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

THE UNIVERSAL MESSAGE 349him to help him during the following fifty-six days by being fully resigned to his every wish. Theanniversary of his silence, 10 July, was not observed. On 13 August he sent out the following:From the 14th of August to the end of October 1959, maya will make everything go against me.Maya being the Showman displaying things that do not really exist, will make everything, including myhealth, body, energy, words and promises, go against me, and this will automatically test the faith of mylovers. But the only thing that maya cannot go against, is my Work, because maya itself is the means ofbringing about the results of my Work.Maya, being my instrument for fulfillment of my Work, has to do its utmost to bring about the utmostresults of this Work.Maya, having existence only in non-existence, will, in the end, give way to the one only Reality that isGod. And so God will manifest in his Glory.I want all my lovers to guard against maya's tricks and hold firmly to my daaman.A response to this came from the North of India in the form of a spontaneous wish to repeat the name ofBaba round the clock for twenty-four hours, those participating taking three hourly sessions each, for theperiod. This was taken up in many places.The seclusion continued more or less up to the end of the year, when he washed the feet of twenty-fourand twenty-seven lepers on two different days, bowing down to each of them afterwards and giving themmoney and cloth. A letter from Mani said:What is wonderfully reminiscent of real 'old times' is something we have not seen for several years,something we had resigned ourselves to never perhaps expecting to see: Baba walking back and forth tothe mandal is unaided and unaccompanied. The sound of that sudden clap so dearly familiar, and we runout to find him walking over to our cottage, open umbrella in hand and with a not so noticeable limp. Weare not quite used to this and still find ourselves joyously startled when he suddenly gets up and walksover by himself to another room. This is not only contrary to our most optimistic expectations, butcontrary to the emphatic opinions and advice of doctors and specialists who knew the extent of the injury.One of them, who has seen the transformation said, 'It is exactly the condition that would have resultedfrom the operation we advised. It seems he has performed his own