compound. On that Christmas night we were screening an English picture in the cinema. During the second show the audience was about 1200 British soldiers and about 230 British officers. After the interval there was a big explosion, and at that very moment in the compound the soldiers and officers were moving about and I was closest to the explosion. 12 soldiers were completely blown out and some lost limbs and some were injured; my brother-in-law had an injury on his head. Immediately, my memory went to that conference of Baba, when He said that the bomb will be thrown and it will be thrown in my compound. It was not a Japanese bomb but a hand-grenade thrown by the Congress people. It was another miracle that though I was nearest to the explosion, nothing happened to me. Out of many, this is only one incident in my life with Baba. Where there is remembrance of Meher, there is mercy. Where there is remembrance of Baba, there is protection. Meher Baba is the embodiment of both these.

V. BABA AT MEHERASHRAM

Harmon-on-the-Hudson

By Josephine Ross*

The first time I saw Baba was on November 10, 1931 in an upper room of a charming house built above the Croton River at Harmon-on-the-Hudson, New York. This house had been loaned to Baba for His use on His first visit to America. There were balconies on each floor overlooking a wooded ravine that stretched down to the river. The room Baba had ran the length of the house on the river side, with a balcony from which one looked down into tree tops — a truly sylvan retreat.

My mother had met the Master first and called me to say I must come to meet Him. At the time I was twenty-three, very naive and unsophisticated. The "flapper" era of the roaring twenties that followed the first World War was something I knew only by hearsay, having spent my teens in secluded boarding schools or in quiet vacation spots with relatives.

My mother, and Malcolm and Jean Schloss (now known as Jean Adriel) were at Harmon as a sort of working staff. There may have been others, but after meeting Baba I was not aware of anyone except Him!

When I arrived I was ushered upstairs to Baba's room. The door opened, and I hesitated on the threshold. Way at the end of the long room, seated on a broad divan decorated in orange and black, was a Person with long flowing dark hair. He was wearing a brown fur jacket that may have been Persian lamb. One of the disciples said "Don't be afraid," and I think Baba held out His hands toward me. At any rate, I crossed the room and knelt at His feet — and was lost in those luminous brown eyes. Almost at once I felt that I knew Him. Here was the Christ! There was no doubt in my mind. Later, I could only express what Baba meant to me in the form of verses — one cannot really portray in words a transcendent experience that is beyond words.

Baba touched me gently and His hand flickered over the alphabet board He used in those days. The disciple who spoke for Him conveyed His thoughts so rapidly that every one used the phrase "Baba said" or "Baba asked" — there was no awareness of His keeping silence because His disciple and He were as one. So I use the term "Baba asked me" what I would like to ask of Him, and I said I would like to help people. Without a moment's hesitation He replied "First you must learn how to help," which seemed to me the most sensible answer anyone could give. Being unworldly and idealistic and completely unschooled in the problems which most people face, I had some vague notion of running around with outstretched hands "helping people." It had never occurred to me that I did not know how!

*Mary Antin's daughter