He had specifically ordered Jalbhai not to leave his place beside the cabin, but Jalbhai was not there.
Baba reprimanded the mandali, "Since no one pays any attention to me, I will now attend to my own needs. I don't need anyone's help. All of you are tall-talkers and self-praisers! You boast that you are my disciples, but no one is there to faithfully carry out his duty. All respect me as their Master, but give me only trouble, harassing me instead of serving me."
Baba concluded, threatening, "I am now absolutely fed up; I'm disgusted! One day I will go away all alone — and no one will ever see me in my physical form again. You will not be able to find me. This is for sure; write this down."
All morning a tense atmosphere prevailed, but by evening Baba's mood simmered down.
Nusserwan Satha and the Jessawala family came at noon (and returned four days later), and Adi arrived that night.1
While speaking to the mandali about the expected arrival of Meredith Starr, his fiancée and her sister, Baba revealed: "It's a pity that adults are coming from England instead of boys. Starr is a little in the [spiritual] line. But his Master, Johnston, is much advanced. The only one in Europe [of his kind]. He has written nice books."
Chhagan, who was an expert swimmer, was directed to teach the boys swimming in the Godavri River. One day, without his knowledge, some of the boys went for a swim. When informed, Chhagan became very worried and ran to the river where he found the boys on the point of drowning. Chhagan swam out and rescued them. The following day, Mehdi Khan rescued Abbas Khan from drowning, and when Baba found out about this incident, he stopped the swimming lessons.
On 25 June, when Rustom requested that Baba allow the children to swim again, he consented, remarking, "What a pity! You all know how to swim, and I, in whom all swim, do not know how."
When Dastur asked Baba why he had not learned swimming, Baba joked, "Because I no longer need to swim. I have swum in eternity and now all swim in me. But they are unaware of it."
At Toka, Chhota Baba was still being kept in close proximity to the Master. Another seat was carefully built by Pendu and Padri for Chhota Baba alongside Baba's Table Cabin.
Footnotes
- 1.Previously, Baba had stated that there was an advanced soul in London between the fourth and fifth planes, so it seems likely that he was referring to John Caldwell-Johnston. Rustom had met Johnston in Portsmouth and told him of Baba. In addition to The Book of the Beloved: A Modern Epic in Three Parts (London: Lund; New York: Dutton, 1923), Johnston was the author of Cantabile: Songs and Poems (Dutton, 1927), and various poems that appeared in the Hollywood-based Theosophist and The Star in the late 1920s and early 1930s. His poem "The Praises of Fuji" appeared in Asiatic Review n.s. 21 (1925), p. 607.