Just before receiving the telegram, Hoshang and his other sister, Meheru, had been reading the chapter on the four kinds of suicides from the recent book Listen, Humanity. Hoshang Bharucha's mother asked him to go to Bombay to bring Tehmie, but he explained that he could not leave Navsari because he had Baba's order. His mother and sister decided to leave Navsari for Bombay on the next train.
On 9 July 1959, exactly one month after Baba had given Hoshang the order, Meheru phoned to tell him, "Tehmie is dead. She has committed suicide. Her funeral is tomorrow morning."
Despite his shock, Hoshang was determined not to disobey Baba's order and resigned himself not to attend the funeral.
Hoshang's sister informed Baba about Tehmie's death, and that evening, Hoshang received a telegram from Baba, stating: "Leave immediately for Bombay, attend all ceremonies, then come to Poona to see me for two minutes."
Hoshang's brother-in-law, Jal Cowasji, was terribly upset over the death of his wife. He wondered what would happen to her soul. Hoshang, who had read about the types of suicides, told him that she would not get another body for a very long time and she would have to mentally suffer in the hell state.1
"What should I do," Cowasji asked. "It is all my fault."
Hoshang said, "Only one person in the world can tell you — that is Meher Baba!"
Jal Cowasji, though he had never desired to talk or hear about Baba, desperately asked if he could meet him, even though when his wife had wanted to go for Baba's darshan, he had adamantly refused. On Sunday, 12 July 1959, both he and Hoshang left for Poona to see Baba.
Baba asked Cowasji, "Do you have faith in me? Will you believe what I tell you about Tehmie?"
He said yes.
Baba stated, "Because Hoshang loves me very much and because I was informed within three days of her death, I have saved Tehmie. She will not suffer in the hell state, and I will give her another body soon. She will have to take another birth, because she loves you very much."
"Baba, I am responsible ... It is all my fault," Cowasji said, weeping.
"No," Baba informed him, "you are not responsible. Just like the film you see in the movie theater, so is this life like a film. It is predestined . Whatever is in the film will happen. It is already there. It had to happen this way."
Footnotes
- 1.Refer to Listen, Humanity, pp. 98–101, and The Nothing and The Everything, pp. 74–75, about the types of suicides and the sanskaric problems that suicide causes after death.