Eternal Present. I clearly see your former lives, with all your intimate and intricate relationships with so many individuals. Your various reactions to others, seen in the context of your mutual [karmic] connections in previous lives, serves as a mighty joke to me and helps to ease my burden of suffering.