ChaptersChapter 39Page 5,193

Chapter 39: No Drugs

1965Page 5,193 of 5,444
Baba instructed that Robert be taken to Meherabad in the afternoon and be shown Baba's Tomb by Padri. After being with Baba for half an hour, the interview came to an end. Eruch and Robert then sat together outside and wrote down what had transpired.
When Robert had first seen a photograph of Baba smiling, he thought: "Baba looks like a cross between Tennessee Ernie Ford [an American singer] and Gurdjieff [a spiritual teacher]." He had mentioned this to Eruch, who told Baba, and Baba, too, enjoyed the remark.
Later that afternoon, Mani came and said, "Baba would like to see the route you took to come here," and she had Robert draw it on a map. She took it to Baba and later brought it back, saying, "Baba says to tell you that he was with you all the way; that he drew you to him."
She came again a little later with a handkerchief. It was still wet as Baba had used it to wipe the perspiration from his face. Mani said, "Baba wants you to have this."
Francis observed, "Robert's sojourn is reminiscent of the story [by Aesop] of the tortoise and the hare: while the hundreds who planned to come for the sahavas by jet were halted before they started, this lucky 'tortoise' unaware that the race had been called off, plodded home to his goal."
Francis later remarked to Robert, "You are the 1965 sahavas!"
After paying respects to Baba's Tomb at Meherabad, Robert returned to Meherazad in the evening and spent another night in the Blue Bus. He did not see Baba again. Before he left, Baba sent him some of his own clothes: a wool sports jacket Baba had worn in the West, a pair of socks and an undershirt. Robert was to wear them at least once, Baba said.
Following Baba's instructions, Robert left for Poona early the next morning. In Poona he stayed with Ramakrishnan for five days. He then went to Bombay and stayed with Nariman and Arnavaz until he left for Genoa by ship two weeks later, and from there to Boston.
About his time with Baba, Robert Dreyfuss later wrote:
I always find it difficult to translate into words the essentially nonverbal experience of being with Baba, but ... Emanating from him was an aura of total peace, surely what is spoken of in the New Testament as "the peace that passeth all understanding." This is not something I understood when being with him, but rather felt in the core of my being. There was no room for games or pretensions or masks; it was simply being alone with my Self, and being totally accepted — for what I am and am not.
There was a love radiating from Baba that I can only call dynamic, a love that was not confined to that time and place, but is with me now and that grows more vivid with time. This extraordinary dynamic love emanated from Baba effortlessly, just as the light does from the sun. There is no one else he could be, except who he says he is!
Jalbhai, Robert Dreyfuss, Ramakrishnan Poona, November 1965
Taking a break from a business trip to Cochin from New Delhi, Don Stevens visited Meherazad again for a day on the morning of 27 November 1965. He arrived in Meherjee's car with Meherwan Jessawala. Stevens' mother had recently passed away. Though Don had mentioned it in passing in a letter to Baba, when he arrived Baba greeted him with fire in his eyes.
"Don," he demanded, "why didn't you send me a telegram specifically about your mother's death?"
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