THE GOD-MAN The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an ...

128 THE GOD-MANI have to make reference at this point to two books published in London, both of which hadwide circulations, in which lengthy accounts of Baba were given. The journalist who had visitedhim in 1931 had published A Search in Secret India in 1933. It contains a chapter entitled 'I meeta Messiah'. The writer describes how he approached Baba, who, he says, was sitting in a cave; hewas smoking a cigarette and had to be asked to put it out, he also records. His account of the 'socalledMessiah' was as follows, 'his forehead ... is so low as to appear less than average height,and it is so receding as to make me wonder', which makes one wonder, too, if he were describingthe right man. He said that Baba promised him 'wonderful spiritual experiences'. When the writer,then known as Raphael Hirsch, came to see me in London some time after his visit he said he hadno doubt Baba was false, as he, Raphael Hirsch, had asked him to perform a miracle but Babacould not.Another rather more serious work appeared this year, 1935, by Rom Landau, entitled God isMy Adventure. The author had heard of Baba from the interview with James Douglas mentionedon an earlier page: and says that he went to see him a few weeks after at a house in LancasterGate. His account is a more sympathetic, more detailed and better written book than the other,but, while there is a good deal of common sense in what he says, Landau was clearly unable tomake anything of Baba, beyond saying that, 'In a world in which there is a Steiner there must alsobe room for a Shri Meher Baba'. Baba remained a mystery to him, as he does to those who lookat him with preconceived ideas.Baba began making arrangements for going into seclusion for one year. For a period of fourmonths, from March to June, instructions were given with regard to the mandali living atMeherabad and the hundreds of other people who were dependent upon him. During this periodhe travelled unceasingly to Ahmednagar, Nasik, Poona, Bombay, Madras, and other places wherehis followers lived.He had become very frail, for not only had the long journey to and from California tired him,but on the voyage from Hong Kong to Colombo he had entered upon a fast, living only uponmilk. He continued the fast for a month after reaching Meherabad. He was also doing withoutmuch sleep during the whole of this time. For a few days he went to a quiet place near Igatpuri,about thirty miles from Nasik, at the Ghoti dak-bungalow in the mountains, but in three days hewas back again in Nasik.Baba selected another place of retirement after making those nearest to him gather informationabout many of the mountainous places and