came to us direct from the fields, full of little stones and particles of dirt; to sift the grain in a "soup," a kind of straw-plaited tray shaped like a dust-pan where, if you had the knack, the empty husk separated from the grain. We also learned how to cook Indian dishes, to make curry powders and chutneys, etc.

The garden provided us with castor oil plants, and Sultan, who was from Persia, made flavorless castor oil from the seeds, for medicinal and cooking purposes. We picked cotton from our own cotton plants and prepared it for hospital use and for stuffing pillows. Household work, including cooking, both Eastern and Western, Baba had us do, but only periodically. At times we had servants for most of the heavy work of water-carrying and washing of the very large kitchen utensils that were, in India, cleaned not with soap or soda, but with fine charcoal or wood ashes.

With Baba, there is frequent change, never routine for long. He wants one to be fluid and adaptable, to accept the easy and the difficult, unattached to either, with equal poise and cheerfulness. Not only did Baba plan the work of each, but he made one feel he was the worker too by his intense interest in all one did. For example: when he came up the hill from Lower Meherabad, or before he left in the morning, he would come to the kitchen to inspect what we were cooking and how. Naja, Baba's cousin and one of the earliest of the Eastern group, told of a day when she was cooking for the Prem Ashram boys (200 of them ), and Baba came into the kitchen to inspect the rice. Baba found the rice not too well-cooked, each grain not separate as it should be. He had the whole lot thrown out and new rice freshly cooked. As Naja explained to us, it was not that Baba was concerned that the boys should have perfectly cooked rice, but he wanted to bring home a lesson to all: that all work, whether done for him directly or indirectly, from the cooking of a simple vegetable to the writing of a book, must not be carelessly done.

From the kitchen Baba would go to the garden when the plants were watered or seeds sown, go to the office room to discuss the Meher Baba Journal, go to the sewing room to take interest in what