MORNING WALK WITH THE MASTER

 
Early after breakfast on Sunday, July 29th [1956], Baba, dressed in a turquoise jacket, led his lovers down the dirt road to the beach. Baba first walked with the group to Alligator Lake. The group waited along the path while Baba had Renae Shaw lead him, the mandali, and Elizabeth to the lake and back.

Arriving at the beach, Baba sanctified the Atlantic Ocean by walking bare footed into the water and threw a stone far out into the waves. His fingers worked for a moment. Then he sat down of the shore and began to cover his feet with sand. He built a sand face and poked eyes and a mouth in it. Someone asked what it was. "The first man!" Baba quipped; then he broke it up.

Baba said he promised to bring Mehera seven shells, and so the group began scouring the beach for good ones. One by one each brought theirs back to Baba, who accepted some and rejected others with a mock-serious frown, sometimes asking a bystander his opinion whether this one was any good or not. Many kept the shells handled by him as prasad. To Dana Field, Baba remarked, "The ocean has a shore, but I am the Shoreless Ocean."

Baba himself at one point went looking for shells. Filis Frederick recollected: "We walked behind him on the sand, with the broad expanse of ocean glittering in the early morning sunlight, as happy and carefree as children beside a beloved father."

Toward the end, Fred Winterfeldt remarked to Baba, "The perfect shell is not to be found; it is like spiritual perfection — it can only be found when we drop this shell of a body." He then picked up a lovely double-shell and gave it to Baba. Baba solemnly broke it in half and gave one half to Ella and the other to Fred.

Baba walked slowly with the group back to the center at 8 A.M. The bus from town had just arrived, and those people were crestfallen to learn they had missed the morning walk with the Master.

After pacing for a few moments, Baba settled himself in a wicker chair under a pine tree, and everyone sat facing him for the meeting on groups that had been postponed from the night before. Hilda Delong had placed a gardenia on Baba's breakfast tray, and Baba now wore it on his blue jacket.