was a reply to an unspoken question at the back of my mind during the train journey north!

After some rest for BABA, we were to proceed to Hamirpur, a small and very isolated town, for it is entirely cut off during the monsoons. It was a distance of about forty-five miles. The men went ahead in a bus, while we waited for a hired car, which took a long time to arrive. I sat silently with BABA on a station seat, for he was preoccupied and "working," so I presumed, from the movement of one of his hands. But M. read some of the news from the paper; BABA always takes a great interest in the newspapers, which are carefully read to him. I was glad that no one appeared to recognize BABA as we sat there. A woman sadhu earlier in the morning had seen BABA, and immediately came up and questioned me, as she could well appreciate that a Master was present.

The drive to Hamirpur was quite pleasant, being cheerful with cultivated green crops, quite unlike the barren waste around Ahmednagar, which is a famine district. BABA pointed out things to me, remarking that I was seeing "the real India." Just before we came to the great Jumna river, we stopped at a village to enquire; it seemed that the people had succeeded in finishing the temporary pontoon bridge in time for BABA'S arrival, and our car was the first to go over it. I was thrilled to see the people saluting BABA all the time, as if they knew him, for they had been warned in advance of his coming. They gave the Indian salutation, which is raising and joining the palms together . . . this is the act of paying homage to the divinity in man. No doubt the custom of the praying hands of the Christian was adapted from the Hindu tradition; for the oldest religion in the world, in its intrinsic purity, always regarded man as the Temple of God. The idea that man can become God has been forgotten in the West, though the early church seems to have had some knowledge of the distinction between Jesus and Christ, for they celebrated the birth of Christ at the Epiphany, which was also associated with the Baptism. For John the Baptist was a Perfect Master, and Jesus became Self-Realised during the Baptism.

This particular part of India has been the scene of some of Shivaji's exploits. . . . the great Shivaji, who founded the Marathi dynasty, lived between 1630 and 1680. There is an interesting book on his life written by Dennis Kincaid, who was a former Indian Civil Servant; it is called “The Great Rebel."