Eruch explained that an American youngster in his twenties had arrived at Meherazad wanting to see Baba. His name was Steven R. Simon. Steve had learned of Baba in an unusual way, from an ex-policeman in Miami, named Edward Short (who met Baba at the East-West Gathering). Simon had taken LSD and under its influence he had a vision: in a specter of light, he saw the figure of a man he had never seen before with long hair and a mustache. The next day he met Ed Short for the first time, who gave him a copy of God Speaks to read. When Simon opened the book and saw the frontispiece photograph, he recognized Meher Baba as the same person he had the vision of while on LSD. After that experience he decided to give up drugs.
Like Robert Dreyfuss, Steve Simon had also left America before learning that the December 1965 sahavas had been canceled. He had no money for the trip, but hitchhiked from Miami (in his words, "chased by demons") 3,000 miles across the United States to San Francisco. There he met a prostitute who befriended him and gave him some money. Simon had served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam war and got a free lift in a military cargo plane from San Francisco to Taiwan. Simon was practically broke by the time he reached Singapore in October, when he met a young couple named Mik Hamilton and Ursula Reinhart whom he told of Baba. Simon was so terribly anxious to get to India that the Hamiltons surprised themselves by offering to pay for his passage by ship to Bombay, and from there he hitchhiked inland to Ahmednagar.
When Steve Simon landed at Adi's office, Adi felt pity for him and decided to send him to Meherazad on the back of Manek's scooter. Baba was quite annoyed by Adi's decision.
"Adi knows I am in deep seclusion. I have given strict instructions that absolutely no one is to disturb me — and yet he sends this boy! Now all I can do is to send him back with a message that he should go, halfway around the world, back home."
As Baba was explaining to Eruch his decision not to see Steve Simon, Don Stevens felt as if a sharp dagger had pierced his own heart. Besides his deep personal pain over the young man's disappointment, he felt a deep annoyance with Baba himself for not taking pity on him and agreeing to see him after he had traveled so far, against such odds and endured such hardships.