PULLED BY HIS DESTINY

 
In His omniscience Baba tries to save us from the natural course of destiny through His orders, which give us the opportunity to obey Him instead of following our own desires and attachments. Baba repeatedly told us that an opportunity missed is gone forever, and in one particular incident this truth was dramatically illustrated.

In February of 1953 Baba told Gabriel Pascal, a famous director known for his productions of George Bernard Shaw's plays, to come to India during His tour of the southern state of Andhra. Pascal, who had met Baba in Europe in the 1930's, loved Him deeply, and from their first meeting he had expressed his desire to produce a movie about Baba.

He promised to come to Andhra and said he would bring his cinemascope equipment so he could film Baba during His darshan programmes. Air India phoned me twice in Bombay asking for Baba's itinerary, as Pascal was chartering a plane so that he could meet Baba wherever He was. Baba was sad when, for some reason, Pascal failed to arrive in India.

Four months later, while I was having lunch with Baba at Meherazad, a telgramme arrived saying that Gabriel Pascal had died. Baba was still for a couple of minutes; then He said, "If Pascal had come at the time I wanted him to, he would not have died." Pascal, pulled by his destiny, could not follow Baba's order; he did not realize it would have changed the course of his life.