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

20 THE GOD-MANseldom spoke. Their meetings were silent. He went on with his schooling.One night in January 1914, when he made his usual visit, he kissed her hands and stood beforeher. Then she kissed him on his forehead, after which he stood there for a few moments, and wenthome. It was nearly eleven o'clock. He went at once to bed. In ten minutes he began to experienceextraordinary thrills, as though he were receiving electric shocks; joy mingled with pain, and he losthis body consciousness.The first person to discover Meher in this condition was his mother. She found him lying withwide-open, vacant eyes. She called to him, and he sat up. He could not speak. Thinking he wasseriously ill, she made him lie down again. For three days he lay in this condition; his eyes wereopen, but he saw nothing. On the fourth day Meher began to move about and was slightly consciousof his body. So he remained for nearly nine months. He had no know ledge of his own actions, andwhat he did was in response to no prompting of his mind. He was totally unconscious of the world.If he seated himself, he would not get up until the lapse of several hours; if he walked, he wouldcontinue walking for a number of hours. One day he is said to have left his home in the hot sunduring the afternoon and to have walked for fifteen miles without stopping, in the course of which hewent from his home to the Bund Garden and back three times. Once he went to Kondwa, behind theParsi tower of silence, and there lay down for three days. He had no food; he did not sleep; hisparents thought his mind to be unhinged. He was given food, but gave it to the dogs, or, intending togive it away to beggars, put it in his drawers, where it went rotten and stank.He was placed under medical treatment, given sleeping-draughts and morphia injections; butnothing had any effect. He was sent to Bombay to see if a change of environment would make anydifference; but he remained the same. He stayed with his brother Jamshedji in Bombay for twomonths, and used to go to Chaupati in the mornings, sitting there for hours watching the waves; inthe afternoons he would go to the Victoria Gardens, sitting always on one particular bench. Then hereturned to Poona, spending most of his time in a small room in his father's house.In November 1914 he regained a little consciousness and behaved, it was said, 'as an automatonpossessing intuition'. His eyes ceased to be vacant and life returned to them. He began to take foodregularly, though in small amounts. He mixed little with the members of his family and seldom wentout for walks. A month after this partial return