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

THE FIRST TEN YEARS 55named Rama Bhiwa appeared. He came from Karanje near Kopargaon, and on requesting hisfather to allow him to learn to read the Doyaneshwari 1 was refused on the plea that he wassufficiently grown up to do the hereditary agricultural work. On this the young man left theparental roof and went away on foot; when he arrived at Meherabad he was found to have onlya few annas and handfuls of baked rice and grain. His clothes were in rags. Baba admitted himand renamed him Bholaram. The same evening, after the bhajan, Baba personally taughtBholaram, through signs, the ABC of Marathi.Once a Muslim fakir from Ajmere came for Baba's darshan, and pretended great asceticism.Baba asked him to observe a complete fast the following day, perform 'Namaz' for the fivetimes, and to repeat 5,001 times the name of Allah. The next day the 'fakir' found the prayers,fast, and repetition to be foreign to his easy method of getting unearned money and food, andbeat a silent retreat.There was a sadhu who desired to see God, and for that purpose agreed to stay with Babaand to remain under his instruction for a year, when Baba promised to put him on the path tohis goal. But within twenty-four hours the sadhu began to grumble about one thing andanother. Baba conveyed to him that God was not a 'cheap fruit' to be had for the asking, butdemanded superhuman patience! So the sadhu went away.One day an old Hindu man and his wife came soliciting financial aid to enable them to go toKashi (Benares), the holy place of pilgrimage. Baba told them that Kashi was there atMeherabad through his presence, and advised them to remain at Meherabad for fifteen daysinstead. They could not accept what Baba said, so were given money and sent away.To another seeker after truth Baba offered the usual terms to people who came with loftyideals but low determination, that of staying for a year in the small hut under the neem treesnear the dhooni, taking food but once a day, and remaining silent throughout the prescribedperiod. The man readily accepted the terms, but hardly fifteen minutes had elapsed whenBaba asked him through signs what he was thinking about. 'I wish I were in Shirdi', said theman; eventually he was sent away to Sai Baba's shrine at Shirdi.A yogi-like man speaking broken English came asking for divine guidance. Baba advisedhim to stay at Meherabad, and added the following peculiar sentence to the instructions:'matla, chatla, ghotla, vatla, satla, chotla, and potla', which are the necessities for the life of a1 A fourteenth-century commentary in Marathi on the Bhagwat-gita.