WE BOW TO HIS IMAGE

 
One day, it must have been in July 1969, I was standing at a window in the bedroom that I share with Mani at Meherazad, looking out at a little flower garden that Baba would also see from His bedroom. I had planted it for Him to enjoy, and I was missing darling Baba's physical presence and feeling very sad and lonely.

Very close to my window is a large tree of the wild fig family. We can it an umar. It had always been there, so I never really noticed it. But his morning I felt my eyes being drawn to that tree. I looked at its trunk, and I could not believe what I saw. On the trunk of the tree was exactly the image of Baba's face looking so very beautiful.

"Oh Baba," I said. I was so excited. How sad I had been feeling without Him, and there was His lovely face with a crown on His head on a tree in His garden. And He was looking in my bedroom window. I knew that Baba was showing me that He had not forgotten us; that He is always here with us; that He is in the tree, inside the house, in every heart; that He is God, and He is everywhere. Baba was giving us proof that He is with us all the time, and so I felt a little consoled and comforted.

I quickly called Mani to see Baba's lovely image, and Mani called all the girls. The next day the men mandali, too, were called. (And later the whole of nearby Pimpalgaon village came to see it, too.) Then we had the idea of taking a photo in case the bark which formed the image changed. Mani took the photos, and she sent them to the West for His lovers there to see.

Every morning I pick a marigold, a flower that I know Baba liked, kiss it, and put it in a little crack in the bark near His crown. And for many years I used to sweep around the tree, because the birds eat the wild figs growing on it and drop half-eaten ones on the ground around it. Now a gardener sweeps there, because bending to sweep with an Indian-style broom has become difficult for me.

For seven years the image was very clear and beautiful, but then the bark began to shed and it is no longer clear in the daytime. It has served its purpose. But now at night, after all the pilgrims have gone, the image of Baba's face is still very beautiful. Mani says that in the daytime Baba is in seclusion, and that at night He comes out of seclusion. And we bow to His image before going to bed.