Franey, Dara and Shireen saw Baba the following morning before leaving for Bombay on the 5th to return to England. On Sunday, 7 March 1965, Hoshang Bharucha and Dhake and his wife gave reports to Baba of their recent lecture tours.
That day, Baba had the following circular issued through Adi to his Eastern lovers:
Avatar Meher Baba directs me to let all his Eastern lovers know that he will give darshan in Poona for only six days from 1 to 6 May 1965, despite his very weak health.
Meher Baba says that his Universal work has increased many fold and his Universal suffering has also increased proportionately, and this is now telling greatly upon his physical health. But Baba also says: "This body will not drop until one year after I break my silence. What could be more glorious than my suffering for all humanity!"
Besides the continuous pain in his hip joint and his inability to walk freely, Baba has had, since the last many months, pain in the cervical spine, i.e., in the nape of the neck, and extending down to the shoulders. Of late, the pain has become intense.
The point of view of the doctors who have been attending Baba recently is that he should NOT give darshan at all in May. Notwithstanding their opinion, Baba wants to give his darshan to his lovers. And so, the doctors have urged Baba to at least restrict the days and hours of darshan, and not to allow his lovers to approach him too closely, in order to avoid any jerky movement to his neck caused inadvertently.
The circular continued to outline the schedule of the darshan programs. The usual restrictions against seeking personal interviews with Baba, asking questions, or embracing him were imposed. Because the darshan was only to be for two hours in the mornings at Guruprasad, from 9:00 to 11:00 A.M., Baba also did not wish to have any special singing programs or other entertainment arranged.
On the morning of 16 March 1965 Don Stevens and Meherjee arrived at Meherazad in Joseph Harb's car, to visit for a few hours. Baba had not yet come to the hall, so Don first met with Eruch in his room. The Vietnam War was escalating during this time, and headlines about it from the newspapers were sometimes read to Baba.
When the question came up about whether the US ought to bomb Haiphong Harbor, the primary northern seaport, Baba praised the Vietnamese people for their bravery, but also wondered, "Why doesn't America drop their bombs? ... Why don't they bomb China? ... Why not atom bombs even?"1
Don Stevens replied, "I believe the thinking of the U. S. State Department is to prevent the Russian and Chinese communists from joining forces there."
Footnotes
- 1.Meherjee, who was present on this occasion, concluded, "What purpose Baba had for that kind of talk we don't know. Some of us felt, from a practical point of view, that if America had bombed Vietnam in the early days and destroyed the harbors and the railway yards, then the war would not have lasted as long as it did. But then world opinion would have gone against America. So the Americans were in a fix — whether to bomb or not." Eventually, they did. Eruch once stated that what Baba meant by, "Why doesn't America drop the atom bomb?" was that that would have ended the war quickly, similar to what happened in World War II.