HE KNEW THAT I WOULD REMEMBER

 
My own interview with Baba was deferred until late that afternoon. I was chopping wood for the fireplace in his room when he passed, with Chanji, Ali, and, I think Meredith. He stopped and picked up a comb which had dropped, unnoticed, from my pocket.

I was touched. Something warm stirred within me. I had had, as yet almost no personal contact with Baba, but I knew that he was revered by thousands of people in India as a God-realized being, another Krishna. And here he was, noticing a lost comb, stooping to pick it out of the dust, handing it to me with a sunny smile!

I thanked him, and he asked, in gestures, if I would like to join them for a walk.

We descended the long flight of narrow wooden steps that wound from the house down to the private landing on the Croton River far below. The sun was setting as we reached the landing, and, in the still blue river was reflected the brown earth of the farther shore, the dark green of the cypresses that rose from it, and long, streaming feathery clouds, tinged with gold and rose and violet. We gazed for a moment, silently.

Then Baba took out the alphabet board from his pocket, and turned to me. "I am God," he spelled out on the board, simply and directly.

Most Westerners would probably have thought themselves in the presence of a harmless lunatic. I had tried too long, however, to find God in myself and in everything I seemed to contact in phenomenal existence to object to anyone's expressed belief in the divine omnipresence. I was, if anything not sufficiently impressed.

"I know," I answered, quietly, thinking to myself, "so am I."

I did not realize, then, the vast difference between Baba's constant experience of the indwelling divinity and my bland, intellectual assumption of it. But Baba did not mind. He knew my limitations, even if I didn't — and he knew my potentialities, better than I did. That was why he had come, to help me to realize both. So he continued patiently: "I am The Ancient One".

Baba, who never speaks an idle word, now was choosing his words with special care. He was suiting his language to the understanding of the hearer, as he later said he always did. Not that his hearer understood, at once. But Baba knew I would remember some day, long after, and that some faint glimmering of understanding would then dawn in the darkness of my unilluminated mind.

He knew, without my telling him, that I had studied in the Kabbalah, and that some day I would remember, in connection with his apparently casual remark that he was "The Ancient One", that in the Kabbalistic symbolism of the Tree of life, "The Ancient One" is one of the first names attributed to the Kether, the first emanation of Divinity, the Crown of the Tree of Life, representing, among the divine qualities, the will of God.

He knew that I would also remember that Jesus had said "I and the Father are one," the Father referring to Chokmah, the second emanation of Divinity, representing the divine wisdom. He knew that I would remember that each avataric manifestation, while embodying the perfection all the divine qualities, stresses one as the dominant factor of his particular manifestation, and that Baba had said that each successive avataric manifestation becomes more and more complete.

And he knew that I would recall that the head of the Rosicrucian order is called "ippsissimus" which is Latin for "he who is most himself", and that ippsissimus is another of the names attributed to Kether. But at the time I remember nothing.

Baba turned to the west, now riotous with color, prodigal with beauty.

"All this," he continued, "all this is illusion. Everything is within you."

I had some experiences which had led me to believe that this was true, and I said so.

"Those," said Baba, for the first time pricking the bubble of my self-esteem, "those were glimpses. You must make them permanent. I will help you."

I had not yet arrived at the point where I was sure I wanted his help, but I thanked him and returned to the house. I did not know the bliss that was so near to me, for my love was not yet awake.