Nor can anything else reveal its true purpose or meaning if it is taken exclusively in relation to some particular form or forms.

This is the key to unraveling the true meaning and purpose of everything. All things and forms, individually as well as collectively, derive their existence as well as value from God. As soon as any form is taken in its separateness from God it loses its significance. Far less can it endow other things (entering in relation with it) with any real significance or purpose. The ego-centered outlook has to be replaced by the Truth-centered outlook. Only then is there a correct appraisement of anything in the world. Only then is there any true spirituality.

Nearly always, the first question that people ask me is, When did you meet Baba? What was it like?" Before going into that, let me mention that in my early years I was impelled to seek the answer to the mystery of life. My initial experiences were founded on the New Testament. Later on, I studied Comparative Religions, philosophy, psychology and mysticism in my search for the answers. I came to feel that this is an age of great spiritual significance; an age in which God would again reveal Himself and the ancient Truth to the hungry hearts of men and women all over the world, and that He would do this through the form of a man, who would speak our language, who could reach our hearts on our level.

Early in the year of 1932, I read a small news item in our local newspaper, which stated that Shri Meher Baba and a small group of close disciples had left Bombay, enroute to London and thence to America. The item said that Baba was regarded by many in India as a Messiah, and it gave a brief quotation from one of his messages to the West. The item immediately excited my interest and aroused my hopes. I felt sure that Meher Baba was the one for whom I had been waiting and watching. I can't explain why. I hadn't seen a picture of him, nor had I knowingly had a contact with him, but I just inwardly knew that he was the One.

After reading the news item about Meher Baba, there was nothing I could do except to watch the papers daily, hoping to see another news item announcing his arrival in New York.

And I did; in the month of May, 1932 another small news item appeared which, to this day, no one else that I have talked to has any recollection of seeing. It stated that Shri Meher Baba had arrived in New York City and that he would be at a retreat near Harmon-on-Hudson for a week and then he would go on to California.