Baba discussed a certain matter alone with Ned Foote for five minutes after the morning session. He had spoken with him privately at other times during the gathering also. Ned wondered about it. "I can't understand why Baba spends so much time with me," he remarked to Elizabeth. "There are a lot of other people here more spiritual than I."
"Oh, that's easy," Elizabeth replied. "Baba loves raw material!"
That afternoon Adele Wolkin saw Baba again about her nursing career, and also to deliver a gift of medical supplies. Adele had been permitted by Baba to come to India for a midwifery course in Bombay. Correspondence about this had been going on for almost a year. Originally, she was to have come at the end of June for six months, but Baba postponed her arrival until the 19th of October 1962. She accepted a job at the Wadia Maternity Home in Parel.
A few of the things Baba remarked to her were: "Within one year, I will break my silence, then drop my body. My glorification shall last for one year. I am impatient to break my silence, to prepare for the urge to break it."
Before Adele left, Baba said, "You must pass through the ocean of fire and come out alive."
Another who saw Baba that afternoon at 5:00 P.M. was Charles Purdom, who discussed his forthcoming revised version of Baba's first English biography The Perfect Master (later expanded and published as The God-Man ).1 Baba met with him for an hour and explained certain points for the book. (Adi and Bal Natu were also reading and correcting the manuscript.)
At one point, Purdom asked Baba what he intended about a "movement" in his name or the establishment of a "church."
Baba answered, "What I have said about form and ritual is clear enough." Then he shrugged his shoulders and added, "But you know what people are like."
Before Purdom left, Baba kissed him on both cheeks, knowing it was the last time Charles would ever see him.
At 6:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning, 6 November 1962, the Westerners climbed into four buses and five cars for their visits to Meherabad, Meherazad and the Ahmednagar Center.
Footnotes
- 1.Baba originally wanted the title of the book to be simply Meher Baba, but Purdom preferred The God-Man. The book was first published in England in 1964. Purdom was a devout Christian, and wrote various essays comparing the divine missions of Jesus and Meher Baba.