Monday, September 20

The members of the group were instructed to get up at 5 a.m. and be ready to leave before 7. We were at Ahmednagar at 7, where we met Baba and some of the Mandali. We set off for Sakori.

The cars stopped for a time at Rahuri, where Baba once had a Mast Ashram. Hundreds of people were there to meet Him and He walked through the town. It is a busy looking town, a center of sugar-growing, with three sugar factories. The Mandali arrive on the top of a bus as their own small bus had broken down. Baba bad said they would not arrive until evening.

Sakori was reached at 9:35. There was a large gathering of villagers to meet Baba, with a band of cymbals and drums from the ashram, also the town band with brass instruments and a banner. A white pony and a small donkey, both richly caparisoned, were there. The party was conducted to the ashram, led by the bands. The ashram was founded by Upasni Maharaj and contains His tomb. The place was scrub and a cremation ground; but it now contains extensive buildings where men and women live and work who have devoted their lives to Maharaj's work. There is a dairy with a fine herd of cattle. All the ashram have to work; the pony and donkey draw the water. The head of the ashram is Godavri, a small, sweet, serious, but sometimes smiling woman.

Baba was garlanded, and brought the group first to the women's quarters, then to the shrine and temple, the dairy and other buildings. He insisted that we should all be near Him

wherever He went. There was a large crowd of people all the time.

Baba said, "This old man was God incarnate. I said at My last visit here that I would not again stop in Sakori. But I remembered that He had once said that visitors would come here from other lands to do devotion, and to fulfill this I had to come and bring you dear ones here. Now My work here is finished. After the meetings of the 29th and 30th, the following three months will be for My final work, to break My silence, to manifest, and then to die a violent death, all in quick succession. You should all bow down at Maharaja's Samadhi.* I am the Ancient One. When he threw that stone at Me I knew I was the Ancient One."

*Tomb.