"Baba is actually an ocean of Love and Compassion towards suffering humanity. Here is the key, if there is one at all, to unlock the Truth about this Incommensurable Personality—not even all His miracles! With His astounding control over forces of nature, He could have kept Himself aloof as a dread and awe inspiring Personality, irascible and unbending like some of the great Rishis of our ancient Aryavartha. But what do we actually find? Baba is so gentle, so like a child, so full of laughter, jollity and bonhomie, so full of compassion and love for everybody! My very first sight of Him moving among His followers gave me a thrill of this recognition of His boundless love for humanity and the very first glance at me showed that He knew me and recognised me, and I felt as if we had known each other for ever so long!"
I was thrilled to see Baba moving among the people, from place to place selecting the persons to be interviewed by Him that evening. Soon He came to the spot where I was standing. He shot a glance at me and I felt as if a streak of lightening had passed through me, for in that glance there was a clear indication that He had recognised me. It was a glance one gives to a person whom one knows well but who has not been seen for a long time... Even to this day the wonderful glance of recognition He had shot at me remains with me in all its intensity.
By this I do not mean to suggest that I was a specially privileged sort of person. Nothing of that sort. During all these years Baba must have come across lakhs and lakhs of persons like me, but I believe when He specially comes down to select persons for interviews from among the masses of people gathered there, a glance by Him at any single person gives Him in a flash the past, present, the future and the complete psyche of that person. And knowing the intensity of that person for interview, or the urgency of his problems, He selects him for interview. Otherwise to ordinary eyes His selection seems to be extremely haphazard. He moves like a Christ among His followers is how a Professor of Philosophy of an American University has described Him, as told by Kasturi to me. He looks into the eyes of everyone assembled, going from place to place among them to have a closer view of them and from each particular group selects one or two."
That forenoon, He called us in, that is to say, the kith and kin of the bride and bridegroom, for He had promised to "wed" them together and bless them. "It can be imagined in what a trepidation we all were. We were about to meet Baba face to face and at close quarters—and to speak also to Him. At that particular moment I was completely ignorant of the manner He would adopt to meet us. Would He be distinctly aloof doing only the task He had allotted Himself? Would He be serene and grave? Would He condescend to talk to us? All such questions were there in our minds—at least in my mind! I was really in tenterhooks!
In five minutes He entered the room turning aside the screen over the door leading upstairs to His quarters. He scanned all of us with eager laughing eyes and made humorous comments as He did so. He joked with the bridegroom, and said laughingly, "See how she giggles, and that in front of elders! Other people would be shocked to see her giggle like this, especially when she is a bride sitting by the side of the bridegroom,” and so on and so on, in an extremely light hearted and cheerful mood. In five minutes we felt He was just one of us—One whom we had known intimately since a long long time. He joked and laughed with us just as any intimate member of our family might do, In fact, I felt how at home He would be in our family group—with Shankar, Chidam, etc. In fact, I felt as if He was one of our own—an intimate sunny natured relation whom we had not seen for some time! He talked to us as if He had known us intimately all along. Nobody out of hundreds who had had contacts with Baba and spoken to us about Him had ever given this particular picture of Baba. Their stress was all on the miracles performed by Him. This intense humanness, this wonderful camaraderie He has for all persons whom He meets; this remarkable quality of feeling Himself one with the people around Him, this superabundance of good humour, jollity and love and affection for all people made a powerful impact on me; for the picture I had had of Baba was something entirely different from this! Then and there I was convinced that if at all any living person is to be called `Bhagawan' it can be only He... His is a whole and undivided love for all humanity. |