I directed him to a quiet spot overlooking the river. Later, I learned that he had asked for permission to serve Baba in any possible way, and had been told, in response, "Continue with your work. Follow me inwardly."

There was another old friend -- a woman whose background of culture and travel was illuminated with a native gift of clairvoyance and clairaudience. "You remember the location of Baba's room," she said to me one day after Baba had returned to India. "The rows of windows facing west above the river -- the door at the northeast corner -- Baba's divan at the end of the long room to the south. Well, it was mid-afternoon when I was ushered in there. The room was flooded with autumn sunshine. I turned to Baba, who was seated on the divan, and suddenly the room blazed with a glory which dimmed even the brilliance of the sun.

"I don't know how I found my way across the room to where Baba was sitting, but the next thing I knew I was seated alongside of him, and he was spelling something out on his alphabet board. I don't believe I ever told you this before, Malcolm, but years ago I was advised, inwardly, that someday I would be given a key which would unlock all doors. And what do you suppose it was that Baba spelled out on his board? -- 'I am the key!'

“You know," she continued, "you and I have often discussed the possibility of attaining to human perfection -- to realization -- here, now, in the physical body -- but never before have we seen that perfection made manifest. Now we have seen it. Now we know that it can be attained. What before might well have been idle speculation has become a visible reality. That, above all other things, is what Baba's coming meant to me."

Interesting also was the experience of the burly leader of community choruses -- the man who believed that if enough people would sing together, often enough, it would solve all the problems of the universe. "You know, Malcolm," he said, later, peering at me from under his bushy brows, "I have the power of reading people's minds; so I decided, when I went for my interview with Baba, that I would read his mind; but I soon discovered, as I tried to reach back into his consciousness, that it really is infinite, that he has no mind, in the sense that we are accustomed to use the word. But he could read my mind!"

Thus, unexpectedly, was verified Baba's statement that "In God-realization, the mind goes, but consciousness remains - limitless consciousness."

So, by the fifth midnight of this strenuous life with a living Master, we were ready for our few hours of rest -- but now even this was to be broken into. Perhaps an hour after we had finally succeeded in getting to sleep, a car drew up in front of the house. Footsteps sounded on the pavement. Muffled voices were heard- voices with a strange note of alarm.

Going to the door, we discovered six of our guests, who, a short time ago, had driven over to a house across the river which had just that day been placed at our disposal to accommodate the growing influx of visitors. Apparently a fire, started earlier in the morning to warm the place for their company, had, after they retired, eaten its way through the furnace and spread quickly through the house. Soon the wooden structure was completely in flames. Fortunately, our guests had escaped unscathed, and, for the most part, with their possessions. Strangely enough, the ones who could least afford it apparently had suffered most. Two social workers, representatives of a well-known Christian Community, who had just that day arrived to meet Baba, had lost practically everything, including the funds which had been advanced for their expenses.

Word of the disaster spread throughout the house, and was conveyed to Baba while we arranged accommodations for those who had been dislodged. Baba, learning that no one had been hurt, that the house was fully insured, that the material losses of the