me my work; I was to devote myself to His portrait as He allowed me to look long under bright photo-light at His face. (Baba is known to have avoided bright light on Him.) Baba seriously looked into my eyes and said, "You should be proud of your painting." Surprised, I said, "But, Baba, isn't that ego?" Baba said simply, "What you do for Baba is not ego." And so with that gesture Baba cleared all obstacles from my way in portraying the image of a natural thing, for painting has been my life's occupation. Baba called me to India to see His Human face so that I might have that impression burned into my consciousness. For me to paint Baba is to remember that indelible sight. Baba knew that my vision both internal and external was adequate for His purpose.

Here I was once again, called to be in the Presence of my Beloved in the room where I had been given His Darshan 3 years before. Those beautiful fleeting fingers were not snapping now. Now the mighty Silence had closed even over the gesturing of His hands. Yet Baba was not gone. In these three years painting had become for me a singular task, that of achieving not so much the appearance as the Presence in the feeling of Avatar Meher Baba. And that Presence which I had come to sense through my work was surely here in this room.

My large painting was pointed out to me hanging on the wall, the painting which Baba Himself had requested. I could not see it for it was invisible to my eyes. It was just as it should be. I had sent it to Him and He has seen it and has been pleased. There was nothing left for me to see for my offering, my arti, had already been consumed in the fire and flame of His Love. And I know that I see by His grace what He wants me to see, no more—no less, and that I am held more and more in the exactitude of balance between His will and His wish. Let Baba's will be more and more my wish, and let Baba 's wish be my spontaneous will.

When the Avatar is on earth in human form He sets up new waves of give and take between God and Man, and so brings a new tide of life into the tired life of humanity. When that tide reaches the flood tide of Noah, it is seen by all to be God's glorious manifestation, His redemptive deluge. That deluge of high tide is on its way now; nothing can stop it.

In Baba's bedroom I was drawn to Baba's pink jacket hanging in the corner. I liked standing near it and caressing it. Then I was told that it was time to leave. Reluctantly I backed away, clasping one of the buttons in my longing to remain. Slowly the button slipped through my fingers and I turned and went out, remembering His constant reminder, "Do not let my daaman slip through your fingers."

Out through the driveway we went between the trees as I was feeling God-Baba has filled my cup that I may carry away the very fountain of His life and light. I had drunk from the well of the water of Christ. And just then God-Baba-Christ tossed a Gulmohr blossom through the window of the bus into my lap. I picked it up and smelled its delicate perfume. I put it gently into my pocket with the leaf which I had received on the way in.

Walt Whitman wrote that letters from God are continually dropping in our path that we have only to read to know that we are on our way to Him. The way seems to us very, very long, yet it is even longer than we can imagine it to be. Baba tells us that when each of us reaches the Goal each will know that I, Myself was all along that which I was striving for.

It is the month of May after Darshan, and a tranquility, a heavenly peace has settled on the Meher Center. This time is Baba's time, for He has now said, "My time has come." Baba has stopped the clock to proclaim, "God's time has come. " The timelessness of God's Now-time. The peace and serenity that is here now, the contentment will some day soon spread out and pervade everywhere for His time has come, the time for Divine Law to govern the earth in the Bliss of His Love. The time has come either to perish or to live the Divine life of mutual concord and happiness.

God's time has come and the fire and flame of Divine Love will so engulf this planet that waves of God Love will inundate everywhere in the universe. All the chaos and confusion on this earth right now does not count against us because Baba in His mercy has stopped the clock