told Him. He turned to me, and gestured on His alphabet hoard — “Which version do you like best?" On the table were the five volumes of the Indian edition of the Discourses, The White Light, Silent Revelations and a letter from Charles describing his forthcoming version. I replied, "Baba, I like them all." He was pleased with my answer . . . and that is still my feeling today. I like both the 3-volume paperback edition put out by the Sufis (my project come true) and I like Purdom's strongly edited edition, now reprinted in a one-volume paperback by Sheriar Press. It has an introduction by Margaret Craske, the well-known English disciple of Meher Baba and long-time friend of Charles Purdom. Mr. Purdom has pruned the Deshmukh rhetoric, omitted some of the teaching stories, retitled some discourses and omitted a few others, — perhaps for the sake of brevity, including one of my favorites, The Infinity of the Truth. It is very convenient to have a one-volume paperback of the Discourses to take along with you, loan to a friend, or that "newcomer" to Baba you want to turn on to His teachings.

AVATARA

The Humanization of Philosophy through the Bhagavad Gita

Antonio T. de Nicholas

465 pp. Hardbound, $8.95, Nicolas Hays Ltd.

It is the fate of the Avatar that His teachings, after the required centuries of popular acceptance and sanctification, become the object of massive scholarly study and dissection. The teachings of Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, Zoroaster — all have become in time the playball in an elite game of the intellectuals, whose goal is different from that of the spiritual seeker who seeks immediate help and guidance from "Avatara" in his personal life. Baba Himself joked about it with us in 1962, saying His Bible for the New Age, God Speaks, was for the intellectuals, for the future, and for us, only love mattered. At the same time, He told us to read God Speaks ten times!

Mr. T. de Nicolas has examined the Bhagavad Gita in the light of the humanistic philosophy of Ortega y Gasset, the modern Spanish thinker, believing that the inner spiritual fire of the Gita can rekindle the dried-up thinking of Western science-oriented philosophy . . . a welcome idea towards which he directs his fine scholarly gifts, beginning with his own translation of the Gita. Interesting too, is his background material on Western philosophy. A beautifully printed and illustrated book worthy of study. Question: What would such a scholar do with God Speaks — the new Gita of the Avatar of the Twentieth Century?

COMMENTARIES ON THE DISCOURSES OF MEHER BABA

by Don Stevens

3 cassette tapes, boxed, $12.95

Meher Lahar, 4827 Elmdale Dr., Rolling Hills Estates, California 90274

The well-known author of Listen, Humanity and long-time disciple of Meher Baba, Don Stevens, has always been a brilliant interpreter of Baba's Discourses. These three cassettes, recorded live in London meetings, capture Don's reading of and comments on several discourses, notably those on the God-Man. Excellent for group or individual study, in spite of some background noise.