Chapter 36: Interested In Remaining Disinterested
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"Where have you been?" he asked Eruch, his eyes flashing with anger.
Eruch explained.
Baba asked, "But why weren't you here when the singers arrived?"
Eruch said "The program was to start at ten o'clock, and it is only a quarter to ten now."
"You should have been here," Baba insisted. "You should know what I want."
On and on, Baba reprimanded Eruch. Don was mortified. "Good heavens, what have I gotten poor Eruch into," he thought, as it was Stevens who had wanted to go out that morning, despite Eruch's misgivings. "I really ought to bear some of the weight of this debacle," he thought to himself.
Just as he had this thought, Baba turned on him and gestured, "Don, you have ruined my day!"
To have the Avatar himself say this to him was more than Don could bear. Something "absolutely snapped, broke, foundered," inside him.
But just as he knew he could never feel the same again, Baba looked deeply, quietly, steadily at him for five seconds, snapped his fingers, pardoning him, gesturing, "Don't worry. Let's have a good time."
To see Baba one minute in a storming rage and a few seconds later with absolutely no trace of his apparent anger was something unique for Stevens and a deep object lesson in his life. He saw for himself the total freedom which Baba enjoyed from any sort of binding by emotions.
The music program was held that morning.
Later in the afternoon, Baba was back with the men mandali from 4:00 to 6:00 P.M., but he was not feeling well. Don was again given the opportunity of talking with Baba about his personal affairs.
The next morning, Baba played qawaali records for Don Stevens and the mandali at the main house. This was repeated in the afternoon inside the house when qawaali records of Hafiz were played. Baba beat on a drum in time to the music, and Stevens filmed him. Despite the fact that Stevens was seated at Baba's feet, as Baba had ordered, using movie film which required artificial light — the living room was extremely dim since there was no electricity in those days — to Don Stevens' amazement the films came out splendidly when he viewed them later in Bombay.