HE WAS GOD-ETERNAL

 
After the meal we all went to Mehera's house and had music until eight, which was two hours beyond Baba's retirement hour. I had sent some recordings of my singing with Meherjee but they had been misplaced at Meherabad and found just the day before. These were played on a hand Victrola and Baba again made his circle with his hand.

Charmian sang for him, a capella, very well — things like "Summertime" by Gershwin. Mani was going to play her sitar but there was no time. Baba asked Charmian and me then to sing together. The only thing we could think of on the spur of the moment was the cowboy song, "I've Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle." It seemed a perfectly insane thing to sing for Baba, but he read our thoughts and insisted, and so we harmonized it, while he beat time with his hands on his knees.

That very morning before we went to Meherabad he had seen me for a few minutes and gave the sweetest little speech I ever heard on music: "Always I sing — from the beginning of time I sing — through the ages I sing."

He was utterly unconscious of Baba, as it were, while he spoke — He was God-eternal.

Later in the day the women mandali had told me what a glorious voice he had before he went into the silence and how he used to sing and play various instruments. At four in the morning he would wake them all up with glorious music as he sang, sometimes. He had liked my Bach. So to make our exit with "spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle" seemed the most absurd thing in all the world, but that is how it was. I embraced the women and so did Charmian, we stole a last look at his dear face after he told us we might kiss his hand, and went out into the night.