Gopal Swamy then related how he had first come to Meherabad. He had previously visited Upasni Maharaj at Sakori and Narayan Maharaj at Kedgaon. Once while he was in Dhond, someone told him that another Sadguru lived at Arangaon. He began walking there and along the way felt very thirsty. He saw an old villager drawing water from a well and approached him. The old man talked with him at length. When he found out that he was in search of a Master, he offered Gopal a cactus fruit, saying, "This is the food which Sadgurus eat." Gopal unhesitatingly ate the peculiar fruit, whereupon the man said, "Go to Arangaon and nowhere else. He is there. Go to him and your desire will be fulfilled. The Master who will guide you and give you what you want is in Arangaon." Gopal followed the man's advice and met Meher Baba the next day.
Hearing this story, Baba remarked, "Do you know who that old man was? It was me in disguise!"
The next morning, finding out that one of the boys had disappeared from the school, Baba called the men mandali to him at eight o'clock and asked them why the boy had left. Baba held the director, Arjun, the monitors, and the teachers responsible, maintaining that due to their carelessness the boy had run away. As a novel punishment, Baba ordered them to keep bitter quinine powder in their mouths without swallowing or spitting it out. When they were unable to bear the horrible taste any longer, Baba allowed them to spit it out and gave them a sweet to get rid of the taste.
A week before, a letter from Babu Cyclewalla was read out, in which he described something that had happened to Memo. She, Dowla Masi and Sheriar's sister Piroja had paid their respects to Babajan and were returning when they saw Baba seated in a victoria. They watched as he got down and went towards a dark lane, despite Memo's calls for him to stop. "All the ladies swear that they saw Baba clearly," Babu wrote. Baba was, of course, at Meherabad at the time. Baba made no comment about the incident, but the mandali were convinced it was something supernatural.
Baba also made no comment when a second letter was received that his maternal grandmother, Golandoon, had died suddenly, and that his mother was ill.1 Masaji was sent to Poona. When he returned to Meherabad on 23 August, he narrated this story.
Footnotes
- 1.On 29 August 1926, when Shireenmai's condition had still not improved, Baba revealed that it was a characteristic of Sadgurus, "to give everything to the world, but nothing to their own family members."