Hindus from India, and also from Iran: Chaagan Master, Chanji, Yektai, and others. There were fourteen people altogether accompanying Baba in this trip. They rented a bus to go from Zahedan to Kerman and then to India.

When Sayyed Ali had come to Yazd, his uncle wouldn't allow him to go back to Baba. Baba had asked me and Adi Shirajamast to pick up Sayyed Ali and take him to Hind. According to Baba's written instruction to take Sayyed Ali to India, we went and prepared everything, and we asked Sayyed Ali to come to Yazd so that we could take him to India. The day that we went to Yazd, Baba had also sent Baidul there. So Baidul, I and Sayyed Ali started on our way to Kerman and Zahedan, thence to Quetta, where the Iranian consulate gave us a lot of trouble. There was a Parsi lawyer who confronted this Persian consulate, and then there was peace and we could go to see Baba.

From Quetta we went to Nasik, where we stayed a while. Then we went to Bijapur; in Bijapur all the singers and all the eminent people, all the knowledgeable people, would come and fall at Baba's feet, and they wouldn't do anything but to cry there. They would start to cry and cry, and they would leave with tears in their eyes. Every day it was like this. These great ones, they would ask no questions; they would just fall at Baba's feet and cry there, and then kiss his feet, and leave.

Here we came again with Baba to Nasik. They had rented a building in Nasik, and Baba was staying in the third story. Every day all of us Baba lovers would go and sit in front of Baba. One day a man from Khurasan and a companion came to see Baba. He said, "For fourteen years I have practiced asceticism in the Himalayas, and I've eaten the leaves and fruits of the trees, and I've meditated there. I have just come back to the world." He had come to Baba to ask whether he should marry or not. And Baba said: "Well, if you want to marry, then go ahead and marry!" Baba told us: "Look at this man. After fourteen years of asceticism, he has come back, and what does he want? He wants the world, and he wants a wife." And there were others who would come to Baba who had practiced asceticism for 20, 30, or 40 years. They would come to Baba to ask what they should do, and then Baba would tell them.

Speaking of childhood, Meher Baba said, in the Prem Ashram days:

"Childhood is the ideal period in life to take to spirituality. The impressions received at a young age get deeply ingrained. Children should always be impressed with the Divine beauty, grandeur and bliss, so much that it fires their imagination to the highest pitch about God and His greatness. Their enthusiasm, however wild in this connection, should never be curbed. On the contrary, the best attempts always should be made to create in the boys a deep-rooted longing for divine upliftment. Never mind if all the boys go mad with uncontrollable enthusiasm and impulses about spiritual matters!

The aim of the institution* is more to create "Divine mads" than university B.A's and M.A.'s . . and the former are more preferred than the latter. Shri Ramakrishna, for the same reasons, strongly advocated the instruction of children and young boys in divine subjects. Dhruva and Pralhad largely owed their great spiritual development and divine upliftment to such training in their childhood. In youth, training becomes second nature with boys. Of course, all the boys cannot be expected to become Dhruvas and Pralhads, but certainly, some of them will take to the spiritual line in the later period of their life; while the rest will also follow the line someday, after several lives, if not earlier. But the result of the present training will fructify in the end in all cases. Even temporary impulses and enthusiasm about God-Realization bring some result. It is like a cash balance to one's credit in the bank, which is sure to be utilized at some time or other in connection with one's spiritual advancement."

*Hazrat Babajan High School