Chapter 36: Interested In Remaining Disinterested
1960Page 4,734 of 5,444
Baba returned at 2:00 P.M. to spend a final afternoon with Ben and Joseph. Joseph intended to settle permanently in India with his wife, and he discussed the practicalities and logistics of this with Baba and the mandali. More discourses were read and humorous incidents related. Seven tiles and also card games were played. While Baba had been resting, Ben, who was an osteopath, adjusted the vertebrae of the men mandali, especially Pendu's hip.1 They received Baba's embrace, and at 4:00 P.M., left in the car with Meherjee, but, remembering Pendu, Ben asked the driver to stop and got out to see if Pendu needed any further adjustment. Because one of them had gotten down after he and the mandali had said goodbye, Baba made Joseph and Meherjee also get down, and he embraced all three again.
Adi Jr. continued to visit Meherazad daily until he left for Poona on 12 December. Ben and Joseph returned to America on 17 December after spending a few days in Poona, and also visiting the Ellora Caves and Mahabaleshwar with Nariman.
Just before their departure from Bombay with Adi Jr., they received this express telegram from Baba: "Let Baba's Banjo play a Baba tune of Baba love over the oceans and across the continents. My love to BenJoAdi and all en route and at destination."
Khorshed arrived from Bombay on 3 December 1960 and was permitted to stay at Meherazad for a few weeks. The Hindu Women's Rescue Home of Poona, which Baba had visited in June, requested a message from Baba on the occasion of its Silver Jubilee. On 8 December 1960, Baba dictated this poem for them:
If from now till I depart You love me with a single heart, All stains will be washed away, Your soul will be as bright as day.
World is loss and God is gain; World draws soul again, again. Pay world's debt with loving labor — Cross life's seas to my safe harbor.
After Ben and Joseph left, the atmosphere at Meherazad reverted to its previous state of Baba's disinterestedness and gloom. This letter from Eruch to his family at Akbar Press on Sunday, 10 December, aptly described Baba's condition:
Footnotes
- 1.Ben Hayman adjusted Baba, too, as Baba lay on a table that had been placed in the open on the mandali's side.