Yet most of us have no clear idea of what Baba really means when He says, "Make me your constant companion," and each of us is satisfied to love Him in our own way. But in our own way" won't do — Baba wants us to love Him as He should be loved, because that is the only way we can break through self to Self. His explanations remind us of the effort required and the ego-price we have to pay, if we are to enjoy bliss-knowledge of egoless existence.

God Speaks is a big banana for Hanuman, our monkey mind. We literates sit down licking our chops with this book which tells us the mostest and the clearest about spirituality. And when we finish eating this spiritual banana, we feel a kind of indigestion creeping up and growing stronger, 'cause now we know that we don't KNOW Who we are; and now we know how dangerous-sharp is the road to the Answer; and now we know that the Answer isn't found just ever'day, or by oneself; and now we know how rare are the Perfect Guides who won't bungle the job of teaching us about our SELF. And Hanuman monkey-mind looks up, banana peel in hand, to find that while He was eating he was caught in a cage — the cage of the Avatar's offer of help, and the net of His Self-freeing Love.

That night we had dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Ram Ginde. Ram is leading neurosurgeon in India, and he has frequently been called to treat Baba. He says that the physical pain alone which Baba regularly experiences would be absolutely intolerable for an ordinary man. Often when Ram has gone to Meherazad to examine and work with Baba nothing whatsoever appears to be wrong with Him, and Baba Himself says that His pain has gone away. According to the mandali however, this sudden change in Baba's health lasts only as long as the doctor is by His side; no sooner does Ram turn his back to go than Baba's Parvardigaric pain takes up residence in His body once again.

The following day Don and I talked through the year that had passed since we had first met. At lunch in the hotel, I met Nariman and Arnavaz Dadachanji and Katie, three of Baba's oldest and closest lovers. When Don left for the airport in the afternoon, I went to their house to spend the evening talking of Him, the only one worth filling one's mind with. They recalled Bob Dreyfuss' visit eight months back, when he had hitch-hiked from Boston to the December Sahavas and had one in November instead; and I recalled Bob's return to Boston, laden with Baba's Love-blessing and with advice from God about the use of drugs: "If drugs could make one realize God, then God is not worthy of being God. NO drugs."

Six days remained, I said, before my glimpse of our Beloved ... and the telephone rang, Adi (Baba's secretary) calling from Ahmednagar, saying that the