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

THE UNIVERSAL MESSAGE 361It was still raining, however, the day after our arrival, with dense clouds broken by long intervals ofsunshine, and the day after that it was dull with a little rain. That afternoon, the Westerners were taken tothe house where Baba lived as a boy, his school and college, Babajan's shrine and other places. On themorning of 31 October the Western women were called to meet Baba, when they also met the womenmandali. (These women were at Guruprasad during the entire period but were not present at any of thegatherings.) The Western men went to see Baba in the afternoon. On both occasions Baba embraced all,one by one, and enquired about their journey and what difficulties they had had to overcome. Thecompany sat around him in the large reception room of the house, he on a sofa at the end of the room, withEruch speaking from his gestures. The Maharanee sat on the left at his feet on this occasion, as she didthroughout the entire period of darshan; she sat erect, her eyes on Baba hour after hour, hardly everglancing aside; occasionally he looked down at her with a smile. Baba looked tired, but the atmospherewas cheerful. Apart from inquiries very little was said. 'The clouds will disperse,' he said, 'the end iscoming.'To meet Baba again after more than four years was to find him greatly changed. He was now more thanever a suffering man. His expression was as bright, his eyes as keen as ever, and his alertness seemed notto have diminished, but he was withdrawn, and for much of the time looked far away, as though notbelonging to the world. He constantly smiled and was ready to joke, and his humour had not deserted him,but there was a certain indifference that I had not noticed before. Above all there was an immense sadnessthat moved me strangely. When he walked one saw that he went heavily.At nine in the morning on Thursday, 1 November, Baba received the Westerners for the first formaldarshan. Although no discourses were promised, he 'talked' for two hours. The following is a summary ofwhat he said:Suffering is a sign of having realized God: suffering is God's gift to men.... You are to become the dustat the feet of the Perfect Master, which means that you do not know your own self. You are nothing butdust. You are no longer your own.There is another point. God is indivisibly one and indivisibly in each one. God is each one.What are the divisions? Why are you separate? This is nothing but ignorance: there are no divisions, noseparateness. Think of God as the ocean, and of every drop in the