Photographs were taken by Raosaheb. Baba looked as if he were calling the world to join him in the boat. Age urged one and all, "Sail with him across the river of life to the Eternal Shore! Who has the courage to heed the Captain's call? Who has the heart to transcend his own mind?"
Baba and the boys had a splendid time riding the boat on the river. Afterward he took his seat in the rickshaw and was again taken for a ride. Stopping at one place, Baba's mood became serious and he revealed the difference between mercy and compassion:
Mercy is one thing and compassion is something else. I do not show mercy in the ordinary, worldly sense, but I do have compassion. For example, two people see a man shivering — freezing to death in the cold. One feels sorry for him, but walks past. The other feels no pity, but realizes the man needs covering. So he takes off his coat and gives it to the man, thereby exposing himself to the cold. That is compassion.
The seventy-plus boys living at Toka were so enamored of Baba that they had moments of divine madness. They were not content to have only his personal companionship; they wanted his belongings as well. They would pick up his handkerchiefs, bedsheets, chappals, tobacco and betel nuts — anything that the Master had used or touched. Late at night on 4 September, some of the children ran to Baba's room at eleven o'clock calling him to come out. The mandali were upset with the children for disturbing Baba in his private room, interrupting his rest and internal spiritual work, but Baba took the disturbance lightly, came out and lovingly met with them for a while.
However, he ordered them, "Henceforth, do not come to me before 2:00 A.M. After that, it is all right."
As Chanji noted in his diary that day: "Boys all crazy to run after Shree. Quite a queer sort of game going on here nowadays; all rules, et cetera, being for the time laid aside as far as Shree's visit and nearness to the boys was concerned."
Saturday, 8 September 1928, was Lord Krishna's birthday. A procession was formed at eight in the morning, starting at the mandali's quarters and proceeding to Meher Ashram and then to the riverbank. Baba was elaborately dressed as Krishna by the women mandali.